Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/402

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N the government of the nations, political parties and elections are the slow methods by which national policies are determined. Movements are started in response to conditions which seem to require legislation. Gradually, these movements are combined within the political parties in the platforms of which the issues are suitably expressed. If the interests are sufficient in the combination rapidly to propagate the platform, the party comes into power. When in power, by agreement in the congress or the legislature, laws are placed upon the statute books. These laws are passed by the party after careful consideration by the committees having these matters in charge.

In all this, there is a great waste of effort, because the results are modified by small minorities who are able at tactical points to bring to bear immense pressure on individuals. In this manner, the will of the majority of the people, which is the vague desire to remedy wrongs or to perfect a better method of conserving the prosperity and of increasing the national comfort, is thwarted. As a result the laws in some instances are a generation out of date. When the situation becomes intolerable, a too radical reaction is inevitable, and, in the end, the peaceful, orderly development of a people is impaired to the great loss of the whole nation.

Now, many of the issues which divide the country, in fact all countries, into opposing camps are scientific in their nature. Long campaigns must be fought to decide policies which are capable of easy solution, if only an impartial court existed before which such issues could be tried. Just as technical questions require technical experts, technical issues require a technical court. The administration at Washington favors the establishment of a court of commerce. Why should there not be a court of science to determine questions of scientific truth, the application and the feasibility of issues based on scientific knowledge?

Let us take an example. We find there exists a powerful society with state branches and paid agents for carrying on a campaign against vaccination, which is a scientific issue. The conditions are substantially these. Many states have compulsory vaccination laws. School children are being vaccinated on a wholesale scale as a precaution