"A degree of success or a degree of failure has a like tendency to blunt the finer qualities of the mind. A man with a competency will not take the troubles of his fellow man to heart. The unfortunate man who has not the wherewithal to support his family is in no position to take the initiative in a labor movement or in a political revolution. "So the work devolves upon the few men who have the means and the inclination to strive for the betterment of humanity. "Yet even these men are not always capable of judging events by their true proportions and relations. "Advancement is the one thing that reformers fear. The ends they would attain are almost always reconstructive; they are never creative." Nevins utters these words with impressive emphasis. "These remarks I have made by way of prelude to the matter I shall now proceed to discuss directly and earnestly. "We are each and all convinced that the pernicious system of fostering monopolies that has been instituted in this country can have but one result, the undermining of our popular institutions, and in their place the substitution of moneyed Plutocracy. This result is abhorrent to every true American. "Now, there is no way to put an end to monopolies except by the people rising in their might and reassuming their own. "The hypocritical advice of the leaders of the great universities, that the people ostracize the Magnates, has now ceased to satisfy the exigencies of the case. What sort of ostracism would the President of a University endowed by the millions of a Magnate, propose to have enforced against his master? "Another of the proposals emanating from the hireling counsels of the Trusts, is that the methods of the Trusts be placed under the searchlight of publicity. A pretty programme, indeed, were it not for the fact that the very men who propose this method of dealing with monopolies would be engaged by the Magnates to defend them from exposure. "To invoke the aid of the courts is to be brought face to face with the servants of the Trusts. Where is the Attorney-General who can successfully prosecute a Trust? The only one who was ever sincere in his attempt met an insurmountable barrier in the courts before which he arraigned the guilty. "And the votes of the people, do they avail? "The executives and legislators whom they elect are false to their pledges. "The great sin of this country is the worship of gold. Human life is held as secondary to the dollar. "Who then shall deliver the people from the bondage that has come upon them? "Unguided, they are as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. False prophets, mercenary leaders, are an abomination. They have been and are to this day, the clogs in the wheels of progress. "The work of rejuvenation must be done by an intrepid few. It cannot be entrusted to visionary men, to fanatics, to men who detest government of any form or to men who are willing to suffer present ills rather than face temporary discomfiture.