talk about representing the
citizen as consumer against the citizen as producer. It frankly avows
its intention to protect the ultimate consumer, not against small
capitalist producers (_e.g._ its opposition to Canadian reciprocity and
cheaper food), but solely against the monopolies. Indeed, the protection
of the ultimate consumer against monopolies is clearly made incidental
to the protection of the small capitalist consumer-producer. The wage
earner consumes few products of the Steel Trust, the farmer and small
manufacturers, many. Nor does the new movement propose to destroy the
"trusts" by free trade even in the articles they produce, but merely to
control prices by lower tariffs. With the abandonment of the last of the
"Interests" and at the same time of the "consumers" that they use as a
cloak, the new movement promises for the first time a fairly independent
and lasting political organization of the smaller capitalists.

While Senator La Follette is the leading general of the new movement,
either Ex-President Roosevelt or Governor Woodrow Wilson seems destined
to become its leading diplomatist. While Senator La Follette declares
for a fight to the finish, and shows that he knows how to lead and
organize such a fight, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson are giving their
attention largely to peace terms to be demanded of the enemy, and the
diplomatic attitude to be assumed in the negotiations. Perhaps it is too
early for such peaceful thoughts, and premature talk of this kind may
eliminate these leaders as negotiators satisfactory to the small
capitalists. Their interest for my present purpose is that they probably
foreshadow the attitude that will finally be assumed when the large
"Interests" see that they must make terms.

Mr. Wilson's language is at times so conciliatory as to create doubt
whether or not he will stand with Senator La Follette and the Republican
"Insurgents" for the whole of the small capitalist's program, but it
leaves no doubt that, if he lives up to his declared principles, he must
aim at the government regulation, not of "Big Business" merely, but of
all business--as when he says that "business is no longer in any sense a
private matter."

"We are dealing, in our present discussion," he said in an address,
delivered in December, 1910, "with business, and we are dealing
with life as an organic whole, and modern politics is an
accommodation of these two. Suppose we define busi