194 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



In the United States, the nation founded npon the 

 individual as its corner stone, the same history is 

 repeating itself. The political right of the individ- 

 ual is firmly enough established, but the tendency to 

 centralization cannot be resisted. Political parties 

 have arisen, and these parties have, little by little, 

 swallowed up the independent political power of the 

 voter. In its century and a quarter of history there 

 has arisen by comparatively rapid steps a condition 

 of things in which the few rule the many almost as 

 truly as under a system of monarchy. In this case, 

 however, the ruler is not hereditary, and is subject to 

 change; but those who control the political parties 

 hold the people unconsciously in obedience. The 

 voter thinks he is voting independently, but he is 

 absolutely obliged, if he votes at all, to vote for many 

 things he does not approve. In most recent times 

 still, a different phase of centralization is appearing 

 as a result of industrial centralization and labor 

 unions. The primitive right of the individual to 

 work where he pleases has disappeared under our 

 industrial system almost as completely as it did 

 under feudalism. The industrial corporations regu- 

 late when the man shall work and industrial com- 

 munities regulate how a man shall live. The indus- 

 trial corporations of recent years, called trusts, have 

 obtained a control over the lives of the people as 

 absolute as that possessed by the monarch of the 

 European nation over his subjects. It is doubtful 

 whether among the Euro])ean nations any monarch 

 in any age possessed the power which is held to- 

 day by some of our gigantic industrial corporations. 

 On the other side, the laborers are organizing labor 

 unions which are none the less autocratic, and com- 



