AMERICANIZATION. The popular use of the word Americanization, and the general acceptance in the United States of the idea it stands for, date from the early months of the World War. Long before the United States became an actual belligerent, American reactions to European hostilities had revealed the fact, long familiar to close students of the immigration problem, that the population of the United States contained vast sections of foreigners who, in spite of long residence in America, were still completely alien in sympathy, loyalty and general social and emo tional affiliations. These persons were clearly thinking and feeling as Germans, Irish, English or Italians, not as Americans. Most disturbing of all was the inescapable realization that these f oreign minded elements included many naturalized American citizens, sometimes of long standing. It was perhaps a premonition that the United States must eventually become involved in the great conflict that made these facts produce such widespread consterna tion. The Americanization movement, therefore, as a distinct sociological phenomenon, may justly be considered a product of war conditions, though it is quite probable that in this, as in so many other cases of social movement, the war merely accelerated a change that was destined to come eventually in any case.
The objective of Americanization is nothing new. It is merely assimilation, the harmonization of alien with native elements into a homogeneous socio-political unit. The novelty lies in the method. Before the revelations of the war it had been generally assumed that assimilation took place in the United States spontaneously, without the exertion or necessity of any conscious effort on the part of anybody. The metaphor of the "melting pot" had been introduced and enthusiastically accepted to symbolize the mystical potency of the great democracy whereby peoples from every cor ner of the earth were fused into a harmonious and presumably ad mirable blend. Once this illusion was shattered it was inevitable that the American people should determine to do something about it. The Americanization movement represents a determination to accomplish by deliberate, purposeful means the indispensable assimilation which it was clear could no longer be trusted to natural, spontaneous forces. It was also characteristic of the American people that the means chosen should be organization, particularly through committees, and education. The two fore most committees, which promoted and stimulated the movement in its early phases, were the Committee for Immigrants in America and the closely related National Americanization committee. These worked in close co-operation with the Federal Bureau of Education which, through its Americanization division, published a special periodical, Americanization, promoted conferences and fostered the movement in various ways. The idea won immediate popularity. It became a favourite form of patriotic service, par ticularly after the entry of the United States into the war, for countless individuals whose available time was not engrossed by other war activities. Americanization agencies and activities in almost unlimited variety sprang up throughout the country. The unifying principle was the general educational conception of the problem. The logic was simple. These unassimilated foreign indi viduals lacked some of the important characteristics of genuine Americans. This was dangerous for America. Therefore they must be taught the missing qualities. The basic theory of Amer icanization at this stage of its development was that assimilation can be accomplished through an educational programme.
The deficiencies selected for correction were naturally the most conspicuous, specifically lack of mastery of the English\language and of knowledge of American civics and history. These three subjects constituted the backbone of the Americanization cur riculum. To them, however, were soon added many supplementary accomplishments such as millinery, cooking, social amenities and the care of babies, all treated in the American manner, and all to be attained by means of an educational regime. For this ex pansive programme all available educational agencies, with neces sary modifications and adjustments, were mobilized and many special agencies were created. The public schools organized night schools and opened various kinds of special classes, State depart ments of education formed Americanization divisions, universities and city governments appointed Americanization directors, and many industrial concerns co-operated eagerly in the establishment of special classes for alien workers. A national conference on Americanization in industries was held in Boston in 1919.
Enthusiasm for Americanization persisted throughout the war period, and was prolonged into the reconstruction period, largely stimulated by the "Red Radical hysteria" which infected the country for two or three years. Gradually, however, interest diminished. One after another the subsidiary features were dropped, until Americanization became synonymous with teach ing foreigners English, civics and history, and eventually English alone in many cases. This was due to several causes : first, the subsidence of war-time apprehensions themselves, and preoccu pation with other matters; secondly, the tremendous decline in immigration due to war conditions and special restrictive legis lation.
