ve basis. We can afford to buy it at such a
figure because we are shutting out competition. We can afford to make the
stock of the combination half a dozen times what it naturally would be
and pay dividends on it, because there will be nobody to dispute the
prices we shall fix.

Talk of that as sound business? Talk of that as inevitable? It is based
upon nothing except power. It is not based upon efficiency. It is no
wonder that the big trusts are not prospering in proportion to such
competitors as they still have in such parts of their business as
competitors have access to; they are prospering freely only in those
fields to which competition has no access. Read the statistics of the
Steel Trust, if you don't believe it. Read the statistics of any trust.
They are constantly nervous about competition, and they are constantly
buying up new competitors in order to narrow the field. The United States
Steel Corporation is gaining in its supremacy in the American market only
with regard to the cruder manufactures of iron and steel, but wherever, as
in the field of more advanced manufactures of iron and steel, it has
important competitors, its portion of the product is not increasing, but
is decreasing, and its competitors, where they have a foothold, are often
more efficient than it is.

Why? Why, with unlimited capital and innumerable mines and plants
everywhere in the United States, can't they beat the other fellows in the
market? Partly because they are carrying too much. Partly because they are
unwieldy. Their organization is imperfect. They bought up inefficient
plants along with efficient, and they have got to carry what they have
paid for, even if they have to shut some of the plants up in order to make
any interest on their investments; or, rather, not interest on their
investments, because that is an incorrect word,--on their alleged
capitalization. Here we have a lot of giants staggering along under an
almost intolerable weight of artificial burdens, which they have put on
their own backs, and constantly looking about lest some little pigmy with
a round stone in a sling may come out and slay them.

For my part, I want the pigmy to have a chance to come out. And I foresee
a time when the pigmies will be so much more athletic, so much more
astute, so much more active, than the giants, that it will be a case of
Jack the giant-killer. Just let some of the youngsters I know have a
chance and they'll give these gentlem