issolve the Trust and they listened patiently for a few years--the
Supreme Court is made up of old men, and they have got lots of time
(laughter)--and after a few years they found out what the people had
known for twenty-five years, that it was a trust, and they so decided
that this great corporation had been a conspiracy in restraint of
trade for years, had been fleecing the American people. I don't
suppose anybody would have brought an action against them, excepting
that they had a corner on gasoline and the rich people didn't like to
pay so much for gasoline to run their automobiles. (Laughter and
applause). They found out that the Standard Oil Company was guilty of
a conspiracy under the Sherman anti-trust law, and they gave them six
months in which to change the form of their business, and Standard Oil
stock today is worth more than it ever was before in the history of
the world, and gasoline has not been reduced in price, nor anything
else that they have to sell. There never has been an instance since
that law was passed where it has ever had the slightest effect upon
any combination of capital, but under it working men are promptly sent
to jail; and it was passed to protect the working man and the consumer
against the trusts of the United States. So, you see, it does not
make much difference what kind of a law we make as long as the judges
tell us what it means.

The Steel Trust has not been hurt. They are allowed to go their way,
and they have taken property, which at the most, is worth three
hundred million dollars and have capitalized it and bonded it for a
billion and a half, or five dollars for every one that it represents,
and the interests and dividends which have been promptly paid year by
year have come from the toil and the sweat and the life of the
American workingman. (Applause). And nobody interferes with the Steel
Trust; at least, nobody but the direct action men. (Laughter and
applause). The courts are silent, the states' attorneys are silent;
the governors are silent; all the officers of the law are silent,
while a great monster combination of crooks and criminals are riding
rough-shod over the American people. (Applause). But it is the working
man who is guilty of the industrial conspiracy. They and their friends
are the ones who are sent to jail. It is the powerful and the strong
who have the keys to the jails and the penitentiaries, and there is
not much danger of their locking themselves in ja