ficulties in communication and transportation, by tariffs, taxes, brigandage, etc., etc. Nowadays it is the extensive competition, the competition of city with city, state with state, country with country, that is affecting prices and wages. And it is this competition that must be dealt with in a big way and a broad way. It cannot be suppressed, it cannot be checked, unless mankind wishes to suppress steam, gasoline, and electricity-but it may be controlled and transformed.

III

The history of nations shows how the pendulum of progress swings to and fro from perfection in little things to perfection in big things. At the same period one nation may be doing things intensively, while another is doing things in a spirit of extension; one may be living a life of extraordinary fullness within its gates, another may find satisfaction only in conquering the earth.

Again at different periods the ambitions of mankind are widely different. For a time the nations are content within their borders, are absorbed in building their cities, their cathedrals, their monuments-in artistic and intellectual pursuits; the conflicts are few and personal or local in character; there is an astonishing development of every trade, every craft. Suddenly there comes a change, due, perhaps, to some great invention or discovery, or, perhaps, to the restless personality of some mighty leader who reflects the spirit of his times. The period of intense development is at an end; as if moved by one impulse the nations embark on a period of conquest, of discovery, of colonization; a period wherein local barriers are annihilated and countries come together in one grand clash, one supreme struggle either on the field of battle or in the more bloodless but none the less fierce rivalry for commercial and industrial victories.

The bloodless economist will say, "Let them alone, it is evolution, the fittest will survive."

But that is just the question, will the fittest survive? The strongest may, but fittest! That is another question.

If survival means the displacement of men by women and girls, and the disintegration of the family into competing units, if it means a cheapening of quality all around, above all a cheapening of the atmosphere, if it means loss of personal interest and personal touch, then it may not be the fittest for the betterment of either those directly interested or of the community as a whole.

VIII

Some years ago there was an old and long established company in England the products of which were standard the world over.

A powerful American company wished to buy the English company and control the business in Great Britain. The English company had no desire to sell and refused all offers.

The American company, to force a sale, established a factory in England, flooded the country with an inferior and cheaper product, demoralizing the trade. In the end the English company was forced to sell.

That was good old-fashioned competition. The practice is common; it is common in the small town where the large dealer cuts prices to force a small to either sell out or get out. It is done in the world of "big business" when the large corporation deliberately invades the territory of the small and, by selling below cost, compels the latter to dispose of its business. In fact, it is part of the every-day tactics of the old competition.

"And why not?" some one cynically asks. "Doesn't the

public reap the benefit in the way of low prices while the war is on?"

"Yes, but-___"

What is the use of arguing with a man who thinks that competition of that character is beneficial?

IX

Then there is the disreputable competition of those who sell out and immediately go into business again in opposition to purchasers who buy in good faith.

The law permits the purchaser to take a limited contract restraining the seller from immediately competing, but, aside from such contracts, and often in evasion of them, men who sell their establishments with good-will take the money they receive and open up in the same town, the same block, to get the very trade they sold.

This is dishonorable but-competition, and the community is supposed to benefit economically from a condition that is morally bad-does it?

X

The great mass of mankind are both sellers and buyers. As sellers they would stifle competition; as buyers they would foster it.

Unhappily, they actually try to do both. The farmer demands freedom to organize his coöperative societies, but, in the same breath, demands laws to prevent other classes doing the same thing.

The laborer insists upon his right to organize unions and dictate wages, and, in the same breath, calls for the enforcement of the law against the organization of employers.

The dealer and manufacturer is caught between the upper and nether millstones-he is obliged to pay prices fixed by farmers' organizations and wages fixed by labor unions, but cannot-under the laws of most of the states-organize with others for his own benefit.

This is a condition so manifestly unfair and illogical it cannot exist for long, and while it does exist it engenders mischief and class hatred.

The problem presented is by no means peculiar to this country, for the nations of Europe are struggling with it, but the condition is more acute here because we have fortyeight states and a federal government passing laws on the subject, and for nearly a generation passing laws—“antitrust laws"-drawn in most drastic terms to suppress cooperation and promote competition.

XI

The Sherman Act was passed 1890.

Since its enactment many suits have been begun to dissolve "trusts"-combinations of dealers and manufacturers.

Not a single suit has been begun to dissolve any one of the large combinations of labor or of farmers, though the existence of such combinations arbitrarily controlling inter-state commerce is a matter of common knowledge!

What is the net result of the enforcement of that law? A few "trusts" and a number of lesser combinations have dissolved, but where one has been suppressed five hundred have taken its place. No such era of combination and coöperative organization has ever been known in the history of the world as the period of twenty-odd years since the passage of the Sherman act.

This movement has not been organized in "defiance" of 1See Chapter XIX.

the law, but in response to irresistible forces-the same forces that brought the partnership, the corporation, the labor union, into existence; the forces that compel men to work together in harmony to accomplish the things modern society demands of them.

Just as the stage-coach, owned and driven by one man, has given way to the railroad, owned and operated by a hundred thousand men, so the individual laborer, farmer, merchant, small manufacturer, merges his identity in that of his union, his coöperative society, his large corporation, his "trust," to secure larger results, to do things on a larger scale, a scale commensurate with the marvelous development of the world of to-day.

XII

The country has reached the parting of the ways. It must make its choice, and make it intelligently—either the competitive or the coöperative basis. If the competitive, then no class should be permitted to organize a coöperative movement to get more for what it has to sell; if the cooperative basis, then no class should be prevented from organizing either one policy or the other, the two cannot exist together.

The man who argues for competition must be consistent; he must argue against farmers' coöperative societies and labor unions just as vehemently as he argues against combinations of dealers and manufacturers.

XIII

We are in course of making this choice; Congress is debating constructive legislation to supplement or take the