Legislative Shortcomings

THE Congress of the United States and six state legislatures meet every year; the sessions of thirty-nine legislatures are biennial. The meeting of any of these bodies is awaited by many sensible and intelligent citizens with uneasiness and even with alarm, and final adjournment is generally welcomed as a relief from serious anxiety.

That our legislatures, state and national, do their work unsatisfactorily no one thinks of disputing. The conservative capitalist and the socialist may not agree in the details of their criticism, but they are quite at one in the severity of their censure. Newspapers and magazines are filled with vigorous denunciation of Senators and Representatives, and voters are rather vaguely exhorted to improve matters by a wiser choice of legislators. Even if the universal dissatisfaction be somewhat excessive, it has a substantial basis. Our legislative shortcomings are worthy of serious study, and yet, notwithstanding all the severe criticism spoken and written, unimpassioned and precise study of these shortcomings is rare. The critics seldom have any experimental knowledge of what they criticise, and the legislators too often forget that they are open to criticism. I hope I shall not be thought presumptuous if I give, for what it is worth, the result of two years’ experience in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Compared with others, this legislative body holds a position at least respectable, but the complaints made of it are the same in kind, though in degree they may not be so severe, as those relating to the legislatures of other States. Local conditions and traditions doubtless have their effect in making one legislature differ somewhat from another, but throughout the North, and to a less extent even in the South, the problems and difficulties of legislation are much the same.

If the average man be asked why a session of the legislature is dreaded by many intelligent persons, he will answer that the quality of the individual legislators is poor, and that few of them are men of good standing in their several communities. This statement he will hold to be obviously true beyond the possibility of doubt. He supposes them to be, for the most part, machine politicians of small capacity and doubtful honesty, actuated mainly by party spirit and personal ambition, — men who are but little trusted by their neighbors in the other affairs of life.

To prove positively the unsoundness of this common opinion is impossible, of course, for respectability, reputation, and good standing in the community are largely matters of opinion. I can only say that I believe the members of the Massachusetts House, as individuals apart from their office, to be much better men than their critics suppose. A House of two hundred and forty members must always contain some men who are not honest, reputable, or intelligent; but the better the members are known as individuals, the more plainly does it appear that the great majority of them are altogether respectable and well intentioned, and that many of them are men who in their several communities are actually chosen, and chosen naturally and properly, to fill important positions of private and corporate trust. Considering human nature, it is rather remarkable that universal suffrage is so discriminating. The best choice is made by the country districts, where the population is stable, and where the average income is so small that the legislative salary makes a desirable addition to it. In the cities, and especially in the larger cities, men of the widest and most successful experience in business seldom find time for legislative service ; but even in cities the Representatives are usually men of some acquaintance with affairs, whose principal desire, when elected, is to do that which is right and for the public interest. These statements may be strenuously controverted, but I can say that experience has converted me from the opposite belief.

Again, these Representatives are not often guided by party spirit. Undoubtedly party spirit exists, and it affects, sometimes legitimately, sometimes quite improperly, the course of legislation ; its effect on legislation in Massachusetts, however, is comparatively small. In only thirteen roll-calls out of one hundred and four taken in 1895, and in only seven out of forty-nine taken in 1896, were party lines closely drawn. In most of the exceptional cases they were not drawn with absolute strictness.

