ution.

"So the work devolves upon the few men who have the means and the
inclination to strive for the betterment of humanity.

"Yet even these men are not always capable of judging events by their
true proportions and relations.

"Advancement is the one thing that reformers fear. The ends they would
attain are almost always reconstructive; they are never creative."
Nevins utters these words with impressive emphasis.

"These remarks I have made by way of prelude to the matter I shall now
proceed to discuss directly and earnestly.

"We are each and all convinced that the pernicious system of fostering
monopolies that has been instituted in this country can have but one
result, the undermining of our popular institutions, and in their place
the substitution of moneyed Plutocracy. This result is abhorrent to
every true American.

"Now, there is no way to put an end to monopolies except by the people
rising in their might and reassuming their own.

"The hypocritical advice of the leaders of the great universities, that
the people ostracize the Magnates, has now ceased to satisfy the
exigencies of the case. What sort of ostracism would the President of a
University endowed by the millions of a Magnate, propose to have
enforced against his master?

"Another of the proposals emanating from the hireling counsels of the
Trusts, is that the methods of the Trusts be placed under the
searchlight of publicity. A pretty programme, indeed, were it not for
the fact that the very men who propose this method of dealing with
monopolies would be engaged by the Magnates to defend them from
exposure.

"To invoke the aid of the courts is to be brought face to face with the
servants of the Trusts. Where is the Attorney-General who can
successfully prosecute a Trust? The only one who was ever sincere in his
attempt met an insurmountable barrier in the courts before which he
arraigned the guilty.

"And the votes of the people, do they avail?

"The executives and legislators whom they elect are false to their
pledges.

"The great sin of this country is the worship of gold. Human life is
held as secondary to the dollar.

"Who then shall deliver the people from the bondage that has come upon
them?

"Unguided, they are as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. False
prophets, mercenary leaders, are an abomination. They have been and are
to this day, the clogs in the wheels of progress.

"The work of rejuvenation must be done by a