them with critical, and sometimes with hostile eye. We have slowly been coming to this time which has now, happily, arrived, when there is a common recognition of the things that it is undesirable should be done in business and the things that it is desirable should be done. What we are proceeding to do now is to organize our peace, is to make our prosperity not only stable but free to have an unimpeded momentum.

"It is so obvious that it ought not to be stated that nothing can be good for the country which is not good for all of the country. Nothing can be for the interest of the country which is not for the interest of everybody; therefore, the day of accommodation and of concession and of common understanding is the day of peace and achievement and of necessity. We have come to the beginning of the day. Men are no longer resisting the conclusions which the nation has arrived at as to the necessity of readjustments of its business.

"Business men of all sorts are showing their willingness to come into this arrangement, which I venture to characterize as the constitution of peace. So that by common counsel, and by the accumulating force of cooperation, we are going to seek more and more to serve the country.

"I have been surprised at the sudden acceptance of this measure by public opinion everywhere. I say surprised because it seems as if it has suddenly become obvious to men who had looked at it with too critical an eye that it was really meant in their interest.

"They have opened their eyes to see a thing, which they had supposed to be hostile, to be friendly and serviceable-exactly what we intended it to be, and what we shall intend all our legislation to be. The men who have fought for this measure have fought nobody. They have simply fought for those accommodations which are going to secure us in prosperity and in peace. Nobody can be the friend of any class in America in the sense of being the enemy of any other class. You can only be the friend of one class by showing it the lines by which it can accommodate itself to the other class. The lines of help are always the lines of accommodation.

"It is in this spirit, therefore, that we rejoice together tonight, and I cannot say with what deep emotions of gratitude I feel that I have had a part in completing a work which I think will be of lasting benefit to the business of the country."

CHAPTER VI

THE DESTRUCTION OF MONOPOLY-THE

THIRD STAGE OF THE JOURNEY

"There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great," President Wilson said in his inaugural address. "Our thoughts have been, 'let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,' while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves." His ruling passion was to bring back to the nation that old freedom that existed when the fathers set up a new nation on this continent, when the small as well as the great had "a chance to look out for themselves." To restore such liberty in this very complex business age was an ideal. Was it possible of realization?

The withdrawal of governmental protection through tariff revision was the first step. A new banking law and a commission, with power over banking to see that the great financial currents flow from the heart of the nation to the weak and depressed centers at a time when the need of this life blood is greatest, was the second

step. But still the question was not answered. However, President Wilson assured the nation that, if Congress would take this third step as heroically as it took the first two, the question would finally be answered. Even before the second step was taken, he declared in his address to Congress on December 2, 1913:

"I think that all thoughtful observers will agree that the immediate service we owe the business communities of the country is to prevent private monopoly more effectually than it has yet been prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that we should let the Sherman anti-trust law stand unaltered, as it is, with its debatable ground about it, but that we should as much as possible reduce the area of that debatable ground by further and more explicit legislation, and should also supplement that great act by legislation which will not only clarify it, but also facilitate its administration and make it fairer to all concerned. No doubt we shall all wish, and the country will expect this to be the central subject of our deliberations during this session; but it is a subject so many-sided and so deserving of careful and discriminating discussion that I shall take the liberty of addressing you upon it in a special message at a later date than this. It is of capital

importance that the business men of this country should be relieved of all uncertainties of law with regard to their enterprises and investments, and a clear path indicated which they can travel without anxiety. It is as important that they should be relieved of embarrassment and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should be destroyed. The ways of action should be thrown wide open."

He was constantly calling the attention of the people to this fact, that it was only just to business men for Congress to relieve them of all uncertainty. This was his excuse for driving the tariff through. The same argument was used when Senators and Members balked at attempting the second stage of the journey. "Set business free" was his earnest appeal. Take the boss down and let the ways of action be thrown wide open. But this language the captains of industry could not understand.

All of the great corporations, called "trusts," had been formed under the Sherman anti-trust law, which was enacted over a quarter of a century ago. It seems that nobody had ever known how to apply the law to a particular case, since it did not cover exactly every im-. portant feature in the organization and growth of the modern corporation. On the other hand, it became very