condition that one man can buy all the wool in America, fixing their own prices without fear of competition. Another man can sell all the cloth made by all the factories, limiting the products and fixing prices. All this may never be realized, but it is the scheme desired and presents a glowing, fancy picture. We conceived the difficulty in devising and executing remedies for these present and prospective evils. Absolute publicity and oversight is good as far as it goes. Absolute prevention of discrimination in freight rates will help in some cases. A modification or repeal of the tariff on trust-made articles will aid in other cases. But in spite of these suggested remedies the trust will continue to live, thrive and monopolize. Nothing short of a united, determined public opinion in opposition to the monopolizing power of the trust will conceive and execute efficient remedies. While the farmers themselves entertain decided opinions in relation to the central question, yet because of their generally isolated condition and want of organization they do not contribute toward molding public opinion in proportion to their numbers and the magnitude of their contributions to society. They seldom secure seats in Congress, and only occasionally anything like a majority in Legislatures. Hence we make an earnest appeal to all the agencies that contribute so largely to forming public opinion for the enactment and enforcement of just laws. We ask no special favors, but demand even-handed justice and exemption from threatened dangers. We desire to live and let live. Our purpose is not to tear down, but build up. We ask for no acts of incorporation for ourselves or our interests, but we do insist that if other interests are incorporated that ours shall be sacredly guarded and safely protected. This claim is not made solely for ourselves, but in behalf of all the great interests of the republic. Without reasonably prosperous agriculture other interests can not prosper. Farmers are quiet, unobtrusive citizens, but they are not cowards, as has been attested in peace and in war. The farmers fired the first shot in the great conflict that gave to us liberty, independence and power. That liberty they still enjoy and highly prize. They do not believe that the trust has or will become so great in strength and power that it can not be overthrown, hence they. have no sympathy with the sentiments that it has come to stay and can not be dislodged from power. And the more speedily and effectually attempts to carry out its purposes the more certainly will it be overthrown. The ballot box is the natural place for the American people to fight their battles, and I am sure that the farmers will be there.

MARTIN A. KNAPP.

Chairman Interstate Commerce Commission.

The purpose of this brief paper is to suggest a phase of the general subject which is quite commonly overlooked. In dealing with the trust problem there is frequent failure to distinguish the activities engaged in private pursuits from the agencies employed in public service. The restraint of competition among railway carriers, for example, is often opposed on the same grounds and with the same arguments as are relied upon to prove the dangerous consequences of restricting competition in the fields of industrial production.

But there is a fundamental difference, I maintain, between those combinations in private business, the formation of which is of such recent and rapid growth, and associated action by those who furnish the means of public transportation. This difference may be stated in a single paragraph. As regards actual property, the products of labor and skill in any vocation, the things we eat and wear and use, we do not want-under present economic conditions at least-uniformity of price. Every producer should be perfectly free to sell for all he can get, every purchaser equally free to buy just as cheap as he can. The dealer should always be at liberty to make one price to one person and another price to another person, or to vary the price to the same person as and when he sees fit. That is to say, in the exchange of goods there should be the utmost freedom of contract between the parties. As between buyer and seller the power to bargain should be unrestrained, for in that power is the essence of commercial liberty. Therefore, speaking in general terms, whatever tends to abridge this freedom of contract and so to bring about uniform or noncompetitive prices, whether by limiting production or controlling the markets, is to be deprecated as on the whole against the public interest. For this reason, legislation which checks this tendency and promotes industrial freedom may well be regarded as defensible and necessary.

