but this struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members
of the inferior class be permitted to leave that class and join the
ranks of the superior class. The capitalist class and the working
class have existed side by side and for a long time in the United
States; but hitherto all the strong, energetic members of the
working class have been able to rise out of their class and become
owners of capital. They were enabled to do this because an
undeveloped country with an expanding frontier gave equality of
opportunity to all. In the almost lottery-like scramble for the
ownership of vast unowned natural resources, and in the exploitation
of which there was little or no competition of capital, (the capital
itself rising out of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent
member of the working class found a field in which to use his brains
to his own advancement. Instead of being discontented in direct
ratio with his intelligence and ambitions, and of radiating amongst
his fellows a spirit of revolt as capable as he was capable, he left
them to their fate and carved his own way to a place in the superior
class.

But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble for
the ownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of new
industries, is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an immense
volume of surplus capital roams for investment and nips in the bud
the patient efforts of the embryo capitalist to rise through slow
increment from small beginnings. The gateway of opportunity after
opportunity has been closed, and closed for all time. Rockefeller
has shut the door on oil, the American Tobacco Company on tobacco,
and Carnegie on steel. After Carnegie came Morgan, who triple-
locked the door. These doors will not open again, and before them
pause thousands of ambitious young men to read the placard: NO