nd I ask who is going to be master of
the government of the United States? It has a master now,--those who in
combination control these monopolies. And if the government controlled by
the monopolies in its turn controls the monopolies, the partnership is
finally consummated.

I don't care how benevolent the master is going to be, I will not live
under a master. That is not what America was created for. America was
created in order that every man should have the same chance as every other
man to exercise mastery over his own fortunes. What I want to do is
analogous to what the authorities of the city of Glasgow did with tenement
houses. I want to light and patrol the corridors of these great
organizations in order to see that nobody who tries to traverse them is
waylaid and maltreated. If you will but hold off the adversaries, if you
will but see to it that the weak are protected, I will venture a wager
with you that there are some men in the United States, now weak,
economically weak, who have brains enough to compete with these gentlemen
and who will presently come into the market and put these gentlemen on
their mettle. And the minute they come into the market there will be a
bigger market for labor and a different wage scale for labor.

Because it is susceptible of convincing proof that the high-paid labor of
America,--where it is high paid,--is cheaper than the low-paid labor of
the continent of Europe. Do you know that about ninety per cent. of those
who are employed in labor in this country are not employed in the
"protected" industries, and that their wages are almost without exception
higher than the wages of those who are employed in the "protected"
industries? There is no corner on carpenters, there is no corner on
bricklayers, there is no corner on scores of individual classes of skilled
laborers; but there is a corner on the poolers in the furnaces, there is a
corner on the men who dive down into the mines; they are in the grip of a
controlling power which determines the market rates of wages in the United
States. Only where labor is free is labor highly paid in America.

When I am fighting monopolistic control, therefore, I am fighting for the
liberty of every man in America, and I am fighting for the liberty of
American industry.

It is significant that the spokesman for the plan of adopting monopoly
declares his devoted adherence to the principle of "protection." Only
those duties which are manifestly