In the foregoing argument it has been deliberately assumed that the interests to be extinguished are, for the most part, universally recognized as anti-social.  Slavery, health-destroying adulteration, the maintenance of tenements that menace life and morals, these at least represent interests so abominable that all must agree upon the wisdom of extinguishing them.  The only point in dispute must be one of method.  It is the contention of the present writer that when even such interests have had time to become clothed with an appearance of regularity, the method of extinction should be through compensation.  By its tolerance of such interests, the public has made itself an accomplice in the mischief to which they give rise, and accordingly has not even an equitable right to throw the whole responsibility upon the private persons concerned.

Interests thus universally recognized to be evil are necessarily few.  In the vast majority of cases the establishment of interests we now seek to proscribe took place in an epoch in which no evil was imputed to them.  At first a small minority, usually regarded as fanatics, attack the interests in question.  This minority increases, and in the end transforms itself into a majority.  But long after majority opinion has become adverse, there remains a vigorous minority opinion defending the menaced interests.  A hundred years ago the distilling of spirituous liquors was almost universally regarded as an entirely legitimate industry.  The enemies of the industry were few and of no political consequence.  Today in many communities the industry is utterly condemned by majority opinion.  There is, however, no community in which a minority honestly defending the industry is absolutely wanting.  Admitting that the majority opinion is right, it remains none the less true that adherents of the minority opinion would regard themselves as most grievously wronged if the majority proceeded to a destruction of their interests.

Where moral issues alone are involved, we may perhaps accept the view that the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may be to infallibility.  But it is very rarely the case that the question of the legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue.  Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in which majority judgment is notoriously fallible.  Thus we have at times had large minorities who believed that the bank as an institution is wholly evil, and ought to be abolished.  This was the majority opinion in one period of the history of Texas, and in accordance with it, established banking interests were destroyed by law.  It is only within the last fifteen years that the majority of the citizens of that commonwealth have admitted the error of the earlier view.