long run the Senate is probably the more conservative. As has been noted before, only four states have constitutional provisions as to the place of origination of appropriation bills. When such bills reach the Senate after having been sent from the assembly, they are referred first to the Finance Committee, and then reported by it to the Senate. Their treatment in the Senate is similar to that in the lower branch, and after passing the Senate they are returned with their new figures and amendments to the assembly.

In case the bills as returned are not accepted by the assembly, a conference committee is appointed of members from each House to adjust the differences. They seldom fail to agree, and more often than not adopt the assembly's figures in the bill they finally report. It happens very infrequently that supplies are refused because of a failure to agree. The same mode of procedure is followed in all the states in this respect.

There is not the same chronic complaint of underappropriations heard in our state legislatures as in the case of Congress, where a deficiency bill is to be considered as regularly as the annual session opens. In fact, there is greater danger of too large than of too small appropriations. Toward the end of the session, however, a supplemental supply bill is often introduced to make provision for deficiencies under the other grants or provide for new items of appropriation.

Such is, in brief, the method of dealing with general appropriation bills in the New York state legislature. Far different is the treatment of individual appropriation bills introduced by members. As soon as the committees are organized any member can introduce bills, and the right is practically without limit until toward the close of a session; and then only because of the physical impossibility on the part of the committees of considering new bills and the practical certainty that they will be " smothered" if they are referred. Private appropriation bills are not necessarily referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, as might be expected, but to the committee on canals, cities, or what not, for which the appropriation is designed. In other words, if a bill making an appropriation for deepening the Erie Canal in a certain locality were introduced by a member, it would be referred to the Committee on Canals and reported by them to the House. As such a committee is made up of men who live along the borders of the canal and who are pledged to their constituents to spend money on it, there is little chance of the bill being unfavorably reported. It is chiefly in connection with these bills that "logrolling," as this exchange of political favors is called (" you roll my log and I'll roll yours"), occurs, and of course the rooms of these committees are the chief scene of this sport. Mississippi is the only state whose constitution recognizes the existence of this evil and attempts to prohibit it by legislative

1 In a recent legislature one of the members, on being asked how he was going to vote on a certain rather questionable measure making a large grant of public money for purely local purposes, replied that "he had never voted against an appropriation bill during his entire term and he would not vote against this." And he did not stand alone in this position.

enactment. "Logrolling" is there defined as a felony, punishable by imprisonment of from one to ten years.

Hearings, usually anything but formal, are given to interested parties on proposed bills, and it is often possible to influence the chairman of a committee to report favorably. They are seldom averse to so reporting appropriation bills. When a day is appointed by a committee for hearings on a proposed bill, notice is given to the advocates of the bill; and if, by any happy accident,1 adversaries to the bill know that a measure is pending which they wish to oppose, they also have a chance to be heard. There is no attempt made to take proof, and the treatment of bills at these hearings is anything but judicial. If the bill involves large interests, the more effective work is done by trained lobbyists. After a bill has reached the legislature, too, its course may be and usually is favored by lobbying. So great had this latter evil become in some of our states that in three of them - California, Georgia, and Oregon - lobbying was declared a felony. In New York it is forbidden on the floor of the House!

The length of time for which appropriations are granted and during which they are available varies in different states. In New York, and in eight other states, the constitution provides that all payments under any specific appropriation must be made within two years of the passage of such appropriation act. All balances then unexpended revert, usually, to the General Fund, unless reappropriated. In sixteen other commonwealths the period is limited by legislative enactment to two years, or a similar period terminating after the opening of the next session of the legislature. In six of the commonwealths appropriations are good until they are exhausted or until the act making them is repealed. I could find no mention of the subject in either the constitutions or statute law of the remaining commonwealths, so that we may infer that no time limit is set to the period of their availability.

METHODS AND CONDITIONS OF LEGISLATION 2

BY JAMES BRYCE

I. The demand for legislation has increased and is increasing both here and in all highly civilized countries.

II. The task of legislation becomes more and more difficult, owing to the complexity of modern civilization, the vast scale of modern industry and commerce, the growth of new modes of production and distribution

1 A gentleman, whose business requires him to keep himself posted on the various measures before the legislature, informs me that he has for years paid a large annual sum to a certain man in Albany, whose sole business it is to keep track of all bills introduced in the legislature and notify his client when any which he considers injurious to the latter's interests are brought before the committees. This man has a large clientage, by whom he is paid for work which should be performed by the legislature. He keeps a large staff of clerks busy and draws a large income from this business.

2 From an address to the New York Bar Association, 1908.

that need to be regulated, yet so regulated as not to interfere with the free play of individual enterprise.

III. Many of the problems which legislation now presents are too hard for the ordinary members and even for the abler members of legislative bodies, because they cannot be mastered without special knowledge. (It may be added that in the United States a further difficulty arises from the fact that legal skill is often required to avoid transgressing some provision of the federal or a state constitution.)

IV. The above conditions make it desirable to have some organized system for the gathering and examination of materials for legislation, and especially for collecting the laws passed in other countries on subjects of current importance.

V. To secure the pushing forward of measures needed in the public interest, there should be in every legislature arrangements by which some definite person or body of persons becomes responsible for the conduct of legislation.

