EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT PENALTIES FOR GRAFT
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the church may recognize its opportunity and return to its own. At. least we may believe that the law should devote itself to the im provement of defects peculiarly its own, which, indeed, are sxifficiently numerous to absorb all the intelligence and energy available for that purpose. But little has been heard this year of the work of the committee of the American Bar Association on reform of procedure, from the appointment of which so much was expected last summer; but perhaps it is well that we should concentrate our ener gies for the present on the definition of the new code of legal ethics which will be made public before this number goes to press. We. are glad again to give space in this issue for an intelligent discussion of this subject by one who has seen its necessity in our larger centers as it can be seen only by one who comes there from a freer atmosphere.
Amid the cry for more legislation to punish thieving politicians, and the complaint that the technicalities of the law and the evil ingenuity of the bar make punishment at present im possible, it is interesting to hear the words of an expert in municipal politics. Despite a tendency to. color in high lights for dramatic effect 4oubtless necessary to successfully arouse and interest his readers, Mr. Steffens has a knowledge of municipal conditions dur ing recent years based upon a broader experi ence than that of any other investigator. He has voiced a national yearning and stimulated a national upheaval. In addition to his writ ings, he occasionally speaks upon the subject, and his talk on the reform movement and its prospects is inspiring and increases respect for the man. To the suggestion that judicial sympathy for betrayers of public trust has LEGAL INITIATIVE allowed too many offenders to escape with The following significant editorial which light sentences, in a recent address he replied that punishment alone will not prevent crime. recently appeared in one of our contem The truth of this belief has been made familiar poraries is deserving of wider publicity. "Lawyers as a class lack the ability to to us by instances related by the advocates of the abolition of the death penalty. Xot often, take the initiative. They are inclined to however, do we have as clear an illustration as take things as they are and make the he brought us from recent developments in best of them. Lawyers are not law-makers. San Francisco. There, in the midst of the They are law appliers and law construers. trial of one group of public men for bribery in That lawyers have a reputation for making obtaining a public franchise, an entirely laws is due to the fact that they constitute different group, who had not before been caught the largest representation of any class in our made a second payment of bribe money to law-making bodies. They are forced to obtain a franchise which they wanted. For father bills which originated with others and tunately, however, the reformers had obtained their framing of the bill and modelling it into a control of the situation, and as the payment law is merely part of the work for which was made to their agent the offenders were they are best fitted. If lawyers were the promptly indicted. It was almost with scorn only ones who did originate laws, there that this writer of stories of municipal cor would be far fewer laws, and that would ruption brushed aside the law as a remedy, not be a bad thing either; but we fear they and insisted that the only cure is an increase would be found far too slow in originating in good will among men. Perhaps after all needed legislation."