If most of the Representatives, as individuals, are men of good character, of experience in business, intelligent, well intentioned, and not unduly partisan, it may be asked in what good quality they are lacking, and why their meeting is an occasion of common apprehension. Though they are generally most respectable individuals, they are almost wholly without special fitness for the work of legislation. In the average legislature there can be found hardly a man who has ever given such consideration to the study of any legislative question that he has become expert in its treatment. The legislature is composed almost or quite altogether of men without serious legislative experience. As soon as a rural legislative district is established in Massachusetts by the decennial apportionment, its Representative convention assigns to the towns composing it, sometimes six or eight in number, the years in which each town is permitted to select the Representative. Locality alone is considered. When the turn of a town arrives, the choice of its caucus is confirmed, as a matter of honor, by the voters of the other towns. The retiring member may be clearly the most competent man in the whole district: his superior qualifications are not even mentioned, and his experience, painfully acquired during four or five months, is unhesitatingly thrown away. If his town is somewhat larger or it his constituency is urban, a second term will probably be assigned to him almost as of right, but two terms are supposed to satisfy the political appetite of any reasonable man. For one change in representation caused by change in the politics of a constituency or by disapproval of a Representative’s course, there are five changes caused by the principle of rotation in office without other reason whatsoever. If the rolls of the House in 1889 and 1896 be compared, an illustration taken quite at random, but four names will be found common to both, and of these four members two did not serve in any intermediate legislature ; no one of the four served continuously. A few constituencies disregard this two years’ rule, and thus acquire great weight in the legislature, but the habit of change is so deeply ingrained that even the clearest demonstration of its injury is quite unavailing. Public office is still regarded as a personal distinction rather than as a means of public service. In this respect there has lately been in Massachusetts a very slight improvement. Nearly all our state Senators have served a year or two in the House before entering the Senate, and the experience thus acquired, as well as the smallness of the Senate, makes it a much more businesslike body than the House, and one which wastes much less time. In some other States the want of legislative experience is even greater than here ; in some the reëlection of Representatives may be a little more usual.

This constant change makes impossible a legislative career such as may be followed in most European legislatures, and in a less degree even in the Congress of the United States. The requirements of training and experience would seem to be as imperative for useful legislation as for the successful practice of law or medicine ; but, so far as our Representatives are concerned, legislation is shaped by men without any special equipment worth mentioning. Rotation in office makes a legislative expert almost an impossibility. As no lawyer or physician would ever submit to a professional education if he were allowed to practice his profession but for a year or two in the course of his life, so no man will undertake serious legislative study if his knowledge, the result of his faithful and long-continued labor, can be made profitable but for a few months. Even if a man were found, ready to give years of study for so scanty a return of usefulness, he would be denied the opportunity of sufficient legislative practice, without which his study would probably be misleading. Try to imagine for a moment the effect upon the community of compelling all physicians, merchants, and manufacturers to retire from business after an experience of only a year or two.

When the Massachusetts House meets, composed, as I have said, of men who fairly represent the intelligence and business capacity of the communities of the commonwealth, but who are almost altogether without legislative education and experience, it has no defined legislative programme, partisan or otherwise. The individual member generally has two objects in view.

The first object is to secure the passage, or more rarely the defeat, of some legislative measure of only local importance, — a measure in which his constituents or friends may be deeply concerned, though it is of very slight importance to the commonwealth at large. Occasionally, but not often, this measure is an iniquitous job. Usually the member has no pecuniary interest in it, and often it is little more than a matter of legislative routine. Even when it is unwise, it is frequently nothing worse than a piece of foolish legislative fussiness ; or perhaps it was devised to meet some local demand, and is objectionable only because of the bad precedent it establishes ; such, for example, as acts to enable a particular town to subsidize a steamboat or a variety show for the convenience or amusement of its summer visitors. Statutes like these had no corrupt purpose, and they were desired by the whole population of the towns in question. If the member’s pet measure is not a local matter, but an act of general importance, he runs the risk of being deemed a crank. If he should strenuously seek the passage of several measures, really important, he would be thought wholly devoid of common sense, and his influence would soon disappear. Such a man is sometimes found in the House, but his fellow members agree in thinking that his rarity is a blessing. As will be explained presently, they know that important legislation has no chance of passage, and they grudge the time given to its consideration.

The second object which the average member of the legislature proposes to himself is a fair and impartial vote upon the measures submitted to him, in which he has no particular interest and concerning which he has no peculiar knowledge; in this category he would modestly put at least nineteen measures out of twenty that come before the House. He wishes first to pass his own pet measure, and then to vote wisely upon the pet measures of his fellow members, after giving them an impartial hearing.

