In this country all laws imposing punishment for offenses are printed so that every one may know what the law is; but it is not necessary that one should study each separate law, because as a rule, your conscience will be your guide against wrong doing. There are not many acts punished by the State or Nation which are not morally wrong. The person whose heart is right knows good from evil; and the person who really tries to do right will seldom be guilty of violating any law.
I do not expect you to learn all about the different laws. This is not necessary. But I do expect you to understand enough about the law to realize that we are all subject to authority; that laws are enacted by the authority of the [pg 048] people; that laws are absolutely necessary, and that without laws we should have no liberty. Above all, I want you to learn that in this country the people make the laws, and I want you to feel absolute confidence in the power of the people to make and enforce laws.
I hope that you will acquire a spirit of confidence and faith in the justice of the law, and learn that submission to the law is absolutely essential in a government of the people and by the people.[26]
But there are many laws, many rules of conduct, besides those defining crimes, offenses, and the punishment of wrongdoers.
I want to talk to you briefly about some of the laws which affect our conduct in every day life, in matters not criminal. I want to impress upon you how far reaching the law is as affecting every human being in his daily conduct.[27]
Suppose one of the girls here goes to the store to buy a piece of cloth. How does she tell the merchant how much cloth she wants? She, without doubt, will say that she wants one yard, or two yards, or three yards, according to her needs. Now how much is a yard? Of course you all know that a yard is three feet. I suppose you all know that a yard is the same length in every city in the United States. We go into the store and ask for a yard of cloth in any city in the country, with absolute confidence that we will get for each yard, three feet in length. But how do we know we will get three feet in length for each yard? How do we know what we will get when we ask for a pound of coffee, or for a ton of coal, or for a quart of milk?
These weights and measures are nearly all fixed by law. When you come to read the Constitution of the United States, you will find that there is conferred upon the United States government the power to “fix the standard of Weights and Measures”.[28]
The Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. This confers upon the United States government the right to fix all standards of measurements and all weights and measures of every kind. The United States government has this power. It is not required to exercise the power, but it has the power.
The United States government has a National Bureau of Standards,[29] which supervises weights and measurements, which coöperates with the States, and maintains uniformity, so that in every State, with reference to most things bought and sold, the law fixes definitely the quantity or dimensions. Without such laws you can see what a mass of confusion the people would be in at all times.
Severe penalties are imposed by law upon those who give short measure, or short weight,[30] in order to protect buyers against those who might defraud them.