PREFACE By earlier association and education, and later by professional environment and interest, the author inclined strongly to ultraconservatism. He sternly rejected all suggestions that there could exist in this country such industrial combinations as could not be controlled by competition, or such monopolies in transportation as could not be controlled by State regulation. He chose to be satisfied with existing economic conditions and tendencies, and accepted as practical only such changes as appeared to evolve automatically in the progress of civilization. And yet, being of an investigating turn of mind and a student of economics and politics, he began an earnest study of the most serious. problems of the time, as well as of the remedies and palliatives proposed. As a result, he is finally convinced (1) that the dangers to republican institutions suggested by the radicals are real and imminent; and (2) that far-reaching, or what may be termed radical, remedies are necessary to arrest evil tendencies and restore to the people equality of opportunity. A restoration of the property values of which the general public have been unjustly deprived cannot be brought about in the present generation. That must be left to the great leveler, time. The results of the author's examination of concurrent events and accessible facts to prove the premises, and his arguments in advocacy of adequate remedies are set forth in the following pages. |