Now, a member of the House who does not aspire to be a leader knows that so long as he does not err exceptionally and grievously concerning the great mass of legislation submitted to him, his record will be judged mainly by his success in passing the one or more bills in which his constituents or friends are especially interested. To succeed here will redound greatly to his credit; to vote wrong occasionally upon measures of general interest will impair that credit but slightly, — at any rate, if the vote is quietly and unobtrusively given. His reputation must be merely local, and local reputation, in most cases, is determined by the member’s attitude toward local measures. Hence his sense of responsibility is much stronger regarding some local measure which is unimportant to the general public than it is concerning measures which are generally important. This may be illustrated by a story from experience. A rural district returned to a certain legislature a man of good standing in his community and of excellent character, — a man who would naturally be trusted in the ordinary affairs of his neighborhood. The only thing his constituents cared for was a local bill in which he had no direct pecuniary interest. In order to secure votes for his pet bill, he was willing to trade his own vote on almost any other measure, important or unimportant, that came before the legislature, and consequently he was a bad legislator. The badness of his record, however, was caused, not by his bad character as an individual, but by his regard for the wishes of his constituents. Had he refused to trade his vote, his constituents, without regard to party or condition, would probably have deemed him faithless to his principal duty ; had he succeeded in passing his bill, they would cheerfully have pardoned, if indeed they had noticed, his aberrations concerning every measure of real importance which came before the legislature. This is an extreme case, but in a somewhat milder form trading is common and almost universal. In its practical results it is more harmful than direct pecuniary corruption. The temptation to trade is much more insidious than the temptation to take a bribe. The line between bribery and pecuniary honesty is pretty clearly defined, — no man can well be bribed without knowing it; but the line between legitimate compromise and pernicious log-rolling cannot be drawn with any sharpness. Moreover, bribery is condemned by the common judgment of every one ; trading is not.

In spite of frequent trading and occasional venality, however, the average member of the House does try to pass fairly upon most questions submitted to him ; but his attitude, both in committee and in the House, is distinctly that of a juryman. He does not try to carry out any programme drawn up by the party leaders or determined by his own individual opinions, he does not seek to initiate serious legislation ; he sits to hear the petitioners that come before him, to effect a compromise, if possible, in matters of dispute, and in the last resort to decide the case on its merits: and this attitude is characteristic not only of the average member of the House, but even of those who may fairly be taken as its leaders. Even a leader, but slightly aided by party discipline, having no recognized position like that of a cabinet minister, and exposed to the jealousy of his fellow members, which is heedless and irritating, though it is seldom malicious, soon comes to consider that his chief duty is to stop legislation which is positively bad rather than to secure that which is positively good.

If a proposed measure be unopposed, it is passed, of course, without serious difficulty. The bill is prepared outside the legislature, presented to it, and referred to the appropriate committee. The petitioners make out a strong case, and succeed in giving the committee an inkling of what they desire. There are no remonstrants, the committee’s report is favorable, and, as there is no opposition whatever, it is accepted by the House. A controversial measure has quite another fate.

The system of land transfer in Massachusetts was believed by many persons to be needlessly complicated, and the Australian or Torrens system was suggested as an advantageous substitute. Obviously the matter was too difficult for the unaided intelligence of the legislature, and so it was referred to a commission. The commission presented two reports, differing considerably in detail, but both recommending a change in the existing system. These reports were duly referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, which is composed of lawyers, and is more nearly a body of experts than any other committee of the legislature. Most of its members were ready for a change in the law, but all thought the changes proposed by the commission too sweeping. Time was needed to draft a new bill, and time was the one thing wanting. A hundred and twenty matters, or thereabouts, had been referred to the committee, on almost all of which a public hearing must be given. Some of these were matters of mere routine, such as the ratification of acts of justices of the peace and the removal of technical flaws in the proceedings of town meetings. Others were measures which had been rejected over and over again by preceding legislatures, and had not the slightest chance of passage. Others were frivolous. In all cases, however, the petitioners had the right to a hearing, — a right as sacred as that of a suitor to a heaving before a court of law, —and a hundred and twenty public hearings take time. Hoping for a little leisure, the overworked committee postponed the consideration of land transfer until careless justices and stupid town officers had been furnished with the desired legislation. Reports on all matters referred to the committee had then become due under the rules of the House, and, confessing its impotence, the committee had to recommend the reference of the proposed changes to the next legislature. In that next legislature the subject came up again, and for the same reason met the same fate. Thus an important measure was refused serious consideration, not because the House was hostile, not because its members were venal partisans, but because, under our system, there can be found no Representative with leisure for serious study.

