Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statuteStimson, Frederic Jesup
History
Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute
Stimson, Frederic Jesup
Legislation -- United States
Of the first sort of legislation, we have noted that in many States
adultery, in many States simple drunkenness, in other States mere
single acts of immorality, are made felonies. In 1892 the State laws
against food adulteration begin, which, by 1910, have covered milk,
butter, maple sugar, and many other subjects. By the Federal pure-food
law of 1906, applying to Interstate commerce in such articles, it
became advisable for the States to adopt the Federal Act as a State
law; also for the sake of uniformity a few States have had the
intelligence to do so. The trades of fat-rendering and bone-boiling
are made nuisances by statute.
In 1896 we note the first statutes against lynching. In 1897 local
option prevails in Texas, and the blue laws of Connecticut are
abolished to the extent that recreation on Sundays is no longer
prohibited. Local option and anti-lynching laws continue during the
next two or three years, and by 1900 twenty-four States have pure-food
laws, which, however, are ineffective because they impose no
sufficient penalty. In 1903, in consequence of the assassination of
President McKinley, Washington and Wisconsin make the advocating
anarchy a felony. Twenty-one more States pass pure-food laws, and
nearly all the States have gone over to local option from State-wide
prohibition, to which latter principle only three States now adhere.
In 1904 Mississippi and Virginia adopt more stringent laws against
vagrancy, and 1905 is the year of active legislation on the
indeterminate sentence, juvenile courts, parole and probation, with
two more statutes against mobs and lynching. In 1907 the States are
busied with the attempt to enforce their prohibition regulations
against the interstate commerce jurisdiction of the Federal
government. Solicitation of interstate orders for liquor is forbidden
in Mississippi, and it is provided that shipments sent C.O.D. are
not to be moved one hundred feet or given away; also, that the mere
possession of an internal revenue receipt from the United States
government is _prima facie_ evidence of an offence against the State
law. Statutes of this kind led to renewed conflict between State and
Federal authority. Virginia adopts the statute against giving tips or
any commissions; see p. 244 above. In 1908 we find more parole and
probation laws, two prohibition and three local-option laws, and four
new pure-food statutes.
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