wields all the powers of its subsidiary
companies, and Standard Oil, the seller of oil. In the same way we have
"American Sugar Refineries" and "United States Steel," the "Private
Things" which are not one whit better than nor different from "Standard
Oil," the "Private Thing." Though this narrative will deal only with the
"Private Things," Bay State Gas and Amalgamated Copper, I have no
hesitancy in saying that the methods employed and the results, good or
bad, which accrued in the case of any of the other "Private Things" with
which the public have had to do, differ only in details from those with
which I shall deal in my story.

In speaking of dollars brought into existence by the trick of finance I
have referred to I shall call them henceforth "made dollars," to
distinguish them from dollars coined by the Government and legitimately
acquired by the individual or corporation. These "made dollars," it must
be remembered, are really "made" for all purposes of use as surely as
if they had the Government's stamp, yet they are not made in the sense
of the known volume of the people's money being added to. So, however
many of these "made dollars" are brought into existence by this trick of
finance, only the men who "made" them can know and profit by their
existence. The people are no wiser nor can they adjust themselves to the
change of conditions brought about by the creation of all this new
money; yet if "unmade" or lost, the entire volume of the nation's wealth
would be contracted.

I can set before my readers better by an illustration than by any
process of definition, the trick of finance by which "made dollars" are
brought into existence. Let us suppose that the United States Government
at Washington, the only power legally entitled to issue money for
circulation among the people, puts forth a particular $10,000. All the
conditions prescribed by law have been followed, and all the people in
the country are benefited by the issue and circulation of this
particular $10,000, each in the proportion the laws prescribe.

"B," a Western farmer, tills his soil and receives, by the sale of his
wheat, the particular $10,000, which he then deposits in _The Bank_.
_The Bank_, being a part of the Government machinery, only receives,
holds, and uses the $10,000 under safeguards provided for by the laws of
the land, so hereafter "B's" material life is conducted on the basis
that he is the full and actual possessor of $10,000. He