do so beyond reasonable doubt of error is to create a dilemma where, if he guesses right, he goes to jail, and, if he guesses wrong, he becomes a bankrupt; so that Governmental price fixing, as to all going business ultimately but means that there will be no trade sufficient even to pay for the keep of those men, heretofore carrying on the business enterprises of the United States, in the jails that will have to be provided for their occupancy. The Government constantly interfering with the essential "liberty of pursuit" will have ended the freedom of which it is so essential a part.
The Common Law and the Supreme Court, having, however, always understood that economic knowledge is as essential to commercial law as Anatomy is to Surgery, have never failed properly to safeguard our Liberty, through their appreciation of it!
A change in either, placing all those actively engaged in production under the dangers of indictment, for conclusions that they can only have guessed at, and convictions because of further guesses by juries must not only paralyze enterprise, but destroy all that fearless independence of citizenship necessary for the preservation of free government. An apology is made for repetition to be found in the following pages, however constant the effort by which it was sought to be avoided.
Philadelphia, October 1, 1920.
