made into a "trust"--this human combine becomes at once
free from the bondage of matter and the senses, sees out of the back of
its head and passes in and out through solid walls. It has all the
combined strength and more that the two men had and all their human
privileges and possessions, but it evades nature's laws as to
individuals, and the laws of man both as to individuals and other
material things.

To put the description in still another way, a "trust" is an institution
which endows itself with the right to use any or all of the seven
institutions of the people as the people use them, but so made that its
user derives from the institutions the benefits the people intended for
themselves, and yet is immune from the legal consequences of
appropriating such benefits. Two or more men make a "trust" by
combining--acquiring the control of--an insurance company, a trust
company, and a savings-bank. The new organization _is_ all of these
institutions, performs the functions of all of them, yet can legally do
with their incomes, capital, and surpluses things which, from the very
nature of each, none of the institutions is allowed to do--the new
organization is all of these institutions until the law attempts to
bring it to book; then it evades being any one of them. The trust
company is empowered to lend money on speculative ventures which the
insurance company and savings-bank may not do, so the "trust" lends the
insurance company's vast accumulations and the savings-bank's hoard
through the trust company with great profit or tremendous loss and
enjoys immunity from the consequences which should follow such
disobedience of the law. Moreover, when the trust company shows a profit
the "trust" appropriates it, and when a tremendous loss is sustained the
insurance company or the savings-bank must bear it.

An illustration: A, B, and C form a "trust." A and B are president and
controller of a savings-bank and an insurance company respectively. They
organize a trust company with $1,000,000 capital, of which the insurance
company furnishes the majority; they then elect C president and
controller of the trust company, and make him their associate or a
dummy. The trust company receives $5,000,000 of the people's money on
deposit. The insurance company deposits $5,000,000 of its surplus funds,
and the savings-bank $5,000,000 more. The trust company now has
$15,000,000 of the people's savings in its control with which by law it