ouraging
nature.

Nevertheless, at the last general election the American people cast a
decisively preponderant vote in favor of the Roosevelt-Taft programme;
and in so doing they showed their customary common sense. The huge
corporations have contributed to American economic efficiency. They
constitute an important step in the direction of the better
organization of industry and commerce. They have not, except in certain
exceptional cases, suppressed competition; but they have regulated it;
and it should be the effort of all civilized societies to substitute
cooeperative for competitive methods, wherever cooeperation can prove its
efficiency. Deliberately to undo this work of industrial and commercial
organization would constitute a logical application of the principle of
equal rights, but it would also constitute a step backward in the
process of economic and social advance. The process of industrial
organization should be allowed to work itself out. Whenever the smaller
competitor of the large corporation is unable to keep his head above
water with his own exertions, he should be allowed to drown. That the
smaller business man will entirely be displaced by the large corporation
is wholly improbable. There are certain industries and lines of trade in
which he will be able to hold his own; but where he is not able to hold
his own, there is no public interest promoted by any expensive attempt
to save his life.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Law constitutes precisely such an attempt to save
the life of the small competitor; and in case the Roosevelt-Taft policy
of recognition tempered by regulation is to prevail, the first step to
be taken is the repeal or the revision of that law. As long as it
remains on the statute books in its existing form, it constitutes an
announcement that the national interest of the American people demands
active discrimination in favor of the small industrial and commercial
agent. It denies the desirability of recognizing what has already been
accomplished in the way of industrial and commercial organization; and
according to prevalent interpretations, it makes the legal standing of
all large industrial combinations insecure--no matter how conducive to
economic efficiency their business policy may be.

Assuming, however, that the Sherman Anti-Trust Law can be repealed, and
that the Roosevelt-Taft policy of recognition tempered by regulation be
adopted, the question remains as to the manner in whic