Another American adventure at sea that is of interest here was the evolution of the United Fruit Company. Individual dealers in perishable products of the tropics found it profitable to unite in gathering bananas and other fruits, and in chartering ships to bring them to the United States. As the business continued to increase, the need of swift ships, and for fittings to preserve the fruit in the best condition, led to the building of special kinds of ships (chiefly under foreign flags) and of machinery for loading and unloading the cargoes at the terminals. In the meantime, the speedy ships employed had proved attractive to passengers, and because passengers could be carried without decreasing the efficiency of the ships as fruit carriers, efforts were made to increase this branch of the traffic. In time the company built hotels for the comfort of the passengers at points in the tropics where a comfortable hotel was a surprise to the experienced traveller. Then because the well-contented fruit farmers of the tropics were unwilling to keep up with the demands of the trade in either the quantity or the quality of the fruit, the company bought land and produced the cargoes needed by their ships. The Standard Oil Company employs nearly a hundred ships (chiefly under foreign flags), which it has built for the purpose, to transport its products to foreign countries. And there are other corporations that own ships as parts of their business equipment. These American enterprises are of the utmost importance to the story of the American merchant marine, because they are the most modern features of our water-borne traffic. The great corporation is doing an _ever growing_ share of the world's work, and the growth is an economic evolution that must be forwarded as well as controlled. In spite of the prevailing fear of great aggregations of wealth, it is worth while to inquire whether a further combination of corporate interests might not help on a revival of the American merchant marine. Suppose that a ship-building "trust" were united with the steel-making "trust" and the aggregation were to make a traffic agreement with a combination of railroads extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, under which special low freight rates were obtainable; is it not conceivable that this powerful corporation might solve the problem of ships able to compete on deep water? Although the law now prohibits such combinations as this, may we not hope that the American people will yet learn how to preserve themselves from oppression, and the fear of it, without hampering the men who are able and eager to do the world's work on the world's terms?