prices under it, we shall fare sufficiently well. As yet, it
is in an incipient stage of development and has by no means revealed
its full power for evil. If we let it grow freely, we shall find later
what it is capable of. Wise measures, adopted even now, will come early
enough to prevent it from ever growing to maturity.

With the steel trust, the Standard Oil trust, and other combinations
before our eyes, it seems an absurdity to speak of monopolies as being
in an incipient stage. Is it possible that anything whatever which
these great combinations represent can be nipped in the bud? Are they
not already in the fullest flower, and big and mature as they are ever
likely to be? The companies themselves, with their vast material
plants, certainly are so. What we are talking about, however, is not
the mere size of the companies, but _the element of monopoly that is in
them_. Have they such a power that they can safely charge anything they
please for their products? Is it as though they were licensed by the
Government to be the sole makers and vendors of their special wares?
Business men know that this is not the case; and that something puts a
check on their action. They can make their prices higher than they
should be--higher than it is for the interest of the country to have
them; but they cannot make them as high as they would be under a real
and secure monopoly. The point I am making is that we can destroy such
monopolistic power as they have. We can liberate competition, which
has, in the main, afforded reasonable prices, and has also guaranteed
that progress which is indispensable for maintaining a human life that
is worth living. It is to-day the only means of insuring a constantly
increasing power over nature--an ability to turn out, in greater and
greater abundance, the things which make life comfortable.

These combinations now possess a power which it is highly perilous to
let them keep. They can disable their rivals by foul play, which would
be impossible under proper rules of the ring. By securing control of
raw materials, by selling goods below cost in the territory where a
small rival is operating and keeping up the prices everywhere else, by
forcing merchants to boycott independent manufacturers, by getting, in
spite of laws and commissions, some advantages from railroads, and by
other similar practices, they can drive competitors out of business.
Yet every one of these practices can be defined and prohib