The superficial thinker, upon reading the foregoing pages, will probably arrive at one or two conclusions as to the Trust; either it must be destroyed or it must be taken over by the government. The more thoughtful will conclude that it would not be wise or expedient, even if possible, to destroy the Trust, and his next thought will be in the direction of public ownership. He will say that if the government can operate the Post Office system so successfully it ought to be able to operate the coal mines, the oil fields, the factories and the railroads, just as the cities operate their water works, police department, and in many cases their railroads and gas plants. If he be not too thorough in his reasoning he will conclude that if the government operated the Trusts, all their evil qualities would be eliminated and their good qualities saved. It is a convenient conclusion, yet it is unsound as I shall presently proceed briefly to show. COMPETITION. Some writer has said, "Competition gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbor's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile, isolated units, and finally involves capital and labor in one common ruin." Successful competition denies competition, because the successful competitor must destroy his rival, before he can be successful. Competition is the antithesis of co-operation. The one means isolated units, the other an organized combination of units. The Trust method of co-operation, however, while it destroys competition among industries, _does not destroy competition among men_. Here lies an important distinction which will develop as we proceed. INSTINCTS. Contest and rivalry are inherent instincts in all living things,--in vegetable and animal life alike, and this struggle for existence determines which shall survive. The law of survival of the fittest determines which plant, which animal and which man shall succeed. All these are struggling among themselves for supremacy and nature is the supreme arbitrator of the contest. The law of natural selection cannot be overcome. It is as fixed and immutable as the law of gravitation. Men are not born equal. Nature never duplicates, and never creates two things alike. Men are unequal and different in nature, in stature, intellect, frugality, desire, industry, perseverance, hardiness and strength. A wise Creator hath made it so.