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the coal deposits by another. The coke was made in a hundred different places, scattered throughout the United States and under separate management. The mills and furnaces were owned separately, and iron was bought here, coke there, and other materials elsewhere. All these materials were passing each other in trains going to the many points. There was no system, no science, in producing iron in an intelligent way. As soon as these mills and furnaces were brought under one control by the United States Steel Corporation, this senseless and planless way of producing iron changed to one of system and order. The corporation now mines its own ore and coal, and makes its own coke. It carries these products on its own vessels and its own railroads to its own furnaces, and then carries the iron and steel to its own plants. Nothing is left to chance. Everything is figured out in advance. Instead of thousands of office forces connected with thousands of small mills one or two good office forces are sufficient to keep the records of this great organization. The mills with old and poor machinery are closed, while those with good machinery are operated.
This is the sensible way to produce anything that men want. To advocate the old way of doing business would be as senseless as to advise that a postoffice be placed in every ward of a city, each with its own mail route to all parts of the city, instead of one big office with the routes planned to save time and labor. The postoffice is also a corporation, but a public instead of a private one like the iron and steel business.
The trust is the modern business organization. The machine is the modern tool. Both have been developing for centuries and each improvement has enabled each generation to produce more wealth than the generation before. Take the railroad as an example of the modern tool of transportation. Ages ago the savage transported goods on his back. Finally some of our hairy ancestors found that by taming the ox, the goat or the horse and by attaching two poles to the animal and allowing them to drag, they could transport more goods in a given time. Later on the idea of two rough wheels cut from a log and with a stout pole run through the center would carry a rough box and the first experiment in making a wagon was made. When the de-
