RECORD IN LAW MAKING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3559, 6 November 1926, Page 4

RECORD IN LAW MAKING.

TWO MILLION.STATUTES. AMERICAN CITIZEN’S ORDEAL. The law-abiding American citizen of to-day must observe some two millions statutes. Writing in the New York Herald-Tribune, Mr. W. H. Blumenthal says According to the National Budget Committee the number of our laws is now 2,000,000. One must add that, in addition to our 2,000,000 written statutes, we obey the entire common law of England, ns understood in 177 G, except in so far as Congress has modified this common law by legislation. Wte have in this country the greatest law factory the world has ever known. Forty-eight States and the Federal Government are turning out each year thousands of new ■ laws, while at the same time the courts in the performances of judicial duty are giving us thousands of precedents —175,000 pages of decisions in a single year, an average of 12,000 or more statutes amfl3,ooo or more permanently recorded decisions of highest courts each year. -Liberty under law, but under how much law? The production of new laws gained momentum during the recent session of Congress. More measures were introduced and a greater number passed by the House than at any previous first session of a two-year period. The 13,009 bills introduced at the session which closed last .June eclipses the record of the entire preceding Congress, in which 13,372 were originated by repre-' sentatives. A still greater increase is shown in the number of measures passed, 805 as compared with 303 for the preceding session. FIFTY* THOUSAND ENACTMENTS. In the 13(1 years since the adoption, of the Constitution, Congress has enacted 50,000 laws, an average of nearly 735 for each of the 69 Congresses. Oi| these, 49 laws, a little less than a tenth of one per cent., have been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. The figures were compiled for Mr Ramseyer, of lowa, by Mr H. 11. B. Meyer, chief bibliographer of the Legislative reference library at Washington, and were published in the Congregational Record on the last day of the recent session. New York State was ahead of all others in the number of measures submitted to flic Legislature in 1025 with 3,186. But only 686 of them became, law, whereas in North Carolina last year of only 1,773 offered I, were enacted. In Ne\v Hampshire, the House of Representatives passed a law’ Prohibiting daylight saving and fixing a. penalty of £IOO fine tor any person violating the law. A bill prohibiting the playing of pool or billiards in South Carolina was passed last year by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate, where it was tallied by a narrow margin. Utah enacted an anti-cig-arette law in 1021. Not in any cafe or barber’s shop in that happy state is it permitted to man, woman or child to smoke. Only by a tie vote in the Arizona Senate was a local option tobacco bill disposed of in 1922. AGAINST FOREIGN LANGUAGE. A law prohibiting the teaching of foreign languages to pupils below the eighth grade in public, private and parochial schools, urns declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in June, 1923. The matter was brought before the Court in connection with the conviction by the Nebraska Supreme Court of Robert T. Meyer, who instructed a ten-year-old child in German. The Meyer conviction was obtained under an act passed by the Nebraska State Legislature forbidding the teaching of any language except English in the schools of the Slate. In addition, every year about 30,000 municipal measures are added to the rapidly developing legal system. In Norfolk, Virginia, there are 165 rules for crossing the street. Last year in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a series of amendments to the local dancing ordinance was passed at its first reading by the City Commission. The amendments, conlaning 28 separate provisions are designed' to prohibit offensive .attitudes and objectionable steps*reported upon by police-women after three years of dance hall supervision. An old New York traiYi’jc regulation unenforced, but on the statute books, forbids turning corners faster than four miles an hour, and it is safe to say there are a few million violations a day. The present state of the motor laws in the various states furnishes an easy way to gaol, a stiff fine or the hospital foxdrivers who do inter-state ti-avell-ing. In Pennsylvania you pass a trolley car travelling in the same direction on the left-hand side. Do it in New Jersey and see what happens. In a good many cities you go to the right of a traffic officer when making a left-hand turn. Do it in some other cities and you will witness some lively and arresting actions on the part of the officer. “THE ANTI-VAMP” ACT. Oft the 116 bills pertaining to immigration, which were introduced during the sixty-seventh Congress, the greater number were directly concerned with further limitation and restriction of immigration. The ’Secretary of Labour, Mr Davis, in an address described his department, with 3,157 immigration law appeals in one month, as the Government’s “madhouse.” Only a few years ago, the Geor-

gia Legislature was confronted with what might be called an “antivamp act.” It made the wearing of false hair and rouge a cause for annulment of marriage. Its sponsor must have been reading history, for it harks back several hundreds of years. An net of C'hax'lcsi II provided :—“That all women, of whatever age, rank, profession or degree, whether virgins, maids, or widows, that shall,, from the passing of this act, impose upon and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty’s male subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth, false hail’, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchful soi’cery and suchlike misdemeanour, and tliht the marriage upon conviction, shall stand null and void.” New Yorkers may still beat their children and kitchen maids with impunity, because under their laws, homicide is still excusable when “lawfully correcting a child or servant.”’ Perhaps the classic example of legislation on state statute books was the Kansas ordinance) for railroad regulation, which contained this clause: “Both trains shall come to a full stop and neither shall start up until the other has gone.” TORRENT OF NEW LAWS. Voices of protest arc being raised against the torrent of new laws, which are deluging the country to the confusion of every one, lawmakers included. Hunlreds and thousands of these statutes become dead letters almost as soon as they are signed, but many others remain to plague their promulgator and the administrative officialdom which must make a show of enforcing them.