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The Empire of Business · The Empire of Business

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  Section number one, The Road to business assess A talk to young men.
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  It is well that young men should begin at the beginning and occupy the most
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  subordinate positions. Many of the leading business men of Pittsburgh had a serious responsibility
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  thrust upon them at the very threshold of their career. They were introduced to
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  the broom and spent the first hours of their business life sweeping out the office.
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  I notice we have janitors and jan attresses now in offices, and our
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  young men unfortunately missed that salutary branch of a business education. But if by
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  chance the professional sweeper is absent any morning, the boy who has the genius
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  of the future partner in him will not hesitate to try his hand at the
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  broom. The other day, a fond, fashionable mother in Michigan as to
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  young men whether he had ever seen a young lady sweep in a room so
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  grandly as her Priscilla. He said, no, he never had, and
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  the mother was gratified beyond measure. But then said he, after a pause,
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  what I should like to see her do is sweep out a room.
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  It does not hurt the newest comer to sweep out the office if necessary.
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  I was one of those sweepers, myself, and who do you suppose were
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  my fellow sweepers. David M. Cargo, now superintendent of the Allegheny Valley
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  Railroad, Robert Pitcarn, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and mister Morland City
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  Attorney. We all took turns two each morning to the sweeping. And now
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  I remember Davy was so proud of his clean white shirt bosom that he used
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  to spread it over an old silk bandanna handkerchief which he kept for the purpose,
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  And we other boys thought he was putting on airs, so he was.
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  None of us had a silk handkerchief. Assuming that you have all obtained
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  employment and are fairly started, my vice to you is aim high. I
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  would not give a fig for the young man who does not already see himself
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  the partner or the head of an important firm. Do not rest content for
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  a moment in your thoughts as head clerk, or foreman or general manager in
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  any concern, no matter how extensive. Say each to yourself, my place
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  is at the top. Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that
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  you will reach that position with untarnished reputation. Make no other vow to distract
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  your attention, except the very commendable one that when you are a member of
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  the firm, or before that, if you have been promoted two or three
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  times, you will form another partnership with the loveliest of her sex, a
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  partnership to which our new partnership Act is no application. The liability there is
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  never limited. Let me indicate two or three conditions essential to success. Do
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  not be afraid that I am going to moralize or inflict a homily upon you.
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  I speak upon the subject only from the view of a man of the
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  world desirous of aiding you to become successful businessmen. You all know that there
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  is no genuine, praiseworthy success in life if you are not honest, truthful,
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  fair dealing. I assume you are and will remain all these, and
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  also that you are determined to live pure, respectable lives free from pernicious or
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  equivocal associations with one sex or the other. There is no credible future for
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  you else Otherwise you are learning, and your advantages not only go for naught,
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  but serve to accentuate your failure and your disgrace. I hope you will
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  not take it amiss. If I warn you against three of the gravest dangers
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  which will beset you in your upward path. The first and most seductive,
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  and the destroyer of most young men, is the drinking of liquor. I
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  am no temperance lecturer in disguise, but a man who knows and tells you
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  what observation has proved to him. And I say to you that you are
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  more likely to fail in your career from acquiring the habit of drinking liquor than
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  any other or all the other temptations likely to assail you. You may yield
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  to almost any other temptation and reform, may brace up, and, if
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  not recover lost ground, at least remain in the race and secure and maintain
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  a respectable position. But from the insane thirst for liquor, escape is almost
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  impossible. I have known but few exceptions to this rule. First, then
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  you must not drink liquor to excess. Better if you do not touch it
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  at all, much better. But if this be too hard a rule for
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  you, then take your stand firmly here resolve never to touch it except at
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  meals. A glass at dinner will not hinder your advance in life or lower
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  your tone, But I implore you hold it inconsistent with the dignity and self
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  respective, gentlemen, with what is due from yourselves to yourselves, being the
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  man you are, and especially the men you are determined to become. To
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  drink a glass of liquor at a bar before too much of the gentlemen ever
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  to enter a bar room. You do not pursue your careers in safety unless
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  you stand firmly upon this ground, adhere to it, and you have escaped
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  danger from the dead list of your foes. The next greatest danger to a
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  young business man in this community I believed to be that of speculation. When
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  I was a telegraph operator here, we had no exchanges in the city,
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  but the men or firms who speculated upon the Eastern exchanges were necessarily known to
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  the operators. They could be counted on the fingers of one hand. These
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  men were not our citizens of first repute. They were regarded with suspicion.
