-T H. E
Chilkoot
TERRiTon;; t
WSTORICAL
t
AOCessioN No.
I
: H I L- E-0 0 T
>arrackf . Hai ne s
POST 2^ 1326
Alaska. LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Published without expense to the Government,
*'0±. &
7rilay, Larch 12th, 1926.
Jo. 11
TEWS OF THE WEEK:
i-jIllioh eollae itel APPROVED FOR TERRITORY
Hearings before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs have
resulted in the Alaska Read Commission’s appropriations in the War
Department bill being raised tp §1,000,000. Advices to this effect
vvere recently received at Commission headquarters in Juneau from
Col. J. G. Steese, President. This is boost of §400,000 from the
allowance made by the Bureau of the Budget. Colonel Steese will
leave Washington for Alaska about Larch 15th.
OH LAWS
The Suggestion of Governor Moore of IJew Jersey to the State *ueg
islature that all laws carry automatic time limits hy which they were
repealed when they had served their purpose, has "brought to light a
nation wide movementt to make 25 years the life-time” of all statutes.
The Governor in his inaugural address said '’that to read all the
laws of the United States would take eight years and four months, read
ing eight hours every day, including Sundays and Holidays!’ The move
ment, its sponsors asserted, aims to remedy this condition by shorten
ing laws so that laymen can grasp them.
Jay B. R. Smith, editor of law publications of the U. S„ Corpor
ation of A’ew York, and Termer assistant secretary of the state of hew
Terhey, one of the promoters of the plan, said that 34 governors of
states have responded favorably to it and 140 chambers oi commerce
have taken it up.
A General repealing act was proposed by glen R. ’Yinsnip oi west
field, N. J. , decciared Mr. Smith. "This act provides for the auto
matic repeal of all statutes when they have been on the books 25 years
and is intended as a preliminary to a proposed amendment to state con
stitutions fixing a quarter century as the maximum, life of all legis
lative statutes!’" If carried out, hr Smith added, this plan would wipe
out thousands of archaic and unenforced statutes now cluttering the
law books, while not effecting the common law.
Massachusetts and Tennessee furnish simultaneous instances ox the
revival of absurd laws of antique date. Massachusetts has as
of 1697 punishing blasphemy with a year in jail wmcn Brockton aa. in
voked agains a Lithuanian lecturer (he nae sinceoeen con - “'
«e4ition rid fined '-ICO—a rather mild sentence, if we understand the
-»-’ni.n- of the word). Tennessee only goes back 123 years, ihe «a of
that state who wish to make Sunday a day of ^oom silence and ma -
olence have used a law of 1803 to issue warrants against newspaper
publishers, cigar and candy stores, taxi operators, street, ca lin s,
news dealers, filling-stations, and drugstores, anyone who ylays a
^ ar...e o f authors ca Sunt ay is liable tc line.