Another commentator[63] takes up the same trend of thought: “The cry of the people of the West,” says he, “is rising almost to the ominous threat of revolution. The wealth of the country has increased enormously, but it is becoming concentrated in the hands of a comparatively few individuals. Only in the days of the early empire and late republic of Rome was it possible for a few individuals in a few years to amass such enormous fortunes as they do. Having exploited the wealth of the great middle class, we are now drifting into the second stage. Small investments no longer pay. There is no Eastern or Western state that has not a score of stranded towns and villages once prosperous in small industries. The small farmer is no longer able to make a living in the competition which he meets.... All this may be progress, but it is progress over a precipice.” Still another observer[64] carries his conclusions yet further, and in a public address states: “The work of such men as [this monopolist] and his associates of the big combinations is preparing the minds of our people for socialism. I am not in favor of socialism, but men like these so-called captains of industry, who are opposed to socialism, are preparing the way for the rapid spread of the socialistic idea. Should some able leader take up that idea and advocate it, we shall see it spread with tremendous rapidity in America.” So much for the accomplishments of the Age of Transportation. It has already shown us the meaning of monopoly and has shown us the abolishment of the individual. It has taught us, or some of us, to believe that the establishment of an expensive university may serve as emendative of an unpopular personal career. It has taught us, or some of us, obsequiously to worship that form of wealth that soothes its conscience by the building of public libraries. Whether or not learning best grows and flourishes that has such foundation heads, library and university alike must to-day admit their impotence to answer the cry of the leader, “Give me back my Americans!” The America of to-day is an America utterly and absolutely changed from the principles whereon our original America was founded, and wherefrom it grew and flourished. Never was there any corner of Europe, before the days of those revolutions that put down kings, worse than some parts of oppressed America to-day. It is not too late for revolution in America. There is not justice in the belief that America can to-day be called the land of the free. The individual is no more. He perished somewhere on those heights we have seen him laboriously ascending, somewhere on those long rivers we have seen him tracing. He died in the day of Across the Waters.