CHANGES IN THE STATUTE LAW uses of property, and the freedom of indi vidual action are all regulated by their effect upon others, and we realize at last in its fullness of meaning the truth that 'no man liveth unto himself.' The home is no longer a man's castle, but it may be a prison house with the family as the inmates and the board of health as jailer. When the state as parens patri® steps in and as sumes control by boards and commissioners and other agencies of the safety of society, of the health and morals of the people as well as of their property rights, special care must be taken not to endanger any of those inalienable rights of 'life, liberty, and prop erty' guaranteed to every citizen under 'the law of the land.' For it must be re membered that these are rights which do not proceed from government, but are ante cedent to government, and are those for the preservation of which governments are ordained. "Another view impressed upon the mind by a review of this legislation is that, while it comes from forty-five states and three territories, organized under different consti tutions, a common purpose, a common hope, and a common ambition is easily discernible in all for the advancement of their own people and the enlargement of their devel opment under the stimulus of truly American ideas. In many of the states, separated geographically many hundreds of miles, we find a similarity of legislation, indicating the same needs of these widely separated people; and while it is undoubtedly true that there are certain basic principles of morality and virtue necessary to the proper advancement of all the people, whether under the torrid or arctic zone, I can but feel that there is a danger that uniformity of state legislation may be pressed to a dangerous extreme. We must never forget that law is a progressive science, a system of growth. It does not lag behind or pre cede in its march the needs and advance ment of a people, but it goes hand in hand
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with such to carry out in orderly fashion the requirements of social needs. When we consider the vast expanse of this country, organized as the people are under different constitutions, with different climatic condi tions, with social and ethnic conditions of varying hues; when we find' conditions of society among the older states, of necessity differing from those which obtain in the newer, all these tend to show that from habits of thought, social and political cus toms, commercial activities, habits of life, sources of industry, and the sparsity or den sity of population, the needs of one, as ex pressed in law, may not be those of another state differing in these conditions. "The Constitution of the United States, 'the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man,' would not be fitted for the. Chinese empire, nor even for the Philippines, it is asserted, until in the progress of time, by the process of assimilation, they shall reach the height of the stature of American citizen ship; nor would the laws of Draco be other than a misfit if adopted by the State of Rhode Island, in which we are to-day as sembled. While ever striving, therefore, for the unification of laws which embrace essen tials in those principles which should control and govern all people, however and wherever situated, we should be careful not to impose upon all those laws which may be suited to conditions in some of the states only. Our motto should be, ' In essentials, unity; in varying conditions, variety,' presenting in the result a mosaic, it may be, of infinite variety, like some great orchard of ripe fruit, made up of many different kinds of trees, each extracting from the soil those elements which it needs for its development, and each differing from the others in shape, size, color, and flavor, but each beautiful of its kind, and by contrast adding infinite charm to the whole." LEXINGTON, VA., Aug., 1905.