With the decline of the war-time attitude of extreme nation alism, many broad-minded Americans began to regard it as not only bigoted but also unwise to insist upon the complete trans formation of the foreigner into the American type. They became convinced that the culture of the United States could be profitably enriched by the incorporation of some of the more admirable fea tures of the various foreign nationalities. Attempts were made to supplant the metaphor of the melting-pot by other symbols, such as a "weaving-machine," which should suggest the harmonious combination of traits, not blended but preserved in their pristine quality. Americanization was presented as a two-sided process of give-and-take. Simultaneously, many students and practitioners of Americanization began to question whether, after all, it is possible to attain the objectives aimed at by means of an educa tional programme. The truth seemed to be that genuine assimila tion is attained not by learning but by living. The process in volved represents a prolonged and difficult reaction to a social environment much more vital, involved and inclusive than that of a class-room. So deeply did these convictions penetrate that within less than a decade after the armistice, many workers were reluctant to apply the word Americanization to the most well conceived and constructive activities. As a result it has been customary to refer to those permanent and unemotional features of the program which still remain as "adult education of the foreign-born" (see ADULT EDUCATION), intimating that as far as the rising generation is concerned the educational phases of assimi lation have been resigned to the regular public schools.
Rightly to judge these latter developments, it is necessary to comprehend clearly the process and the desirability of assimilation. On both of these points there is still considerable divergence of opinion. Some prominent thinkers, native as well as foreign, believe that assimilation in its accepted sense is not a desirable goal, but that the United States will reach its highest pinnacle by preserving many separate cultures side by side within its bound aries. Others continue to insist that assimilation is a two-way process. The outstanding trend of opinion, however, is probably toward the conclusion that assimilation is indispensable to national dignity, prosperity, and even existence, and that in a situation so complicated as that of the United States the only practicable means to that end is to accept one national culture, the American, as the norm and to insist that all foreign cultures must be sub merged in it. At least, one anomalous war-time development has been almost completely abandoned, viz., that of coerced naturali zation, the insistence that the foreigner, whether willing or not, whether assimilated or not, must be compelled to acquire American citizenship on pain of deportation or some other penalty.
(H. P. F. ) AMERICAN LAW. Speaking in a technical sense there is no American law. Except within a field constitutionally re stricted, there is no national supreme tribunal to unify legal doc trine. Neither is there a common law of the United States as a sovereign State. Each of the States has its own common law, un restrained otherwise than by certain provisions of the Federal Constitution ; and none of these necessarily tends to produce unity of law except the clause requiring that "full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State"; a provision which does some what tend to unify doctrines respecting the conflict of laws. It is also possible that the decisions of the lower Federal courts that sit in every State and the decisions of the Supreme Court tend to regularize and nationalize judicial doctrine. This is true within the field of "general commercial law," in which the Supreme Court has held since 1842 that the Federal courts sitting within the several States are not bound to follow the judicial doctrines of the local courts ; and have in fact been developing a national body of Federal commercial law, which the States have tended to follow, although not bound to do so. The importance of this was greater, however, before the spread of the various uniform acts which in recent decades have been prepared by the American Bar Association for adoption by all the States. These statutes illustrate the sense in which there does exist an American law,— there is a great body of judicial tradition, and a vast mass of legis lation, embodying the rules and standards by which the American people, regardless of State lines, are content to guide their lives ; and all this law presents broad features of unity. Indeed, nothing is more astonishing than the rapid spread of statutes, in a few years, into dozens or even scores of States—thus evidencing popu lar convictions nationally dominant ; nothing more certain than the slower spread of a judicial doctrine that is felt to have adjusted justice to new conditions.
Of the civil law that once prevailed in territory subjec to France and Spain little trace remains to-day except in Louisiana and in the variant marital community systems in seven other States.
In the sense just explained American law is marked by four periods of development.
For these reasons, and because the colonies were isolated and -imperial control slight, the i 7th century, in particular, was a period of experiment and creativeness. The colonists were well aware of the proposals of reform and codification made by Lord Bacon and under the Commonwealth, and some of their codes were prepared in England by men who evidently sympathized with those proposals. Dozens of striking innovations—some of them of singularly modern semblance—were made upon the com mon law ; some persisted into the later law—among which the most important was perhaps the recording of conveyances. For two reasons, however, the history of this period, although pro foundly interesting in itself, must be regarded as apart from the general legal development of the country. In the first place, be cause its practices were too divergent from the tradition of the common law. There were almost no law books—original, re printed or imported; in most of the Colonies there were extremely few trained lawyers ; even the chief justices were rarely lawyers; the highest courts were legislative or executive. Laymen admin istered a sort of natural equity. In the second place, because most of the valuable innovations were abandoned as soon as a recep tion of the common law began.
