Sious City Academy of Science and Letters. 131 
24; Montana, 26; Oregon, 3@; Michigan, 32; Alabama, 35; 
Arkansas, 35. These twelve senates, made up of only 
300 men, might be controlled by 162, and the United 
States balked of its dearest hopes of constitutional re- 
form. 
Such a reform will sometime demand amendment, 
and on some point which will threaten the very exist- 
ence of the monopolies the possession of which have 
built up the wonderfully powerful aristocracy of privi- 
lege which has now taken the place left vacant by the 
elimination of hereditary aristocracy of the historical 
sort in the formation of our institutions. A very few 
men now control our highways, our deep-water and city 
terminals, (and by means of them our steamships), our 
fuel, gas, oil, iron and steel. In fact there is now prob- 
ably no great field in production or transportation, except 
agriculture, which they do not dominate. And as to 
agriculture, their control of transportation enables them 
to say whether the producer shall make a profit or not. 
Merchandising they control through the arbitrary fixing 
of prices, and by the terrorism of freight favors. Bank- 
ing was in the year 1900 so far under their control that 
the Chicago Tribune in that year pointed out the fact 
that nearly one-half the entire circulating medium of 
this country was in the deposits of the banks and trust 
companies controlled by the Standard Oil Company. No 
reform leading up to legislation vitally affecting privi- 
lege can fail to provoke the most desperate opposition 
from these interests. 
It may, therefore, be worth our while to take note of 
the fact that the usual annual dividend of the one trust, 
the Standard Oil Company,.representing only its profits, 
and therefore easily applicable to any such contests, 
would be enough to enable that institution to pay a 
majority of all the voters in the twelve states having 
the smallest population, $150.00 each for their votes 
against legislators favorable to amendment. It might 
pay to each of a majority of both houses of the legis- 
latures of twelve states, over $70,000, without any 
hardship except the passing of one dividend. It might 
purchase the control of the twelve pivotal senates at 
