Competition; Monopolies -- United States; Trusts, Industrial
There is another class of critics who may complain that the plan
proposed leaves too much power still in the hands of the monopolists,
and gives the government too small a part in their management. The
answer to this is very evident. We have found the cardinal value of the
system of individual competition to be that it tends by a process of
natural selection to bring the men of greatest ability into the control
and management of our industries; while the vital weakness in the
management of industry by government is the fact that the sovereign
people does not choose the wisest and most honest men to control its
affairs. Men may well say that if they are to be robbed it had better be
by a corporation, where innocent stockholders will receive part of the
benefit, than by dishonest officials of government.
The ultimate remedy for the evils of monopoly, therefore, lies with the
people. When they will choose to control their affairs the men of
greatest wisdom and honor; when each man will exercise the same care in
choosing men to care for the public business that he does in caring for
his own private interests, then we can safely trust far greater
responsibilities to our government than is now prudent.
There is no more important lesson to impress on the minds of the toiling
millions who are growing restless under the burdens of monopoly than
this: The only remedy for monopoly is control; the only power that can
control is government; and to have a government fit to assume these
momentous duties, all good men and true must join hands to put only men
of wisdom and honor in places of public trust.
There is a virtue which shone in all brightness when this nation was
born, not alone in the hearts of the commander-in-chief and his brother
heroes, but in the hearts of the men and women who gave themselves to
their country's service. It glowed with all fervor when, a quarter of a
century ago, the North fought to sustain what the fathers had created,
and the rank and file of the South gave their lives and all they had for
what they deemed a righteous and noble cause. Though the robust spirit
of partisanship may seem for a time to have crowded out from men's
hearts the love of their country, surely that love still remains; and in
the days of new import which dawn upon us, in the virtue of PATRIOTISM
will be found a sufficient antidote for the vice of _monopoly_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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