ployer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness
over against the great corporation, while at the same time the way
upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove
him to union with his fellows.

"The records of the period show that the outcry against the
concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatened
society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever
endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for
them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the
race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any
motive but insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder at their
desperation, for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate
more sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporate
tyranny which they anticipated.

"Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamor
against it, the absorption of business by ever larger monopolies
continued. In the United States there was not, after the beginning of
the last quarter of the century, any opportunity whatever for
individual enterprise in any important field of industry, unless
backed by a great capital. During the last decade of the century, such
small businesses as still remained were fast-failing survivals of a
past epoch, or mere parasites on the great corporations, or else
existed in fields too small to attract the great capitalists. Small
businesses, as far as they still remained, were reduced to the
condition of rats and mice, living in holes and corners, and counting
on evading notice for the enjoyment of existence. The railroads had
gone on combining till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in
the land. In manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a
syndicate. These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name,
fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations as
vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a still
greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed its
country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its
smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was concentrated
under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as
clerks. Having no business of his own to put his money in, the small
capitalist, at the same time that he took service under the
corporation, found no other investment for his