George Howard Earle

“ But, in civilization, this tendency always exists, because of the profound effects of Liberty and co-operation. Liberty makes men; co-operation makes enlargement of wealth. As the spider ultimately devours her mate after he has aided her in enlarging her progeny, so co-operation tends to make property the chief end of society instead of Liberty and equality. Where wealth accumulates, there is ever the tendency for men to decay; and so, as Thomas Jefferson has pointed out: "The natural order of things is for Liberty to yield and for Government to gain ground." ”

“ That in the classical world slavery was so universal, is undoubtedly the reason why the mental activity * * * never hit on any of the great discoveries and inventions which distinguish modern civilization. No slave holding people ever were an inventive people. * * * To freedom alone is given the spell of power which summons the genii in whose keeping are the treasures of earth and the viewless forces of the air. * * * To turn a republican government into a despotism the basest and most brutal, it is not necessary formally to change the Constitution or abandon popular elections. ”

“ Why was it that hordes of free barbarians had so frequently, and apparently with such ease, overthrown much better organized and higher forms of civilization? These questions were never satisfactorily answered until physiological truth was realized that as you cannot have complete health and continuing growth without freedom, so you cannot have moral, political and economic development without Liberty. Put mind, body, trade or government in too tight bonds and deterioration, if not death, is the inevitable consequence. ”

“ And as the enforcement of order and the protection of ever accumulating wealth becomes the Government's chief end, Liberty is ever more and more forgotten or restricted. Man, placed in second place, less regarded, and more hampered in his free and independent development, loses character, strength, and ceases to exist as a power of force. ”

“ The Supreme Court has long since declared that Liberty is the greatest of all rights, and it has become so firmly established that in relation to property rights it constitutes the cornerstone of all constitutional protection. ”

“ Liberty, and Liberty alone, is the safeguard—the Liberty preserved through all these centuries. Well did the House of Lords say in the Nordenfelt Case: [1] "The public have an interest in every person carrying on his trade freely; so has the individual. All interference with individual liberty of action, in trading, and all restraints of trade of themselves, if there is nothing more, are contrary to public policy." ”

“ The great extension of association—not alone in the growth of larger and denser communities, but in the increase of commerce and the manifold exchanges which knit each community together and link them with other though widely separate communities. * * * the advances in security of property and person, in individual liberty, and towards democratic government—advances, in short, towards the recognition of the equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—it is these that make our modern civilization so much greater, so much higher, than any that has gone before. ”

“ It is not enough that men should vote; it is not enough that they should be theoretically equal before the law. They must have Liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature. ”

“ Unnecessarily to extend such dangers to the whole trade of the United States, and to enforce regulations difficult of application to the merchandising of commodities, under conditions that can never receive adequate judicial consideration, or be workable upon a business basis, must, inevitably, bring on financial depression with all its consequent ills. These causes have often proved the death of Liberty, not only in trade, but in the broader meaning. ”

“ The questions constantly asked: "Why Anglo-Saxon civilization has flourished so much longer than many of its predecessors, and whether it may be hoped that it will avoid the deadly fossilization or death of so many of its predecessors," may find their complete answer in maintaining the safeguards established for the preservation of individual rights under its forms of government. ”

“ Men tend to progress just as they come closer together, and by co-operation with each other increase the mental power that may be devoted to improvement, but just as conflict is provoked, or association develops inequality of condition and power, this tendency to progression is lessened, checked, and finally reversed. * * * In a general way, these obstacles to improvement may, in relation to the society itself, be classed as external and internal—the first operating with greater force in the earlier stages of civilization, the latter becoming more important in the later stages. ”

“ That great tribunal, however difficult its task, has on the one hand defended men from the pernicious taxing power of monopoly, whilst, on the other, it has as certainly defended our citizens in their rights both freely "to pursue happiness," through all that is necessary to preserve untrammeled competition in commodities, and freedom from threat or danger of persecution. ”

“ If the spirit of the Constitution is to be observed, that great instrument is always self-preserving. It needs only to be followed to be safeguarded. To the present time, the great fundamental principles which it buttresses have never been departed from. The wealth producing doctrines of free competition and an unhampered play of the law of supply and demand (as stated in the Patten case [4] ) have ever been adequately protected by the Supreme Court of the United States. ”

“ It must result in the development of all essential industries by our foreign competitors and by the destruction of our own productive enterprises unless the Government soon relinquishes or lessens its exactions. At the present moment we see all other Governments engaged in fostering the development of their competitive power, with the single exception of Russia; so that there has been no time in history when it could be more dangerous further to harass and penalize those of our citizens engaged in industry. ”

“ It has always shown a consciousness that excess profits are, of necessity, the result of excess needs, but their only permanent cure. Whilst Governmental necessity has unfortunately resulted in such profits being, in greater part, diverted to Governmental needs, and thus inevitably delaying the cure, it is mere folly to imagine that a complete prevention of this only effective restorative to business could be other than disastrous in the extreme. ”

“ All these price fixing regulations are putting him under the tutelage and protection of a host of Governmental servants employed and paid by him, with no other possible result than his complete enervation and inability to protect himself. He follows the course of the faineant Kings of France and, like them, perishes when he comes in conflict with men who have remained free. ”

“ It is these that have * * * increased productive power by a thousand great inventions. * * * From first to last, slavery, like every other denial of the natural equality of men, has hampered and prevented progress. Just in proportion as slavery plays an important part in the social organization does improvement cease. ”