York?" "To the Democratic fund." "To which fund in New Jersey?" and the man replied, "Well, I will have to look at the books, that is a doubtful state."

Now, that is almost a literal reproduction of the testimony of one great corporation on the subject of campaign contribution. I don't mean to say that that remedy will be a complete one, but I believe that when you prevent a corporation from contributing to campaign funds you will make it easier to secure remedial legislation, because some corporations are compelled to contribute; they are blackmailed into contributions, and such a law would protect a corporation that did not want to contribute, and also prevent a corporation from contributing that did want to contribute.

If the people are in earnest they can destroy monopoly, and you never can do anything in this country until the people are in carnest. When the American people understand what the monopoly question means, I believe there will be no power, political, financial or otherwise, to prevent the people from taking possession of every branch of government, from president to the supreme court, and making the government responsive to the people's will.

As Col. Bryan finished Mr. Cockran was called for.

W. BOURKE COCKRAN.

Just one moment while I express my complete concurrence in much that Mr. Bryan has said, and my great satisfaction that by taking the platform he has largely helped restore this debate to its natural limits.

I agree with Mr. Bryan that if there be an oppresssive monopoly in existence it should be suppressed, whatever may be the measures necessary to overthrow it. No constitutional limitation, no abstract theory of government, no mere human device, can deprive this people of the power to redress a wrong, when the existence of that wrong is clearly established.

The first question to which I think the attention of this conference should be directed is whether an oppressive monopoly exists, and if so, where it is. Before undertaking to discuss remedies we should make sure that evils exist. If their existence be established, the first step toward their redress is to define them in terms which everybody can understand. To call an industrial organization-a combine-a hydra-headed monster-or even an

octopus-does not cast any light upon what it is, or illumine my pathway in attempting to deal with it.

I said yesterday that I have been suffering through every portion of this discussion from that dangerous intoxication of phrases which seems sufficient to maintain magnificent periods, but leaves us when all is over in such a state of mental bewilderment that we don't quite know what we have been talking about. I can understand how these phrases often produce great effect. Nothing frightens people so much as incomprehensible noises. Let an unaccountable noise be heard here now, and in a second we would all be trying to escape by the windows. Men may be put to intellectual as well as physical flight by the terrifying influences of sound. If, however, we are to succeed in making any recommendation of the slightest value to our fellow citizens we must at the outset compose our nerves and endeavor by the use of plain language to ascertain the precise nature of our industrial condition. Are we prosperous, or are we suffering? Is anybody injured, and by whom? Has this octopus of which we hear so much taken possession of anybody or anything? On whom or on what is it preying? Where is its lair?

To a very great extent these questions have been answered in the course of these proceedings. Representatives of labor organizations have told us from this platform that wages are higher than ever before. Certainly, these laborers do not appear to suffer from any form of oppression. But when we are about to express gratification at these comforting tidings, we are warned. in solemn but mystical language that we are seeking to "place the dollar above the man." Now, what in the name of common sense can be the function of the dollar except to improve the condition of the man? Again, when we seek to ascertain the effect of corporate organizations on production, that is to say, on prosperity, we are told that a "God-made man" is one thing, and a "man-made man" is another; that the "God-made man" possesses in large degree the attributes of divinity, while the "manmade man" seems to have escaped from his creator, and to have developed habits of depravity during the separation. If this statement embodied a profound truth I am at a loss to understand what light it could throw on the question before us. We are discussing the effects, not the sources of corporate existence. But as matter of fact, is there such a thing as a "God-made man" in the world? There is, but he is scarce and rapidly growing scarcer. Why, the "God-made man" is the original savage.

Do you suppose that the oration delivered by Mr. Bryan this morning, or the rhetoric with which he moves multitudes to wild

enthusiasm in every part of this country, could be evolved from the natural resources of man? The education which fits him for the platform, the books which he has read, the very clothes that he wears, have all been contributed to him by other men. He is, himself, at once a divine creation and a human development. In his natural abilities and disposition he is a "God-made man" and a credit to his creator; in his acquirements and in his extraordinary influence he is, thank heaven, a splendid type of the "manmade man."

I listened to my friend from Indiana with great interest while he advanced constitutional objections to remedies suggested by Mr. Bryan for what both appeared to regard as some evil or other in our industrial system. I wondered what the evil was of which they complained, and I had hoped that he would make it clear, but I am wondering yet. If there be an evil, Mr. Bryan's proposition that it must be suppressed through the Constitution, or in spite of it, is unanswerable. But, I repeat, what is the evil of which gentlemen here complain? The chief cause of alarm seems to be fear that competition will be stifled, yet the natural, nay, the inevitable result of competition, is the object of their most vehement denunciations. I confess I am at a loss to understand the mental processes which lead men to laud competition and yet to condemn the fruit which competition must always bear. Do you want competition, or do you not?

