le year
if it were to attempt single-handed and alone to adopt such an
innovation. The particular form of deception characteristic of business
is called _shrewdness_, and it is universally considered proper and
upright. There is a sort of code that fixes the limit beyond which this
form of deception must not be carried, and those who exceed that limit
are looked upon somewhat as a pugilist who 'hits below the belt,' But
within these limits every one expects every other to suggest the false
and suppress the true, while _caveat emptor_ is lord of all, and 'the
devil take the hind-most.'"[197]

Under this system the strong, the unscrupulous and the cunning may
pursue business tactics which enable them to accumulate wealth at the
expense of consumers or business rivals, but which, if generally known,
would not be tolerated. The great profits which fraudulent manufacturers
and merchants have made out of adulterated goods would have been
impossible under a system which required that all goods should be
properly labeled and sold for what they really were. Such abuses as now
exist in the management of railroads and other corporations could not,
or at least would not long be permitted to exist, if the general public
saw the true source, character, extent and full effects of these evils.

The greatest obstacle to publicity at the present time is the control
which corporate wealth is able to, and as a matter of fact does,
exercise over those agencies upon which the people must largely depend
for information and guidance regarding contemporary movements and
events. The telegraph and the newspaper are indispensable in any
present-day democratic society. The ownership and unregulated control of
the former by the large corporate interests of the country, and the
influence which they can bring to bear upon the press by this means, as
well as the direct control which they have over a large part of the
daily press by actual ownership, does much to hinder the progress of the
democratic movement. This hold which organized wealth has upon the
agencies through which public opinion is formed, is an important check
on democracy. It does much to secure a real, though not generally
recognized, class ascendency under the form and appearance of government
by public opinion.

This great struggle now going on between the progressive and the
reactionary forces, between the many and the few, has had a profound
influence upon public morality. We hav