THE CONGESTION OF LAW heirs were, in certain circumstances, un fettered. Now the list of such classes is more enlarged. The borrower cannot bind himself as against the money-lender; the court enables him to break his word. He who gets a bill of sale finds it inopera tive unless it satisfies certain conditions. Farmers are protected against themselves. The Irish tenant is encased in legislative armor against his own weaknesses. The expanding field of labor legislation contains many such provisions. Workmen and sea men, factory operators and miners, cannot contract themselves out of many provisions established for their benefit. In several European countries the working day of grown-up men is limited by statute. Rail ways and many corporations are subject to restrictions from which they cannot be re leased by contracts. It would seem as if, instead of the age of status being over, we were rapidly returning to it. Hegel said that in legal restriction lay true free dom; it is the working creed of most legis latures." If, then, socialism is the subordination of the individual to the state, over-legis lation is its outward sign of progress be cause only thus can the dominance of the state be emphasized, even when it cannot be enforced because abhorrent to human nature, the doctrines of our religion, and the decrees of God. State dominance is, however, no new phase in the history of man, and the attempt to satisfy it by means of laws passed by popular assem blies does not really differ seriously from the previous efforts made by despots, benevolent or cruel, or by Napoleonic or Russian imperial orders. This 'tendency must, however, account for much of the tentative, or, as it is sometimes called, ex perimental legislation, enacted year after year. Even the private and special laws fall easily into this category, because, if it is possible to restrict the liberty of con tract or action of classes, it is certainly legitimate and inevitable to employ the
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same method when dealing with isolated, individual communities or groups, or even interests. Once the distinction between those rights purely public, half public, or wholly private, is lost, the circle rapidly enlarges and becomes both complete and vicious. Legislation of this order is promoted in many ways. One of the most efficient agencies is popular clamor. This may be produced by the demagogue, whose inter est it is to make the part appear to be the whole. It may be started by the robbery of a savings bank, or by adulteration on the part of some manufacturer, or dis honesty by the head of a business corpo ration, or in any one of a hundred differ ent ways. Such an agitation will naturally be encouraged by sensational newspapers, and by the oftentimes scarcely less sen sational pulpit. As it goes on it gathers force until it passes into one or the other of the many forms of that hysteria which demands nothing so much as a victim. In such a period the recurring session of a legislature comes in its due course, or an ambitious or sympathetic governor calls an extra session. Thus dozens of useless laws are placed upon the statute books, every one of which chokes the channels of justice. Another fruitful source of legislation is the neglect or failure to enforce existing laws. A lax public sentiment, plus an in competent executive, renders of no effect a wholesome law until the breaches of it become so numerous and offensive that an aroused and indignant public sentiment demands relief. The result is often a de mand for further legislation, because it is erroneously assumed that the wrong suf fered by the public could not have hap pened had the laws been adequate for its protection. And a crop of new and un necessary statutes is the outcome — unnec essary because all that is needed is rigid enforcement of existing law. This has been demonstrated within the past year.
