It is superfluous to point out that with wages determined by competition a workingman can create no effective demand for the satisfaction of his spiritual wants. He is lucky enough to get the necessities of life and is not fool enough to refuse a wage because it does not afford luxuries when he sees a man over his shoulder only too willing and anxious to accept it if he should refuse the offer.
Let us cast a broad sympathetic look over the surface of the United States, with the perplexed eye of a man with a million dollars or more looking for a promising and safe investment. Would he care to build another transcontinental railway? I think not. There are too many already.
Would he care to go into wheat-growing? Not if he is not in need of a guardian. One year it pays, then for the next three years there is either no crop on account of drouth, or there is low price owing to over-production, and the wheat grower has no chance of forming a trust. Too many farmers to combine: it is difficult enough to get ten men into a combination, but when you have 10,000 it is manifestly an impossibility.
Is there one single industry which he could find that is of a sufficiently large nature to warrant the investment of a large capital that is not manifestly overdone?
