the hands of their present owners and directors, but enact various
laws curtailing their powers to exploit the people. Laws are to be
passed limiting the capital they may employ, the amount of profits
they may make, and so on. But nobody explains how they expect to get
the laws obeyed. There are plenty of laws now aiming at regulation of
the trusts, but they are quite futile and inoperative. First we spend
an enormous amount of money and energy getting laws passed; then we
spend much more money and energy trying to get them enforced--and fail
after all!

I submit to your good judgment, Jonathan, that so long as we have a
relatively small class in the nation owning these great monopolies
through corporations there can be no peace. It will be to the interest
of the corporations to look after their profits, to prevent the
enactment of legislation aimed to restrict them and to evade the law
as much as possible. They will naturally use their influence to secure
laws favorable to themselves, with the inevitable result of corruption
in the legislative branches of the government. Legislators will be
bought like mackerel in the market, as Mr. Lawson so bluntly expresses
it. Efforts will be made to corrupt the judiciary also and the power
of the entire capitalist class will be directed to the capture of our
whole system of government. Even more than to-day, we will have the
government of the people by a privileged part of the people in the
interests of the privileged part.

You must not forget, my friend, that the corruption of the government
about which we hear so much from time to time is always in the
interests of private capitalism. If there is graft in some public
department, there is an outcry that graft and public business go
together. As a matter of fact the graft is in the interests of private
capitalism.

When legislators sell their votes it is never for public enterprises.
I have never heard of a city which was seeking the power to establish
any public service raising a "yellow dog fund" with which to bribe
legislators. On the other hand, I never yet heard of a private company
seeking a franchise without doing so more or less openly. Regulation
of the trusts will still leave the few masters of the many, and
corruption still gnawing at the vitals of the nation.

We must _own_ the trusts, Jonathan, and transform the monopolies by
which the few exploit and oppress the many into social monopolies for
the good of all.