LAW AND POLITICS
progress was made. The Blue Book of Acts and Resolves for 1913 had 1,763 pages, for 1914 it had 1,423, and for 1915 only 1,230, which was a very wholesome reduction of more than thirty per cent. People were coming to see that they must depend on themselves rather than on legislation for success.
Massachusetts was beginning to suffer from a great complication of laws and restrictive regulations, from a multiplicity of Boards and Commissions, which had reached about one hundred, and from a large increase in the number of people on the public pay rolls, all of which was necessarily accompanied with a much larger cost of state government that had to be met by collecting more revenue from the taxpayers. The people began to realize that something was wrong and began to wonder whether more laws, more regulations, and more taxes, were really any benefit to them. They were becoming tired of agitation, criticism and destructive policies and wished to return to constructive methods.
When I went home at the end of the 1915 session it was with the intention of remaining in private life and giving all my attention to the law. During the
[111]