But as respects public transportation, which is not property at all, but a service, not a commodity, but a function or agency of government, we do want uniform charges-under like conditions -without preference or exception to any person. Rightly considered, the tolls paid to the public carrier are in the nature of a tax, and the relations between carriers and the public are not contract relations, save in a very limited sense and for special purposes. I do not procure transportation as the result of a bargain

with the carrier, but in the exercise of my political rights. The right to that transportation is primary, indispensable and inalienable. The essential element of this right is equality. The privileges I enjoy as a citizen in this regard are precisely the same in every respect as those possessed by any other citizen under like circumstances, and impairment of those privileges is a deprivation of like character and scarcely less serious than restraints upon my personal freedom or the denial of protection to my property. Therefore, whatever promotes stability and uniformity of charges by public carriers, whatever tends to secure equality of right in the use of transportation agencies, should be encouraged and promoted. Indeed, I go to the extent of saying that we cannot have that free and fair competition in the fields of production, which is the condition of industrial freedom, without methods. and charges for public transportation which amount to a monopoly.

The benefits supposed to result from railroad competition I believe to be greatly exaggerated. Those who honestly uphold the present policy-to say nothing of those who oppose a change from unworthy motives-apparently assume that the public gets the same advantage from competition between carriers as from competition between producers and dealers generally. That this is a mistaken and fallacious view I am fully persuaded. I do not see how any one can derive benefit from competition in the matter of his daily wants, unless he is in a situation to choose freely between two or more persons who are each able to supply those wants. The objective value of competition, I submit, rests in the power of selection, and he who is debarred from choice must be deprived of any direct advantage from the rivalry of others.

As to most of our ordinary wants-broadly speaking-every person in every place has the opportunity to choose. If the only merchant in a remote hamlet charges more for his wares than his customers are willing to pay, there is another store at a near-by cross-roads where they can purchase the same commodities; and, like liberty of selection, is commonly enjoyed as to the various needs of social life, whether simple or complex. But in respect of railroad transportation only a few people comparatively are so situated as to have any available choice between carriers. So that, without amplifying the argument, the simple fact is that only a small percentage of population, and an exceedingly small fraction of territory, are so located as to have any practical opportunity for selection in the matter of public conveyance. To the great majority of people railway transportation is now a virtual monopoly. I do not mean to say that the competition be

tween railroads connecting great cities by different lines has not had an indirect and important influence upon railroad charges at intermediate points which are dependent upon one of those lines alone; but I venture the opinion-again speaking broadly-that the limit of such indirect advantage has already been reached, and that further benefit from that source cannot reasonably be expected. The result is that a few commercial centers and a few large shippers, having this power of choice, and finding their traffic indispensable to the carriers, secure enormous advantages, either by evasion or violation of law, of which the masses are deprived. It is entirely plain to me, therefore, that co-operative methods, the general discontinuance of competition in rates between rival railroads, would tend strongly to remove the inequalities which now exist, and prove a positive and substantial advantage to the great majority of producers and consumers. And I firmly believe that while there is a popular objection to railroad pooling, as it is commonly called, founded largely upon ignorance of its purpose and misconception of its effects, the principal opposition to legalized co-operation, the opposition which has thus far prevailed, comes from the favored few who are reaping unearned profits by the discriminating practices which they virtually compel and of which they are the sole beneficiaries.

In harmony with this view, as I conceive, is another suggestion. The opposition to trusts, so far as it is sincere and intelligent, seems to be based largely upon belief that they do, or apprehension that they will, so use their combined power, and the degree of monopoly thereby secured, as to obtain extortionate prices from the consumer, or at least higher prices than would otherwise prevail. The demand for laws to prevent these combinations arises from our inability to control by legislation the prices of industrial products. We cannot by law fix the price of sugar, petroleum, cotton cloth or any other commodity. And if we could we should be powerless to compel their sale in any case at the price so fixed. Therefore, since the apprehended evils cannot be reached by direct legislation, we seek to accomplish the desired end by the indirect means of preventing the combination, and these indirect means must be resorted to because no others are available.

But this difficulty does not exist in respect of prices or charges for public transportation, for those charges are under direct and complete legislative control. Within limitations which secure to the owners of railway property the equal protection of the laws and prevent the taking of such property without