Sometimes, of course, an important measure does pass. The Bay State Gas Company desired a charter to sell gas throughout the commonwealth unhampered by municipal boundaries ; if allowed to do this, it promised to give consumers cheap gas. The measure, though in form a private bill, was probably more important to the general public than any other measure brought before the legislature of 1896. The petitioners, like the plaintiff in a suit at law, asked for more than they hoped to obtain. Their proposed bill was referred to the appropriate committee. Before the committee appeared several able gentlemen, leaders of the two great political parties, retained at a great price to argue on behalf of the petitioners, in the hope that the political standing of the advocates would add weight to their arguments. It must not be supposed that these gentlemen were expected to corrupt members of the legislature, — nothing of the kind; bribery, if practiced at all, was practiced by men of a very different sort. At the same time, it may be doubted if good legislation is helped by the paid employment in behalf of a given measure not only of learning and forensic ability, but also of the influence naturally carried by a great name.

After the petitioners’ case was in, the established gas companies, as remonstrants, took their turn, being also represented by distinguished politicians. The committee was perplexed. All admitted that the petitioners asked too much; nearly all were for giving them something by way of compromise, in the honest desire of securing to the community the benefits of cheap gas. No member of the committee had any particular knowledge of the subject, and an unprejudiced expert is nearly as unobtainable by a legislature as by a jury. Had the Gas Commission, for example, in the excited condition of public feeling, given an opinion for or against the bill, its influence would have been seriously impaired for years. Sorely perplexed, the committee reported to the House a bill so much less generous than the bill asked for by the petitioners that, to its authors, it doubtless seemed moderate, in fact, it gave many extraordinary privileges.

The same spirit of compromise existed in the legislature. The petitioners had purchased the support of many newspapers throughout the State, and thus had impressed the members with the importance and desirability of cheap gas. The committee’s bill was conceded to be too liberal, and its provisions were much modified by amendments. Thus a third edition of the bill was prepared, a curious piece of haphazard patchwork, the result of the well-meant efforts of a dozen or twenty different men, working without any reference to one another, in great haste and without any particular knowledge of the matter in hand. This third edition passed the legislature by a large majority, though probably no one, with the possible exception of the petitioners’ attorneys, knew precisely what its provisions meant. It was vetoed by the governor, who, in his message, explained at considerable length his reasons for thinking that the bill granted too much. The veto was sustained, but the friends of the measure, by a curious parliamentary device which it is needless to explain, had provided themselves with another bill in reserve, and this they put into a shape to satisfy the governor’s objections. The bill so amended is now the law.

Thus there were four editions of the bill, each of which differed greatly from all the others, the last three being the results of three successful compromises hastily and clumsily prepared by hardworked men, well intentioned, but without any special training or knowledge. The community was disturbed by extravagant stories of bribery and corruption used to secure the passage of the measure even in its last form, and in the newspapers and on the streets there was talk of the degradation of the legislature and of the bad character of its individual members. It might be too much to assert that in no case was bribery resorted to in order to secure the passage of this bill, but the stories of corruption were at any rate grossly overdrawn, and the bill was supported chiefly by men who desired to do right, and who believed that they were doing about right when they patched up a compromise, which they did not quite understand, between the extreme demands of the petitioners and the selfish opposition of the existing gas companies.

