Certain superficial economists, misled by recent manifestations in trust building, have hastily concluded that the problem it presents is a new one. For example, Collier, in his work on the subject, says: “The problem of the trusts is a momentous one, yet it is unqualifiedly a new one.” Of course it is not new. It is the same old problem of monopoly, and the so-called trust problem is but a phase of it. It is the problem of monopoly crystallized. The evils of the trust rivet the public attention, not because they are more real than the evils of monopoly _per se_, but because they are more obvious. In some respects the trust, by combining certain elements of monopoly, tends to make monopoly more perfect and its operations more harmful. But it simply avails itself of monopolistic institutions—that is to say, it is built upon land, railroad or tax monopoly; it takes to itself certain privileges which society has created and which have hitherto been appropriated and exercised by individuals. It therefore immediately makes these evils concrete. The trust is thus a manifestation, and the people, with their customary thoughtlessness, attack the manifestation rather than the thing itself—the fruit of monopoly rather than the tree. The great combinations which suggest themselves when we think of the trust problem—is there one of them which does not owe its existence to some monopoly privilege? What would the Standard Oil Company be but for its control of rights of way, sources of supply, railroad terminals and the preferential benefits it is enabled to secure? What is the Steel Trust but a network of artificial privilege? Has not Mr. Charles E. Russell clearly shown, in his recent articles in _Everybody’s Magazine_, that the Beef Trust draws its life-blood from its monopolization of railroad privileges? What would the Sugar Trust be without the favors it receives from the tariff in its control of the raw material? Could the Tobacco Trust exist save for the power of taxation which strangles competition? Those mentioned include nearly all the greater trusts. A more detailed demonstration of the truth we are insisting upon could be given, but the reader can himself carry this line of analysis further. He will find that it explains the existence of every oppressive combination, and that it leaves little unresolved or unexplained. It may happen that injurious combinations will present themselves in which this element of monopoly does not clearly appear. But these are by-monopolies, so to speak, and their sources of power may be traced to indirect association with the giant monopolies.