rporation or law, but is merely an identity of personnel, or of
interest, then there is something that even the government of the nation
itself might come to fear,--something for the law to pull apart, and
gently, but firmly and persistently, dissect.

You know that the chemist distinguishes between a chemical combination and
an amalgam. A chemical combination has done something which I cannot
scientifically describe, but its molecules have become intimate with one
another and have practically united, whereas an amalgam has a mere
physical union created by pressure from without. Now, you can destroy that
mere physical contact without hurting the individual elements, and this
community of interest is an amalgam; you can break it up without hurting
any one of the single interests combined. Not that I am particularly
delicate of some of the interests combined,--I am not under bonds to be
unduly polite to them,--but I am interested in the business of the
country, and believe its integrity depends upon this dissection. I do not
believe any one group of men has vision enough or genius enough to
determine what the development of opportunity and the accomplishment by
achievement shall be in this country.

The facts of the situation amount to this: that a comparatively small
number of men control the raw material of this country; that a
comparatively small number of men control the water-powers that can be
made useful for the economical production of the energy to drive our
machinery; that that same number of men largely control the railroads;
that by agreements handed around among themselves they control prices, and
that that same group of men control the larger credits of the country.

* * * * *

When we undertake the strategy which is going to be necessary to overcome
and destroy this far-reaching system of monopoly, we are rescuing the
business of this country, we are not injuring it; and when we separate the
interests from each other and dismember these communities of connection,
we have in mind a greater community of interest, a vaster community of
interest, the community of interest that binds the virtues of all men
together, that community of mankind which is broad and catholic enough to
take under the sweep of its comprehension all sorts and conditions of men;
that vision which sees that no society is renewed from the top but that
every society is renewed from the bottom. Limit opportuni