quest of the air is coming, coming as surely as other and greater inventions and discoveries are coming to weld men closer together. All the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put competition back again. It is fallen, cracked, and forever spilled.

V

In a recent case in the Supreme Court of the United States a Justice, distinguished for his philosophical insight and literary expression, said:

"I think that we greatly exaggerate the value and importance to the public of competition in the production or distribution of an article, as fixing a fair price. What really fixes that is the competition of conflicting desires. We, none of us, can have as much as we want of all the things that we want. Therefore, we have to choose. soon as the price of something that we want goes above the point at which we are willing to give up other things to have that, we cease to buy it and buy something else. Of course, I am speaking of things that we can get along without." i

Other courts have said:

As

"Excessive competition may sometimes result in actua injury to the public, and competitive contracts, to avert personal ruin, may be perfectly reasonable. It is only when such contracts are publicly oppressive that they become unreasonable and are condemned as against public policy." 2

"While, without doubt, contracts which have a direct tendency to prevent a healthy competition are detrimental to the public, and consequently against public policy, it is equally free from doubt that when such contracts prevent an unhealthy competition and yet furnish the public with adequate facilities at fixed and reasonable rates, they are

'Dissenting opinion of Justice Holmes, in Dr. Miles Medical Co. vs. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. p. 373.

2

People vs. North River Sugar Refining Company, 54 Hun. 354, and N. Y. S. 406.

beneficial and in accord with sound principles of public policy. For the lessons of experience, as well as the deduction of reason, amply demonstrate the public interest is not subserved by competition which reduces the rate of transportation below the standard of fair compensation." 1

2

"I think it would be unsafe to adopt as a rule of law every maxim which is current in the counting room. It was said some three hundred years ago that trade and traffic were the life of every commonwealth, especially of an island. If it be true also that competition is the life of trade, it may follow such premises that he who relaxes competition commits an act injurious to trade; and not only so, but he commits an overt act of treason against the commonwealth. But I apprehend that it is not true that competition is the life of trade. On the contrary, that maxim is the least reliable of the host that may be picked up in every market place. It is, in fact, a shibboleth of mere gambling speculation, and is hardly entitled to take rank as an axiom in the jurisprudence of this country. I believe universal observation will attest that for the last quarter of a century competition in trade has caused more individual distress, if not more public injury, than the want of competition. Indeed, by reducing prices below or raising them above values (as the nature of the trade prompted), competition has done more to mcnopolize trade, or to secure exclusive advantages in it, than has been done by contract."

It is interesting to find such expressions regarding competition from the mouths of judges called upon to decide actual cases involving competition. Theirs is no academic theory evolved in the seclusion of the closet, but conclusions reached in the adjustment of controversies between man and man.

There are plenty of courts that have held otherwise, that have talked about competition in the old way, that 'M. & L. R. R. Co. vs. Concord R. R. Co., 66 N. H. 100.

'City of London's Case, 8 Co. 125.

'Kellogg vs. Larkin (1851, 3 Pinney Wis.) 123, 56 Am. Dec. 178-181.

have, in short, treated it as a fetish, instead of critically examining its claims to immunity.

VI

The world is filled with men who repeat, parrot-like, what others have said; that is the easy, the natural, the safe thing to do. It may be just as well that the overwhelming majority of men do this, for stability depends upon tradition, but progress follows in the footsteps of him who challenges, who utters the insistent "Why?" who accepts nothing on hearsay, but goes straight to the root of things and finds out for himself.

It is the business of the office-seeker and holder to curry favor-that is, he thinks it is, and it is this conviction that governs his tongue. He speaks the things he thinks the people wish to hear. He does not know they would like to hear the new thing and the true thing. He does not realize that while he is repeating what he has heard and what he has read, reiterating the worn-out phrases, there may be those in his audience who are thinking about coming things, who are eagerly listening for just one word that will throw some light on the problems of the day, and they are the only ones worth talking to.

Of what use is it to talk to the laborer or the small merchant about the glorious benefits of the old competition when they know it is the old competition that is stifling them, when the laborer knows that his Union has absolutely suppressed competition in his particular trade, when the merchant knows that if the competition to which he is being subjected at the moment continues six months, he will be bankrupt?

The man who hires labor or buys goods may applaud the familiar utterance, but even he has his competition in

what he has to sell, and while he would like to destroy the labor union and prevent the merchant from coöperating with other merchants, he, himself, has his own interests he would like to protect by some form of combination with his competitors.

While these words are being written the Governors of a number of Southern States are conspiring together to devise a scheme whereby their cotton-growers will get better prices for their cotton, whereby competition will be checked, production controlled, and, in the end, the mills be made to pay more for raw material. A laudable enterprise surely from the point of view of the grower-but how about the consumer, and how about the law, and how about the speeches of those very Governors in support of those laws which say competition must flourish unfettered?

Congressmen and Senators from the cotton-growing States are especially eloquent in this behalf, the Sherman law has no more fiery and uncompromising defenderswhen Northern trusts are involved.

VII

Efforts to suppress competition in products of the soil are not confined to the Southern States. In the North high political officials have lent the sanction of their presence and approval to movements to control prices of farm products. In fact, so far as the politician is concerned, he sees no evil in the union of laborers, cotton-growers, tobacco-growers and farmers-i. e., voters-to absolutely fix prices; they may combine, strike, boycott, pool, store, destroy, do anything they please, but let the capitalist, the employer, the manufacturer, do a tithe of these things and there is trouble.

To the politician the combination of labor can do no