Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-15
Code ofGovernment Regulations
Supplies a Long>Evident Need
Thousands of Scattered Rules, Each Affecting Many
Citizens, Are Brought Together and
Listed For First Time
By Ruth Sarles.

that an executive order Inadvertently
amended the oil regulation. Since there
was no central place where all regula-
tons were filed. indexed and codifed, no
copy was available.
This incident served to puhlicize the
hiatus in our legal system. Lawyers and
Government attorneys took it up. A
Harvard professor wrote a styaightfor-
ward article entitled Government In
Ignorance of the Law" in which he
pointed out the anomaly Of having a
body Of law having force and effect of
law" and yet not being able % find it.
Can taxpayer tell what tag he owes
merely by reading the current Revenue
Act?" he asked. Every lawyer knows he
cannot"
A Cascade of Regulations.
During the first year of the N. r. A..
he pointed out, almost 5000 administra-
tive orders were issued; additional regu-
lations were scattered through almost
5000 press releases. Regular Govern
mept agencies we're producing regula-
tons at terrific pace; the A. A. A. and
the Veterans Administration we're pro-
life sources; the Treasury Department
had the respons jbility of issuing regula-
tons under thu internal revenue laws
and the Customs Acts; the Labor De-
partment was busy interpreting the i'm
migration laws in regulations; postal
rules and regulations were constantly
being amended and increased; the Pure
Food and Drug Act required elaborate
regula tons; the Securities and Exchange
Commission, thc Federal Communica-
tions Commission and others were daily
piling up new headaches for lawyers.
And nowhere vas there any single re-
pository where II lawyer could be sure
to find the last word on regulations af-
fectlng his case be 1t matter of cot.
ton or Insurance. He could never be
sure that he had the latest thing. that
there were no additional amendments
which might alter entirely the provisions
OF the original regulation. AS one law
yer put 1t, The dangers are from the
regulations you do not know about"
This situation was the occasion for
heated comment when the matter came
before a subcommittee of the House Ju-
dietary Committee
The difficulty of the ordinary lawyer
to find out what the law is" was one of
the abuses on which the charge of bu-
reaucracy is sometimes based, said the
Assistant Attorney General, and ought
to be eliminated. The Government had
rnSn0n SihilitU IN
tons available to the people who are
bound by them.
Others Concur in Opinion.
The thousands of Government regula-
tons were practically useless to a law
yer unless he paid some one to build a
permanent index, said a Judge of the
District Court of Appeals
If mans safety is to be put in
jeopardy in cases based upon executive
| orders involving criminal penalties.
somebody ought to know where these
orders are, and where they are really
obtainable," said the chairman of the
subcommittee.
The obligation on Government de-
| material for the code probably had a
purgative effect. The law said they
had to give the Administrative Com
mittee of the Code a complete codifica-
ton of all rules and regulations under
which they functioned. In the search,
they were undoubtedly surprised many
times at the temperance of forgotten
regulations that might make all the
difference in the world to John Jones or
Susie Smith.
Some of the agencies, it is said. re-
sented this attempt at housekeeping
and even went so far as to appeal to
the White House for exemption from the
law. But no one got out of it. And
hereafter. every five years, they must
deposit with the Administrative Com
mittee of the Code a completely new
codifcation.