478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tional, substituted its own assumptions for the facts. In the face of statistical 

 evidence to the contrary, the court held that the statute ' ' does nothing to con- 

 serve the health, safety or morals of the employees. ' ' * 7 Such an attitude of 

 mind is unscientific and until it is corrected no mode of amending the constitu- 

 tion, however facile, can prevent salutary measures from being held up for a 

 time by the courts. ' ' A master of legal history tells us that taught law is tough 

 law. Certainly it is true that our legal thinking and legal teaching are to be 

 blamed more than the courts for the want of sympathy with social legislation 

 which has been so much in evidence in the immediate past. One might almost 

 say that instead of recall of judges, recall of law teachers would be a useful 

 institution. At any rate, what we must insist upon is recall of much of the 

 juristic and judicial thinking of the last century. " <8 



Some Pitfalls of Reformers 



If property owners now and then stand in their own light, reformers 

 sometimes act with more zeal than sense. The prevailing spirit is too 

 often given to destructive criticism and too little to constructive work. 

 It is too impatient to attain its ends quickly, and relies too little upon 

 the slow-going processes of education. It is too prone to attribute 

 human failure to an unfavorable environment and too little given to 

 laying it at the door of bad heredity. It attaches too much importance 

 to raising wages and too little to stopping leakages, utilizing wastes, 

 and teaching people how to make better use of the resources they already 

 have. It too often imputes improper motives to its opponents. It is 

 occasionally unmindful that there may be honest differences of opinion 

 concerning the wisdom of the remedies which it proposes. It is either 

 too penurious or not sufficiently alive to extravagance in the use of the 

 public money. It has been known to wink at the lawlessness of organized 

 labor while denouncing the lawlessness of capital, or vice versa. It at 

 times needlessly alienates the sympathy of those without whose support 

 it can not succeed. It now and then contents itself with securing the 

 enactment of a statute, forgetful that the laws have no power to enforce 

 themselves. An aroused public opinion is sometimes lulled to sleep by 

 an act of the legislature, and inspectors who do not inspect occasionally 

 give the community a sense of fancied security. Those opposed to a 

 larger measure of social control have been known to withdraw their 

 opposition on the ground that public opinion will not long demand its 

 enforcement. For these and other reasons, the fossilized opponents of 

 reform occasionally render the world a much needed service by calling 

 reformers to account and pointing out their mistakes. 



A despotism which secures order, property, and industry, which leaves lib- 

 erty of religion and of private life unimpaired, and which enables quiet and 

 unobtrusive men to pass through life untroubled and unmolested, will always 



47 The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1913, pp. 606-612. 



48 Professor Eoscoe Pound, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 18, 

 1912, p. 339. 



