Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/804

 788 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

munity and public-service corporations, it will have been well worth while.

The demand for public ownership and operation of street rail- ways, lighting facilities, etc., is often based upon the broad con- tention that the furnishing of " common necessities " ought logi- cally to be in the hands of all the people. The argument is obviously careless, in that it would equally justify state production of wheat, sugar, coal, oil, meats, cotton, and wool whatever, in fact, has come to be regarded as a " necessity " of life. The real distinction comes in when the article in question is not only a public necessity, but is supplied under practically monopolistic conditions. There is a separate grouping of industries of this class, which is recognized in the practical policies of virtually all civilized countries. From time immemorial governments have elected to take over the control and operation of so-called " natural monopolies; " whether it was the development of valuable natural products, especially rare mineral deposits, or, in more recent times, the furnishing of water supply, drainage systems, street- lighting, and even in some cases of public transportation and communication facilities. The instinctive appreciation that the peculiar character of such industries calls for and justifies some- thing more than a laissez-faire policy is what underlay the very general support of the President's intervention in the coal strike. The act was unofficial, to be sure, but morally it had the effect of an assertion of the sovereign popular right to take a hand in the conduct of a virtually monopolistic industry supplying a necessity of life.

The principle has steadily become clearer that, where com- petition is impossible or ineffective, some outside agency is not only admissible, but necessary, to supply or compel the progressive improvement and the checks against extortion which natural con- ditions do not in such case afford; and since this interference is required in the public interest, what more natural than that the government, as the organized expression of the people's will, should be the intervening agent?

Much elaborate argument has been wasted in the vain effort t<> show that competition is really feasible under all conditions. But