~ MERELY PRESENT-DAY HISTORIANS but also contemporary ob-<br > of the growth of big business were virtually unanimous in be-<br >~ tha!，，the concentration of economic power and the growth of<br >~ly and the "trust" was an inevitable result of the modern<br >~litst and industrial process. This unanimity was shared not only<br >le conventional celebrators of the status quo---the businessmen，<br >~ative journalists， and intellectualsmbut also by the critics of<br > m. Indeed， at the turn of the twentieth century a belief in the<br > ， if not the desirability， of big business was one of the nearly<br >tsal tenets of American thought.<br > is to be expected， of course， that the large majority of the im-<br >at businessmen who contemplated and wrote about the growth of<br >Ismess were ideologically receptive to a rationale of it. The simi-<br >of economic values held by both small and big businessmen was<br >