ate enterprises. Let the law
provide that every contract for the restriction of competition shall be
in writing, and that a copy shall be filed, as a deed for real estate is
filed now, with the proper city or town officer where the property
affected is situate, and also with the Secretary of State where the
contract is made. Certainly no honest man will object to this provision.
The contention has been made that contracts to restrict competition were
necessarily kept secret because they were "without the pale of the law."
Very well; we have legalized them. There can be no further defense of
secrecy. If any now refuse to make public their contracts to restrict
competition, the refusal is evidence that the contract is for the injury
of the public or some competitor and therefore properly punishable. We
shall now know just what monopolies exist; just what is their strength,
and for just how long a time their members are bound. Let us next see
what measures we can adopt to prevent these legalized monopolies from
practising extortion upon the public and abusing the power they have
gained by the combination.

The first important means to secure this which the author would
suggest is simply an extension of the common-law principle of
non-discrimination. A man in conducting certain sorts of business is
permitted to do as he chooses. He may sell to one person and refuse to
sell to another; he may give to one and withhold from another. But if he
enters business as the keeper of an inn or as a common carrier of
passengers or freight, he can no longer exercise partiality. He has
_elected to become a necessary servant of the public_, and as such he is
bound to serve impartially all who apply. In the same way a manufacturer
while he engages in business under the usual laws of competition, may
sell to whom he pleases and exercise such preference as he chooses. But
when he combines with all other manufacturers of the same sort in a
combination to restrict competition, he and his allies voluntarily
change their relation to the public. Is it not true that they do
actually _elect to become necessary servants of the public_--far more
necessary, indeed, than the inn-keeper or the stage-coach driver,--and
ought they not therefore to be placed under similar legal restrictions?

In every case where combination or consolidation restricts competition
in an industry, one effect produced is an increase in the power over
the public which the indus