I.

Percentages and numbers of families in the United States in 1890, under owned and rented homes and farms, were represented by Dr. C. B. Spahr as follows:

[Families Identified with Farms and Homes.]

Owned:	Percent.	Numbers.	Rented	Percent.	Numbers.
In cities above 100,000 population: Homes owned	22.83	444,879	Rented:	77.17	1,503,955
In cities from 8,000 to 100,000: Homes owned	35.96	629,092	Rented:	64.04	1,120,487
Outside such cities: Homes owned	43.78	1,849,700	Rented:	56.22	2,374,860
Farms owned	65.92	3,142,746	Rented:	34.08	1,624,433
Totals and averages (for all) owned[178]	47.80	*6,066,417	Rented:	52.20	6,623,735

“A trust,” as defined by a committee of the New York State Legislature, “is a combination” aiming “to destroy competition and to restrain trade through the stockholders therein combining with other corporations of stockholders to form a joint stock company of corporations, in effect renouncing the powers of such several corporations, and placing all powers in the hands of trustees.” The general purposes and effects among them are “to control the supply of commodities and necessities; to destroy the very possibility of competition; to regulate the quality of all commodities; and to keep the cost to the consumer at prices far beyond their fair and equitable value.”^[179] Further, “Trust is” an acting scheme “where, by a device of trusteeship, various corporations practically form one monopoly without losing their separate corporateness. The novel characteristic of such a trust is not in its being a monopoly, but the way in which the monopoly is attained.”^[179]

Mr. Charles W. Baker in his Monopolies and the People, says:

“A trust is a combination to restrain competition among producers, formed by placing the various producing properties (mills, factories, etc.) in the hands of a board of trustees, who are empowered to direct the operations of production and sale, as if the properties were all under a single ownership and management.”^[180]

MONOPOLY IN PRIVATE HANDS.

“A monopoly in industry may be defined as the control of some natural agent, of some line of business, or of some advantage over existing or possible competitors, by which greater profits can be secured than other competitors can make.”^[181]

All these definitions indicate that the private monopolies and combinations have one and the same purpose or end in view: It is to find such devices and means and to establish such organization of business activity, which will enable the organizers and managers to obtain from the people the greatest profits for the least cost, thus concentrating the people’s wealth in a few hands without paying anything to the people in return.

III.

On the contrary, a monopoly of the government or of municipality may be defined as a system of controlling the natural or artificial agencies of public service and utility at such a cost to the public served, which will merely cover all expenses necessary (to construct and) to keep these agencies in the best serviceable and available condition or state, thus leaving no room for the unjust concentration of the people’s wealth in any private hands.