Roscoe Pound Warned Us


     Mr. Roscoe  Pound was  Dean of  the Law  School  of  Harvard
University from  1916 to  1936.   He was awarded the American Bar
Association  medal  of  "conspicuous  service  to  the  cause  of
American jurisprudence" in 1940.  He was the author of many works
in various fields of law.  He deserves our ear when he speaks.

     Back  in   1946,  Mr.   Pound   wrote   a   paper   entitled
"Administrative Agencies and the  Law."   A few succinct comments
from that paper follow:

     "To them,  administrative officials, law is whatever is done
     officially.   And so  administrative law is whatever is done
     by administrative agencies ....

     "There was a steady growth of administrative agencies in the
     states in  the last decade of the nineteenth century and the
     first decade  of the present century, as part of the rise of
     social legislation.   At  first,  this  produced  a  certain
     friction with  the courts  ....   This led some advocates of
     administrative development  to denounce  the  separation  of
     powers which  is fundamental  in American constitutional law
     ....

     "Today, exemption  from judicial  scrutiny  of  its  actions
     seems to  be the  ambition of  every federal  administrative
     agency ...  but in the hands of agencies and subordinates of
     agencies not disposed to be scrupulously fair, these simple,
     nontechnical methods  may easily  serve  as  traps  for  the
     citizen who is seeking to obey the law ....

     "But,  it   is  a  characteristic  tendency  of  present-day
     administrative agencies  to use as a ground of decision some
     idea of policy not to be found in the statute or general law
     nor even in any formulated rule of the agency ....

     "Many of  these agencies  entertain complaints;    institute
     investigations upon them;  begin what are in effect prosecu-
     tions before  themselves;   allow their  own subordinates to
     act as  advocates for the prosecution;   and  often make the
     adjudications in  conference with  those same  subordinates.
     All this runs counter to the most elementary and universally
     recognized principles of justice."

                                                 [emphasis added]


     He goes  on to  say that  excessive zeal,  absence of a fair
hearing,  disregard of evidence,  prejudgment  by  administrative
agencies, improper  delegation of  authority and  obstruction  of
judicial relief,  are the  characteristics which  require checks.
Does this  sound as  if he  is speaking  of the  Internal Revenue
Service?


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Roscoe Pound