822 
Law-Making. 
fAm.  Jour.  Pharm. 
November,  1920. 
heritancc  of  the  race,  so  that  men  do  not  waste  their  Uves  in  for- 
ever trying  out  the  things  that  have  been  fully  tested  previously. 
In  political  science,  however,  we  do  not  seem  to  be  able  to  record 
well  established  political  and  economic  facts  in  such  a  way  as  to 
impress  them  upon  the  popular  mind  and  save  the  world  from 
endlessly  trying  over  and  over  the  sam.e  old  experiments  that  have 
been  tried  and  have  failed  numberless  times  before.  These  facts 
have  been  recorded,  however,  and  are  available  to  those  who  will 
take  trouble  to  look  for  them. 
SUCCESSFUL  LAWS  MARK  REFORMS  BUT  DO  NOT  MAKE  THEM. 
One  of  the  facts  we  may  learn  from  the  history  or  political  ex- 
periments is  that  successful  laws  do  not  make  reforms,  but  only 
mark  them,  that  is,  they  mark  the  periods  when  the  reforms  have 
so  far  gained  the  consent  of  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people  that 
the  written  statutes  are  merely  concrete  expressions  of  the  will  of  a 
liberal  miajority  of  those  w^ho  are  to  live  under  them. 
If  a  proposed  reform  will  really  make  the  world  a  better  place 
to  live  in,  it  is  necessary  only  to  convince  a  m.ajority  of  the  people 
of  its  wisdom  and  desirability  when  appropriate  legislation  will 
follow  logically  and  naturally.  Generally,  however,  the  radical 
reformer  resents  the  slow  and  cumbrous  methods  of  education  and 
prefers  to  make  an  organized  assault  upon  the  law  making  body 
and  compel  an  immediate  acceptance  of  his  alleged  reform  by  act 
of  legislature. 
When  the  prem^ature  law  is  openly  derided  and  violated  with  com- 
parative impunity,  the  reformer  will  not  admit,  and  probably  does 
not  realize  that  the  legislation  was  in  advance  of  genuine  public 
sentiment.  His  remedy  is  to  adopt  still  more  legislation  of  the  same 
kind,  piling  prohibition  upon  prohibition  and  penalty  upon  penalty, 
with  the  result  of  producing  an  ever  increasing  number  of  violations, 
and  a  diminished  respect  for  the  law. 
If  mere  law  making  could  make  men  or  society  perfect,  the  world 
would  have  been  free  of  evil  millenniums  ago.  Every  known  political 
and  social  tort  has  been  legislated  against  thousands  of  times  and 
yet  these  wrongs  persist,  and  not  a  few  when -traced  to  their  sources 
will  be  found  to  be  the  direct  outgrowth  of  the  very  laws  intended  to 
prevent  them. 
REFORM  LEGISLATION  IMPOSES  BURDENS  UPON  INNOCENT  PEOPLE. 
Another  fact  to  be  learned  from  the  history  of  experiments  in  law 
