educators, lawyers, judges, business men, authors, and publicists. In addition, an honorary committee, representative of the entire country has been formed by the Security League and associated bodies, through whose assistance the organization committee hopes to promote meetings during the summer culminating in simultaneous constitutional celebrations held next September in every city, town, and hamlet in every state of the Union.

The movement is receiving much encouragement and support. In accordance with a resolution adopted by the executive committee of the American Bar Association at a recent meeting, the president of that body has appointed a committee to formulate plans for the participation of the Association in the celebration. The Missouri State Bar Association has assumed full charge of the celebration in that state, as well as of the distribution of the preliminary literature and the organization of meetings. The Bar Association of Virginia, at its recent convention, adopted a resolution which we cannot forbear quoting in full. "Whereas the bar of Virginia has an abiding faith in the Constitution of the United States as the sure anchor of our ordered freedom in this time of transition and stress; and whereas this Association believes that indifference to constitutional restraints may become a menace to that liberty under law that we have enjoyed to our prosperity as a people; and whereas the bar should teach all our people to understand and appreciate the vital importance to their welfare of respect for the Constitution; be it resolved that the

president of the Virginia Bar Association do appoint a committee, to be composed of one member from each senatorial district, to arrange throughout the state a conspicuous, appropriate, and educational celebration of the birthday of the Constitution, on September seventeenth." An example of the co-operation of the great commercial bodies of the country in the movement is given in a resolution lately passed by the executive committee of the Southern Supply Association, one of the largest and most influentia! business organizations of the south, which reads in part as follows: "It is the desire and purpose of this association to bring our large membership into line to encourage in every way the study of those great historical documents which all Americans should understand, and understanding will reverence. The association agrees to co-operate and give active assistance in the national celebration of the birthday of the federal Constitution."

It is especially encouraging to learn that the Boy Scouts have been particularly responsive and enthusiastic in this matter. This fine organization deserves the highest praise and has an immensely important part to play in the future of our land. The mature. men of today owe a duty to their country in defending it against insidious foes from within no less than enemies from without. But after all, the future is in the hands of the rising generation. After only a few years, it is these lads of today who will constitute the intelligent, the influential, the capable, and the responsible citizenry of the United States. It is of the utmost

importance, then, that they should be thoroughly grounded in the fundamental principles of constitutional of constitutional government, in respect for law, and in due appreciation of the fact that it is the Constitution of the United States, alone among all the systems of the world and of history, that has adequately effected the reconciliation of the inalienable rights of the individual with the effective organization and administration of society for the public welfare.

These are times of grave unrest. Elsewhere and more than once, we have emphasized the seriousness of the attack upon our most cherished institutions. In planning and working for a nation-wide celebration of Constitution Day, the National Security League and the great patriotic organizations which have joined hands with it are thinking of the effort as a most important means of combatting bolshevism, anarchy, and extreme socialism, by getting to the very root of the evil. In all of its many activities against this growing menace in our country, which are occupying the principal attention of the League at this time, it is working on the basic idea that the best means of counteracting the propaganda of the "reds" is Americanism and that Americanism is purely a question of education. Believing that a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the real meanings of American institutions and ideals by all the people will effectually overcome all un-American doctrine, the League has launched this campaign as the best means to this end.

Its ultimate purpose and meaning are thus described by Dr. Robert M. McElroy, secretary of the organization committee: "All thoughtful men recognize the fact that republican government, to be successful, must be responsive to public demands. It must be truly progressive in character, ready to adapt itself to changing conditions, but tenacious of those fundamental principles which give stability. The reactionary movements falsely labeled 'progressive,' which are now challenging the attention of the world, are menacing in exact proportion to the ignorance of the people. The task of making Americans understand what America is and what representative government means is as vast as it is vital. It furnishes a field for service, immediately and obviously important to every society and to every citizen with an intelligent love for America and with a sense of the obligations pressing upon her. We wish to call to this task all who believe in America; all who see the vision of her world mission; all who wish to preserve her whole for the service of mankind; the Americans born, who are her sons by right of birth; the alien-born who are her sons by virtue of faith in her ideals, her children of the spirit. Both have borne arms in her defense; both are eager to prepare themselves for the no less difficult tasks of civil life. In calling the leaders, we are calling also those whom they have been chosen to lead. We have sent invitations for co-operation to the national patriotic associations, to bar associations, national and local, to the governors of all the states, to the mayors of two

hundred cities, to the state boards of education, to six hundred chambers of commerce; and we invite the assistance of all other societies which believe in the fundamental principles upon which our nation rests. To aid such

local speaking campaigns as may be organized, we will furnish speakers of prominence and literature prepared for the purpose of this campaign, a campaign solemnly dedicated to the principles of right, justice, equality, law, and liberty, which have here made a nation out of many races. We must make America's present safe, her future certain."

