THE CONTROL OF TRUSTS 237
stage-owners, and take away the employment of thousands of honest hostlers and drivers. This is no joke ; you did say just that. And it did do a part of what you prophesied ; but where steam-power threw one man out of work, it made work for ten
thousand Organization, in the industrial sense, is a science
of later birth. But you are simultaneously profiting by it and fighting it, exactly as in the other case. The growth of organi- zation, from the time the cottage system gave way to the factory system down to the most powerful trust you can think of, has been a gradual but constant manifestation of the one way to make life easier. The only difference between a trust and a mere business firm of two or three men, remember, is in size; there is no constitutional difference. That is why no statute law can ever be framed under our federal constitution to 'reach' the trusts. Men have found simply that on a large scale they
can produce more cheaply than on a small scale ' But
a trust kills competition and forces up prices,' you say. Now, we know that a trust has no philanthropic purpose. It is composed of men who are in business to make all the money they can, like all business-men. But it has to be a philanthro- pist, in spite of itself; for superior ability to compete, as a result of superior methods and organization, is the very life of a trust. .... It is true that the aim of a trust is to kill competition, but so is the aim of the smallest country merchant. But it never has been killed, and the great organization is as powerless
to do it as the weakest individual Competition may be
lessened in spots ; never killed The commercial trust that
cannot in the long run undersell its competitors will go to smash." The main fact about the great organization is that it cheapens production, just as labor-saving machinery has done; and with the abundance of capital that is always seeking investment, the apparent monopoly can be maintained, in the long run, only by taking advantage of the cheaper methods of production to keep prices below the competitive point.
But, continuing our consideration of the advantages of the great industry, we may note that not only is this the natural outcome of the competitive system and an improvement similar
