Although you have done nothing,
we shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather
did, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall
transfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives
them value." ----
In due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be
delivered to all the various trust owners. They will all be well
paid for their work. They deserve to be, for they have done as
individuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not
do.
But they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what
they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the
world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his
property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we
allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep
the proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants
forever? ----
We had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this
article. That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of
to-day's trust. The mammoth was hated by all created things
around him. An accidental blow from his left hind foot would
break up any family in existence.
But his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through
the swamps and forests.
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