LAW AS A DISTURBER OF SOCIAL ORDER. 643 



slionld interact, are constantly arrayed one against the other, and 

 the aggressions of the capitalists, who, through the medium of 

 trusts and other devices, ruin their competitors and control prices, 

 are confronted by the strong social forces made manifest in the 

 close unions of labor, which find expression in frequent strikes 

 and boycotts. 



What, then, is the remedy ? Various cures have been sug- 

 gested, and, among others, some look to governmental control; 

 but this would deprive us of aggressive individuality, in the same 

 manner as the corporation has deprived us of the justice and hon- 

 esty derived from natural trust and confidence. How may we 

 retain the vigor and energy of individual push correlated with 

 honesty and justice ? Is it not plain that, with the restoration of 

 personal liability, dishonest elements would scatter and their com- 

 binations dissolve ? 



It is asked, " What would then become of our great railway 

 systems ? " One thing is certain, although the impersonal cor- 

 poration might vanish, the railways would remain, and there 

 would be those to run them. If the persons united in the consoli- 

 dated lines would trust each other (and if they will not, why 

 should the public trust them ?), such lines would continue as at 

 present. If distrust should prevail, the Vanderbilts, for instance, 

 might withdraw their capital from the West Shore, Michigan 

 Central, Lake Shore, and other properties, and concentrate upon 

 New York Central, leaving other capitalists to similarly with- 

 draw from many properties, to concentrate and be responsible for 

 one ; and thus at one blow would be dissolved the mammoth con- 

 solidations which legislation has vainly aimed to check. 



If, as would no doubt be threatened, our large manufacturing 

 establishments should close, in a very short time the workmen 

 would take possession, even as the liberated negro slave is now 

 gradually becoming owner of the lands upon which he served in 

 bondage. Trusts would scatter to the winds, for unfair and dis- 

 honest elements, no longer trusted by society, would prey upon 

 each other, while the honest would withdraw, to unite among 

 themselves. Material development might be retarded for a time, 

 to make way for the moral growth essential to the proper con- 

 duct of industrial development. With this accomplished, co- 

 operation would be an established institution, and the interests 

 of capital and labor, now in constant conflict, would be united, 

 and society would be rewarded by a resultant equal to the sum 

 of their joint effects. Thus we have seen that in the industrial, 

 no less than in the material, world action and reaction are oppo- 

 site and equal, that force can neither be created nor destroyed, 

 but, wiien it seems to disappear, it lives on, to reappear in new 

 and equivalent effects. 



