be compelled to meet all comers on equal terms. I am perfectly willing
that they should beat any competitor by fair means; but I know the foul
means they have adopted, and I know that they can be stopped by law. If
they think that coming into the market upon the basis of mere efficiency,
upon the mere basis of knowing how to manufacture goods better than
anybody else and to sell them cheaper than anybody else, they can carry
the immense amount of water that they have put into their enterprises in
order to buy up rivals, then they are perfectly welcome to try it. But
there must be no squeezing out of the beginner, no crippling his credit;
no discrimination against retailers who buy from a rival; no threats
against concerns who sell supplies to a rival; no holding back of raw
material from him; no secret arrangements against him. All the fair
competition you choose, but no unfair competition of any kind. And then
when unfair competition is eliminated, let us see these gentlemen carry
their tanks of water on their backs. All that I ask and all I shall fight
for is that they shall come into the field against merit and brains
everywhere. If they can beat other American brains, then they have got the
best brains.

But if you want to know how far brains go, as things now are, suppose you
try to match your better wares against these gentlemen, and see them
undersell you before your market is any bigger than the locality and make
it absolutely impossible for you to get a fast foothold. If you want to
know how brains count, originate some invention which will improve the
kind of machinery they are using, and then see if you can borrow enough
money to manufacture it. You may be offered something for your patent by
the corporation,--which will perhaps lock it up in a safe and go on using
the old machinery; but you will not be allowed to manufacture. I know men
who have tried it, and they could not get the money, because the great
money lenders of this country are in the arrangement with the great
manufacturers of this country, and they do not propose to see their
control of the market interfered with by outsiders. And who are outsiders?
Why, all the rest of the people of the United States are outsiders.

They are rapidly making us outsiders with respect even of the things that
come from the bosom of the earth, and which belong to us in a peculiar
sense. Certain monopolies in this country have gained almost complete
control of the