But surely we must destroy the trusts! you say. _Why_ must we destroy the trusts? The trusts are marvellous industrial machines, of power the like of which was never known in the world before; they are the last and most wonderful of the products of civilisation—and we must destroy them! We have been a century building them—you, and I, and the balance of the American people have toiled for three generations night and day, stinting and starving ourselves, so that we might get these trusts finished; we have taxed ourselves ten, twenty, thirty per cent. of our incomes, under the disguise of a protective tariff, to maintain and develop them; and now that they are complete, we must destroy them! But they belong to Rockefeller! you protest to me. They belong to Rockefeller in precisely the same way and to precisely the same extent as the Kingdom of France belonged to Louis XIV, or the North American colonies to George III. They belong to the people of the United States, who made them, who contributed every plank of them, and drove every nail of them, and who paid Mr. Rockefeller and his family ample living wages while they superintended the job. But you only answer again—we must destroy the trusts! Go ahead then, and have your try! Have it out with them! War to the hilt with them!—and see which is the stronger, two corporations which are resolved not to cut each other’s throats, or you with your law that they _shall_ cut each other’s throats! Two railroad systems which know that they cannot continue to exist separately, or you who are resolved that they shall not exist together!—It makes one think of the scene in “Twelfth Night,” where Sir Toby has engineered a bloody duel between two terror-stricken antagonists. “Pox on’t, I’ll not meddle with him!” cries Sir Andrew Aguecheek. “Come, Sir Andrew,” says Sir Toby. “There’s no remedy. Come on, to’t.” But poor Sir Andrew will not to’t, he fights with his back to the enemy. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Wilshire’s Magazine_ A SOCIALIST VIEW OF THE TRUSTS ] You will hear people abuse the Socialists for wishing to abolish competition. No Socialist wishes to abolish competition, no modern Socialist at any rate. He watches competition, as the mischievous Irishmen watched the Kilkenny cats; keeping off at a suitable distance during the battle, and simply proposing to the spectators that when it is all over they shall recognise the accomplished fact.