Such instances show you just where the centre of gravity is,—­and it is a matter of gravity indeed, for it is a very grave matter!  It lay during the last Congress in the one person who was the accomplished intermediary between the expert lobbyists and the legislation of Congress.  I am not saying this in derogation of the character of Mr. Aldrich.  It is no concern of mine what kind of man Mr. Aldrich is; now, particularly, when he has retired from public life, is it a matter of indifference.  The point is that he, because of his long experience, his long handling of these delicate and private matters, was the usual and natural instrument by which the Congress of the United States informed itself, not as to the wishes of the people of the United States or of the rank and file of business men of the country, but as to the needs and arguments of the experts who came to arrange matters with the committees.

The moral of the whole matter is this:  The business of the United States is not as a whole in contact with the government of the United States.  So soon as it is, the matters which now give you, and justly give you, cause for uneasiness will disappear.  Just so soon as the business of this country has general, free, welcome access to the councils of Congress, all the friction between business and politics will disappear.

* * * * *

The tariff question is not the question that it was fifteen or twenty or thirty years ago.  It used to be said by the advocates of the tariff that it made no difference even if there were a great wall separating us from the commerce of the world, because inside the United States there was so enormous an area of absolute free trade that competition within the country kept prices down to a normal level; that so long as one state could compete with all the others in the United States, and all the others compete with it, there would be only that kind of advantage gained which is gained by superior brain, superior economy, the better plant, the better administration; all of the things that have made America supreme, and kept prices in America down, because American genius was competing with American genius.  I must add that so long as that was true, there was much to be said in defence of the protective tariff.

But the point now is that the protective tariff has been taken advantage of by some men to destroy domestic competition, to combine all existing rivals within our free-trade area, and to make it impossible for new men to come into the field.  Under the high tariff there has been formed a network of factories which in their connection dominate the market of the United States and establish their own prices.  Whereas, therefore, it was once arguable that the high tariff did not create the high cost of living, it is now no longer arguable that these combinations do not,—­not by reason of the tariff, but by reason of their combination under the tariff,—­settle what prices shall be paid; settle how much the product shall be; and settle, moreover, what shall be the market for labor.