Indeed, there were. The people went into one of them. Or, rather, they remained in the blind alley in which they had long been. That was the blind alley of private ownership of the coal mines and railroads. Plenty of blind men could see a delightful opening at the end of this blind alley. They were very sure that it led somewhere. It must lead somewhere. Certainly, no great difficulty could be encountered in managing these millionaires. The Inter-State Commerce Commission would fix them if nothing else could fix them. If the Inter-State Commerce Commission should prove too weak for the task, the courts would not prove too weak. At any rate, there was no danger ahead. It was entirely safe to leave the nation’s coal supply in the hands of a few men who had already abundantly proved their disinclination to treat either their employees or the public honestly. For ten straight years thereafter we fought the Coal Trust in the courts. We enjoined it, we indicted it, we prosecuted it. To what purpose? To no purpose. In 1912, the United States Supreme Court brought an end to the proceedings by handing down a decision that was said to be a “great victory” for the Government. But it was one of those great anti-trust victories that do not hurt the trusts nor help the people. This “victory” did not hurt the Coal Trust. The price of coal did not go down a nickel. On the contrary, the prices of coal road stocks immediately went higher. Wall Street knew the decision would not interrupt the Coal Trust in its plundering, and backed its opinion with its money. Wall Street quickly realized what we have not yet fully realized—that the court had prohibited only a certain method of stealing, while leaving the trust free to adopt any one of a hundred other methods, each of which is as suitable to its purposes as the method that has been put under the ban.