The greater American railroad and industrial corporations control resources and conduct operations on a scale unprecedented in the economic history of the world.

The great American industrial leaders have accumulated fortunes for which there is also no precedent on the part of men who exercise no official political power.

These inequalities are the result of the organization of American industry on almost a national scale,--an organization which was brought about as a means of escape from the intolerable evils of unregulated competition.

Every aspect of American business methods has helped to make them inevitable, and the responsibility for them must be distributed over the whole business and social fabric.

But in spite of the fact that they have originated as the inevitable result of American business methods and political ideas and institutions, they constitute a serious problem for a democracy to face; and this problem has many different aspects.