a
deadening aristocracy of privilege from which they themselves must escape.
The small men of this country are not deluded, and not all of the big
business men of this country are deluded. Some men who have been led into
wrong practices, who have been led into the practices of monopoly, because
that seemed to be the drift and inevitable method of supremacy, are just
as ready as we are to turn about and adopt the process of freedom. For
American hearts beat in a lot of these men, just as they beat under our
jackets. They will be as glad to be free as we shall be to set them free.
And then the splendid force which has lent itself to things that hurt us
will lend itself to things that benefit us.

And we,--we who are not great captains of industry or business,--shall do
them more good than we do now, even in a material way. If you have to be
subservient, you are not even making the rich fellows as rich as they
might be, because you are not adding your originative force to the
extraordinary production of wealth in America. America is as rich, not as
Wall Street, not as the financial centres in Chicago and St. Louis and San
Francisco; it is as rich as the people that make those centres rich. And
if those people hesitate in their enterprise, cower in the face of power,
hesitate to originate designs of their own, then the very fountains which
make these places abound in wealth are dried up at the source. By setting
the little men of America free, you are not damaging the giants.

It may be that certain things will happen, for monopoly in this country is
carrying a body of water such as men ought not to be asked to carry. When
by regulated competition,--that is to say, fair competition, competition
that fights fair,--they are put upon their mettle, they will have to
economize, and they cannot economize unless they get rid of that water. I
do not know how to squeeze the water out, but they will get rid of it, if
you will put them to the necessity. They will have to get rid of it, or
those of us who don't carry tanks will outrun them in the race. Put all
the business of America upon the footing of economy and efficiency, and
then let the race be to the strongest and the swiftest.

Our program is a program of prosperity; a program of prosperity that is to
be a little more pervasive than the present prosperity,--and pervasive
prosperity is more fruitful than that which is narrow and restrictive. I
congratulate the monopolies of th