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468 bound to respect; it may not share in the general prosperity; even high officials appear to think it virtuous to over-reach such corporations. And all this because they have received certain privileges from the state, which are of inestimable value, while the services rendered in return are wholly undeserving of consideration. The popular antipathy to "big business" has become almost a mania and a great part of the community trembles at the concentration of the "money power" in the hands of a few score of men—though why there should be such terror on account of concentration of the money power and no terror because of concentration of the labor power in still fewer hands is difficult to understand. Laws against mere bigness have been enacted as readily as though it were a crime like burglary. The case of the Harvester Company is in point. The Missouri judge recognized that the whole course of that company had been commendable and to the advantage of the community, but, under the statute, he was compelled to impose a heavy fine because, by acquiring practical control of the market, it had become able, if so disposed, to inflict injury. That the American Sugar Refining Company has reduced the cost of sugar by 50 per cent, and that it is satisfied with a gross profit of less than half a cent per pound is nothing; the concern is too big. That for every dollar of gain secured by the Standard Oil Company the community has gained many hundreds through the reduction of illuminating oil to one sixth of the price 40 years ago is nothing; that most of the profit gained by that company has come from utilization of what was regarded burdensome waste material is nothing; the company is too big and makes too much money. The stupendous service rendered to the country by the United States Steel Company by prevention of panics and depressions is nothing; it is too big. Attacks on these organizations by government officials win great applause, in spite of the fact that so-called "trust-made" products are almost the only ones which have decreased in price—although the great companies pay high wages and their workmen have steady work, because trade unions can not gain a foothold to impoverish the wage-earner by strikes and compulsory idleness.

The confusion of ideas respecting the relations of labor and capital is perplexing; the terms are not used in the ordinary sense throughout. Combinations of transportation or manufacturing companies are taken to be, in themselves, evidence of conspiracy in restraint of trade; but positive conspiracy in restraint of trade by organizations, avowedly formed for that purpose, is highly proper on the part of agriculturists and labor men; and the authorities must not interfere. Tobacco raisers in Kentucky may combine to secure higher prices for their products and "night riders" may burn the property of those who refuse to join the conspiracy; labor combinations may struggle to destroy competition with their members, may attack, even murder those who refuse to