2 66 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PERNICIOUS LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY. 



rpHE past winter has probably been 

 -J- the most remarkable on record 

 for legislative activity. Although a 

 considerable number of Legislatures 

 has not been in session, owing to 

 the adoption of the biennial system, 

 those that have been at work appear 

 to have spared no effort to give evi- 

 dence of their wisdom and to add 

 to the enormous volume of statutes 

 that overwhelm lawyers and judges. 

 In New York State the phenomenal 

 record made by the previous Legis- 

 lature was broken. Over thirty-five 

 hundred bills were introduced in the 

 Senate and Assembly, and of these 

 over a third of them passed both 

 Houses. Although figures are not at 

 hand in regard to the activity of 

 other Legislatures, the newspaper re- 

 ports of their proceedings leave the 

 impression that they have not been 

 less productive. 



It is not difficult to account for 

 this remarkable phenomenon. Ever 

 since the civil war, which gave a 

 tremendous impetus to legislative 

 activity both at Washington and at 

 the capitals of the States, there has 

 been shown a tendency to rely more 

 and more upon laws to curb unami- 

 able traits of human nature and to 

 improve economic conditions. The 

 old belief in the potency of Yankee 

 energy and thrift to overcome the 

 obstacles of life and of public opinion 

 to bring wayward people into line 

 with the best moral thought of the 

 age has become much weakened. 

 What has affected it most unfavor- 

 ably of late is the business paralysis 

 of the last few years. The result is 

 that few people entertain the notion 

 that anything can be done in the di- 

 rection of either moral or industrial 



improvement without the enactment 

 of some law. 



Only a careful inspection of all 

 the bills introduced and passed would 

 enable one to make an adequate 

 analysis of the subjects that have 

 received legislative attention and 

 treatment. But the accounts given 

 of them in the newspapers indicate 

 clearly enough their general char- 

 acter and tendency. They show a 

 growing lack of respect for indi- 

 vidual and corporate freedom and 

 for the rights of property, especially 

 the property of rich men. They ap- 

 pear to be based upon the theory 

 that progress lies in the direction of 

 regulating more and more the con- 

 duct of everybody, and of taking the 

 money of the people that have it for 

 the benefit of those less fortunate. 

 But no argument is needed to show 

 that this is despotism, although it is 

 created in the name of the people, 

 and that it is a reversion to a much 

 lower state of civilization than the 

 one to which the American people 

 are supposed to have reached. Until 

 this truth is realized, it is probably 

 too much to expect that there will 

 be any amendment of this deplorable 

 evil of over- legislation. 



The subject that has perhaps re- 

 ceived the most attention is trusts. 

 With many legislators it has been a 

 kind of mania. As a consequence, 

 a mass of bills has been proposed to 

 regulate all large combinations of 

 capital, from railroads and insurance 

 companies to department stores a 

 new object of legislative hostility 

 and to increase to the furthest limit 

 the burden of taxation put upon 

 them. Although this mania has not 

 been confined to any particular lo- 

 cality, Kansas and Oklahoma have 