It has been said that exaggerated stories of bribery are often believed by the public, and, it must be added, by not a few Representatives themselves. One cause of the belief is this : It is admitted to be wrong to pay a member for his vote, but it is not admitted to be wrong to pay his friend, patron, or employer for getting his vote. Men are hired whose influence, personal, political, or social, is supposed to control certain members of the House. In some cases, doubtless, these men act as go-betweens, and pay directly for the votes which they procure; but much more frequently the vote is procured by persuasion, coaxing, an appeal to friendship, or a threat of unpleasant consequences. The Representative is often free from any taint of dishonesty, and may not know that the friend whom he trusts has been hired to cajole him. If the agent succeeds, it is believed by the public that bribery has been committed ; if he fails to secure the vote he is supposed to control, he not uncommonly excuses his want of success to his employer by asserting, quite untruly, that the Representative has been bribed by the other side.

The gas bill was probably the most important act passed by the Massachusetts legislature in the session of 1896. Had it been the most important measure of a session of the British Parliament, its course would have been very different. First it would have been studied in detail by experts in the employ of the government. These experts, being practically anonymous, and not open to personal attack or to cross - examination, would have given an opinion both intelligent and impartial; under their advice, a consistent scheme would have been framed and put into a carefully drafted bill, to pass which, after it had been further discussed and perfected in cabinet meeting, the whole power of the majority would have been pledged. its defeat would have involved the immediate overthrow of the existing administration, and any amendment permitted would first have been carefully scrutinized by the government and its experts. Party feeling, which influences the House of Commons much more than the Massachusetts House of Representatives, undoubtedly increases the sense of responsibility, and, in consequence, the chance of passing carefully prepared and consistent measures of considerable legislative importance.

Another serious shortcoming of the legislature deserves notice. It is charged that some members levy blackmail upon corporations by threatening to introduce measures injurious to the corporations in question ; as, for example, bills to reduce railroad fares, to enlarge the liability of employers for the injuries of their workmen, to enable municipalities to undertake certain kinds of work now done by private corporations, and so forth. We need not consider whether the measures thus proposed are good or bad ; if they are good, it is most objectionable to withdraw them upon payment of money, or to threaten their introduction if this payment is not forthcoming. That blackmail is sometimes levied in this way no one who has closely watched the legislature can doubt, but the inference often drawn — that a large number of the members are corrupt or ill disposed — I believe to be without foundation. The fault is in the system rather than in the men.

Let us suppose that the threat has been made, and that the required payment has been refused, either on moral or on economical grounds. The hill is introduced, apparently, to meet a public demand. This may easily be simulated, or it may really exist, even though the measure proposed be unwise or unfair, inasmuch as the public is not always altogether well informed and reasonable. The bill, when introduced, is referred, under the rules, to a committee, and it lies in the committee’s docket for a month or six weeks, a constant if not a very serious menace. The day for the public hearing arrives. If the introducer of the measure is tired of the game, he can withdraw at the last moment without cost or inconvenience to himself, having put his victim to the expense of hiring counsel and summoning witnesses, an expense not infrequently greater than the blackmail originally demanded.

If the blackmailer decides to go on, he can generally find persons, not always dishonest, to appear in support of his bill. Some hours of the committee’s time are spent in the hearing or hearings. If the public demand is real, though unreasonable, one or more weak but well - intentioned members of the committee may sometimes be persuaded to sign a minority report in favor of the bill, and occasionally the introducer has a personal friend on the committee who is willing to humor him ; but the committee’s report is almost invariably against the blackmailing scheme, and that report is usually unanimous. The blackmailer’s game is not yet up. The question before the House is the acceptance of the adverse report of the committee. The blackmailer asks for delay ; he offers a compromise measure, or he appeals to the House as a whole and to its members individually to reject the committee’s report and give his bill one reading, telling them that., if they please, they may vote it down afterwards. The good nature of the House seems at times its most dangerous vice, particularly in the early part of the session, when time is abundant. The blackmailer is an unknown man, often plausible, appealing to an inexperienced stranger. He tells the new member that he will amend the bill to meet all objections, and he threatens vengeance upon the new member’s pet measure if the latter does not vote with him this once. It has been explained already that this pet measure is often the one desire of the new member’s constituents. His sense of responsibility for it is great; his sense of responsibility regarding the blackmailer’s bill is slight, there is no party discipline to steady him, and he votes with the blackmailer just once, intending to vote against him on the next stage of the same bill. The blackmailing measure is thus substituted for the adverse report of the committee; the corporation becomes frightened, and either buys off its enemy, or hires the lobby to defeat a bill which would have died of itself at the next stage. Thus the corporation finds the expense of defeating a bill once introduced to be greater than that of buying its introducer in the first place ; its officers grow cynical, think most Representatives corrupt, and at the next session may seek to bribe instead of waiting to be blackmailed.

