Our statute books are cluttered with legislation that represents somebody's good intention, rather than a real insight into what is possible. And these laws cannot be enforced in a country where the sense of democracy is strong. The law to be more than a sham must represent the real desire or obtain the consent of the biggest portion of the community. It does no good to legislate a morality which only the angels practice; it does only harm to pass bills which run counter to the deepest tendencies of the age. Yet many of our laws about sex and about business are so utterly unrelated to the ordinary lives of the American people that breaking the law is almost a national habit.
This lawlessness will continue until we make up our minds that legislation in a democracy is, first of all, a series of common rules which enables us to live together without too much friction; then, that law is a way of spending money for our cities and countryside so that we shall all have a better chance to live. Law is not a method of making us perfect. Perfection cannot be legislated at Albany or Washington. Neither is it a method of protecting property in the hands of people who happen to have it. Nor is it a method of strangling everything that is new, and of putting a damper on all aspirations.
In order to be effective, law in a democracy must be elastic, not brittle; it must be capable of changing and adapting itself to growth; it must set no impossible ideals; it must be satisfied at any particular moment with the best that is possible under the circumstances. So far as morals go, the law is concerned with the minimum. It sets the standard below which civilization should not sink, but it cannot pretend to say how the best of men should live.
