end, is certainly a situation so serious as to demand some remedy, if any be possible."
If the lawyer has to meet these conditions what can the layman do? If these conditions are encountered in the interpretation of law, the making of the law is indeed a terrible task. We have an endless circle. We cannot make statute law without consulting this labyrinth; nevertheless we must make it. We must make it even though we only follow public sentiment.
Our government was founded on the principle that the adaptation of law to economic conditions should be made by the will of the people expressed in legislation. We cannot give this task to the judges; we did not make our government on that basis. Divided courts and reversals have left the lawyer helpless as well as the layman of the legislature. The courts have often indulged in reckless use of the power to declare laws unconstitutional on the slightest technicalities. The fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution has been very efficacious in restricting state legislation, as has also the broad interpretation of federal statutes by the federal courts. On the other hand the simple industrial conditions of fifty or a hundred years ago have given place to the present era of wonderful inventions. Nearly every invention and device, economic, commercial and mechanical used in our modern life, has to be met by legislative restriction or control.
