overb's currency.
Mr. Walker sneers at a disagreeable proverb because, like the majority
of his colleagues, he holds the masses in contempt. He gives his
estimate of popular intelligence in the following words:

"Unfortunately most men do not think worthily, or do not
think at all; they are ruled by phrases, and they catch the
crude ideas of others as they fly."

Mr. Walker's whole argument is one in favor of the legalization of the
pool, though he carefully avoids the word which grates so harshly on the
American ear. He makes the broad statement, without offering the least
proof in support of it, that measures have been everywhere adopted "to
subdue and ameliorate the evil results of inordinate and excessive
competitive strife," and then he asks:

"Has not the time come for a reversal of the legislative
attitude? Would it not be well for Congress, State
legislatures and the judiciary to cease their futile
attempts to maintain unqualified freedom of competition, and
substitute therefore a recognition of the right of every
industry to combine under proper supervision, and to make
agreements for the maintenance of just and reasonable
prices, the prevention of the enormous wastage consequent
upon warlike conditions, and the preservation of existing
institutions through the years to come?"

Mr. Walker then proceeds to make the bold prediction that revolution and
anarchy will follow if the demands of the railroad corporations are not
complied with, saying:

"Unless this course is adopted a social convulsion may
fairly be apprehended, forced by the universal and necessary
repudiation of existing laws and rules of decision, and by
the general formation of combinations without their pale."

This is a strange threat indeed, and unworthy of a man who has held as
great a public trust as Mr. Walker has. The article also contains the
statement that combinations do not extinguish competition. "They
regulate it," says Mr. Walker, "with more or less efficiency, and they
often go so far as to suspend its operation in respect to one or more
important features of the strife; for example, the price paid or the
time consumed. But as long as the employer or the purchaser has a
choice, so long there is competition." Here is a sample of Mr. Walker's
irony, for the choice which the shipper has under the pool is simply
Hobson's choice.