DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42346#0207
RELATIONS WITH SELLERS
19 5
with this sacred right of the individual to buy and sell
wherever he pleases.
But if a merchant in Detroit crosses the river to buy
cheaper woolens in Canada he finds this “fundamental
maxim of trade” shattered at the border.
In its domestic commerce the United States threatens
to imprison men who restrain the individual’s liberty to
buy where he can buy the cheapest; in its foreign com-
merce it threatens to imprison a man if he tries to exercise
the right.
A man’s philosophy of trade must be narrow indeed if
he can so much as attempt to justify the proposition that
trade must flow freely along one side of a business street,
but not across the street because an invisible geographical
line runs through the center of the street marking the bor-
ders of Mexico and Arizona.1
The man who succeeds in adjusting his philosophy of
commerce to this political condition, wakes up some fine
morning to find that the geographical line has moved or
disappeared, that trade flows freely where it was ob-
structed before—what becomes of his philosophy? Like
the geographical line, it moves or disappears; he is obliged
to confess that his so-called philosophy was nothing more
than a theory of political expediency or, more likely, simply
selfish considerations framed in high-sounding, psendo-
patriotic phrases.
It is not intended here to argue for or against the doc-
trine of protection, but only to point out the fact that in
domestic commerce free trade is guaranteed by constitu-
tional provision and a variety of laws, while in foreign
commerce it is prohibited in all but a few articles, and
1 The line dividing Mexico from this country runs through the
center of the business street of Nogales, Arizona. The stores on one
side are Mexican, those on the other American. Custom officers are
stationed on each side of the line to see that no thrifty housewife
passes with a paper of pins.
19 5
with this sacred right of the individual to buy and sell
wherever he pleases.
But if a merchant in Detroit crosses the river to buy
cheaper woolens in Canada he finds this “fundamental
maxim of trade” shattered at the border.
In its domestic commerce the United States threatens
to imprison men who restrain the individual’s liberty to
buy where he can buy the cheapest; in its foreign com-
merce it threatens to imprison a man if he tries to exercise
the right.
A man’s philosophy of trade must be narrow indeed if
he can so much as attempt to justify the proposition that
trade must flow freely along one side of a business street,
but not across the street because an invisible geographical
line runs through the center of the street marking the bor-
ders of Mexico and Arizona.1
The man who succeeds in adjusting his philosophy of
commerce to this political condition, wakes up some fine
morning to find that the geographical line has moved or
disappeared, that trade flows freely where it was ob-
structed before—what becomes of his philosophy? Like
the geographical line, it moves or disappears; he is obliged
to confess that his so-called philosophy was nothing more
than a theory of political expediency or, more likely, simply
selfish considerations framed in high-sounding, psendo-
patriotic phrases.
It is not intended here to argue for or against the doc-
trine of protection, but only to point out the fact that in
domestic commerce free trade is guaranteed by constitu-
tional provision and a variety of laws, while in foreign
commerce it is prohibited in all but a few articles, and
1 The line dividing Mexico from this country runs through the
center of the business street of Nogales, Arizona. The stores on one
side are Mexican, those on the other American. Custom officers are
stationed on each side of the line to see that no thrifty housewife
passes with a paper of pins.