The blackmailer has the best chance of success if he introduces a bill which can be supported by honest and serious arguments. In this case, he may gain the votes of men not only well meaning, but intelligent. Occasionally, there can be little doubt, the best members of the House are led to vote against a bill which ought to pass, because they believe it was introduced to get money out of a rich corporation.

The case of blackmail shows the legislature at its worst, yet the cause of the evil is neither the dishonesty nor even the extreme stupidity of the average member. Until the committee reports, the blackmailer needs no help beyond the rule which entitles all petitioners to a hearing, — a rule which appears founded in justice, though in practice it is the cause of much delay and of no little harm. Even during the action of the House, the blackmailer’s strength comes from the good nature of his colleagues, from their want of discipline, and from their inexperience, rather than from their low character as citizens or as individual members of the community. It it be said that the origin of the whole trouble is the presence in the House of even a few dishonest members, it must be answered that no considerable legislative body which ever existed in the world has long been without some members open to bribery. Certain recent trials have shown that more than one member of the House of Commons, if he did not take money for his votes as a member of the House, was restrained from doing so by want of opportunity rather than by lack of inclination. Again, it may be asked if the blackmailer is not soon found out, and if he does not thus lose all his influence with decent men. He is almost always found out by the end of the session, but if he has the good fortune to be reëlected to the next legislature, he finds a hundred and twenty new members who have never heard of him in the course of their lives.

It has already been pointed out that our legislative system makes it very difficult to pass any considerable measure of controversial legislation. Important matters, like the regulation of the hours of labor, are never treated in the legislature as settled, even for a period of years. The existing law is always a temporary compromise, hastily patched up in the legislature, — a short step, to be followed as soon as possible by another. So much is this the case that no sensible man expects to accomplish serious controversial legislation except by piecemeal. This condition of affairs has two evils : it keeps the community in constant unrest; and, as each fragment of legislation takes nearly as much time as should the passage of a comprehensive measure, sessions are lengthened to a maximum and constructive legislation is reduced to a minimum. For example, nearly everybody believes that the system of taxation in Massachusetts is antiquated and inefficient, and needs a complete remodeling; some men think that sufficient provision should be made for enforcing the existing laws, while others believe these laws to be so barbarous that they should be done away with at once ; yet a quarter of a century’s constant agitation, which has in the aggregate taken up months and perhaps years of legislative time, has resulted only in the passage of two or three bits of piecemeal legislation, which, whether wise or foolish, have at any rate made the existing law more complicated and contradictory than before. There is very little hope that any comprehensive system can be established except by a long process of attrition, which must consume an incalculable amount of legislative time.

What has been said goes to show that the shortcomings of the House are caused not so much by the poor quality of its members as individual men, as by their inexperience, their weak sense of responsibility, and the easy-going temper which naturally results from inexperience and irresponsibility. Rotation in office is the chief cause of their inexperience. The cause of their want of responsibility is to be found largely in the principles of our Constitutions, State and Federal, which so divide power among the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the government that no one department is altogether responsible for any considerable part of its own acts. In these circumstances, it is clear that, even if the average quality of our legislators shall be improved, no great improvement in legislation can be expected so long as our system remains unchanged ; and hence it follows that moral exhortation to choose better Representatives is not likely to do much good. To effect a remedy, we must change principles rather than men.

