Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 281, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1917 — Emotion Mistaken for Wisdom in a Large Proportion of Legislation [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Emotion Mistaken for Wisdom in a Large Proportion of Legislation

By U. S. Senator George Sutherland,

Fortner Rletident of the American Bar Amodatioa

If I were asked to name the characteristic which more than any other distinguishes our present-day political institutions, I am not sure that I should not answer, “The passion for making laws.” There are 48 small or moderate-sized legislative bodies in the United States engaged a good deal of the time, and one very large national'legislature working overtime at this amiable occupation, their habithak output being not far from fifteen thousand statutes each year. The prevailing obsession seems to be that statutes, like the crops, enrich the country in proportion to their

volume. Unfortunately for this notion, however, the average legislator does not always know what he is sowing and the harvest which frequently results is made up of strange and unexpected plants whose appearance is as astonishing to the legislator as it is disconcerting to his constituents. I This situation, lam bound to say, is not wholly unrelated to a more or less prevalent superstition entertained by the electorate that previous training in legislative affairs is a superfluous adjunct of the legislative mind, which should enter upon its task with the sweet inexperience of a bride coming to the altar. As rotation in crops —if I may return to the agriculture figure—improves the soil, so rotation in office is supposed to improve the government. The comparisqn, however, is illusory since the legislator resembles the farmer who cultivates the crops rather than the crops themselves, and previous experience, even of the most thorough character, on the part of the farmer has never hitherto been supposed to destroy his availability for continued service. I think it was the late Mr. Carlyle, who is reported to have made the rather cynical observation that the only acts of parliament which were entitled to commendation were those by which previous acts of parliament were repealed. I am not prepared to go quite that far, though I am prepared to say that in my judgment an extraordinarily large proportion of the statutes which have been passed from time to time in our various legislative bodies might be repealed without the slightest detriment to the general welfare. The trouble with much of our legislation is that the legislator has mistaken emotion for wisdom, impulse for knowledge, and good intention for sound judgment. “He means well” is a sweet and wholesome thing in the field of ethics. It may be of small consequence, or of no consequence at all, in the domain of law. “He means well” may save the legislator from the afflictions of an accusing conscience, but it does not protect the community from the affliction of mischievous add meddlesome statutes. ' x