encouraged. The valuations made will be the basis for future service charges and the basis for computing the interest which will be paid to investors in and developers of properties of this kind. This commission will also be called on to prescribe rules for furnishing service to the people to the end that such service will be satisfactory to the consumer and at the same time not hamper the public service companies in their quasi public work by unreasonable demands. This commission, by wise and industrious work, by just, reasonable and intelligent decisions, can do as much or more to bring capital into the state and build it up as any man or body of men in it. The evident intention of the author of these two measures was to practice a little economy by having certain work which he thought should be done by some state tribunal performed by the Public Service Commission and thereby not create another commission with salaries. I am a firm believer in economic administration in both public and private enterprises, but there is always a point where it ceases to be good business to spend further sums of money and a point up to which it pays well to spend them. I think the last rule applies to our public service commission. Instead of adding to the burdens of this body we should be taking some burdens from it, and instead of making it do more work for the salary its members are paid we should be taking some of the detail work from it, be paying its members more compensation and assuring them of longer terms in office. The treatment that our railroads, power companies, telephone, telegraph and like industries receive in this state now and for the next few years at the hands of the public service commission, legislature, and the people, means much to every man, woman and child in the state. Ample transportation and adequate power facilities will be a large part of the lifeblood of our commercial activities, and, indeed, power and electric current has already become one of our daily and hourly necessities. Capital which will invest in corporations such as I have referred to is much needed in this state and is absolutely required for its future successful development, and I wish to see the rules and laws which shall apply to them in the future and which are now being made in this state made with great care. To do this we must have a public service commission with sufficient time at its command to consider and decide the questions that will come before it relating to these industries in an able and just manner. It cannot do so if all sorts and kinds of duties are imposed upon it.

Another law which has been proposed in addition to the "Seven Sisters," and which will in all probability go on the ballot, is the one generally referred to as the "Eight-Hour Law." This Act, which I understand is designated as Initiative Measure No. 13, provides:

"It shall be unlawful for any person, corporation, company or joint stock association to cause, require, or permit any male or female employe in his, her or its employ, to work more than eight hours during any day of twenty-four hours, nor more than forty-eight hours

during any week of seven days, except that in agricultural labor an additional two hours per day may be allowed for work which is unavoidably and necessarily incidental to farm management.

"Provided, however, that in case of extraordinary emergency, such as danger to life or property, or where such eight-hour limit would unavoidably and necessarily prevent other workers in the same mine, mill, factory or other industrial unit from working the full eight-hour day the hours for work may be further extended, but in such cases the rate of pay for time employed in excess of eight hours of each calendar day shall be one and one-half the rate of pay allowed for the same amount of time during eight hours' service."

It will readily be seen that this measure means no evolutionit means a revolution. It will affect almost every employer and employee in the state of Washington one way or another. It will make impossible the carrying on of certain lines of industry in this state. This proposed measure calls for no legal opinion at this time, but as a practical question it occurs to me that the employes and employers in this state will find this measure, if enacted into a law, to be the most effective vehicle to depopulate the state, destroy business, reduce property values, and deprive labor of employment ever devised In my opinion, no such hard and fast rule as the proposed law should be laid down in any state as to the right to employ labor and the laborer's right to be employed. It is true that employes should be protected and employers should be prevented from imposing harsh and extreme burdens on those who work for them. Regulations to that effect are legal and equitable, but to lay down such rules as are proposed by this bill as to hours and as to all vocations in the state would make its provisions so onerous as to make impossible the carrying on of many lines of business in the state which are absolutely necessary to its prosperous existence. Some of our people are inclined to call this bill socialistic, but I do not think it should be so dignified. It is not backed by the intelligence of real socialism and is apparently only the product of the mind of the most visionary and irresponsible type of the I. W. W. In a very short time the people of our state will be making inquiry as to the merits and demerits of these proposed measures, as to their effect, legality, etc., and necessarily these inquiries will often be made of our lawyers, so it will be of great importance to the state that the members of our Bar in the different localities fully read these measures and inform themselves as to their provisions in sufficient time so that when their opinions are asked and given they will be intelligent ones and based upon a careful consideration of the merits of the different measures. If a member of the bar does not believe them or any of them to be meritorious, I think it is his duty to so inform any inquirer; and if he believes any of them are meritorious he should not decry them because they propose changes from what we have been taught to think are unchangeable policies in our government. We should justly and intelligently judge each proposed measure on its merits.

Our opinions on these bills will no doubt be given much weight by our citizens, and we, as lawyers, should give honest and intelligent ones so far as we are able to do.

