Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/72

 policy, for when trade “recovery” has taken place we shall find ourselves hampered by tariffs which are obstructive to the best use of our productive resources but which have become vested interests and difficult to remove. Along this line of imperialist protection I thus found further support for my over-saving heresy.

My American experiences brought other aspects of capitalism to the front. Though the lecture tours which I made in the East and Middle West of the United States were chiefly to Universities, other contacts with business men’s and women’s clubs and more popular audiences gave me a clearer understanding of the blend of ruthless competition and equally ruthless monopoly which characterized the economic and political scene in America. I saw a business system which had grown up under free competition and equality of opportunity passing into trusts and other combines derived from the acquisition of lands containing the best supplies of coal, iron, oil, and other important raw materials, supported by railroad and banking connections and by tariffs directed against outside competition. Not less significant were the private ownership and control by a few strong business men in the old cities of the East and the new rising cities of the Middle West over the profitable supply of public utilities and the growing land values. The first clear and comprehensive exposure of the corruption of democratic institutions in American