DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 1 55 



of it, but only to have it come back to us as a real and awful 

 presence, in the next breath. Statesmen and publicists have 

 suggested and are suggesting various ways, some practical and 

 some theoretical, by which to deal with these things, based, 

 many of them, upon the theory that the high cost of living is 

 due to great combinations and political conditions. I am not 

 going to undertake to gainsay the fact that to some extent the 

 lesults which we are facing are due to such conditions. We 

 all agree upon that. We do not agree so well upon the solution 

 when we come to the political and governmental methods ; and 

 when I speak of political methods I do not mean in any parti- 

 san sense of dealing with these things. We have instances of 

 the control of them by law suit, but that is often wasteful and 

 expensive and not altogether successful. We hear much said 

 about control of them by regulation, and so far as great natural 

 monopolies, the railroads, the telephones, the telegraphs and 

 the expresses are concerned, this is a natural method, a method 

 which has come to stay, and one which is meeting with success. 

 But when we go beyond it and undertake to meet the condi- 

 tions as they exist in those lines of business which are strictly 

 and properly regarded as private business open to general com- 

 petition we enter upon a field which threatens us with oppor- 

 tunities at least of getting very far astray; and when we under- 

 take to say what percentage of profit shall be allowed in a par- 

 ticular industry, what amount of success in dollars and cents 

 any particular individual shall be allowed to acquire as the 

 maximum, we are travelling upon a road which is likely to 

 lead a long way, and finally remind us of that saying of Senator 

 Ingalls years ago, that an act of God could not be repealed by 

 an act of .Congress. But when we come to consider the ques- 

 tion from a practical standpoint, we have the soluton of it in the 

 study of the old question of supply and demand to the largest 

 extent that we shall find it anywhere. And it is that solu- 

 tion that these institutions and societies are applying. 



We sometimes think that if we could arrange the political 

 conditions as we believe they should be arranged, we would 

 have no question about adjusting the matter of supply and 

 demand ; that it is simply a question of getting at the product 

 which we have. I am not going to take your time for any 

 extended discussion but I do want to call your attention to one 



