of the vast wealth which they controlled, to come together, and within twenty-four hours arrive at an understanding by which every wheel of trade and commerce would be stopped from revolving, every avenue of trade blocked and every electric key struck dumb.  Those twenty men could paralyze the whole country, for they controlled the circulation of the currency and could create a panic whenever they might choose.  It was the rapaciousness and insatiable greed of these plutocrats that had forced the toilers to combine for self-protection, resulting in the organization of the Labor Unions which, in time, became almost as tyrannical and unreasonable as the bosses.  And the breach between capital on the one hand and labour on the other was widening daily, masters and servants snarling over wages and hours, the quarrel ever increasing in bitterness and acrimony until one day the extreme limit of patience would be reached and industrial strikes would give place to bloody violence.

Meantime the plutocrats, wholly careless of the significant signs of the times and the growing irritation and resentment of the people, continued their illegal practices, scoffing at public opinion, snapping their fingers at the law, even going so far in their insolence as to mock and jibe at the President of the United States.  Feeling secure in long immunity and actually protected in their wrong doing by the courts—­the legal machinery by its very elaborateness defeating the ends of justice—­the Trust kings impudently defied the country and tried to impose their own will upon the people.  History had thus repeated itself.  The armed feudalism of the middle ages had been succeeded in twentieth century America by the tyranny of capital.

Yet, ruminated the young artist as he neared the Ryder residence, the American people had but themselves to blame for their present thralldom.  Forty years before Abraham Lincoln had warned the country when at the close of the war he saw that the race for wealth was already making men and women money-mad.  In 1864 he wrote these words: 

“Yes, we may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its close.  It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood.  The best blood of the flower of American youth has been freely offered upon our country’s altar that the nation might live.  It has been indeed a trying hour for the Republic, but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.  As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”