a fact in our machine civilization which probably is quite new, and
which the spirit of man has never had to face in any age before.

For the first time in the history of the world, machinery has made it
possible for the world to get into the hands of the weak.

The Gun began it--the gun in a coward's hands may side with the weak,
and the machine in the hands of the weak may temporarily give the world
a list or a trend, and leave it leaning on the wrong side.

The Trust, for instance, which is really an extremely valuable
invention, and perhaps, on the whole, the most important machine of
modern times when it is used to defend the rights of the people, is a
very different thing when it is pointed at them. We have to-day, not
unnaturally, the spectacle of perhaps nine people out of ten getting up
and saying in chorus all through the world that Trusts ought to be
abolished; and yet it cannot honestly be said that there is really
anything about the trust-machine--any more than any other machine--that
is inherently wicked, or mechanical and heartless. Our real objection to
the trust-machines is not to the machines themselves, but to the fact
that they are, or happen to be (judging each Trust by itself), in the
hands of the weak and of the tired--of men, that is, who have no spirit,
no imagination about people; mechanical-minded men, who, at least in the
past, have taken the easiest and laziest course in business--that of
making all the money they can.

The moment we see the Trusts in the hands of the strong men, the men who
are unwilling to slump back into mere money-making, and who face daily
with hardihood and with joy the feat of weaving into business several
strands of value at once, making things and making money and making men