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  I have lived to see all of these speculators irreparably ruined, men bankrupt in
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  money and bankrupt in character. There is scarcely an instance of a man who
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  is made a fortune by speculation and kepit gamesters die poor, and there is
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  certainly not an instance of a speculator who has lived a life creditable to himself
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  or advantageous to the community. The man who grasps the morning paper to see
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  first how his speculative ventures upon the exchanges are likely to result, unfits himself
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  for the calm consideration and proper solution of business problems with which he has to
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  deal later in the day, and shaps the sources of that persistent and concentrated
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  energy upon which depend the permanent success, and often the very safety of his
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  main business. The speculator and the businessman tread diverging lines. The former depends
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  upon the sudden turn of fortune's wheel. He is a millionaire today of bankrupt
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  tomorrow. But the man of business knows that only by years of patient,
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  unremitting attention to affairs can earn his reward, which is the result not of
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  chance, but of well devised means for the attainment of ends during all these
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  years. His is the cheering thought, by no possibility can he benefit himself
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  without caring prosperity to others. The speculator, on the other hand, had
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  better never have lived so far as the good of others or the good of
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  the community is concerned. Hundreds of young men were tempted in this city not
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  long since to gamble in oil, and many were ruined. All were injured,
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  whether they lost or won. You may be nay, you are certain
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  to be similarly tempted. But when so tempted, I hope you will remember
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  this advice. Say to the tempter who asks you to risk your small savings,
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  that if ever you decide to speculate, you are determined to go to
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  a regular and well conducted house worthy cheap fare. You can get fair play
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  and about an equal chance upon the red and black in such a place.
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  Upon the exchange you have neither, you might as well try your luck with
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  a three card monte man. There is another point involved in speculation. Nothing
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  is more essential to young business men than untarnished credit, credit begotten of confidence
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  in their prudence, principles, and stability of character. Well, believe me,
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  nothing kills credit sooner in any bank board than the knowledge that either firms
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  or men engage in speculation. It matters not a whit whether gains or losses
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  be the temporary result of these operations. The moment a man is known to
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  speculate his credit is impaired, and soon thereafter it is gone. How can
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  a man be credited whose resources may be swept away in one hour by a
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  panic among gamesters? Who can tell how he stands among them? Except that
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  this is certain, he has given due notice that he may stand to lose
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  all, so that those who credit him have themselves to blame. Resolved to
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  be business men, but speculators never. The third and last danger against which
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  I shall warn you is one which has wrecked many a fair craft, which
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  started with well he gave promise of a prosperous voyage. It is the perilous
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  habit of endorsing, all the more dangerous inasmuch as it assails one generally in
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  the garb friendship. It appeals to your generous instincts, And you say,
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  how can I refuse to lend my name only to assist a friend? It
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  is because there is so much that is true and commendable in that view,
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  that the practice is so dangerous. Let me endeavor to put you upon safe,
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  honorable grounds. In regard to it. I would say to you to
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  make it a rule, now never endorse. But this is too much like
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  never taste wine. Or never smoke, or any other of the nevers may
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  generally result in exceptions. You will, as business men now and then probably
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  become security for friends. Now Here is the line at which regard for the
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  success of friends should cease, and regard for your own honor begin. If
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  you owe anything, all your capital and all your effects are a solemn trust
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  in your hands, to be held inviolate for the security of those who have
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  trusted you. Nothing could be done by you with honor which jeopardizes these first
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  claims upon you. When a man in debt endorses for another, it is
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  not his own credit or his own capital e risks. It is that of
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  his own creditors. He violates a trust mack. You then never endorse until
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  you have cash means not required for your own debts, and never endorse beyond
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  those means before you endorse it. All consider endorsements as gifts and as yourselves.
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  Whether you wish to make the gift to your friend, whether the money
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  is really yours to give, and not a trust for your creditors. You
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  are not safe, gentlemen, unless you stand firmly upon this as the only
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  ground which an honest businessman can occupy. I beseech you avoid liquor. Speculation
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  and endorsement do not fail in either. For liquor and speculation are the scylla
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  and charybdis of the young man's business. See an endorsement is rock ahead,
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  assuming you are safe in regard to these your bravest dangers. The question now
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  is how to rise from the subordinate position you have imagined you in through these
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  successive grades, to the position for which you are. In my opinion,
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  and I trust in your own evidently intended, I can give you the secret.
