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wise lines to Boston and to southern ports are among the latest arrivals in this proces sion of "combinations." "Chains of banks" controlled from a central office exist merely as branches, where time-honored institutions formerly embodied the life efforts of dis tinguished financiers, and endeavors to divest the management of two of the "big three" life insurance companies from the old regime, seem destined to be futile, and to leave these institutions in the list of virtual monopolies. Like influences are at work in other cen ters, but space and time do not permit us to carry our illustrations into other fields. Enough has been given, and "enough is as good as a feast." The age of consolidation, and whether in tentional or otherwise, the era of monopoly, is upon us, and like "good men and true," we must gird up our loins, and with Fabius of old, we must "cease not to think hope fully of the Republic." PART III — COMPARISON Whether we do or do not agree with the radical statement of a recent speaker before the Economic Section of the American Association of Scientists, that one per cent
of the population of the United States con trols ninety-nine per cent of its wealth, it is past denial that skill and daring, coupled with the opportunities of great combina tions of capital, have enabled those fortu nate possessors of ample means to increase their holdings out of proportion to the accumulations of the middle or the work ing class. The recourse of the people is in their political power, and in the regulations which can in that way and in that way alone, control, and as it were, harness, this mighty force, and compel it to work for the common good. Subterfuges and devices will be invented and brought into use, but the political power which could curb and subjugate an influ ence so potent as the Church, entrenched behind the conservatism of vested rights and aided by all the terrors which super stition has at command, will in the end prevail. It is only necessary to be vigilant, to be courageous, to eternally "think hopefully of the Republic;" and to believe that the solution of this problem forms one phase of the Divine plan, in which we each fill some, though it may be an insignificant part. New York, N. Y., May, 1907.