We call upon all the members of the National Association for Constitutional Government to lend every assistance in their power to the carrying forward of this great patriotic effort, to the end that the coming seventeenth of

September may prove to the world that, however demagogues may rant or anarchists howl, however the forces of dissolution may batter themselves freedom, the great mass of the Ameriagainst the firm foundation of our can people, men and women, still put their faith in the great charter of our liberties, still devote their thought, their reverence, and their courageous determination to the preservation of the Constitution of the United States.

STANDARDS OF AMERICAN LEGISLATION; An Estimate of Restrictive and

Constructive Factors. By Ernst Freund, Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Law in the University of Chicago. Chicago: University of ChiUniversity of Chicago Press, 1917. Pp. 327. $1.50 net.

This important work, according to a recent announcement, by vote of the faculty of the Harvard Law School, has been awarded the Ames Prize, which is given every four years "for the most meritorious law book or legal essay written in the English language and published not less than one nor more than five years before the award." Hitherto American statute law has been lacking in precision, stability, coherence, in the intelligent application of just rules to public needs, even in conformity to constitutional requirements. Professor Freund announces his book as a contribution to the movement for the improvement of our legislation. It does not rest satisfied with pointing out defects; it is an essay in constructive criticism. Under present conditions, the only criticism which effects results is that which is given by the courts when statutes are challenged for unconstitutionality. To a certain extent they do in this manner enforce forms and standards of legislation, but negatively rather than positively, and by destroying that which has been built up. Is it not possible, the author asks, to supplement this process "by a system of positive principles that should guide and con

trol the making of statutes, and give a more definite meaning and content to the concept of due process of law"?

It is in the field of "social legislation" that we discover the greatest defects and at the same time the greatest need for the standardization of legislation and for its establishment on a basis of principle rather than of experiment. After a highly informing review of this field, the author asks us to consider the ground work of legislation as found in the common lawfull of gaps where completeness is needed and vague at points where precision is requisite-and the expansible and shifting conception of public policy. We are thus led to a most interesting chapter on "the tasks and hazards of legislation," in which the problems of the law-maker are considered with reference to the uncertainty of common-law standards, the neces.sity of dealing with apprehended tendencies and conjectural dangers, and the application to human affairs of standards which are still contested or not sufficiently matured, so that the ensuing statute is less a formula than an experiment. Constitutional prohibitions and limitations, with which some of our state constitutions are badly overloaded, are found to be an impediment in the way of working out definite legislative principles. On the other hand, the author thinks that the courts, and, under their guidance, the great body of public and professional opinion, have been working out a system of "constitutional policy," which

is not so much a literal interpretation of specific words as a general conception of what our written constitutions mean in the adjustment between individual liberty and public needs. And "even the brief period of thirty years, during which the courts have enforced constitutional policies, has been sufficient to demonstrate that any apprehension of a permanent hindrance on their part to any phase of legislative progress is groundless. Indeed, there is rather reason to fear that the courts will exercise the guardianship committed to them with less confidence and boldness than is desirable."

The desideratum, then, is that the process of law-making should proceed upon principle, or upon a fixed body of principles. "Principle, as applied to legislation, in the jurisprudential sense of the term, does not form a sharp contrast to either constitutional requirement or policy, for it may be found in both; but it rises above both as being an ideal attribute demanded by the claim of statute law to be respected as a rational ordering of human affairs; it may be a proposition of logic, of justice, or of compelling expediency; in any event it is something that in the long run will tend to enforce itself by reason of its inherent fitness, or, if ignored, will produce irritation, disturbance, and failure of policy. It cannot, in other words, be violated with impunity, which does not mean that it cannot be or never is violated in fact. Perhaps the best criPerhaps the best criterion of principle is that reasonable persons can be brought to agree upon the correctness of a proposition, though

when they are called upon to apply it their inclinations or prejudices may be stronger than their reason."

As an aid in the establishment of principle in legislation, the author calls special attention to the importance of the proper correlation of provisions in a statute or a succession of statutes. As to provisions which are mutually related, it is an imperative requirement of logic. As to distinct and separable provisions, it makes a system out of a conglomerate of rules. But as he uses the term, correlation is not merely an ordering of words; it is the balancing of right with duty, the wedding of permission with obligation. Pressed to its conclusion, he observes, it would lead to results which at present are obviously beyond realization. Thus, it is inconsistent to impose upon public utility companies the obligation to serve the public without giving them at the same time the power to command the services of employees. But "if correlation means more carefully measured justice, standardization serves to advance the other main objects of law, namely, certainty, objectivity, stability, and uniformity. The principle of standardization has four main applications or phases in the making of statute law: conformity to undisputed scientific data and conclusions, the working out of juristic principles, the observance of an intelligible method in making determinations, and the avoidance of excessive or purposeless instability of policy." These subjects are discussed with much learning and an abundance of interesting illustrations.