CONCENTRATION OF INDUSTRY 59 



that land monopoly, railroad illegalities and tariff are the sole 

 supports of the trusts, the advantages of mere size of business 

 evaporating before the stage of monopoly is reached; Pro- 

 fessor Jenks, on the other hand, regards the advantages of 

 mere size as in themselves sufficient to support a trust. The 

 issue is one of fact which cannot easily be resolved. For it is 

 not possible, I think, to find a trust or strong corporation 

 which has not enjoyed at least one of the artificial supports I 

 have named. This does not prove that a trust could not 

 grow without them, but it distinctly does cast the onus pro- 

 bandi upon the socialist as distinguished from the Henry 

 George man, the free trader, and the railroad reformer. 



I have used the words trust and monopoly for the sake of 

 convenience. Monopoly is, of course, entirely a matter of de- 

 gree. No American trust has a monopoly unqualified by 

 some measure of real and direct competition, while potential 

 competition furnishes a further genuine restraint upon the 

 abuse of power over the consumer. Even the oil trust has 

 small competitors over a portion of its home market, and 

 one independent pipe line still exists, competing for export 

 trade. But a growing degree of monopolist power attaches 

 to the great corporations which I have described, and the sur- 

 viving competition, real and potential, seems inadequate to 

 secure the consuming public against rises of price unwarranted 

 by the cost of production. 



Perhaps Mr. Russell Sage goes too far in saying, "If the 

 truth were known, concentration of wealth is popular with 

 the masses;" but it is certainly true that the millionaire has 

 been an object of admiration rather than of enmity among 

 the masses. The sporting instinct in America has been spe- 

 cially directed towards the race for wealth, the racing regula- 

 tions are not too particular, and the winner is greeted with 

 general applause by the millions of spectators who are eagerly 

 seeking for some chance of similar personal distinction. Great 

 wealth and crooked methods of acquiring it have long been 

 familiar, and do not disturb the popular complacency. Though 

 the publicity given to the formation of "combines" during the 

 last few years, and the appearance of trusts as an issue of party 

 politics, are slowly educating the nation in the real significance 



