A CHEERFUL GIVER

One of the evils of the world today, according to many self-appointed diagnosticians, is skepticism. The Carnegie Corporation has set a lofty example in faith by giving over a million dollars to the American Law Institute for restating and simplifying the common law of the land. A more appalling task could scarcely be imagined. Not only are there decisions out of a past, hundred odd years to be culled but also in the future are the annual grindings of forty-eight state legislatures and one national legislature, all interpreted by a country-full of courts.

This is not spoken as a demurrer against the value of such a proceeding. Anything done to straighten the paths through the present labyrinth will be an invaluable service. It was the delay in settling cases which led to an inquiry by Elihn Root and his committee, and then to the formation of the institute. Its aim is not to codify and thus make rigid the common law, but to restate it in terms of the decisions of the highest courts. Even this can hardly be half completed in the ten years which the Carnegie gift will finance. And with the legislative machinery of the country continuing to produce at top speed, the institute would have to become permanent.

Unfortunately laws are too easily made, and statute books become yearly heavier with useless impedimenta. Perhaps a prohibitive fee could be charged for initiating legislation. But, until some such brake can be attached to law-making machinery of the future, a clarification of its past products will be of inestimable value--both to students, to politicians, to judges, and, perhaps, to the defendants themselves.