The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 17, 1918, Page 14

. the medical, the teaching and The Plague of Lawyers in Congress e e e e e e € S R YTV 1 Farmers Have Only Six Congressmen and Three Senators and City Workers Have Only Four Representatives—The Legal Mind Is Often a Handicap Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader HAT is congress? Congress is a body composed, according to the confession of its own members, printed in the Congressional Directory, of 378 lawyers, four men educated in law schools and 149 other persons. Rough- ly, it is made up of 382 lawyers and 149 nonlawyers. In the senate there are 76 lawyers and 20 other persons. In the house of representatives there are 306 lawyers and 129 persons who have not the lawyer’s method of thinking about what the na- tional legislature should do. How about the farmers in congress? There are just six of them in the house, although two others from the list of lawyers assert that they combine farming with law. In the senate the farmers number three. And how about labor’s representation in con- |- gress? There are six members of the house who say they come direct from the ranks of labor, but one of these says he is also a lawyer, and another says he is both a laborer and a business man. That . leaves four real members of the wage-working group in the house. In the senate there are none at all. Add up the nine farmers and the four men from the labor group and you have 13 men in congress who speak directly for the food producers and the goods producers of the naticn. Farmers and wage-workers comprise two-thirds of the voters in the United States. Lawyers com- prise something less than 1 per cent of the vot- ers. Farmers and wage-work- - ers outnumber the lawyers in the ratio of about 67 to 1. ROOM FOR 177 FARMERS IN CONGRESS Suppose the next congress were to be composed of men who represented in -fair pro- portion the size of the farmer element, the labor element and the lawyer element of the United States. Then the house, which has 4356 members, would have 146 farmers, 145 labor men, and just four lawyers, with 41 men from the business, other groups in the population. The senate’s 96 members would include 32 farmers instead of three, and 32 labor spokesmen in place of none at all. The lawyers would have just one representative, instead of 76 as at present. . Of course nobody proposes that the lawyers be driven out of congress to that extent. Most of the liberal men in house and senate are lawyers. That is probably as much due to the fact that few persons outside the legal <profession can break into congress, as to the fact that these few lawyers aré™liberal. It does not prove that if the farmers and the wage-workers had as many spokesmen in congress as the lawyers have, the national law- making body would not be far more useful to the people. Think of the long, slow, heart-breaking process of get- ting 'through congress the farm loan law, the “shipping act, and the seamen’s act— three of the constructive pieces of legislation that have mark- ed the last four years. Think of the months of weary argu- ment offered in opposition to these measures by the lawyers in-the senate and house. Then look “over the list of delega-- tions from the states where . and two lawyers in the senate. - - officeseekers, m.xummm:ammiumfmfiifi?fi}wi T the farmers and the organized wage-workers could have sent their own spokesmen to Wash- ington to handle this business. HOW THE STATES ARE SERVED Alabama has in the house a solid block of 10 lawyers; in the senate it has a lawyer and a planter. Arizona has a business man in the house Arkansas has a solid delegation of lawyers in house and senate. California is more nearly reasonable; with one of the most active labor movements in the coun- try it sends six lawyers, one labor man, two news- paper proprietors, one clerical worker and one business man to the house, and two lawyers to the senate. Colorado sends two lawyers to the senate and two lawyers, one business man ‘and one newspaper man to the house. Idaho sends two lawyers .each to the senate and house. Illinois has two lawyers in the senate and 18 in the house, along with seven business men, one newspaper man and one doctor. Indiana has a lawyer and a newspaper pub- lisher in the senate; in the hoyse it has 11 law- yers, one business man and one educator. Iowa has two lawyers—both of them liberal— in the senate and seven lawyers, three newspaper men and one farmer in the house. Kansas has two lawyers in the senate, while its house delegation *includes six lawyers and two newspaper men. Not a farmer in the lot. Minnesota sends two lawyers to the senate and in the house has eight lawyers, one labor man and one newspaper man. No farmers there. | ’ DARK DAYS AHEAD l IM G0N 'Ta GIT MINE NEXT NOVEMBER. : . —Drawn especially for the Leader by W. C. Mol'ris Every real friend of democracy is hoping for two victories — the crushing of the German kaiser, and the routing of the political Huns at home. first drive by the common people against the trenches of the badly battered corporation-ruled g -You know we have junkers abroad and junkers at home. ~ Both kinds are spoiling for a good licking. XA HOW LONG HAVE You- GaT.To LIVE, BILL? The Minnesota primaries will be the Missouri sends two lawyers to the senate, and - 14 lawyers and one business man to the house. Again, no farmers. Montana is represented in the senate by two lawyers, and in the house by one lawyer and one social worker. The social worker is Miss Rankin. Nebraska, with one lawyer and one newspaper . publisher in the senate, has three lawyers, two business men and one salesman in the house. North Dakota has a lawyer and a farmer-banker in the senate and two lawyers and a newspaper man in the house. Oklahoma has two lawyers in the senate, with six lawyers, one business man and one salesman in the house. South Dakota has one lawyer-educator and one business man in the senate, with two lawyers and . onie business man in the house. ; Texas sends two lawyers to the senate; to the house it contributes 16 lawyers, one business man and one newspaper man. Washington has two lawyers in the senate and three lawyers, one newspaper man and one farmer in the house. Wisconsin has two lawyers in the senate and in the house 10 lawyers and one labor union member. x Wyoming has one business man and one cattle- man in the senate and one business man in the house. NO EXCUSE FOR THE LAWYERS NOW Years ago, when any one raised the question as to the wisdom of jamming the house and senate full of lawyers, and crowding out the farmers and workingmen into the long corridors of the capitol where the guides offer to show - visitors around at two bits each, the' old political bosses would laugh scornfully and re- mark that “You poor fool, don’t you know that it takes a law- yer to handle the job of mak- ing law? Don’t you know that farmers and laboring men would be helpless in congress? Why, they’re the easy marks for every designing political scalawag that comes along. Put lBwyers in the senate and house,-and they will all stand on their own feet.” That sounded fine. Every public life saw'that he must study law. When he had be- come a lawyer he had to live on the law business. He had to work for the people who hired lawyers. And while some of them became liberal leaders in congress through the fact that they were lawyers, most of them never got into public life. Meantime, standpat law- yers, backed by special privi- proceeded to control the mak- ing. of law. . In the course (_)f; years, pub- lic distrust of lawyers became " tablishing a law-drafting bu- reau in connection with state legislatures and congress grew for a legislative reference and law-drafting bureau in connec- tion with the library of con- bills and resolutions which would properly carry out any today. ures on the occupations of the . { house, liberal who hoped to get into lege, flocked into_congress and: so -great that the idea of es- i V popular. Congress voted funds gress. Men competent to draw: ° idea within the authority of congress to act upon, were em- - ployed. They: are on the job Lynn Haines, editor of “the Searchlight on Congress, ‘has: just compiled’ this set of fig- ‘members of the senate: and