This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

generosity of its separate members. It is deaf to the voice of mercy, insensible to the pangs of remorse and the scourge of shame, and untouched by the sentiment of gratitude. Vain against corporations are laws relating to heredity, for corporations may perpetuate themselves and live through generations. Above all, he warned the people against giving a corporation any monopoly. Dangerous and evil as is any monopoly in the hands of an individual, in the grasp of a corporation its evil is multiplied infinitely. Although a corporation has no soul, it may have a head, who, wielding its vast power with a single will, may make of himself a most dangerous despot.

This paper, of which only a brief, dry outline is here given, was written with a vividness of color, a depth and warmth of feeling, an aptness of expression, a strength of argument, a force, and fire, and fervor which were possible only to a man of high genius, with a soul aflame with love of right and hatred of wrong.

The address became a classic in Aristopia, and was read and declaimed by every youth in every school for generation after generation. Its influence was greater than that of future presidents and congresses. Its maxims had more than the force of laws.