Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: within the United States," the vital point at issue as revealed by a study of the origin of the question was "Will the control of insurance companies by the Federal Government be more efficient than that exercised by the State Governments?" This treatment reveals the main point at issue in the form of a question. It shows that the issue is between State control on one side as compared with Federal control on the other. The affirmative must advocate Federal control and the negative must defend State control. The burden of proof is on the affirmative, for it must show that a change should be made in existing conditions. The risk of non-persuasion is upon the affirmative, because, if the position advocated cannot be maintained, existing conditions will continue. It is well to remember that the burden of proof remains with the affirmative throughout the debate. It is frequently said that the burden of proof "shifts," that is, that when the affirmative has produced enough evidence to make out a prima facie case, and has shown reason why the plan ought to be adopted, then the burden of proof shifts to the negative and it becomes the duty of the negative to show why the plan should not be adopted. This is not the correct view of the situation, for the affirmative is bound to prove the proposition, in the face of all opposition. Therefore the burden of proof never "shifts," it is the duty of producing evidence which "shifts." When the affirmative shows reason why the proposition should be maintained, it puts upon the negative the duty of producing evidence to show that the affirmative reasoning is unsound or that there are more weighty arguments in favor of the negative. Thus it is that the duty of producing evidence shifts from one side to the other, but the burden of proof remains on...