The Bismarck Tribune

Editorial Comment
A Sane Executive
(Bruno Lessing in Los Angeles Examiner)

Here's a story from the state of North Dakota
which will startle many good-hearted and weak
minded reformers. North Dakota is a state that
prohibits the sale of cigarets, Sunday movies, dances
and Sunday business on one hand and, on the other
hand, has not made the slightest contribution to
art, science, literature or any other of the activities
of the human mind which beautify and improve life.

North Dakota, so far as the rest of the world is
concerned, represents merely agriculture, blue laws
and a contribution to the nation's population, freight
rates and taxes.

Now, along comes Mr. Arthur G. Sorlie, newly
elected governor of this state, who, in his inaugural
address, advises the Legislature to repeal the anti-
cigaret law. He announces his opposition to all
laws that attempt to regulate people's habits and
foibles. And, in referring to the growing disrespect
for law, he says:

"In my judgment the fault lies very largely at
the door of mistaken moral reformers who are con-
tinually asking for the passage of laws regulating
the lives and habits of our citizens and imposing
penalties for the doing of acts which, in themselves,
are not morally wrong."

This is his judgment.
Well, it's a very good,
clear and sane judgment. It is backed by the ex-
perience of many empires that have passed away,
destroyed by the making of laws.

People are never made better by laws. People
can never be made to accept a fact because the law
proclaims it to be a fact.

For instance:
Christianity is not practiced in
this country on any scale that you could ordinarily
notice. We have churches, collections for missions,
plenty of ministers and conventions, disputes on
orthodoxy or fundamentalism versus liberalism, and
religious lobbying in the halls of Legislatures and
Congress. But all this is talk. Money and talk,
talk, talk! The observance of the Golden Rule and
the rich man giving up his all to follow the Founder
of the religion--these are done in the dark.

Supposing, now, that Congress passed a law com-
pelling every citizen to follow the Golden Rule.
Would our people become better? You have only
to ask the question in order to realize how ridiculous
it is.

Laws should be made to preserve the peace, to
safeguard every individual in the possession of his
honest rights and to maintain the public health.
Beyond that point, most laws are nonsensical.

The reason we have so many is that mediocre
people who have failed to attain distinction in any
other line of endeavor, are elected to law-making
bodies where they feel that they must make new
laws in order to achieve popularity with their elec-
torate.

People cannot be educated by laws. People can
not be cured of stupid habits by laws. People can
not be made healthier or happier by laws. The only
thing in the world that can improve the human race
is to raise the level of its intelligence.
And it
would not be a bad idea to begin with the reformers.

Governor Sorlie has made a good start.