APPENDIX
state is prosperous and promising, and while the real needs of the government should be provided for without parsimony, there should be scrupulous care that none of its resources are misdirected, or wasted in mere extravagance. Providence has so willed it that in the advocacy of those principles that now dominate the conduct of the national government, Pennsylvania has the leading position. In a certain sense then she may be properly said to represent the national view. In the present legislature, there is, to an extent never known before, a preponderance of those who are in accord with the principles to which expression is to be given in the broad field of national development. Wise men are steadied by the possession of power. With large majorities come great responsibilities. Those who are opposed to the principles you support will have their eyes turned to Pennsylvania, and will be quick to discover your mistakes, if any are made, and eager to take advantage of them.
There is much merit in few laws and in few changes in those which have become known to the people. A wise chancellor of Sweden, Oxenstiern, who was largely responsible for the Swedish settlements along the Delaware, wrote in 1654: “Though time and variety of accidents may occasion some defects in old lawes, yett it is better they should be borne with than an inundation of new lawes to be lett in which causeth incertainty, ignorance, different expositions, and repugnancyes in the lawes, and are the parents of contention.” A recent English writer, Anthony Trollope, has said: “The law is generally very wise and prudent.”
I am satisfied you will bear in mind these truths and so conduct yourselves that the outcome of your deliberations and consultations shall prove Pennsylvania still to be what she was in the time of her philanthropic and far-seeing founder and has been in many fateful crises since, a beacon and an example to her sister states and to all men seeking to advance human welfare over the world.
“A.”
An Act
Declaring the habitual publication and dissemination by newspapers, journals, periodicals, pamphlets or circulars of falsehood, defamation and scandal to he a public nuisance, and providing for the abatement thereof.
Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General