Had the people been honest and intelligent, as the politicians affirmed them to be, the combination of capital could have worked no public injury—­would, in truth, have been a great public benefit.  It enormously reduced the expense of production and distribution, assured greater permanency of employment, opened better opportunities to general and special aptitude, gave an improved product, and at first supplied it at a reduced price.  Its crowning merit was that the industries of the country, being controlled by a few men from a central source, could themselves be easily controlled by law if law had been honestly administered.  Under the old order of scattered jurisdictions, requiring a multitude of actions at law, little could be done, and little was done, to put a check on commercial greed; under the new, much was possible, and at times something was accomplished.  But not for long; the essential dishonesty of the American character enabled these capable and conscienceless managers—­“captains of industry” and “kings of finance”—­to buy with money advantages and immunities superior to those that the labor unions could obtain by menaces and the promise of votes.  The legislatures, the courts, the executive officers, all the sources of authority and springs of control, were defiled and impested until right and justice fled affrighted from the land, and the name of the country became a stench in the nostrils of the world.

Let us pause in our narrative to say here that much of the abuse of the so-called “trusts” by their victims took no account of the folly, stupidity and greed of the victims themselves.  A favorite method by which the great corporations crushed out the competition of the smaller ones and of the “individual dealers” was by underselling them—­a method made possible by nothing but the selfishness of the purchasing consumers who loudly complained of it.  These could have stood by their neighbor, the “small dealer,” if they had wanted to, and no underselling could, have been done.  When the trust lowered the price of its product they eagerly took the advantage offered, then cursed the trust for ruining the small dealer.  When it raised the price they cursed it for ruining themselves.  It is not easy to see what the trust could have done that would have been acceptable, nor is it surprising that it soon learned to ignore their clamor altogether and impenitently plunder those whom it could not hope to appease.

Another of the many sins justly charged against the “kings of finance” was this:  They would buy properties worth, say, ten millions of “dollars” (the value of the dollar is now unknown) and issue stock upon it to the face value of, say, fifty millions.  This their clamorous critics called “creating” for themselves forty millions of dollars.  They created nothing; the stock had no dishonest value unless sold, and even at the most corrupt period of the government nobody was compelled by law to buy.  In nine cases in ten the person who bought did so