“Understand, I’m on the side of your enemies,” she warned him.

“So is everybody else,” Mr. Trevor laughed; “but that’s because we’re misunderstood.”

“The intentions of any Trust warrant suspicion.”

He shrugged.  “The Heidlemanns are just ordinary business men, like O’Neil, looking for investment.  They heard of a great big copper-field hidden away back yonder in the mountains, and they bought what they considered to be the best group of claims.  They knew the region was difficult of access, but they figured that a railroad from tide-water would open up not only their own properties, but the rest of the copper-belt and the whole interior country.  They began to build a road from Cortez, when some ‘shoe-stringer’ raised the cry that they had monopolized the world’s greatest copper supply, and had double-cinched it by monopolizing transportation also.  That started the fuss.  They needed cheap coal, of course, just as everybody else needs it; but somebody discovered the danger of a monopoly of that and set up another shout.  Ever since then the yellow press has been screaming.  The Government withdrew all coal-lands from entry, and it now refuses to grant patents to that which had been properly located.  We don’t own a foot of Alaskan coal-land, Miss Appleton.  On the contrary, we haul our fuel from British Columbia, just like O’Neil and Gordon.  Those who would like to sell local coal to us are prevented from doing so.”

“It sounds well to hear you tell it,” said Eliza.  “But the minute the coal patents are issued you will buy what you want, then freeze out the other people.  You expect to control the mines, the railroads, and the steamship lines, but public necessities like coal and oil and timber and water-power should belong to the people.  There has been an awakening of the public conscience, and the day of monopolized necessities is passing.”

“As long as men own coal-mines they will sell them.  Here we are faced not by a question of what may happen, but of what has happened.  If you agreed to buy a city lot from a real-estate dealer, and after you paid him his price he refused to give you a deed, you’d at least expect your money back, wouldn’t you?  Well, that’s the case of Uncle Sam and the Alaskan miners.  He not only refuses to deliver the lot, but keeps the money, and forces them to pay more every year.  I represent a body of rich men who, because of their power, are regarded with suspicion; but if they did anything so dishonest as what our Government has done to its own people they would be jailed.”

“No doubt there has been some injustice, but the great truth remains that the nation should own its natural resources, and should not allow favored individuals to profit by the public need.”

“You mean railroads and coal-fields and such things?”

“I do.”