n of men's minds. That a period
of transition like that should be full of excitement and agitation was
indeed to be looked for; but seeing how plain was the tendency of the
forces in operation, it was natural to believe that hope rather than
fear would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind."

"You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which you
found," I said. "I am impatient to know by what contradiction of
natural sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoy
could have been the outcome of an era like my own."

"Excuse me," replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was not till our
cigars were lighted and drawing well that he resumed. "Since you are
in the humor to talk rather than to sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps
I cannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of our modern
industrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there is
any mystery about the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of your
day had the reputation of being great askers of questions, and I am
going to show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What should
you name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of your
day?"

"Why, the strikes, of course," I replied.

"Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?"

"The great labor organizations."

"And what was the motive of these great organizations?"

"The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from the
big corporations," I replied.

"That is just it," said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and the
strikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital in
greater masses than had ever been known before. Before this
concentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were conducted
by innumerable petty concerns with small capital, instead of a small
number of great concerns with vast capital, the individual workman was
relatively important and independent in his relations to the employer.
Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a
man in business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming
employers and there was no hard and fast line between the two classes.
Labor unions were needless then, and general strikes out of the
question. But when the era of small concerns with small capital was
succeeded by that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was
changed. The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to
the small em