In certain respects they have served their country well, and in almost every respect their moral or immoral standards are those of the great majority of their fellow-countrymen.

But it is none the less true that the political corruption, the unwise economic organization, and the legal support afforded to certain economic privileges are all under existing conditions due to the malevolent social influence of individual and incorporated American wealth; and it is equally true that these abuses, and the excessive "money power" with which they are associated, have originated in the peculiar freedom which the American tradition and organization have granted to the individual.

Up to a certain point that freedom has been and still is beneficial.

Beyond that point it is not merely harmful; it is by way of being fatal.

Efficient regulation there must be; and it must be regulation which will strike, not at the symptoms of the evil, but at its roots.