a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
They were truly representative middle-class business men.

There was Owen, of Silverberg, Owen & Company--a large grocery firm with
several branch stores. We bought our groceries from them. There were
both partners of the big drug firm of Kowalt & Washburn, and Mr.
Asmunsen, the owner of a large granite quarry in Contra Costa County.
And there were many similar men, owners or part-owners in small
factories, small businesses and small industries--small capitalists, in
short.

They were shrewd-faced, interesting men, and they talked with simplicity
and clearness. Their unanimous complaint was against the corporations
and trusts. Their creed was, "Bust the Trusts." All oppression
originated in the trusts, and one and all told the same tale of woe.
They advocated government ownership of such trusts as the railroads
and telegraphs, and excessive income taxes, graduated with ferocity,
to destroy large accumulations. Likewise they advocated, as a cure for
local ills, municipal ownership of such public utilities as water, gas,
telephones, and street railways.

Especially interesting was Mr. Asmunsen's narrative of his tribulations
as a quarry owner. He confessed that he never made any profits out of
his quarry, and this, in spite of the enormous volume of business
that had been caused by the destruction of San Francisco by the big
earthquake. For six years the rebuilding of San Francisco had been going
on, and his business had quadrupled and octupled, and yet he was no
better off.

"The railroad knows my business just a little bit better than I do," he
said. "It knows my operating expenses to a cent, and it knows the terms
of my contracts. How it knows these things I can only guess. It must
have spies in my employ, and it must have access to the parties to all
my contracts. For look you, when I place a big contract, the terms
of which favor me a goodly profit, the freight rate from my quarry to
market is promptly raised. No explanation is made. The railroad gets my
profit. Under such circumstances I have never succeeded in getting the
railroad to reconsider its raise. On the other hand, when there have
been accidents, increased expenses of operating, or contracts with less
profitable terms, I have always succeeded in getting the railroad to
lower its rate. What is the result? Large or small, the railroad always
gets my profits."

"What remains to you over and above," Ernest interrupt