FOOTNOTE:
[4] Since the publication of the Independent article the author’s attention has been called to an address entitled “The New Feudalism,” delivered by Mr. Benjamin A. Richmond, of Cumberland, Md., before the Maryland Bar Association in July, 1898. The author had never seen or heard of this address. It is written from a legal standpoint, and both the matter and the treatment are widely different from the matter and manner of the Independent article. But whatever the differences, the same general idea is to be found in both papers, and it is only just that acknowledgment should be made of Mr. Richmond’s priority.
CHAPTER V
Our Makers of Law
The dual responsibility which our lawmakers and judges bear, on the one hand to the people, and on the other to the Big Men, produces a chaos of conflicting laws and decisions. For the chartering of business corporations we have the “Delaware theory,” which seems to be to give the applicant whatever he asks for; the “New Jersey theory,” which is a slight modification of the former; and the “Massachusetts theory,” which reserves to the State a certain measure of supervision and control. For the fixing of employers’ liability for injuries to workmen we have a wide range of precedents, from States which hold to the common-law doctrine that practically frees the employer from blame, to those which fix a liability in somewhat definite terms. Factory legislation, regulations for the public health, the determination of a legal workday, the restraining of corporate aggressiveness—these and a score of like questions are variously passed upon or deliberately avoided in the several States. Judicial decisions, too, present a spectacle of the widest diversity.
Nevertheless this chaos shows signs of a gradual reduction to order. The insistent challenge, “Under which king, Bezonian, speak or die!” which perpetually assails all of our legislative and judicial functionaries, sooner or later forces a decision, and naturally it is the stronger rival that wins. How effective is this challenge, how strong is the pressure, Mr. John Jay Chapman has strikingly shown in his “Causes and Consequences,” and the instances that crop out from time to time, like that of the recent tampering with the Supreme Court of Missouri, reveal only a needless confirmation of a known truth. Legislation in behalf of the general welfare and of the industrially dependent classes becomes less frequent and more guarded; and judicial decisions in matters that involve class antagonisms are more frequently given to the dominant class.