able to maintain their supremacy.

The wealth of the landowners soon completely eclipsed that of the
shippers. Enormous as were the profits of the shipping business, they
were immediate only. In the contest for wealth it was inevitable that
the shippers should fall behind. Their business was one of peculiar
uncertainties. The hazards of the sea, the fluctuations and vicissitudes
of trade, the severe competition of the times, exposed their traffic to
many mutations. Many of the rich shipowners well understood this; the
surplus wealth derived from commerce on the seas they invested in land,
banks, factories, turnpikes, insurance companies, railroads and in some
instances, lotteries. Those shipping millionaires who clung exclusively
to the sea fell in the scale of the rich class, especially as the time
came when foreign shipping largely supplanted the trade hitherto carried
in American cutters. Other shippers who applied their surplus capital to
investments in other forms of trade and ownership advanced rapidly in
wealth.

CITY LAND THE SUPREME FACTOR.

Between land ownership and other forms, however, there was a great
difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial
controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile
condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not
possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and
cunning--or let us say, unscrupulousness--the same severe application as
the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the
hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the
condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor
unions the possibility of strikes was an ever-present danger to the
constant flow of profits. Banks were by no means fixed, unchangeable
establishments. Like other media of profit-making, the extent of their
power and profits depended upon prevailing conditions and very largely
upon the favoritism or policy of Government. At any time the party
controlling government functions might change and a radically different
policy in banking, tariff or other laws be put in force.

These changing laws did not, it is true, vitally benefit the masses of
the people, for one set or other of the propertied interests almost
invariably benefited. The laws enacted were usually in response to a
demand made by contending propertied interests. The trade and political
struggles carried o