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  It lies mainly in this instead of the question what must I do for
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  my employer substitute? What can I do? Faithful and conscientious discharge of the
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  duties assigned you is all very well, But the verdict in such cases generally
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  is that you perform your present duties so well that you had better continue performing
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  them. Now, young gentlemen, this will not do. It will not
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  do for the coming partners. There must be something beyond this. We make
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  clerks, book keepers, treasures, bank tellers of this class, and there
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  they remain to the end of the chapter. The rising man must do something
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  exceptional and beyond the range of his special department. He must attract attention.
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  A shipping clerk, he may do so by discovering in an invoice and arrow
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  with which he has nothing to do, and which has escaped the attention of
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  the proper party. If a weighing clerk, he may save the firm by
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  doubting the adjustment of the scales and having them corrected, even if this be
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  the province of the master mechanic. If a messenger boy, even he can
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  lay the seat of promotion by going beyond the letter of his instructions in order
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  to secure the desired reply. There is no service so low and simple,
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  neither any so high, in which the young man of ability and willing disposition
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  cannot readily and almost daily prove himself capable of greater trust and usefulness, and,
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  what is equally important, show his invincible determination to rise. Some day,
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  in your own department you will be directed to do or say something which
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  you know will prove disadvantage to the interest of the firm. Here is your
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  chance. Stand up like a man and say so, Say it boldly,
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  and give your reasons, and thus prove to your employer that while his thoughts
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  have been engaged upon other matters, you have been studying during hours when perhaps
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  he thought you asleep, how to advance his interests. You may be right,
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  or you may be wrong, But in either case you have gained the
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  first condition of success. You have attracted attention. Your employer has found that
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  he is not a mere hireling in his service, but a man. Not
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  one who is content to give so many hours of work for so many dollars
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  in return, but one who devotes his spare hours and constant thoughts to the
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  business. Such an employee must perforce be thought of and thought of kindly and
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  well. It will not be long before his advice is asked in his special
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  brand. And if the advice given be sound, it will soon be asked
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  and taken upon questions and broader bearing. This means partnership, if not with
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  present employers, then with others your foot In such cases upon the latter,
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  the amount of climbing done depends entirely upon yourself. One false axiom you will
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  often hear, which I wish to guard you against obey orders. If you
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  break owners, don't you do it? There is no rule for you to
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  follow. Always break orders to save owners. There never was a great character
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  who did not sometimes smash the routine regulations and make new ones for himself.
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  The rule is only suitable for such as have no aspirations, and you have
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  not forgotten that you are destined to be owners and to make orders and break
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  orders. Do not hesitate to do it whenever you assure the interests of your
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  employer will be thereby promoted, and when you are so sure of the results
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  that you are willing to take the responsibility. You will never be a partner
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  unless you know the business of your department far better than the owners possibly can.
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  When called to account for your independent action, show him the result of
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  your genius and tell him that you knew that it would be so. Show
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  him how mistake and the orders were. Boss, your boss, just as
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  soon as you can try it on early. There is nothing he will like
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  so well if he is the right kind of boss. If he is not,
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  he is not the man for you to remain with. Leave him whenever
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  you can, even at a present sacrifice, and find one capable of discerning
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  genius. Our young partners in the Carnegie Firm have won their spurs by showing
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  that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did.
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  Some of them have acted upon occasion with me as if they owned the firm,
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  and I was but some erry New Yorker presuming to advise upon what I
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  knew very little about. Well, they are not interfered with much now They
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  were the true bosses, the very men we were looking for. There is
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  one sure mark of the coming partner, the future millionaire. His revenues always
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  exceed his expenditures. He begins to save early, almost as soon as he
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  begins to earn. No matter how little it may be possible to save,
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  save that little, invest it securely, not necessarily in bonds, but in
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  anything which you have good reason to believe will be profitable. But no gambling
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  with it. Remember, a rare chance will soon present itself for investment.
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  The little you have saved will prove the basis for an amount of credit utterly
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  surprising to you capitalists, trust the saving young man. For every hundred dollars
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  you can produce as the result of hard won savings, Midas, in search
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  of a partner, will lend or credit a thousand for every thousand fifty thousand.
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  It is not capital that your seniors require. It is the man who
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  has proved that he has the business habits which create capital, and to create
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  it in the best of all possible ways, as far as self discipline is
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  concerned, is by adjusting his habits to his means. Gentlemen, it is
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  the first hundred dollars save which tells begin at once to lay up something the
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  be predominates in the future millionaire. Of course, there are better higher aims
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  than saving as an end. The acquisition of wealth is ignoble in the extreme.
