THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 243 



stitutions of the several states. It also accounts for our system of 

 checks and balances. A modern urban community, if left to itself, 

 would hardly shackle its power to act by such devices. The Kentucky 

 mountaineer who carries his individualism to the point of taking the 

 law into his own hands in place of relying upon the regularly constituted 

 authorities is the forerunner of the present rural point of view. More- 

 over, the farmer is less familiar with social and economic changes than 

 people who live in cities. Agriculture is less subject to revolutionary 

 changes in machine production than manufactures. Tradition is more 

 potent in the country than in the city. The opportunity for keeping 

 public opinion abreast of the times by publicity and discussion is better 

 where population is dense than where it is sparse. The vote on the 

 forty-two amendments to the constitution of Ohio submitted to the 

 voters in 1912 illustrates the condition of the rural mind. Of the thirty- 

 four amendments adopted, all, save woman suffrage, carried in the 

 twelve leading urban counties of the state. Nineteen of these amend- 

 ments would have been defeated without the vote of the urban counties. 

 Seven amendments were defeatd " in spite of the favorable majorities 

 cast by the cities." 14 * The urban counties contain less than half the 

 population of the state. Nevertheless, "every amendment that passed 

 received its heaviest majority in the cities." 14b 



The average farmer can have little conception of the problems which 

 confront the modern city. Rural constituencies are proverbially conser- 

 vative on questions outside of their experience. In a law-abiding country 

 community, a suit for damages may prove an adequate remedy for occa- 

 sional infractions of the law, but in an urban environment far more 

 latitude should be given administrative officers, such as factory, tene- 

 ment-house and meat inspectors, to prevent anti-social practices. The 

 modern city is mainly a development of the last fifty years. It is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that the judicial mind steeped mainly in the old tra- 

 ditions of the law sometimes fails to do justice. The Court of Appeals 

 in New York has usually been made up almost entirely of what are 

 called "up-state" judges. The Supreme Court of Illinois consists of 

 seven judges elected from as many districts. The seventh district in- 

 cludes the city of Chicago and comprises 46.4 per cent, of the population 

 of the state. Courts constituted in this way may easily blunder in de- 

 ciding cases that affect the metropolis. 



Professor Roscoe Pound, of the Harvard Law School, says : 



Almost all of the backwardness of American courts with respect to social 

 problems and social legislation has been backwardness with respect to social 

 problems of our cities and social legislation for our cities. Is it not obvious 

 what a difference it would have made if the every-day social relations of the 

 judges of our highest courts had been in New York instead of Albany, Chicago 



i4 a Robert E. Cushman, "Voting Organic Law," Political Science Quarterly, 

 Vol. 28, 1913, p. 222. 



W Ibid., p. 220. 



