The Unpopular Review | Page 7

they give rise, and accordingly has not even an
equitable right to throw the whole responsibility upon the private
persons concerned.
Interests thus universally recognized to be evil are necessarily few. In
the vast majority of cases the establishment of interests we now seek to
proscribe took place in an epoch in which no evil was imputed to them.
At first a small minority, usually regarded as fanatics, attack the
interests in question. This minority increases, and in the end transforms
itself into a majority. But long after majority opinion has become
adverse, there remains a vigorous minority opinion defending the
menaced interests. A hundred years ago the distilling of spirituous
liquors was almost universally regarded as an entirely legitimate
industry. The enemies of the industry were few and of no political
consequence. Today in many communities the industry is utterly
condemned by majority opinion. There is, however, no community in
which a minority honestly defending the industry is absolutely wanting.
Admitting that the majority opinion is right, it remains none the less
true that adherents of the minority opinion would regard themselves as
most grievously wronged if the majority proceeded to a destruction of

their interests.
Where moral issues alone are involved, we may perhaps accept the
view that the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may
be to infallibility. But it is very rarely the case that the question of the
legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue.
Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in
which majority judgment is notoriously fallible. Thus we have at times
had large minorities who believed that the bank as an institution is
wholly evil, and ought to be abolished. This was the majority opinion
in one period of the history of Texas, and in accordance with it,
established banking interests were destroyed by law. It is only within
the last fifteen years that the majority of the citizens of that
commonwealth have admitted the error of the earlier view.
In the course of the last twenty-five years, notable progress has been
made in the art of preserving perishable foods through refrigeration.
There are differences of opinion as to the effect upon the public health
of food so preserved; and further differences as to the effect of the cold
storage system upon the cost of living. On neither the physiological nor
the economic questions involved is majority opinion worthy of special
consideration. None the less, legislative measures directed against the
storage interests have been seriously considered in a large number of
states, and were it not for the difficulties inherent in the regulation of
interstate commerce, we should doubtless see the practice of cold
storage prohibited in some jurisdictions. Those whose property would
thus be destroyed would accept their losses with much bitterness, in
view of the fact that the weight of expert opinion holds their industry to
be in the public interest.
What still further exacerbates the feeling of injury on the part of those
whose interests are proscribed, is the fact that the purity of motives of
the persons most active in the campaign of proscription is not always
clear. Not many years ago we had a thriving manufacture of artificial
butter. The persons engaged in the industry claimed that their product
was as wholesome as that produced according to the time-honored
process, and that its cheapness promised an important advance in the
adequate provisioning of the people. We destroyed the industry, very
largely because of our strong bent toward conservatism in all matters
pertaining to the table. But among the influences that were most active

in taxing artificial butter out of existence, was the competing
dairymen's interest.
It is asserted by those who would shift the whole burden of taxation
onto land that they are animated by the most unselfish motives,
whereas their opponents are defending their selfish interests alone. Yet
a common Single Tax appeal to the large manufacturer and the small
house-owner takes the form of a computation demonstrating that those
classes would gain more through the reduction in the burden on
improvements than they would lose through increase in burden on the
land. Let it be granted that personal advantage is not incompatible with
purity of motives. The association of ideas does not, however, inspire
confidence, especially in the breasts of those whose interests are
threatened.
Extinction of property interests without compensation necessarily
makes our legislative bodies the battleground of conflicting interests.
Honest motives are combined with crooked ones in the attack upon an
interest; crooked and honest motives combine in its defense. Out of the
disorder issues a legislative determination that may be in the public
interest or may be prejudicial to it. And most likely the law is
inadequately supported by machinery