THE CONGESTION OF LAW someness, of our boasted democratic life. Our whole system of government tends to congestion so far as its public channels are concerned — with laws passed in fool ishness or wantonness, and without respeCt to the need for them. It is not alone in the domain of lawmaking and the legislator that these abuses are potent. They add to the labor of the judiciary. Upon it is thrown for adjudication, year after year, a body of work absolutely unnecessary, and at great expense to the public and often to pri vate individuals. The constitutionality of much of this new legislation is continually questioned. So true is this that a sub stantial percentage of the questions brought before appellate courts are re lated to doubts of the validity of the laws under which actions are brought. In deed, in the state of New York, in a period covering about twenty years, the consti tutionality of over five hundred statutes was challenged in the court of appeals. The dovetailing of new legislation into existing law, and the cost of construing the possible meaning of a legislature, also enters into a considerable part of the an nual output of twenty thousand decisions rendered by appellate courts. Many of these mushroom enactments are permitted to slumber by common consent. But this is dangerous, because, in such cases, of fensive laws remain upon the statute books, and may later be evoked for mis chievous purposes. The continual resort — nearly always for spite, and in almost all the older states — to the so-called blue laws, never properly killed off, well illus trates the perils which lurk in the carry ing of inert laws upon the statute books. In like manner there should be added to the causes of over-legislation already enumerated the industrious and persis tent efforts of executive officers to procure legislation which is either agreeable to their parties or to the ideas they repre sent as individuals. It was the funda
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mental idea of the founders of our govern ment that the three branches of govern ment should be kept distinct, with certain well-defined and understood differences. The executive officer might recommend legislation, but it was assumed that any interference on his part to command it would not only be going beyond his powers, but would also excite resentment. Now, however, this idea has gone to the limbo of other beautiful, but dead, ideals. An executive officer may not only recommend, but is expected to urge, and, if necessary, in order to carry his point, to use the great power of his office to compel, the enactment of laws. He may call in the presiding officer and leading members of the legislative department of the government of which he is the executive, and demand of them such legislation as he deems wise, and will be considered justified if he dis tributes or withholds his patronage for the avowed purpose of inducing or forcing legislation, if at the time there is a public sentiment in favor of such legislation. Instances are, however, not uncommon, in which such an official will make short work of corrupt combinations to get pub lic money, or of bills intended to promote class interests, or of others whose sim plest purpose is theft or misappropriation. Legislative bodies, all the way from Con gress to a village council, pass bills deal ing with their own employes, with letter carriers, or other classes of officials, with departments and bureaus, or with police and firemen, with no other purpose than that of putting the responsibility upon the president, the governor, or the mayor. To the credit of the latter it must be said that seldom is such a reliance vain. Within the narrow limits necessarily ob served in such an address as this it is only possible to indicate, on the broadest lines, the evils incident to the system which makes it impossible to remember that men have long been under the government of law; that mankind is moved everywhere
