Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/336

3l6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. MASSACHUSETTS AS A PHILANTHROPIC ROBBER. THE growth of government interference and the increasing tendency of its citizens to look to the State for aid rather than to their individual efforts are phases of modern social and economic life in the United States which for some years have oc- cupied the thoughts of students of law and politics. Comment has often been made of late that the tariff laws, silver legislation, pen- sion acts, and anti-trust laws are all signs of this one tendency. The increase of State legislation compelling individuals practising particular trades or professions — such as boiler engineers, doc- tors, barbers, plumbers, manufacturers of and workers on clothing or tobacco, horseshoers, and others — to be registered, licensed, or appointed by the State is but another sign of the same tendency ; and so too are the laws passed ostensibly under what is called the " police power " by which the government has taken charge of private business, and which regulate minutely the manner in which an individual shall run his factory or his mine, pay his em- ployees, build his buildings, manufacture his goods, etc. One phase, however, of this increasing demand by the citizens that the State shall support them has not hitherto been noticed ; and it is with the hope of calling attention to a new subject that this paper is written. While the facts here presented are taken from the statute books of Massachusetts alone, it is believed the new development of State aid described is not confined to any one State. In the back portion of the volume issued annually by the Com- monwealth of Massachusetts, and known, popularly as the " Blue Book," technically as the " Acts and Resolves passed by the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts in the Year ," will be found that form of legislation known as the " Resolves." Few of the citizens of the State are probably aware that through the medium of these "Resolves" the various Legislatures of Massachusetts since 1872, and especially since 1885, have appro- priated as absolute gratuities, and awarded to private individuals as pure gifts, sums of money amounting to hundreds of thousands of