And in very similar ways will the future problems be settled. There will be similar conferences; and then some fine day a duly-accredited commissioner from the President will travel, say to Philadelphia, and enter the offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad, arch-corrupter of the great Keystone state. The directors of the company will receive him with bows and smiles, and will spread their books before him and his staff, and place themselves and their office at his disposal. He will hear a brief account of the situation, and will then give his orders to the president and other officials of the road: to the effect that schedules are to be continued as previously; that all salaries will remain unaltered until further notice; and that passenger and freight rates are to be dropped to a point where net profits will be wiped out. Then he will shake hands with the directors and thank them for their services in building up the road, adding that their services are now at an end. And that, for all practical purposes, will be the application of Socialism to the Pennsylvania Railroad. But, you say, by my hypothesis the road could not run; how will it be able to run now? The reason it couldn’t run before was that there were no profits; but now it will not be run for profits, but for service, like the Post Office. To help it over its momentary embarrassment, of course, the credit of the government may be needed: but even that is not likely. For exactly the same thing which happens to the Pennsylvania Railroad will be happening to the Steel Trust and the Oil Trust and the Coal Trust and the Beef Trust; and all these industries will be starting into activity, and so there will be plenty of freight. With the captains of each of these trusts there will have been secret Presidential conferences, at which these gentlemen will have been told that since they can no longer run their business, they must allow the Government to take possession and run it—the price to be paid for their stock being a matter for future negotiation, and a matter of no great importance to them in any case, because of the income and inheritance tax laws just then being rushed through Congress.