VI. Every modern legislature has more work thrown on it than it can find time to handle properly. In order, therefore, to secure sufficient time for the consideration of measures of general and permanent applicability, such matters as those relating to the details of administration or in the nature of executive orders should be left to be dealt with by the administrative department of government, under delegated powers, possibly with a right to disapprove reserved to the legislature.

VII. Similarly, the more detailed rules of legal procedure ought to be left to the judicial department or some body commissioned by it, instead of being regulated by statute.

VIII. Bills of a local or personal nature ought to be separated from bills of general applicability and dealt with in a different and quasi-judicial way.

IX. Arrangements ought to be made, as, for instance, by the creation of a drafting department connected with a legislature or its chief committees, for the putting into proper legal form of all bills introduced.

X. Similarly, a method should be provided for rectifying in bills before they become law such errors in drafting as may have crept into them during their passage.

XI. When any bill of an experimental kind has been passed, its workings should be carefully watched and periodically reported on as respects both the extent to which it is actually enforced (or found enforcible) and the practical results of the enforcement. A department charged with the enforcement of any act would naturally be the proper authority to report. XII. In order to enable both the legislature and the people to learn what the statute law in force actually is, and thereby to facilitate good legislation, the statute law ought to be periodically revised, and, as far as possible, so consolidated as to be brought into a compact, consistent, and intelligible shape.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE DEPARTMENT1

BY CHARLES MCCARTHY

LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE WORK

The Legislative Reference Department of the Wisconsin Library Commission was established in a small way in 1901. It became apparent at once that the demands of this library were of a peculiar nature, which could not be readily met by the ordinary library methods or by the ordinary library material.

A plan was devised which has been since carried out as far as the resources given by the legislature would permit. We found that there was no coöperation between the different states of this Union in the matter of getting the history of legislation. We found that there was a constant demand for a history of what had occurred in Europe or in any state of the Union, upon a certain subject of interest to the people of this state. We tried to supply this demand by getting such indexes of up-to-date legislation as were published, by getting the bills from other states as well as the documents explanatory of legislative movements in other states, and arranging these under the subjects so they would be immediately at the service of all who desired to see them. We soon found that even this material did not solve the problem. We found it necessary to clip newspapers from all over the country and to put the clippings in book form, to index them carefully, and put them also with the subjects. We went over our own bills and carefully indexed them back for four sessions, and by noting the subjects which were contained in those bills. we anticipated the problems with which the legislature had to grapple. These problems or special subjects we carefully worked up through the most minute detail. It was comparatively easy to get laws and court cases, but it was a far harder job to find how those laws were administered, and to find the weaknesses in them and to note as far as possible how they could be adapted to our use here.

Our short experience has taught us many things. We have been convinced that there is a great opportunity to better legislation through work of this kind,— that the best way to better legislation is to help directly the man who makes the laws. We bring home to him and near to him everything which will help him to grasp and understand the great economic problems of the day in their fullest significance, and the legislative remedies which can be applied and the legislative limitations which exist. We must take the theory of the professors and simplify it so that the layman can grasp it immediately and with the greatest ease. The legislator has no time to read. His work is new to him, he is beset with routine work, he has to have conferences with his friends upon political 1 From a bulletin of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Department, 1908.

matters, he is beset by office seekers and lobbyists, and he has no time to study. If he does not study or get his studying done for him, he will fall an easy prey to those who are looking out to better their own selfish ends. Therefore we must shorten and digest and make clear all information that we put within his reach.

We must, first of all, get near to the legislator, even as the lobbyist does. I do not mean that we must use the evil methods of the lobbyist, but we must win the legislator's confidence and his friendship and understand him and his prejudices. We must not be arrogant, presumptive, opinionated, or dogmatic. We are dealing with men who are as a rule keen and bright, who as a rule have made a success of business life. We must always remember that we are but clerks and servants who are helping these men to gather data upon things upon which we have worked, as they have worked at their business. We must be careful to keep our private opinions to ourselves and let the evidence speak for itself. We are not doing this work to convert, but to help and to clear up. No busy man can keep track of legislation, and especially complex legislation of our modern times, in one state, let alone half a hundred states. It is our work to do that,— to find out the history of particular pieces of legislation, to find out how a law works, to get the opinions of just lawyers, professors, doctors, publicists, upon these laws and to put their opinions, well digested, in such form that it can be readily used and understood by any legislator even in the whirl and confusion of the legislative session.

Some essentials in carrying on this work may be summarized briefly : 1. The first essential is a selected library convenient to the legislative halls. This library should consist of well-chosen and selected material. A large library is apt to fail because of its too general nature and because it is liable to become cumbersome. This library should be a depository for documents of all descriptions relating to any phase of legislation from all states, federal government, and particularly from foreign countries like England, Australia, France, Germany, and Canada. It should be a place where one can get a law upon any subject or a case upon any law very quickly. It is very convenient to have this room near a good law library. Books are generally behind the times, and newspaper clippings from all over the country, and magazine articles, court briefs, and letters must supplement this library and compose to a large extent its material.

2. A trained librarian and indexer is absolutely essential. The material is largely scrappy and hard to classify. We need a person with a liberal education, who is original, not stiff, who can meet an emergency, and who is tactful as well.

3. The material is arranged so that it is compact and accessible. Do not be afraid to tear up books, documents, pamphlets, clippings, letters, manuscripts, or other material. Minutely index this material. Put it under the subjects. Legislators have no time to read large books. We have no