"Please hear me out, Senator," Gorham urged. "I believe implicitly that
what I have just said is true, yet I venture to repeat to you that I
consider myself an idealist and an optimist. A man's 'price' has come to
be associated with money. I know this phase--what business man does not?
But beyond this, are there not far subtler influences, which in one form
or another draw every man away from the course he would naturally steer
for himself as surely as the iron deflects the magnet's needle? Ambition
influences an honorable legislator apparently to condone acts which he
knows are wrong, that he may gain a Governor's chair, from which
position he can more surely crush out the evils he has always recognized
and abhorred. I do not say that all our stockholders are influenced by
the guarantee I have given them that a franchise or a concession awarded
to the Consolidated Companies means an advantage to the people they
serve, but I have at least convinced them by word and act of my own
sincerity, and of the possibility of so conducting the Companies that
these results can be obtained. I do not even say that every public
official who co-operates with us is actuated by the highest motives in
giving the Consolidated Companies special privileges, but I do say that
he may properly be so actuated--and the public receives the benefits."

"But think of the power which this corporation must eventually possess,
and the powerlessness of any individual or organization, business or
otherwise, to oppose it."

"Why should they wish to oppose it?" Gorham continued. "As I have said,
the combinations suggested can but result in economies in production
and consequent reductions in the living expenses of the masses."

"Yet you would hardly suggest that the Consolidated Companies has been
launched as a philanthropic enterprise?"