uld play no part at all and should feel no
sense of responsibility for what we can do.

What then of conditions of civilization in our country in the last
half-century? The Civil War grew out of a great moral and social issue.
It was a moral issue on the part of the North and a social issue on the
part of the South. Material considerations were subordinated. After the
war we had a pretty hard time in getting over its immediate effects. The
panic of 1873, which prostrated all business, was the result of the
excesses of the war, the overissue of legal tender and the feverish,
unhealthy expansion that followed. In 1878, we resumed specie payments.
I presume no country in the world ever showed such an enormous expansion
and such material growth as ours between 1878 and 1907. It was shown in
the useful inventions. Steam had been invented before, but it was
increased in its uses, and electricity was made the tool of man. Now it
is easy to follow that kind of material expansion. We can count the
growth in wealth and trace the effect of it on the people, for they all
got into the chase for the dollar.

In the West, the pioneer spirit was so strong that they were glad to
have anything in the way of development at any cost. Counties would
issue railroad bonds to build railroads and would give the bonds to the
railroads. They would give franchises of all sorts and do everything
that they thought would help open the country. There was a most
substantial increase in the average income, and the average comfort,
especially in the bodily comfort, of everyone. Have you ever thought
that today the humblest workman has more bodily comfort in many ways
than Queen Elizabeth or even George III? We had learned the advantage of
combination in machinery and we adopted it in business.

This brought about great combinations of plant and capital which reduced
the cost of producing commodities necessary to man to a price never
conceived of before. I do not wish to depreciate the value or importance
of improvement in material comfort. When you hear a man denounce it, you
may know that either he is not a clear, calm thinker, or else he is a
demagogue. Material growth and material comfort are essential for the
development of mental and spiritual activities. The result of this
combination and material expansion, however, was to create great
corporations which began to get control of things. The same spirit of
combination entered into politics and we