The smaller interests have often acted with "Big Business,"-- under its leadership, but as industrial activities and destinies are more and more transferred to the political field, the smaller capitalist becomes rather a junior partner than a mere follower.
Consolidation and industrial panics have taught him his lesson, and he is at last beginning to organize and to demand his share of profits at the only point where he has a chance to get it, _i.e._ through the new "State Socialism." Moreover, he is going to have a large measure of success, as the political situation in this country and the actual experience of other countries show.

And in proportion as the relations between large and small business become more cordial and better organized, they may launch this government, within a few years, into the capitalist undertakings so far-reaching and many-sided that the half billion expended on the Panama Canal will be forgotten as the small beginning of the new movement.
It is true that for the moment the stupendous wealth and power of the "Large Interests," already more or less consolidated, threaten to overwhelm the rest.

Mr.Steffens does not overstate when he says:-- "To state correctly in billions of dollars the actual value of all the property represented in this community of interests, might startle the imagination to some sense of the magnitude of the wealth of these men.

But money is no true measure of power.

The total capitalization of all they own would not bring home to us the influence of Morgan and his associates, direct and indirect, honest and corrupt, over presidents and Congresses; governors and legislators; in both political parties and over our political powers.