acted
with "Big Business,"--under its leadership, but as industrial activities
and destinies are more and more transferred to the political field, the
smaller capitalist becomes rather a junior partner than a mere follower.
Consolidation and industrial panics have taught him his lesson, and he
is at last beginning to organize and to demand his share of profits at
the only point where he has a chance to get it, _i.e._ through the new
"State Socialism." Moreover, he is going to have a large measure of
success, as the political situation in this country and the actual
experience of other countries show. And in proportion as the relations
between large and small business become more cordial and better
organized, they may launch this government, within a few years, into the
capitalist undertakings so far-reaching and many-sided that the half
billion expended on the Panama Canal will be forgotten as the small
beginning of the new movement.

It is true that for the moment the stupendous wealth and power of the
"Large Interests," already more or less consolidated, threaten to
overwhelm the rest. Mr. Steffens does not overstate when he says:--

"To state correctly in billions of dollars the actual value of all
the property represented in this community of interests, might
startle the imagination to some sense of the magnitude of the
wealth of these men. But money is no true measure of power. The
total capitalization of all they own would not bring home to us the
influence of Morgan and his associates, direct and indirect, honest
and corrupt, over presidents and Congresses; governors and
legislators; in both political parties and over our political
powers. And no figures would remind us of their standing at the bar
and in the courts; with the press, the pulpit, the colleges,
schools, and in society. And even if all their property and all
their power could be stated in exact terms, it would not show their
_relative_ wealth and strength. We must not ask how much they have.
_We must ask how much they haven't got_."[31]

But over against this economic power the small capitalists, farmers,
shopkeepers, landlords, and small business men, have a political power
that is equally overwhelming. Until the "trusts" came into being, no
issue united this enormous mass. Yet they are still capitalists, and
what they want, except the few who still dream of competing with