“All the extravagance and incompetence of our present government is due,
in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are
responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now
clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain
attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most
Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of citizens has a lawyer
behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a
mah jong factory, we’d be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced
by almost half.” H.L. Menchen, “Breathing Space,” The Baltimore Evening Sun (Aug. 4, 1924) |