The principle of rotation in office is not an essential part of the American system of government, and can be abandoned without constitutional or legislative change if the voters of any constituency desire. Until it is abandoned as a principle, legislative improvement seems to me out of the question. The theory of rotation in office, it should always be borne in mind, is the theory that in the conduct of public affairs experience is valueless. Doubtless there is something to be said for rotation, or it would never have been practiced. Other things being equal, a community may be benefited by giving to a considerable number of its citizens some knowledge of its affairs; but when the knowledge thus given is never utilized, and when none but prentice hands are allowed to frame our laws, rotation is reduced to an absurdity. It is at once irritating, pathetic, and ridiculous to see a constituency composed of six or eight small rural communities discard the services of a Representative who has just begun to be useful, because the rule of rotation requires that no community in the district shall have a Representative two years in succession. It is obvious that men should be chosen for public office, not because they are rich or poor, not because they live in one place or in another, not because they deserve distinction, not because they are respectable or even virtuous, but simply and solely because they will serve the public better than any one else. Even if this were the received theory of our government, we might still be far removed from a satisfactory practice, but the American people have not yet learned wisdom even in theory.

The limitation of legislative authority, unlike the principle of rotation in office, is the very foundation of the government of the United States. To guard individuals against the tyranny of the majority, the Federal Constitution, followed by the Constitutions of most of the States, puts it out of the power of any majority, short of practical unanimity, to abridge certain rights of the citizen. Legislatively speaking, the Parliament of Great Britain is omnipotent, and therefore it has a strong sense of responsibility. The ministry of the day, practically a committee of the House of Commons, has, so long as it enjoys the confidence of that House, all the power of the executive. Legislatively speaking, the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the several States, being hampered by constitutional limitations, are comparatively weak, and therefore their sense of responsibility is comparatively slight. They have no executive authority. For centuries the political development of Great Britain has tended to the concentration of power and responsibility in the House of Commons and in the ministry which is its committee. The development of the United States, in the century or more of its existence, has tended to protect the rights of individuals ; that is to say, to prevent the concentration of power in any man or body of men. As the power of our legislatures is limited, so is their responsibility. Viewing them merely as effective machines for passing laws, we cannot expect that Congress or a state legislature will ever equal the House of Commons; and even the House of Commons seems to be losing something of its efficiency. This is not to say that the English Constitution is preferable to our own. I believe that ours, protecting individual rights as it does, is the safer and better of the two, but a weakened sense of responsibility is the besetting defect of the virtues of the American Constitution.

If, however, we recognize clearly the nature and the causes of our legislative shortcomings, we shall have taken the first step to lessen them. Experience in our legislators we can secure if we will, and this will accomplish something. At the beginning of the session a legislature is now much like a crowd, quiet and well disposed, but unorganized and undisciplined ; the members sometimes too distrustful of one another, sometimes too confiding. A minority, even a small minority, of men familiar not only with parliamentary rules, but with the course of legislation, will give to this body from the beginning an organization and a cohesion which it now lacks. If sixty members have already come to know one another’s strength and weakness by the experience of several years, the remaining one hundred and eighty become more easily acquainted, and the plausible rogue, in the legislature and out of it, will not so readily deceive the new-comer, and get from him pledges which afterwards he may bitterly regret. Experience, too, will save much of the time now wasted in every session by the discussion of measures which have no chance of passage. If it were understood that an important measure once passed or rejected was safe from attack or from premature resurrection for five years at least, the saving of time would be enormous. This conservatism would not delay wise reforms, but rather hasten them ; for, as has been shown, they are now defeated by the pressure of routine. One piece of useful general legislation discussed, put into proper shape, and passed within a year is more valuable than ten plans for legislation discussed and either rejected or botched within the same time. If a few men, not necessarily very brilliant, but sensible citizens with some leisure, men not unlike many members of our recent legislatures, can be induced to make legislative service their career or a part of their career, the prospect of serious and consistent legislation will be greatly improved. These men can then make practical legislation a study, and their value to the commonwealth will increase from year to year.

