826 
Law-Making. 
!Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
November,  1920. 
Each  successive  measure  in  its  day  was  proposed  as  an  important 
and  necessary  reform,  and  those  who  dared  to  oppose  it  were  de- 
nounced as  reactionaries  and  obstructionists,  or  worse.  When  in 
time  its  defects  became  evident,  it  was  then  attacked  as  an  abuse 
by  a  new  set  of  law  makers,  the  successive  crops  of  reformers  jump- 
ing over  each  other's  heads  hke  a  group  of  boys  at  leap-frog. 
What  we  all  must  learn  is  that  the  best  possible  law  will  fall  con- 
siderably short  of  perfegtion,  and  that  when  any  comprehensive 
and  well  considered  law  has  once  been  placed  upon  the  statute 
books  our  attention  should  be  given  to  its  enforcement,  and  not 
wasted  in  impossible  attempts  to  devise  measures  that  cannot  be 
violated. 
EXCESSIVE  AND  RADICAL  LEGISLATION  PRODUCTIVE  OF  LAWLESSNESS. 
Another  lesson  of  political  history  that  many  reformers  have 
failed  to  learn  is  that  excessive  and  extreme  legislation  is  of  itself 
a  most  potent  breeder  of  lawlessness. 
Every  student  of  history  knows  that,  without  exception,  periods 
of  excessive  and  radical  regulation  have  always  been  followed  by 
periods  of  equally  extreme  and  radical  reaction. 
Seemingly  there  is  a  certain  ration  or  balance  of  regulation  that 
must  be  maintained  to  obtain  the  best  results  for  law  and  order. 
Human  nature  will  stand  for  coercion  without  reaction  up  to  a  cer- 
tain limit,  but  if  this  limit  be  exceeded  there  will  be  a  moral  break 
down  that  makes  the  individual  less  amenable  to  the  reasonable 
restraints  of  the  law  than  before. 
The  very  extremity  of  a  law  may  constitute  the  most  potent 
reason  for  its  violation.  In  other  words,  the  profits  of  violating  the 
law  may  be  so  great,  and  the  risk  of  punishment  so  small  in  com- 
parison that  the  hazard  is  really  not  much  greater  than  the  hazard 
of  lawful  occupations  that  are  much  less  profitable.  Such  laws  in 
effect  place  a  premium  upon  law  breaking,  and  penalize  the  law- 
abiding.  Citizens  who  are  naturally  inclined  to  obey  the  law  find 
themselves  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared  to  those  who  ignore  it, 
and  there  is  a  letting  down  of  moral  tone  all  along  the  line. 
Most  men  believe  that  the  chief  function  of  government  is  to 
protect  them  from  oppression.  When  the  citizen  comes  to  feel 
that  the  government  itself  has  become  an  oppressor  he  is  already 
at  heart  a  potential  law  breaker,  ready  to  evade  the  mandates  of 
the  law  whenever  he  thinks  it  safe  to  do  so. 
