668 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Yet they, too, have been treated like fools or knaves. In both fire 

 and life insurance, heavy inroads have been made upon the right of 

 private contract. Fire-insurance companies are forbidden to limit 

 their liability. To encourage the industry of the incendiary, they 

 are denied the right to contest on the ground of fraud the loss they 

 shall pay. Besides crushing their freedom, legislators have raided 

 their revenues. In one State at least contributions are exacted in 

 support of the fire departments in towns of a given size. More 

 onerous than those of fire insurance, the laws in regulation of life 

 insurance declare that the statements made in a policy shall be repre- 

 sentations only, and even if false, shall not impair the validity of the 

 contract; that an agreement that a contest shall defeat recovery 

 shall be void; and notwithstanding any provisions of the policy, 

 the non-forfeiture law of the State shall control its interpretation. 

 Official forms of contracts, deemed by Leroy Beaulieu to be the very 

 essence of socialism, are framed and enforced. Although the mor- 

 tality of blacks is greater than that of whites, no discrimination is per- 

 mitted ; and should an agent wish to add to his business by the abate- 

 ment of his commissions, he can do so only at the risk of prosecution 

 as a criminal. As well might the physician or attorney be punished 

 for the acceptance of a fee below an official rate. 



The vicious assaults of the legislatures upon the rights of corpora- 

 tions are paralleled by equally vicious assaults upon the rights of 

 individuals. Here the police powers of the State have been sub- 

 jected to the same abuse that has overtaken " the general welfare " 

 clause of the Federal Constitution. Under the cover of them, greed 

 and philanthropy have made equal inroads upon the liberty that 

 Americans boast of so frequently and violate so shamelessly. To 

 such a degree have they been stretched that scarcely a form of 

 human activity from birth to death, both included, has not been 

 subjected to meddlesome supervision. In the absurd attempt of im- 

 pertinent persons to square the conduct of neighbors to their own no- 

 tions of right and wrong, the whole field of health, labor, morals, and 

 education has been cultivated with a zeal unequaled in modern 

 times. 



Take the laws in revival of the old trade and professional cor- 

 porations, which were so long a bar to civilization, and did so much 

 to inflame the French Revolution. Those that the plumbers, under- 

 takers, and horseshoers on the one hand, and the dentists, druggists, 

 and physicians on the other, have obtained are as repugnant to the 

 principles of a free democracy as the feudal monopolies of Louis XI 

 and Queen Elizabeth. Yet they have the sanction of the highest 

 court in the land. " In the nature of things," says Justice Bradley, 

 defending this despotic exercise of the police powers of the State, 