In the i8th century something like an independent judiciary developed. Imperial control became a reality; colonial statutes were disallowed (400 of them) for departures from established law; judicial appeals to England became steadily more numerous. A professional bar—for which there was evidently no place in the preceding century—gradually developed. Many of its leaders studied in the Inns of Court (perhaps 5o before i 760; 115 be tween r 76o and 1783) ; and to a very remarkable degree it was composed, otherwise, of graduates of American colleges. When the Revolution came it was entirely dominant, and this pre eminence it retained for a century. This period was one of absorption of the English law, marked by the disappearance of older innovations and the development of few new ones. That it is in the truest sense an integral part of American legal evolution could be illustrated in many ways. Sufficient is a reference, in the field of procedure, to its system of courts, the most charac teristic feature of which—the multiplication of local tribunals that brought justice near to every man, instead of a circuit system —has persisted (for similar reasons born of frontier conditions and self-government) to the present day ; and, in substantive law, the origin of the American doctrine that in libel truth (subject indeed to commentary for which there is no room) is a defence.
The whole of colonial experience was of course continuous and so the spirit of the earlier century lived on through the later. Demonstrably, various of its positive innovations, clearly adapted to colonial conditions, persisted against the English reception. As for many innovations of omission, doubtless "mere ignorance had freed the colonies of a great mass of antiquated and useless rub bish" (32 N.H. 231), but what was once overlooked in ignorance must later have been excluded in wisdom.
Notable statutes of the period are fairly numerous; permitting grants in fee without mention of heirs; granting powers in rem to courts of equity; legitimizing children by subsequent marriage of their parents; abolishing entails and the Rule in Shelley's Case; abolishing primogeniture and establishing inheritance equally by all children; modifying the law of devises in favour of after born children and the issue of predeceased children; conferring limited liability upon corporations; providing a general law under which corporations might freely organize. Pennsylvania—"the first of civilized countries to do so"—provided in 1776 for a peni tentiary; presumably under the influence of Beccaria, whose book had already been published in America and was soon to be found on the remotest frontiers. At the same time she introduced relief for insolvent debtors, and within a generation they were "schedul ing out" of jail in remote western territories. New York, in 1827, made a complete revision of her statute-book, altering funda mentally the law of realty and providing a system which exists to-day in various States. Very notable also were reforms due to popular disuse, such as the dying-out of feoffments, fines and recoveries; all of which were used in colonial times and were provided for in the statutes of this period. These illustrations sufficiently indicate the experimental spirit of the time. It was not displayed in equal degree by the judiciary. Preferable to Kent's lament was the denunciation of demurrers by a contem porary farmer judge, as "an invention of the bar to prevent justice . . . a cursed cheat !" (III.) 1828-68.—Almost as distinctly as in political history, the triumph of frontier democracy in the elections of 1828 marks the transition to a new era in the law. It is a period great for its critical spirit. Also, though individualism was the dominant notion of the contemporary world, in politics and in economics, and though the frontier influence might have been expected to exalt its influence, it is a period remarkable for its social spirit. Both judicial and legislative improvements reveal its originality. What Wigmore has said of the law of evidence could be said of other fields of law: "Partly because of the lack of treatises and reports, partly because of the tendency to question important rules and therefore to defend on grounds of principle and policy whatever could be defended, partly because of the moral obliga tion of the judiciary, in new communities, to vindicate by in tellectual effort its right to supremacy over the bar, and partly, also, because of the advent, coincidently, of the same rationalizing spirit which led to the reformatory legislation—this very necessity of restatement led to a finely reasoned system." Very important in this period, rivalling the influence of James Kent in the preced ing, was the work of Joseph Story, who in 13 years (1832-45) published nine remarkable text-books, which in rapidly succeeding editions had a profound effect in forming American law.
