Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/83

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COMMERCIALISM
79

the fundamental principle that all interests are mutually dependent, that one can not suffer alone; all must share.

The day of small things has passed; railroads, telegraphs, express steamships have changed the units of competition from individuals to nations. If Great Britain, Germany and the United States are each to have a fair share in the world's markets, they will do so only through the sagacity of men controlling the policies of great combinations. Even in our own country, the territory is so vast that, to secure internal prosperity, such combinations are essential in every department of activity, manufactures, colleges or transportation. Petty rivalries of neighbors are too costly, too wasteful; duplication of plants is folly, when by a slight increase in some portion of one it can be made to do the work of both. In view of this, men should recognize that vox populi as expressed in legislative enactments is not necessarily vox dei; that right can not be converted into wrong by the vote of an accidental majority; that exact obedience to law is not sin.