duced. By this the Oil Trust transports its oil to the
sea-board at a cost that enables it to undersell all competitors. And
for a time the price of oil was reduced, and all the minor competitors
were driven into bankruptcy or forced to sell out to the Trust at a
ridiculously low figure.

"Owing to my well being centrally located I was able to hold out longer
than many others.

"John D. Savage, the Oil King, realized that some more potent means had
to be devised to crush me. This means was found in the expedient of
'Sacrifice' sales. At every depot where I sold, the agents of the Trust
offered to sell oil at figures lower than I could possibly sell it. I
lost my trade. In an effort to retrench, my fortune was consumed, and
from a position of affluence I descended to beggary, and had to join the
ranks as an employee. So bitter was the animosity of the Trust that it
sought to rob me even of the opportunity to earn a living. I have been
hounded from post to pillar; my life has been made miserable. I have
seen my family want for bread.

"And all because I withstood the assault of the Oil King.

"As an American I protest against the existence of a corporation that
can set at naught the mandates of the law; a corporation that can, with
utter impunity, resort to arson as a final means of gaining its illegal
end, as the oil Trust has done, again and again.

"I thank God that I still possess my fore-fathers' spirit of resistance
against oppression. There are few men who are in want, or in actual
dread of being thrown out of employment, however unremunerative, who
will assert their right. A nation composed of such men is not free, no
matter what its form of government may be.

"I am ready to do anything that will restore the right to the individual
citizen to engage in business; I am ready to make a stand against the
few plutocrats who now usurp the avenues of human activity; and I
believe that we will be able to enlist men in support of the idea that
the rights of the majority transcend the aggressions of the oligarchy of
American capitalists."

As Chadwick concludes his statement, Hiram Goodel, a delegate from New
Hampshire, obtains the floor.

"Coercion is the word that epitomizes my grievance against the Trusts,"
he begins. "It was by the exercise of coercion that I was driven out of
business. I conducted a retail tobacco store in Concord, in my native
state. My business sufficed to insure me a decent living, and a