A Voice: Yes, we want competition.

Yes, you want competition. There is a very frank man, who, I believe, agrees in the main with the proposition of Mr. Bryan. He wants competition. Can you have competition without competitors? If there be competition must not somebody succeed in it? If one competitor far excells all others, will not that excellence constitute a monopoly? Will you suppress competition when it develops unapproachable merit? Will you place limits upon excellency?

A Voice: We object to the railroads being used for the benefit of one set of fellows to the detriment of another. That is a monopoly.

Mr. Cockran: I agree with you there. I would invoke all the power of government to prevent that abuse and to suppress any monopoly built on it or on any form of government favor. But for the same reason that I would suppress the monopoly built on favor, I would protect the monopoly created by excellence. There is no way to suppress a monopoly arising from conspicuous merit except by the suppression of merit. If the producer of the best commodity may not dominate the market for that particular ar

ticle, neither should the possessor of particular ability in any other department of human endeavor. Must we place restrictions on capacity in law and medicine, so as to place the capable and the incapable on a common level? Must we prohibit the competent lawyer from being more successful in his advocacy than his incompetent brother? Must we prevent the experienced physician from being more efficient in checking disease and relieving pain than the beginner who has just hung out his shingle?

Mr. Bryan's position, as he states it, is that monopoly in private hands is always oppressive. Instead of distinguishing between corporations which dominate the market by excellence and those dominating it by favor, he appears to distinguish between those which are successful and those which are not.

The concern which has never been able to extend its trade beyond the limits of one locality he would not molest, while, as I understand it, his plan would practically exclude by a system of federal licenses the most prosperous industries from inter-state commerce, merely because they have succeeded in the field of competition-whether that success was due to merit or favor. This would be ruinous to them, but it would also prevent the vast body of consumers from enjoying the most efficient service and the cheapest goods. But if those who succeed in the field of industrial competition are to be punished by the exclusion of their products from other states, similar restrictions should be imposed on those who succeed in the field of intellectual competition. The most successful lawyer, physician or orator, should, so to speak, be localized-prevented from invading other states with his superior abilities, except under oppressive conditions. If successful lawyers are to be penalized, I know of one or two myself, whom I would be glad to see excluded from Washington and the Supreme Court of the United States. But it is hardly possible that Congress could be induced to pass a general law prohibiting excellence in all departments of human endeavor., Mr. Bryan's suggestion, like all other radical propositions, if it were ever brought within the domain of practical politics, would most likely result in a compromise. Congress might decide to discriminate against the successful in some one competition, but not in all. Its selection for repressive discrimination would very probably be the most successful orator, for the majority of the members would like to be his competitors, and they might be glad to embrace an effective plan for excluding from their districts whomsoever had proved himself a superior in the art.

A Voice: Do you contend that all the dominating industrial

forces of to-day have secured that superiority from fair competition?

Mr. Cockran: No, sir. As I said last night at some length,perhaps at such length as to make it obscure, some industries dominate the market through the merit of their products established by free competition, while others control it with products of inferior merit through government favor. Any industry maintaining a domination or monopoly of the market by the aid of government, direct or indirect, whether extended through favors granted by corporations exercising public franchises or through tariff laws, is necessarily an oppressive monopoly, because if it could flourish beyond all others through the excellency of its service, it would not need government favor and would not accept it.

For the same reason that free competition leads to the domination of the best, restricted competition leads to the domination of the baser, if not of the basest.

A Voice: Do you carry your principles of competition to the competition of workingmen for a job? Do you carry that competition that principle-right down to that basis?

Mr. Cockran: Yes, sir. The effect of free competition among laborers is to secure highest wages and steadiest employment for the best. You surely would not prefer to see the inferior workman preferred to the superior-and one or the other must have the preference.

A Voice: I would like to ask you also, will you kindly repeat while you have the platform what you said last night in regard to the relationship of the employer and employee?

Mr. Cockran: If you can stand it, I might try. But if the statement was not clear last night to repeat it now would hardly be profitable. I will, however, refer to it before I leave the platform.

We seem to have drifted into an atmosphere of bewildering vagueness concerning what is called the evil of monopoly. I repeat if there be an evil pressing on the necks of people, whatever its source, I am ready to enlist under any banner to suppress it. If the Constitution stand in the way of redressing it, then I say let us smash the Constitution and from its fragments let us fashion weapons for the overthrow of the oppressor. If corporate organization be an evil thing, if you can show me an evil flowing out of it and inseparable from it. I would not hesitate a moment to adopt Mr. Bryan's remedy. But when it is admitted, as Mr. Bryan admitted this morning, that these evils of monopoly have not yet become apparent,-that they are evils anticipated, not