We are told that the great remedy against monopoly--that is to say, against extortion, is free and unrestricted competition. But after all, the history of this world shows that the brutalities of competition are equaled only by those of monopoly. The successful competitor becomes a monopolist, and if competitors fail to destroy each other, the instinct of self-preservation suggests a combination. In other words, competition is a struggle between two or more persons or corporations for the purpose of determining which shall have the uninterrupted privilege of extortion. In this country the people have had the greatest reliance on competition. If a railway company charged too much a rival road was built. As a matter of fact, we are indebted for half the railroads of the United States to the extortion of the other half, and the same may truthfully be said of telegraph lines. As a rule, while the exactions of monopoly constructed new roads and new lines, competition has either destroyed the weaker, or produced the pool which is a means of keeping both monopolies alive, or of producing a new monopoly with greater needs, supplied by methods more heartless than the old. When a rival road is built the people support the rival because the fares and freights are somewhat less. Then the old and richer monopoly inaugurates war, and the people, glorying in the benefits of competition, are absurd enough to support the old. In a little while the new company, unable to maintain the contest, left by the people at the mercy of the stronger, goes to the wall, and the triumphant monopoly proceeds to make the intelligent people pay not only the old price, but enough in addition to make up for the expenses of the contest. Is there any remedy for this? None, except with the people themselves. When the people become intelligent enough to support the rival at a reasonable price; when they know enough to allow both roads to live; when they are intelligent enough to recognize a friend and to stand by that friend as against a known enemy, this question will be at least on the edge of a solution.