Reference to these proposed bills suggests to my mind that our people are either nearing the end of or about to enter into the final delirium of what may be called our "reform drunk." For a few years last past almost all our politicians and many of our citizens, some of them of no mean standing and intellect, have beeen going about the country crying out "everything that is, is wrong," and appealing to the different classes in enticing tones and words to induce them to be dissatisfied with their lot and surroundings. The negro, where numerous in voting strength, is told by the white vote-seeker that many centuries ago a large part of the world was under control of the black men; that the white population in Europe stood in mortal fear of him; that the black armies were the most formidable that ever trod the earth, and that the great characters of that period were colored men, implying thereby that they should occupy this position in the world now. This is all done to get the vote of the negro for some petty or important public office, when, if the white man honestly wanted to do some good he would be telling his hearers, colored and otherwise, that honesty, industry and thrift are the only sure stepping stones to success. But such talk would not get votes for the office-seeker and enable him to attach himself to a salary for two or more years. The laborer is often told by these men that he is being mistreated by his employer, etc., when such is not the fact. The result of this and much like talk to other classes and the masses has been that some of our people have been aroused to such an extent that they feel that they are not now doing their part on this earth unless they become members of some crusade against some class or some part of their fellow citizens and neighbors, and they neglect their own affairs and start out to reform everyone and everything; the result is there seems to be a veritable “rain" of law. Everyone wants to have a new law passed. There is a loud cry for changes of one kind or another on the theory that anything new must and will be better. The wisdom and experience of the past ages must be discarded because in conflict with the new theories of some present-day reformer or superficial thinker. Even the old style worship and religion must make way for the new forms of worship and new and numerous kinds of so-called religion. The Ten Commandments are obsolete. To acquire or own property is an evil. Associations are formed for the purpose of informing men and women that they are working too long; that they are not eating the proper foods; that their home conditions are not according to theoretical ideas and rules of health, and these people and reform associations have even gone so far as to prescribe that love must be made according to previously prescribed rules and that babies should

only be brought into the world according to rigid eugenic laws to be enacted by the legislatures of the different states. Almost every one has some special brand of reform that he is anxious to try on his neighbor; in fact, the object seems to be to make someone else do something according to the reformer's ideas. This class makes the plea that this is being done for humanity; that it is being done to raise the human race and benefit it. As a matter of fact, the actual result will be, if carried to its logical end, to reduce the human race to a uniform dead level and that uniform dead level will be the level of those lowest in intelligence. It is like a fleet of battleships starting out on a cruise. The speed of the entire fleet is fixed by the slowest vessel in it, and if we are going to equalize or level humanity we must, if we do it thoroughly and well, bring every one down to an absolute dead level, because, talk as we may, a certain percentage of the human race cannot be brought up in intellect or condition. Their Maker has endowed them with certain talents and qualities only and they can rise no higher. If we are going to level or equalize humanity we must go down, not up. Some of these reformers seem to believe that the day of universal new laws has arrived and laws are being proposed as fast as they can be printed on rapid-fire printing presses. The law-abiding and the law-evading citizen lie down together in the confusion of it. The great bulk of these proposed laws are not the product of men versed in the affairs with which they propose to deal, but are shaped by public or private parties who have some special rule, regulation or interest to protect or promote. They are most often not proposed for the public interest at all, but are fathered by some person who thinks he has a grievance or is promoting some scheme. Many of the proposed acts are simply reiterations of old laws or rules that have been tried, found wanting and been discarded in the past; in other cases, they are copied from some nation somewhere on the earth which is no larger in size than one of our states, where conditions, living and otherwise, are entirely different from our own. We are told that the government should own all railway systems in this country because possibly some small European country does so, absolutely forgetting the fact that over half the railroad mileage in the entire world lies in the United States and that to purchase these systems and pay even a fair value for them would be a financial transaction of such magnitude as the world has never before seen considered.

It is true that from time to time a revision of procedure and a codification of statutes is necessary. Obsolete, conflicting, repeated and inappropriate provisions of the laws should be eliminated and some new ones enacted to keep up with the march of intellectual and business progress. But to do this it is not necessary that we have an avalanche of freak legislation and new laws. While we have heretofore been discussing the apparent epidemic of law making, we

should not lose sight of the fact that these reformers have not permitted the bench and bar to remain unnoticed. I have in the last few months taken pains to look over a number of magazines with a special view of noting what reference they were making to the judges and the lawyers, and I find that almost every one of them contains some attack on either the bench or bar, sometimes direct and sometimes by innuendo. Some of the articles propose amended laws, new laws, new rules, etc., for our courts, and last, but not least, at a large public meeting recently held in the state of Washington, a gentleman proposed in all seriousness that a law be enacted, as soon as possible, fixing the maximum fee that should be charged by or paid to any lawyer and that upon a showing of the requisite amount of poverty lawyers should contribute their services to intending litigants free of charge. I therefore think that the time has arrived when it is proper and highly important that the legal profession should not sit idly by and permit itself to be submerged by any so-called law reform movement.

"The world do move," as a humorous writer once said, and we must recognize this fact also in dealing with these questions. We cannot sit idly by and say that our precedents and procedure has been good enough in the past and it is good enough now. We must concede that the time has come for some changes in our profession. We must meet changed conditions as they have been met by our profession in the past as when it was thought necessary in some of the states to adopt the code system of pleading to supplant the old common law form. The business methods of our people have greatly changed, and no doubt we will have to make some changes in our legal procedure and courts to keep up with these changes of our people. With our modern commercial system, new and rapid transportation problems, congested population, expensive habits of living, many changes have beeen made necessary in all lines of business and all professions, and we must keep step.

In one

The state of Washington is rich in natural resources. part of it and tributary we have large and valuable fisheries, which, in the opinion of men well advised in that industry, are destined to be the most valuable ever developed in the world. We have a large area of the best wheat land on earth; in another part of our state we have great deep water harbor facilities; in another part vast deposits of coal, and, we are informed, iron that can be worked in years to come at great profit; magnificent farms, fruit orchards, cattle ranches, and so forth, are to be found within our borders. We are capable of producing much livestock, wool and dairy products, and to add to all these we have some of the greatest building timber forests in the world. Alaska is at our door with great trade possibilities between it and this state. Most of our treasures have only been touched. Appurtenant to the development of all these great