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  I assume that you save in law for wealth only as a means of
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  enabling you the better to do something good in your day and generation. Make
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  a note of this essential rule expenditure always within income. You may grow impatient
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  or become discouraged when year by year you float on in subordinate positions. There
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  is no doubt that it is becoming harder and harder as business gravitates more and
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  more to immense concerns. For a young man without capital to get a start
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  for himself, and in this city, especially where large capital is essential,
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  it is unusually difficult. Still, let me tell you for your encouragement that
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  there is no country in the world where able and energetic young men can so
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  readily rise as this, nor any city where there is more room at the
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  top. It has been impossible to meet the demand for capable first class bookkeepers.
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  Mark the adjectives. The supply has never been equal to the demand.
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  Young men give all kinds of reasons why in their cases failure was clearly attributable
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  to exceptional circumstances which render success impossible. Some never had a chance according to
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  their own story. This is simply nonsense. No young man ever lived who
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  had not had a chance, and a splendid chance too, If he ever
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  was employed at all, his essay it in the mind of his immediate superior
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  from the day he begins work, and after a time, if he has
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  merits, he is essayed in the council chamber of the firm. His ability,
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  honesty, habits, associations, temper disposition, all these are weighed and
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  analyzed. The young man who never had a chance as the same young man
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  who has been canvassed over and over again by superiors and found destitute of necessary
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  qualifications, or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the firm owing to some
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  objectionable act, habit, or association of which he thought his employers ignorant.
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  Another class of young men attribute their failure to employers having relations or favorites whom
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  they advance unfairly. They also insist that their employers dislike brighter intelligences than their
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  own, and are disposed to discourage aspiring genius and delight in keeping young men
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  down. There is nothing in this. On the contrary, there is no
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  one suffering so much for lack of the right man in the right pace place,
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  nor so anxious to find them as the owner. There is not a
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  firm in Pittsburgh today which is not in the constant search for business ability.
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  And every one of them will tell you that there is no article in the
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  market at all times so scarce. There is always a boom in brains.
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  Cultivate that crop, for if you grow any amount of that commodity, here
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  is your best market, and you cannot overstock it. And the more brains
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  you have to sell, the higher price you can exact. They are not
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  quite so sure a crop as wild oats, which never fail to produce a
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  bountiful harvest. But they have the advantage over these in always finding in market.
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  Do not hesitate to engage in any legitimate business, for there is no
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  business in America. I do not care what which will not yield a fair
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  profit if it received the unremitting exclusive attention in all the capital of capable and
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  industrious men, every business will have its season of depression. Years always come
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  during which the manufacturers and merchants of the city are severely tried. Years when
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  mills must be run not for profit but at a loss, that the organization
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  and men may be kept together and employed, and the concern may keep its
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  products in the market. But on the other hand, every legitimate business producing
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  or dealing in an article which man requires is bound in time to be fairly
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  profitable if properly conducted. And here is the prime condition of success, the
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  great secret. Concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business
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  in which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolved to fight
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  it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement,
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  have the best machinery, and know the most about it. The concerns which
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  fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered
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  their brains. Also they have investments in this or that or the other,
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  here, there and everywhere. Don't put all your eggs in one basket is
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  all wrong. I tell you put all your eggs in one basket, and
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  then watch that basket. Look round you and take notice. Men who do
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  that do not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one
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  basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that one breaks most eggs.
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  In this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his
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  head, which is apt to tumble and trip them up. One fault of
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  the American businessman is lack of concentration. To summarize what I've said, Aim
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  for the highest. Never enter a barroom, Do not touch blicker or if
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  at all, only at meals. Never speculate, Never endorse beyond your surplus
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  cash fund. Make the firms interest yours. Break orders always to save owners,
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  concentrate, put all your eggs in one basket, watch that basket.
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  Expenditure always within revenue. Lastly, be not impatient, for, as Emerson
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  says, no one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves. I
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  congratulate poor young men upon being born to that ancient and honorable degree which renders
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  it necessary that they should devote themselves to hard work. A basket full of
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  bonds is the heaviest basket A young man ever had to carry, he generally
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  gets to staggering under it. We have in the city credible instances of such
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  young men who have pressed to the front rank of our best and most useful
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  citizens. They deserve great credit. But the vast majority of the sons of
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  rich men are unable to resist the temptations to which wealth subjects them, and
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  sink to unworthy lives. I would almost as soon leave a young man a
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  curse as burden him with the almighty dollar. It is not from this class
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  you have rivalry to fear. The partner's sons will not trouble you much.
