he
offence much more concisely, with a simple reliance upon the common
law, leaving it, in other words, for the courts to define. The
Southern State constitutions generally enact that the legislatures
shall enact laws to prevent trusts. New Hampshire says: "Full and fair
competition in the trades and industries is an inherent and essential
right of the people, and should be protected against all monopolies
and conspiracies which tend to hinder or destroy." Oklahoma provides
that "the legislature shall define what is an unlawful combination,
monopoly, trust, act, or agreement, in restraint of trade, and enact
laws to punish persons engaged in any unlawful combination, monopoly,
trust, act, or agreement, in restraint of trade, or composing any
such monopoly, trust, or combination." In Wyoming, monopolies and
perpetuities, in South Dakota and Washington, monopolies and trusts,
are "contrary to the genius of a free State and should not be
allowed." The constitutional provisions of North Dakota, Minnesota,
and Utah are again a mere repetition of the common law. The New
Hampshire statute grants "all just power ... to the general court to
enact laws to prevent operations within the State of ... trusts ...,"
or the operations of persons and corporations who "endeavor to raise
the price of any article of commerce or to destroy free and fair
competition ... through conspiracy, monopoly or any other unfair means
to control and regulate the acts of all such persons." This last
clause, though a clear statement of the common law, would, of course,
render hopeless Mr. Gompers's crusade in favor of the boycott, the
object of a boycott invariably being to control the acts of somebody
else. Alabama directs the legislature to provide for the prohibition
of trusts, etc., so as to prevent them from making scarce articles
of necessity, trade, or commerce, increasing unreasonably the cost
thereof, or preventing reasonable competition; and to much the same
effect in Louisiana.

We may well close this brief survey by a study of the volume of such
legislation. We have, for instance, in 1890, seven anti-trust laws;
in 1891, six; in 1892, one; in 1893, eight. In 1894, doubtless as a
consequence of the panic, anti-trust legislation absolutely ceased,
and in 1895 there is only one law, passed by the State of Texas, its
old law having been declared unconstitutional. In 1896, under the
influence of President Cleveland's administration, we find four s