Evening star., 1938-12-25
Two Young Lawyers
Start New Profession
In Modest Way
WhittIe Down Lows So
Average Person Can
Understand Them
BY JOHN LEAR,

Laws al e WllUClco oO"ll lllcl I'LL
til even you and I can understand
them.
A couple of young fellows, Carl
Hovgard and Leo M. Cherne, set up
the business In single room three
years ago. Now they occupy three
full floors of a skyscraper.
A big complex piece Of legislation
like the wages and hours law goes
in one door in bulk and comes out
another in small clean-cut chips
which show:
What adjustments business must
make to meet the law.
Which businesses are affected.
Which businesses are exempt.
Which employees are exempt.
Wage minimums required
Who may be paid less than the
minimums.
What are maximum hours and
when is overtime pay required.
Child labor is banned.
How the law is administered.
What records and forms are
needed.
What acts are specifically prohib-
tied, who is held responsible for vio-
lations, and what are the penalties.
Most of Work Confidential.
The name of this unique institu-
tion is the Tax Research Institute of
America. 1t does not get into the
news much because most of its work
Is confidential to the Nations busi-
nessmen. But it made the front
pages recently by going out of its
usual sphere to whittle a Job for the
United States Senate committee in
vestigating profit-sharing.
The finished product in this case
was legal gearshift to throw Uncle
Sans tax reaper into reverse to
NOV down unemployment.
On the basis of a survey of its
membership-including employers of
100000 Workers-the institute rec
commended that business and indus
try be exempt from certain taxes in
direct ratio to the number of men
they absorb from the relief rolls.
If industry were relieved of taxa
ton, it could afford to add workers
w 1Vo pay 1OllS, "dS L1lC X,
and, conversely, if relief rolls were
reduced Government could afford to
cut taxes.
1t was the second time the insti-
tute had been called upon to survey
business for committee of Con-
gress. The first was during consid-
Grafton of the wages-hours bill.
tn tho inctit it,1fo 70 th;e ;e y
mark of success, a success which
proves that new idea can prosper
even in the midst of depression.
Idea Was Not New.
The idea was one lot of people
had, but which no one did anything
about-the idea that laws should be
simplifled so they could be read
by others than lawyers.
Mr.. Hovgard and Mr.. Cherne de-
cided to do something about it. E.
Just where the decision was made
Is matter of some mystery, but it
probably happened at a luncheon
table in a Forty-second street res
taurant which, ironically. has since
been closed by adverse business con-
ditions.
That table was the daily meeting
place of Mr.. Hovgard and Mr..
Cherne when they were research
students of social security in 1885.
Mr.. Hovgard, the boy from Kan
sas, son of a Methodist preacher,
graduate of the little college in Will
liam Allen Whites home town of
Emporia, and holder of the Kansas
State record for the mile run before
Glenn Cunningham came along. He
could explain things so simply and
clearly that all his friends said he
was a born school teacher. But Mr..
Hovgard didn't think teaching was
his profession. so he came instead
to New York by way of Tulsa, Okla,
and became known to his associates
as the fellow who could "cut SEN
tence in half and make it clearer in
the cutting"
Son of Sidewalks.
Mr.. Cherne, a son of the sidewalks
OF New York, offspring of printer,
first honor student at the New York
University Law School. He could
crate so we'll his friends thought he
was born Congressman. He won
the international intercollegiate ora
torlcal contest in St. Louis in 1890,
and entered politics through a side
door by helping Judge Nathan PERL
man, New York Republican, draft
model legislation.
Together the two. Mr.. Hovgard
and Mr.. Cherne. set up the institute
for the benefit of befuddled business
men.
They began with the assumption
that the only time a businessman
had to read digests of legislation
was either in the morning, when he
is hurrying through his mail, or in
the evening. when he was dog tired
from a hard days work
They wrote their reports to their
clients with men like that in mind.
They began their venture in a
scantily furnished single room.
That was three years ago.
Today the institute occupies three
luxuriously furnished floors in a
midtown skyscraper, employs 200
pcoPlc dllu operates on a DuQReC OF
about S1,500,000 a year, derived from
fees charged for its service.
To sift political bias from it's
analyses of laws. the institute in
cludes on its staff both Republicans
and Democrats, liberals and con-
servatives. Each report passes
through the hands of all.
1t must be done that way, for all
political parties, big and little busi-
ness and labor and civic groups are
represented on the institute men,
bership rolls.
In its broadest sense the institute
is the pioneer in a new profession.
Beginning with nucleus of experts
of long standing in law and taxa
ton, it has built a staff of young
men, especially trained. Accuracy
is prime requisite. Even the
stenographers who take dictation
are given stiff intelligence tests to
accustom them to pick up editorial