lously avoids any mention of such profits. And it cannot be written into a criminal statute. The supposed offense is restricted to unjust, unreasonable and excessive prices. That a large profit was made is unimportant, provided that the price charged was not excessive. And excessive prices were already defined by law! The Act in nowise overrules Hopkins vs. Lee;[1] but most of the indictments are under a non-existent supposed Act, and, in substance, merely charge that a man bought at one price and sold at a higher price. Whether this was an excessive price is not made clear, and leaves the matter in equilibrio, as is well illustrated by the case where a man was indicted for selling an article at one-half the price at which he might on the actual results have had to replace it, if his business were to continue. When it is remembered that the Act requires merely that he be "reasonable," the proof required must be at least beyond reasonable doubt that he could not reasonably have even made such a surmise as to risk—which, of course in the case of commodities, is substantially an impossible task.
Another consideration that has been strangely overlooked is that under the provisions of the Act there is such a recognition of the principles underlying the working of the law of supply and demand through free competition that the Government itself actually and by arbitrary edict fixed the price of wheat, for instance, at largely upward of two hundred per cent. in excess of the "dollar wheat" that the farmers, not so long since, were actually praying for. To argue, therefore, that an Act, thus actually applying the Common Law standard of free competition to obtain its natural results, was an Act intended to repudiate its own method, and make it criminal should the same incentive come about
- ↑ Hopkins vs. Lee, 6 Wheat. 118. 1821.