The reform of legislative procedure, a matter which cannot even be understood without legislative experience, would also accomplish something. General laws might be framed, if we had experienced legislators to frame them, which should avoid the necessity of many of our special acts, and thus save time for real legislation. The statutes might be made more comprehensive and put into more systematic form. The drafting of bills, at present so awkward and defective, generally the work of a man otherwise overtaxed, who has had no training in legislative or even in literary expression, should be entrusted to a highly paid permanent expert with a sufficient force of competent clerks. Ten thousand dollars a year spent in salaries would probably save five times the amount, now spent in litigation. In this matter the Massachusetts House of Representatives has made a beginning which it is to be hoped will have satisfactory development.

Again, the law which requires a Representative to reside in the district which he represents has lost whatever reason it may have had in former times. The day when a town, accustomed to act as a unit in most matters politic, sent up one of its citizens to the General Court has passed by forever. Nearly all representative districts are without other political unity, and even this unity is broken up by the decennial apportionment. Each district is either a congeries of small towns, or a fragment of a city, or sometimes such a fragment tacked to one or more towns for the sake of partisan advantage. If the voters of these constituencies deliberately prefer to be represented by some one who does not live among them, there is no reason why they should not have their way, and their local jealousy can be trusted to get its proper influence without being strengthened by positive law. If a seat in the legislature should be looked on as a sort of reward of merit, an honorary distinction conferred upon an individual or upon a community, the democratic spirit may require that the coveted decorations shall be distributed proportionally among the different parts of the State; but if the legislature exists solely for useful legislation, it should be made up of the men who can legislate most usefully, and nature does not always distribute useful legislators in exact proportion to the population. In any event, local jealousy will generally triumph over superior fitness. It may be mentioned in passing that nearly every country in Europe permits its constituencies to choose their representatives freely, and this freedom of choice has never been a cause of complaint. The existing rule bears with particular hardship upon political leaders, for they often reside in districts which differ from them in politics. Thus the Constitution not infrequently forces a political party to choose as its legislative leader an inferior man.

The responsibility of political parties maybe increased. We usually speak of party spirit as if it were altogether undesirable, but party responsibility is a thing to be desired, and this cannot be had without reasonable party spirit and sufficient party discipline. At present, party spirit, in the Massachusetts legislature at least, is feeble and intermittent, and party discipline is almost wanting. The legislation of each session should have some sort of plan or programme. A legislative programme does not frame itself, and it cannot be framed by common consent, for nearly all serious legislation is inevitably the object of opposition. If there is to be any programme at all, it must be made by the political majority. Not all the legislation proposed would be political; much, perhaps most of it, would be quite unconnected with the issues of national politics. The English ministry is held responsible for the passage not only of partisan measures, but of non-partisan measures needed by the country. Responsibility, similar in kind though less in degree, should be undertaken by the prevailing political party of any State.

Finally, our people must be taught that legislation is a business. In the modern world, all business is specialized, and performed by those who have demonstrated their fitness. We do not go for medical advice to a farmer, however successful or upright; we do not hire a cotton manufacturer to draw our wills for us, though his name be a proverb of honest dealing in two continents ; we do not raise our crops according to the counsels of our lawyer, though he be a Marshall and a Story rolled into one. Moralists and reformers continually exhort their fellow citizens to elect good men to office. A good general character, certainly, is desirable and even necessary to a useful legislator, but general goodness without some special fitness is a poor equipment for legislative service. Political ideals necessarily transcend actual political results. It is important, therefore, that the most intelligent and public-spirited men in the community, the political idealists, should insist that fitness, which must include respectability, rather than respectability alone, is the true test of a public servant, and that a public servant of approved fitness, in the legislature as well as in the civil service, is not to be displaced lightly or unadvisedly. If he has ceased to represent the opinions of his constituents from the standpoint of partisan politics or otherwise, let him go, but do not let him go because “ he has had it long enough.” If these sentiments can be made part of the American political ideal, they will gradually affect our actual conditions.

The object of this article, however, is not chiefly to suggest remedies for existing shortcomings, but to point out those shortcomings and their causes. An understanding of their effects must precede their cure.

Francis C. Lowell.