Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-15

The indignation of the legal profess
sion, upon noting that Federal attorney
had to admit to the Supreme Court that
administrative law had no code, is re-
sponsible in large measure for an LIZA
page tome recently released by the Fed
eral Register Division of the National
Archives, the first published volume of
the Code of Federal Regulations. Fer
into that admission was packed the inl-
patience Of careful lawyers who resented
the lack of system that made it impossi-
BILE for them to know what the admins.
trative law is. They needed the code.
Behind the dull facade Of this formida-
BILE looking legal volume is story that
utterly bellies its uninteresting jacket and
makeup. No one who picked it up in
a library, If he ever had the interest 10
go that far, could conceive that between
the ordinary black board covers and IN
the monotonously styled type are CON-
pressed legal dicta that deal with such
minute matters as how to dispose of a
diseased rabbit carcass, how much a man
shall be paid for filling in 4-foot gully,
how much coffee pulp should be de-
posted around the base of a coffee tree
in Hawaii. All these more or less useful
details are packed into the pages of the
long-awaited first volume of the Code
of Federal Regulations
So the story of the code, from the
point of view of origin and of content,
is tale that bears telling.
1t was to illumine the twilight zone Of
Government regulations, formerly a dark
spot in our system of Federal law, that
the code was created
Putting the Law Into Practice.
1t seems that between the passage Of
a law and its application there is wide
gap. There is no superhuman magic by
which the Presidents signature to a law
has the effect of saying. Let there be
light. And there was light" Once the
sometimes tortuous process of getting a
law through Congress and past the Presi-
dents desk is completed, there remains
the problem of putting it into practice.
Of administering it.
To I'LL up that gap there has grown
up large body of administrative law,
made up Of the practice of the executive
department or agency charged with ad-
ministering law, of issuing supple
mentary regulations that specify in detail
how the law shall be carried out For
instance, after the Agricultural Adjust
ment Act was passed, some one had to
figure out the veriest minutiae as to
how the law would be applied. How
much was man to be paid for planting
so many trees? How would referendum
be taken to let the farmers decide
whether or not a marketing quota for
flue-cured tobacco should be established?
The Department of Agriculture decided
these details. and issued them in the
form OF department regulations. Current
regulations are now to be found in the
daily issues of the Federal Register
and those up to June /, 1888, in the
newly published code.
Or, If it is matter in which the White
House is empowered to take action, an
executive order or proclamation must be
written and filed with the Federal Regis
ter, and by the very fact of its filing
comes into force To take a case in
point, the President is given power by
the neutrality law to impose restrictions
on the use of American ships in carrying
goods to nations at war The ships do
not actually stop sailing until the Presi-
dent has signed and filed an order to
that effect.
All in One Place for First Time.
This administrative law that reposes
In neat typographical form between the
covers of the Code. then. is of far more
interest to individuals than the legal
principles from which it stems because
it tells just how the law will affect those
to whom it applies. In legal patois this
is known as laws which have general
applicability and legal effect" In other
words, the Code publishes in one place
for the first time, those thousands of
scattered regulations at the point where
they touch John Jones and Susie Smith.
But to go back to the case of the Gov
eminent lawyer who had the unpleasant
experience Of having to admit to the
Supreme Court that lawyers were on un-
certain ground in dealing with admin
istrative law. In 1884 the Government
was prosecuting hot OIL case, one of
the many that came up under the N r.
A. During the course of the argument
one of the Justices asked the attorney
who was arguing the case where the oil
quota regulation applicable in the case
could be secured. The attorney had to
admit that he could not find it. 1t was
learned later, according to the attorneys
testimony in congressional hearing,
s. 50 ~ ;ss7' : :