Thus, in the law of evidence, "the period from 1840 to 1870 saw the enactment, in the various jurisdictions in this country, of most of the reformatory legislation which had been carried or proposed in England," and the promulgation of a body of opinions "superior (on the whole) to the judgments uttered in the native home of our law." Notable innovations were the repudiation of the merger of torts in crimes and of postponement of the civil action; repudiation of the doctrine of ancient lights (impossible in a new country) ; introduction of apportionability of rent ; the first decisions permitting suits upon a contract by the beneficiary (now the general doctrine) ; the first decisions treating divorce as a proceeding in rem and recognizing a woman's separate domicile for purpose of divorce ; notable decisions—though with precedents "from the first colonization" (Chief Justice Waite)—upholding the regulation of private business "affected with a public interest"; and the first of many decisions forbidding the malicious use of a land owner's privileges.
Many changes plainly reflect the special conditions of the country. Examples of such were the substitution of navigability for the tidal test of admiralty jurisdiction, thus adapting it to the inland seas and rivers of the country; the introduction of the doctrine of "colour of title" in adverse possession, and other minor changes in that subject due to frontier conditions; fence laws reversing the common law duties respecting trespass by ani mals; decisions concerning grain elevators that made novel changes in the law of bailments and confusion of goods. Ameri can deeds began to assume forms suitable to the simple descrip tions and titles of the country ; quitclaim deeds became primary and original conveyances; disseisees acquired the right to make conveyances. Great modifications were made in equitable doc trines of laches and forfeitures in specific performance of con tracts for the purchase of land on instalments—modifications due to the fact that in America land has always been a subject of commerce, as Kent pointed out a century ago. amazing persistence of benefit of clergy down to (and indeed through) this period was certainly due to the illiteracy of even prominent citi zens in frontier society. A very remarkable adoption of frontier customs in this period (though mainly by statute) was that of the mining and water laws developed in western mining camps.
Even more distinctive than the work of the courts was the legislation of this period. At this time reform by statute became, and has remained, the primary characteristic of American Govern ment and law. "The establishment of self-government on a new soil realized the idea of the people as the source of political power as it had not been realized in historic times" (Freund) ; and on a scale equally unique they proceeded to illustrate the dictum that democracy relies on laws rather than on men. Religious and property qualifications for voting, office-holding and jury service were swept away by the middle of the century. To these triumphs of liberalism a third was added in the creation of a public school system before the Civil War. A prelude to the use of the police power in the following period appears in the elaborate constitu tional provisions, beginning before 185o, respecting banks, rail roads and canals ; and in statutes requiring periodical or cash payments of wages. Income taxes of the modern sense were adopted in the 183os and '4os in six States. A great moral move ment in the political field—for prohibition, anti-slavery and women's rights—and an altruistic effort on a vast scale in favour of the poor and defective marked the entire period. Ex emption laws (which came down from colonial times) became general and liberal. Very notable was the appearance of the home stead (1836) and its inclusion in the exemption statutes. Save for slight vestiges, imprisonment for debt was everywhere abolished. The narrow protection in property rights accorded married women by equity was widened by statutes which have placed them on an equality with their husbands; although not until 1913 were the disabilities of coverture abolished in the last State. Judicial liber alism supplemented this legislation, e.g., in recognizing a wife's right in the society of her consort. It was recognition of woman's equal participation in the hazards and hardships of frontier life that wrote this entire chapter of the law. Children were protected against parental cruelty by imposing criminal responsibility; reformatories were established for minor delinquents—but their criminal liability was not much altered. In the law of property rules of inheritance were greatly changed in favour of parents, surviving spouses, the half-blood and illegitimate children. Heirs and next of kin became generally identical. Howsoever acquired, and whether from the paternal or maternal side, estates were made to descend in the same manner. All real estate became liable to execution and administration assets for payment of debts with few preferences. The fictions of ejectment disappeared. In this whole field, however, legislative reform has always been partial, casual and unsatisfactory. Variations from State to State remain to the present day innumerable. The distinctions between realty and personalty and between legal and equitable estates are still fundamental. The doctrines of tenure, and the devices to evade them that fill the law of future interests, remain in most States untouched except by fragmentary tinkerings. Entails are still theoretically possible in various States. Shelley's Case has life in about half the States. Dumpor's Case, and others of ill repute, still pervert legal doctrine.
