378 



LIVE-STOCK AND MEAT INDUSTRY 



Forty-one days before the writing of these words by the Mary- 

 land fathers, the Continental Congress had adopted the Declara- 

 tion of Independence, marking the severance of the new Republic 

 from the Old King. Autocratic political power was the thing 

 abhorred by the people of the New World. In the century and a 



FIG. 79. Government inspection of meat in a large packing house. 



half which has elapsed since that struggle began autocratic political 

 power has nearly vanished from the whole world. The same in- 

 stinct of abhorrence towards autocratic political power which then 

 existed now continues as an instinct against autocratic economic 

 power. And so, in the last third of a century, we have seen the 

 power of the federal courts invoked against the great consolidated 

 business units operating in sugar, steel, oil, tobacco, harvesting 



