rces to
develop that she had a century ago. Second, the concentration of all the
productive industries, except agriculture, into great establishments,
while it has enormously lessened the cost of production, has so reduced
the number of competing units that a monopoly is the inevitable final
result. Last, the enormous capital required for the establishment and
maintenance of new competing units tends to fortify the monopoly in its
position and render the escape of the public from its grasp practically
impossible. These terse statements contain exactly the kernel of potent
truth for which we are seeking; MONOPOLIES OF EVERY SORT ARE AN
INEVITABLE RESULT FROM CERTAIN CONDITIONS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.

The vital importance of this truth cannot be over-estimated. For so long
as we refuse to recognize it, so long as we attempt to stop the present
evils of monopoly by trying to add a feeble _one_ to the number of
competing units, or by trying to legislate against special monopolies,
we are only building a temporary dam to shut out a flood which can only
be controlled at the fountain head.

The facts of history testify to the truth of this law. Monopolies were
never so abundant as to-day, never so powerful, never so threatening;
and with unimportant exceptions they have all sprung up with our modern
industrial development. The last fifteen years have seen a greater
industrial advancement than did the thirty preceding, but they have also
witnessed a more than proportionate growth of monopolies. How worse than
foolish, then, is the short-sightedness that ascribes monopolies to the
personal wickedness of the men who form them. It is as foolish to decry
the wickedness of trust makers as it is to curse the schemes of labor
monopolists. Each is working unconsciously in obedience to a natural
law; and the only reason that almost every man is not engaged in forming
or maintaining a similar monopoly is that he is not placed in similar
circumstances. Away, then, with the pessimism which declares that the
prevalence of monopolies evidences the decay of the nobler aspirations
of humanity. The monopolies of to-day are a natural outgrowth of the
laws of modern competition, and they are as actually a result of the
application of steam, electricity, and machinery to the service of man,
as are our factories and railways. Great evils though they may have
become, there is naught of evil omen in them to make us fear for the
ultimate welfare of