Equity, on the other hand, was developed with relative con sistency. The erratic state of the property law still extends, how ever, to mortgages, which are hardly the same in any two States; although everywhere the legal incidents tend toward obsolescence. The equitable doctrine of priorities has from colonial days been fundamentally modified by the recording system. For historical reasons the spread of the equity system was delayed in various States, proceeding piecemeal by statutory grant ; even Massa chusetts having no complete system until 1877, nor Pennsylva nia one to-day. The infiltration of equity into law, in such States, was a unique detail of American legal experiment. No American court exercises the full jurisdiction of English courts of chancery, its administrative portions having been given to separate tribunals. The development of probate courts was a noteworthy feature of the period before the Civil War. During it, also, the equitable jurisdiction was generally entrusted to courts of double jurisdic tion (in five States they still remain distinct and some others maintain distinct chancery terms). Under the codes of civil procedure which have been adopted since 1848 in many States the administrative fusion has been complete; the common law actions and the distinction between law and equity being abolished, in the sense that rights and reliefs formerly "legal" or "equitable" are all enforced in one "civil action." It is certain that under both these systems the principles of equity, enforced by judges trained primarily in the common law system, have somewhat suffered; the separate equity courts are, as a group, the strongest in the country to-day. On the other hand, not only did the adoption of the codes hasten the spread of equity throughout the country, but there is a steady and beneficent infiltration of its doctrines into law cases which must ultimately result in complete fusion and the general dominance of equity.
The adoption of these codes of civil procedure is the most re markable feature of the third period, and on the whole, the most ambitious systematic reform yet undertaken in American law. The ideals of these codes have been only imperfectly realized. For various reasons (not the least, the hostility of the courts when the codes were first created) their construction has been hardly less balefully technical (and perhaps less certain) than the old common law system. Constant legislative tinkering in creased uncertainty and resulted in monstrosities of bulk and complexity. While their fundamental reforms will doubtless never be abandoned, there has been in recent years a strong agitation for the regulation of strictly procedural matters by rules of court. As yet this movement has had slight success.
In some ways popular control in this period debased the judiciary. Of particularly evil consequence was a tendency to restrict the power of the trial judge in charging the jury, for bidding more than a bare restatement of the evidence. This re mains to-day general practice. Down to 1798 all the judges were appointed by the governor or elected by the legislatures ; by 1840 popular election was characteristic, and since then it has become increasingly predominant. A tendency to shorten the term of tenure sprang from democratic distrust of irresponsible authority. The powers of practically any judge to declare legis lation unconstitutional and to issue injunctions have kept alive such distrust. Elective terms, however, have always been long as compared with those of other officials, and no frontier State ever made judicial tenure so short and precarious as did two of the oldest States in New England. There is decidedly an increasing tendency to-day to re-elect worthy judges and to make their salaries adequate. Few leaders of the bar can be drawn from practice by any feasible salary, unless under tenure for good behaviour; but the rising level of judicial ability and the many instances of brilliant men who have already served on the bench justify the belief that judicial competence is obtainable under the elective system. The gravest charge that can be brought against the frontier democracy of the period before the Civil War is that it greatly lowered the standards of admission to the bar.
The bench was both able—in some States, notably in the South, brilliant—and liberal. The legislatures were character ized by rationalism and enlightenment. The bar, whatever its defects, dominated the legislatures and enjoyed in general a social and political prestige far beyond that which it holds to-day. On the whole, the period is the greatest in the legal history of the country.
The establishment of unbridled democracy a century ago only slightly affected the treatment of industrial property. "For at least 6o years after the adoption of universal suffrage the tend ency was all in the other direction—to legislate for the prop erty owner rather than against him ; to strengthen the powers of capital rather than diminish them. . . . The small protection given to the rights of man, as compared with that which was accorded to the rights of property, is a salient feature in the early history of every American State—and sometimes of its later history also" (Hadley). The explanation of this fact lies undoubtedly in the loose economic framework of society. Cheap land created a people of freeholders without class distinctions, among whom any man who aimed high might rise high. Radi calism, in such a society, could gain no headway. That came with the development of great urban centres and an industrialized so ciety : the rural population was nine-tenths of the total in i800, and little less in 185o, but less than half in 192o.
