It was the rapaciousness and insatiable greed of these plutocrats that had forced the toilers to combine for self-protection, resulting in the organization of the Labor Unions which, in time, became almost as tyrannical and unreasonable as the bosses.

And the breach between capital on the one hand and labour on the other was widening daily, masters and servants snarling over wages and hours, the quarrel ever increasing in bitterness and acrimony until one day the extreme limit of patience would be reached and industrial strikes would give place to bloody violence.
Meantime the plutocrats, wholly careless of the significant signs of the times and the growing irritation and resentment of the people, continued their illegal practices, scoffing at public opinion, snapping their fingers at the law, even going so far in their insolence as to mock and jibe at the President of the United States.

Feeling secure in long immunity and actually protected in their wrong doing by the courts--the legal machinery by its very elaborateness defeating the ends of justice--the Trust kings impudently defied the country and tried to impose their own will upon the people.

History had thus repeated itself.

The armed feudalism of the middle ages had been succeeded in twentieth century America by the tyranny of capital.
Yet, ruminated the young artist as he neared the Ryder residence, the American people had but themselves to blame for their present thralldom.