The one satisfaction which we can derive from such a relation as that given above is that, after all, it is representative of a past era in our political and economic life.

No new "Metropolitan syndicate" can ever repeat the operations of its predecessors.
Practically every State now has utility commissions which regulate the granting of franchises, the issue of securities, the details of construction and equipment and service.

An awakened public conscience has effectively ended the alliance between politics and franchise corporations and the type of syndicate described in the foregoing pages belongs as much to our American past as that rude frontier civilization with which, after all, it had many characteristics in common..