our military and naval ambition; about
nature-fakirs and race-suicide; but about the ordered and constructive
purpose to curb the abuses of our ill-regulated private monopolies,
there should be no disagreement among sane and disinterested men. No one
has ever yet shown genius enough to do disagreeable duties agreeably to
all men. To the end of time, if we ourselves are inconvenienced, we
shall probably say: "Of course this thing ought to be done,--but it
should be done in some other way." The various methods of railroad
regulation may irritate us, but that the railroad must be brought so far
under public control as to obey the law and serve all men with
approximate fairness, no human being who is intellectually and morally
awake can longer deny.

To begin this great task with the machinery of transportation was the
first clear duty. Scarcely one of the gigantic abuses can be touched
apart from these highways of distribution. We have but just waked up to
the plain stupidity of giving away so recklessly all sorts of franchise
grants, and are beginning to see the equal stupidity of parting madly
with such an overwhelming part of the main and primary sources of
wealth--mines, forests, water-power, oil deposits, and ground areas in
large towns. These are the sure nesting-places of monopoly, and
therefore, of all the fantastic extremes of wealth which make puppets of
our politicians and set before the youth of the nation snobbish and
materialistic ideals. This policy, be it remembered, does not ask, as
the socialists do, for all forests, all mines, or all the water-power.
It asks that the hand of government control be kept firmly upon such
portions of these resources as are susceptible to vicious monopoly. All
this is possible along the lines of state regulation, without even
raising the question of universal ownership. We have a chief executive
who sees what the evils are and dares to face them. Yet the courage
involved is not his highest gift; but, rather, the intelligence with
which he has so stated and grouped the issues as to give us a coherent
administrative policy that works toward equality and not away from it.

To group those sources of monopoly that may still be saved; to show how
this retention will fortify the government in its great struggle to
regulate privileged capital,--is a service that should command the
intellectual and moral sympathy of an entire people. It is a policy
broadly public and social, as again