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THE LAW AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS
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so modifying it that it is rendered useless and practically void.

But this is not all. Let us suppose the state auditor thinks a certain great commission unconstitutional and refuses its payments while awaiting a decision from the attorney-general. If the attorney-general declares that it is unconstitutional he can then appear for the constitution as protecting the state treasury against the commission itself—the embodiment of a law established by the will of the people and passed by its representatives. Here then is the situation–the state is paying its attorney for appearing against it to destroy a law which it has decreed shall exist! How absurd! And yet this actually occurred in the recent Wisconsin civil service law case, which law was happily sustained by the supreme court. Both the auditor and the attorney-general were doubtless honest in their beliefs and should not bear the blame, but such a system-the result of the spirit of law schools which teach that lawyers and judges are the only.protectors of our liberties in all matters-is certainly at fault. The blame rests largely on the law schools for failing teach the real science of government in relation to these matters and for sending men into our public life who acquiesce in such ideas. Two men were talking about this very case and one, not a lawyer, was protesting that the system which permitted such a situation was not right.