Evening star., 1925-04-19
BY THOMAS n. MARSHALL,
Former Vice President of the United
States.

By THOMAS n. MARSHALL,
Former Vice President of the United
States.
Talk with whom you will among
the thoughtful, you will learn that
what the Republic really needs above
everything else is a cessation of law
making. One discerning man recently
put 1t this way-that, while we used
to have one law for the rich and one
for the poor, now we have n thousand
for each. At ease in our chairs, after
good dinner. we all are quite sat
isfied that the world Is governed too
much. We feel that if some of the
original laws of life which came into
effect through no legislative action
were allowed to run their free
course without interruption or inter-
ference the world would benefit, We
argue that even the law OF supply and
demand, while not repealable, can
be and is hampered by man-made
laws, and we ask whether, If hin
dering statutes were cut from this
ancient principle, we might not run
the race of prosperity with greater
zeal and certainty.
Moreover, we question the attempt
to make immoral that which is not
immoral in the nature and constitu-
ton of man, and fear that it tends
to breed trouble in the Republic and
discord in society. May this attempt,
we ask, not only lead men to disre-
gard and evade law in general, but
also lessen their respect for those
moral laws which are in consonance
with the precepts of religion, and
thereby impair enforcement of them?
In truth we are crying, who shall
deliver us from the body of this
death?"
Yet we no. sooner pass from our
comfortable homes to the halls of
legislation than we at once become
was idle. We PROFOUND the solemn
inquiry as to whether government
can endure unless II constantly seeks
improvement. We regard the legis-
lator who comes to the State Capitol
with fewer than a half-dozen bills
for the betterment of conditions as
an incompetent. No party can gain
control of public affairs without try
ing to wipe out all that was done by
its predecessor and setting up SUBJ
stitute reforms. In the quietude of
the home we may protest against all
this, but when we become politically
active we demand this and more.
Hence, the Inconsistencies of ap-
parently consistent men.
The seasons do not change as rap
idly as do the statutes of the land
Ohio enacts law this year; Indiana
enscts it next year, and while Illinois
in the third year is going through
the movement of putting 1t upon her
statute books Ohio repeals IL and In
diana discovers 1t is a dead letter
We regard this as a mad orgy Of
law-making in our sober moments
and are against it, yet we are for II
and aid it when politics spurs U.S.
Il
In my opinion the people have
never suffered from a lack of album
dant statutory laws upon which to
live, but numberless times have been
close to deaths door from acute stat
utory indigestion. To my mind. one
of the best things that may happen
in a legislative hall is failure to en-
act. Indefinite postponements are
very apt to be more valuable than
affirmative action. Filibusters which
throw the people, naked, into the
streams of economic or social life
where they must battle against the
waves OF adversely until they reach
the shore of contentment. after all
may be sacred