shaking in their fifteen-dollar boots! They behold that dreadful
handwriting on the wall! In giant letters, seemingly towering forty feet
tall, these bankers read the doom, which the trust conspirators are now
preparing for them. They catch the frightful significance of the
question, which the trust leaders are discussing. It is this. Why should
the business of the United States, support such an army of banks? More
than ten thousand. We know very well, that the entire money transactions
of this country, could be handled more safely, more swiftly, and more
cheaply, by one grand central institution. With one voice the
conspirators exclaim! Let us form a pool! Let us consolidate the whole
business, into one magnificent money trust! Let us select, say
twenty-five, of the brainiest bankers in the business! Let us give them
fat salaries, and make them superintendents of the financial agencies,
now called banks. Counting the whole number of banks, both public and
private, as ten thousand, with three professional bankers to each one,
the result would be a total of thirty thousand bankers. Of this number,
we could reduce twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five, to
the station of bank clerks. Let us pause for a moment to contemplate the
result! What enormous savings would accrue, by the introduction of such
a wholesale scheme of consolidation! These savings would be ours!
Intoxicated with the brilliancy and the hugeness of the idea; the
conspirators with one impulse, spring to their feet, with outstretched
hands they form a ring, they execute a round dance extraordinary. While
thus engaged, they gaily shout, 'There is millions in it for us!'

"No wonder the bankers are alarmed! With the exercise of one-half of
their usual cunning and foresight, they should have scented the danger
sooner. No doubt, they were so engrossed by the fascinating game of
money grabbing, that they were wholly blind to danger, as the result of
the combined audacity and perfidy of their former partners. They have
evidently failed to learn one plain lesson, which is taught by the logic
of events. It is this. When once fairly started, the process of the
larger corporation, swallowing the lesser, goes forward with such an
ever-increasing rate of speed, that it soon overtakes and gobbles up
banks and bankers.

"At this point, it is pertinent to propound the following questions: If
this is a Republic? If the people are the government, and the govern