Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/251

 for such conditions? Do these conditions not demand that the same skill used in interpreting the law shall be used in its construction?

Quite recently we have seen the results of the work of the Armstrong investigating committee in New York. No insurance law ever passed in this country had so much effect upon insurance regulation and that report was made by legislators, not by state officials. There have been objections to the increase of commission government and yet this form of government has increased because it has been felt that it furnished the only method of enforcing laws and the only way of administering special duties. And yet this Armstrong committee shows us a way of making laws and of compelling their enforcement better than boards and commissions. If we have some department working with our legislature and have that department between the sessions serve the investigating committees, we can be sure that there is always a check upon the action of our boards and commissions and that there is always at hand a remedy for evil in the hands of the people themselves. They can always ask for an investigating committee for any commission and the report of that committee will probably result in a good, sound law. In England to-day there is a movement to establish a "Permanent staff" for investigating committees intended to accomplish this very purpose.