inst him. For if
he begins to sell to certain retail dealers, to any retail dealers, the
monopoly will refuse to sell to those dealers, and those dealers will
be afraid and will not buy the new man's wares.

And this is the country which has lifted to the admiration of the world
its ideals of absolutely free opportunity, where no man is supposed to
be under any limitation except the limitations of his character and of
his mind; where there is supposed to be no distinction of class, no
distinction of blood, no distinction of social status, but where men
win or lose on their merits.

I lay it very close to my own conscience as a public man whether we can
any longer stand at our doors and welcome all newcomers upon those
terms. American industry is not free, as once it was free; American
enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding
it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete
with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not
prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and
because the strong have crushed the weak, the strong dominate the
industry and the economic life of this country. No man can deny that
the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and stiffened; no man
who knows anything about the development of industry in this country
can have failed to observe that the larger kinds of credit are more and
more difficult to obtain, unless you obtain them upon the terms of
uniting your efforts with those who already control the industries of
the country; and nobody can fail to observe that any man who tries to
set himself up in competition with any process of manufacture which has
been taken under the control of large combinations of capital will
presently find himself either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow
himself to be absorbed.

There is a great deal that needs reconstruction in the United States. I
should like to take a census of the business men--I mean the rank and
file of the business men--as to whether they think that business
conditions in this country, or rather whether the organization of
business in this country, is satisfactory or not. I know what they
would say if they dared. If they could vote secretly they would vote
overwhelmingly that the present organization of business was meant for
the big fellows and was not meant for the little fellows; that it was
meant for those who are at the top and was meant to