engaged in them; and the increase must either be drawn from the pockets of consumers or extracted from the wages of laborers."—(Page 286.)
Monstrous! The idea of a combination being organized to increase its profits! What an example to the youth of America! What utter demoralization would ensue did it become the habit of our citizens generally to go into trade to increase their profits! Let every statesman, every economist, every preacher in the land, impress upon this generation rather the duty of every man to go into trade for the good of somebody else, and to continue therein to lessen, not to increase, his worldly store! Let him run his business, his warehouse, his factory, his steamships and railroads at a loss, and, the moment he finds his transactions profitable, let him wind up, lest he should "swell the profit of capital"; and if he will not, let the law, or Mr. Hudson, see to it.
So long as the tendency of the products of the earth is to find a market, just so long will it be the tendency within that market for the handling of different classes of products to centralize, until corn and grain are handled in one locality, pork and packed provisions in another, fruits in another, hides and pelts and leather in another. Here is natural law, and here is Mr. Hudson, too, demonstrating the imminent danger to the United States from the normal operation of this natural law. There is, of course, but one remedy for all this (though Mr. Hudson, indeed, fails to point it out), namely, a strong centralized, paternal government like that of the late Brigham Young, who walked in and out among his people, encouraging them in their efforts to amass fortunes; and then, when the fortunes were amassed, receiving heavenly visions instructing the "sealing" of those fortunes to himself! Such a governmental paternity, to be sure, might answer Mr. Hudson's purposes in confiscating the accretions of private capital. But it is difficult to see how otherwise than under just such a particular state we could enjoy the reforms he seeks.
Whenever it shall appear, or come to pass, that the interests of consumers (that is, of the people) are imperiled by the methods which the ramifications of modern civilization impose upon commerce and the operations of trade, it may come within the constitutional jurisdiction of Congress to inquire into and abridge those methods. But until such time shall come is it not, or ought it not to be, a question whether gentlemen who assume to deal with economic questions do not owe some duty to their country—not the old Greek idea of patriotism, perhaps, but still a duty—and whether that duty might not properly consist in declining to supply specious and sophistical propositions to become fire-brands in the grasp of poverty and of ignorance?