Industrial regulation of modern type began about 187o with the railroads, and its assertion "shook the foundation of State and national politics for a generation." The subsequent increase of administrative commissions, with inquisitorial powers and free from judicial procedure and review, is perhaps the most striking phenomenon in recent legislation. There is a present tendency to standardize procedure and there seems to be develop ing in this way a great field of administrative law. Trade regu lation, though with some history for 1 oo years, has only very recently increased with extraordinary rapidity; for example, pure food laws, now universal, began in 1892.
The purely legal status of the American industrial worker is unique. The exemption statutes have lessened the effectiveness of the law's remedy of damages ; the 13th Amendment of the Fed eral Constitution, prohibiting "involuntary servitude," makes specific performance impossible, even were equity minded to try it. Yet these immunities were relatively worthless so long as the worker was unprotected against unfair agreements secured through his economic needs. The tendency is strongly toward increasing restriction upon "freedom" of contract and "right" to labour, although this has only very recently begun to over come constitutional obstacles. As late as 1905 the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a law regulating the hours of bakers, but the case is already without vitality ; it was killed by a dissenting epigram of Mr. Justice Holmes—"the 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics." In the field of tort nothing had been done up to 190o beyond limitations upon the rules of fellow servant, contributory negligence, and assump tion of risk, sometimes through and sometimes outside of em ployers' liability laws ; thus leaving wholly unprovided for at least half of all industrial accidents. Since 191o, however, all the States have adopted workmen's compensation acts (first, 1902), and most of them industrial insurance acts. Social insurance, otherwise, is still incipient.
The range of other social legislation has been immense. Much is purely moralistic (against gambling, racing, cigarettes, liquor, sexual sin, etc.). The treatment of women merits, perhaps, special mention. Within the family the married woman has been placed in substantial equality with her husband. In industry the attempt to give her special protection has been a storm centre of agitation.
In general women enjoy to-day such protection and to some extent a favoured position in property and domestic relations. Divorce is in one State not allowed at all; elsewhere causes run from adultery only to a score and more, including mental cruelty and incompatibility. Such causes are in many instances a cover for mutual consent. As a State need not recognize a foreign divorce improperly obtained by or against its citizens, a woman's status might possibly be that of lawful spouse, divorcee or bigamist in different jurisdictions. Suits for breach of promise to marry and for alienation of affection (both almost exclusively brought by women) are curiosities of American law. "Common-law" mar riage still exists in many States. Desertion of wife or children, a very common offence, is generally a crime and a score of States have adopted a uniform act on this subject prepared by the American Bar Association. In recent years there has been con siderable eugenic legislation restraining freedom of marriage.
The non-inclusion of counsel fees in costs is universal American practice, but its importance as a handicap upon the poor and a weapon in the hand of the unscrupulous is at last being recognized.
All the evils of procedure present in civil suits exist in more aggravated form in criminal suits, with many others in addition. Homicides alone are estimated by many authorities at about i o,000 yearly. That many kinds of urban crime are an organized business seems to be unquestionable. That lawyers are essential to, when not part of, this business, prepared with every legal device to delay and evade justice for their criminal clients, is of ten manifest. Cases of worthless bail bonds, of criminals at large under several bonds at once, given in different cases, are noto rious. Equally alarming is the actual inequality of men, rich or poor in money, before the law, in consequence of its delays ; and of those rich or poor in influence in being brought before it. In 1909 President Taft declared the administration of the criminal law in all the States, with possibly "one or two exceptions" to be "a disgrace to our civilization." Frequently hundreds, sometimes thousands, of veniremen are examined before a jury is secured; usually days, sometimes months, are thus utilized. Delays in trial are even greater than in civil cases. Indictments are still found deficient in appellate courts, though here recent years have witnessed great improvement, for flaws of unbelievable triviality. The defendant is nowhere compelled to testify. Punishments for the same crime vary amazingly from State to State. In some States the jury has large discretion in fixing the punishment ; in many it is judge of both the law and facts. The requirement of unanimous verdicts is universal in criminal cases.
