under the freest
competition. Let us, therefore, deduct from the preceding four millions
the persons engaged in retail trade, and all skilled laborers in the
various trades which we formerly included because we conceived that they
might be connected with some form of labor organization, and might also
obtain some benefit through the profits of their employers. But when we
make these deductions we find that we have only a hundred thousand or so
of our four millions left. Briefly summed up, therefore, the fact is,
that the strong monopolies in manufacturing, mining, trade, and
transportation are owned by a very small portion of the population. Just
what this number is, it is impossible to say, for the stock and bonds of
railroad companies, mining companies, and manufacturing companies are
changing hands continually, and no public record is taken of their
distribution and ownership. It may possibly be true, however, that one
million different persons own an interest in some of the various
monopolies which we have studied, excluding the monopolies in trade and
labor. But even if this estimate is correct, it is a well-known fact
that a few hundred immensely wealthy men hold a large share of the stock
of these very profitable monopolies.

[4] From the "Compendium of the Tenth Census of the United States,"
Part II., pp. 1378 and 1384.

Leaving the questions which this statement opens up, for later
consideration, let us consider the other classes of occupations in which
men engage for the purpose of gain, and see if this far-reaching
movement towards the destruction of competition has infected them, and
whether it has proved, or can prove, so successful there as it has in
the industries considered in preceding chapters.

The third great class of occupations, rendering professional or personal
service, gives employment to over four million persons (4,074,328), and
includes in its members those in widely separated ranks of society.

It is, of course, true that the competition in the professions is far
more a competition of ability, real or supposed, than it is a
competition of price; and the former is a competition which is never
likely to be done away with. Yet in all occupations, to a greater or
less degree, there tends to arise more or less competition in relation
to price, and the professions are not entirely exempt. Lawyers, indeed,
seem never to have felt the necessity of fixing any minimum tariff of
fees; and s