the capitalist could feel fairly secure, but du-
ing industrial and banking crises, crop failures, or
other adversities, the earnings of capital might
decline to such a point as seriously to impair the
valuation. Thus there arose among capitalists --
large and small -- a widespread demand for legisla-
tion and public aid to protect the integrity of the
values which they had set up -- a demand that cus-
toms tariffs be made more rigid than before to pre-
vent foreign competition and for other measures to
preserve the status quo of the new dispensation.

The railroads, during the decade after the Civil
War, were the most conspicuous beneficiaries of
the new process; but when inventions came in,
such as the telephone and electric light and power,
as well as numerous other devices for economiz-
ing time and labor, the current results and future
possibilities of all these likewise were capitalized.
In case of public utilities the supposed value of the
franchise was made the primary basis of capitaliza-
tion. In the quarter century from 1890 to 1915,
the total capitalization in the form of stocks and
bonds of public service corporations in the United
Rates grew from less than two hundred million
to nearly twenty billion dollars.

This new capitalism is a phenomenon of far-

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