Legislation is at present extremely active in remedying many of these evils. Eight States in 1926-27 adopted habitual-criminal acts which, among other things, impose life-imprisonment upon a defendant with a record of a small number (usually four) of earlier convictions. Minors have been given greater protection (since 19o0) by greatly raising the age of criminal responsibility (to 16 or i 8) ; and establishing special courts to deal with the younger delinquents, subjecting these to the State's guardianship somewhat as under the old doctrines of equity. In the field of punishment notable reforms have been introduced : suspended and indeterminate sentences, commutations for good behaviour and parole. But even these are perverted. Weak or calculating judges abuse the first with a leniency so excessive that it approaches immunity; the second appear plainly to be over-generous to hard ened offenders; the most vicious of criminals are often paroled. The primary cause is probably politics ; indubitably so in some States, where every step—whether or not an arrest shall be made, the defendant held to the grand jury, the case dismissed, the convict paroled—seems to be seriously entwined with political corruption.
For these evils, and equally for the evils in trial and appellate courts, in civil and criminal cases, which spring from a deep-rooted attitude toward litigation as a mere game of wit, there is no cure except in an increased power and awakened conscience of the bench, and a general betterment in the moral tone of the bar. At least as regards intellectual improvement much has been accom plished. The university law schools are of distinguished excellence and enjoy a high professional prestige. Higher standards of educa tion are being enforced through requirements for admission to the bar—the American Bar Association now advocating a minimum pre-legal education of two years in college and a minimum profes sional training of three years in law-school—but less than a dozen States meet these standards. Disbarment is in the hands of the courts and has been far too sparingly resorted to. A few States have very recently incorporated their bars as self-governing bodies, with exclusive power over admission and discipline.
The impulse to codification has come from the unmanageable bulk of judicial law and the consequent uncertainty of legal knowledge. The number of volumes of American reports in 1917 was 17,000. The cases cited by the court in any volume run into hundreds and frequently into thousands, from many jurisdictions. In the five years 1909-13 there were passed by the National and State Governments 62,014 statutes; and there were rendered by the courts of last resort 65,379 decisions. The law is beyond the power of any layman to discover or to comprehend.
Very much has been wisely said on the necessity of guiding legislation and judicial decision by the functional test of social utility ; but no efficient instrumentality has existed or now exists through which to supply objective evidence of the relative work ing of substantive legal rules. On the other hand it is expected that precisely this will be accomplished in the procedural field by the "judicial councils" which have been created since 1922 in nine States for the consistent study and improvement of judicial organization and procedure. Altogether, the immense significance of the new spirit manifest in the profession cannot be doubted. Most important of all is the fact that the revolt against unsocial law created by the labour struggle has spread to social workers, social scientists, the law school and finally even to the bar. It may well be that this spirit will prove to have inaugurated a new epoch in the law of the country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—S. E. Baldwin (editor), Two Centuries' Growth of Bibliography.—S. E. Baldwin (editor), Two Centuries' Growth of American Law, r7or-rgor (Igoe) ; R. Pound, The Spirit of the Com mon Law (192I), and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (1922) ; B. N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1922) the last two volumes abound with illustrations from American law ; J. F. Dillon, The Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America (1894); C. Warren, A History of the American Bar (1913) ; Association of American Law Schools (editor), Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History (1907-09) , vol. ii., 365-463, on colonial period; F. E. Stimson, American Statute Law, An Analytical and Compared Digest . . . in Force Jan. r, 1886 (18.86, suppl., 1887), covering in one volume the fields of public law, persons, property and contract ; the public law is continued in The Law of the Federal and State Constitutions of the United States with an Historical Study of their Principles (I gob) , and legislation from 1888 to 1908 is exhaustively reported in Popular Law-Making: A Study of the Origin, History and Present Tendencies of Law-Making by Statute (1912), particularly in the application of the police power; E. Freund, Standards of American Legislation (1917) , is a much more technical discussion; M. Storey, The Reform of Judicial Procedure (1911) ; E. Root, Addresses on Government and Citizenship (1916), contains much on the administra tion of justice. Valuable for background are A. T. Hadley Under currents in American Politics (1915) ; C. E. Merriam, A History of American Political Theories (19o3), and American Political Ideas . . . r865-r9r7 (192o). (F. S. P.)