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  But look out that some boys poorer, much poorer than yourselves, whose parents
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  cannot afford to give them the advantages of a course in this institute, advantages
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  which should give you a decided lead in the race. Look Out that such
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  boys do not challenge you at the post and pass you at the grandstand.
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  Look Out for the boy who has to plunge into work direct from the common
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  school, and who begins by sweeping out the office. Here is the probable
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  dark course that you had better watch. And of Section number one, Section
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  two the common interest of Labor and Capitol address two working men. A great
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  philosopher has pointed out to us that in this life the chief, the highest
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  reward that we can obtain is the purchase of satisfactions. I have purchased a
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  great satisfaction, one of the greatest I have ever acquired. I have been
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  privileged to help some of my fellow workmen help themselves. This library Braddock,
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  Pennsylvania will give them an opportunity to make themselves more valuable to their employers,
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  and so lay up intellectual capital that cannot be impaired or depreciated. It is
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  very unfortunate that the irresistible tendency of our age, which draws manufacturing into immense
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  establishments requiring the work of thousands of men, renders it impossible for employers who
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  reside near to obtain that intimate acquaintance with employees which, under the old system
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  of manufacturing and very small establishments, made the relation of master and man more
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  pleasing to both. When articles were manufactured in small shops by employers who required
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  only the assistance of a few men and apprentices, the employer had opportunities to
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  know everyone, to become well acquainted with each, and to know his merits.
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  Both as a man and as a workman. And on the other hand,
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  the workmen, being brought into closer contact with his employer, inevitably knew
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  more of his business, of his cares and troubles, of his efforts to
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  succeed, and more important than all, they came to know something of the
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  characteristics of the man himself. All this is changed. Thus the employees become
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  more like human machines, as it were, to the employer, and the
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  employer becomes almost a myth to his men. From every point of view,
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  this is a most regrettable result, yet it is one for which I see
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  no remedy. The free play of economic laws is forcing the manufacture of all
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  articles of general consumption more and more into the hands of a few enormous concerns,
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  that their cause to the consumer may be less. There is no longer
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  any room for conducting the manufacture of such articles upon a small scale. Expensive
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  works and machinery costing millions are required, as the amount per ton or per
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  yard of what we call fixed charges is so great a factor in the total
• 27:11
  cost that whether a concern can run successfully or not in many cases depends on
• 27:15
  whether it divides these fixed charges, which may be said to be practically the
• 27:19
  same in a large establishment as in a smaller by one thousand tons per day
• 27:26
  or by five hundred tons per day of product. Hence, the reason for
• 27:30
  the continual increase year by year in the product of your mills not that the
• 27:34
  manufacturer wishes primarily to increase his product, but that the strain of competition forces
• 27:41
  him into extensions that he may thereby reduce more and more per ton or perard,
• 27:47
  these fixed charges upon which the safety of his capital depends. It being
• 27:53
  therefore impossible for the employers of thousands to become acquainted with their men. If
• 28:00
  we are not to lose all feeling of mutuality between us, the employer must
• 28:03
  seek their acquaintance through other forms. To express his care for the well being
• 28:08
  of those upon whose labor he depends. For success by devoting part of his
• 28:14
  earnings for institutions like this library, and for the accommodation of organizations such as
• 28:21
  the cooperative stores which occupy the lower floor of this building. And I hope
• 28:26
  in return that the employees are to show, by the use which they make
• 28:30
  of such benefactions, that they in turn respond to this sentiment upon the part
• 28:34
  of employers. Wherever it may be found. By such means as these,
• 28:40
  we may hope to maintain to some extent the old feeling of kindliness, mutual
• 28:45
  confidence, respect, and esteem which formerly distinguish the relations between the employer and
• 28:52
  his men. We are younger than Europe and to have still something to see
• 28:56
  from the older land in this respect. But I regret joys to see that
• 29:00
  many manufacturers in this country are awaking to the sense of duty to their employees.
• 29:06
  And what is even still more important are the evidences which we find among
• 29:11
  our workmen of a desire to establish societies which cannot but be beneficial to themselves.
• 29:18
  It is all well enough for people to help others, but the grandest
• 29:22
  result is achieved when people prove able to help themselves. Another important feature which
• 29:29
  may be referred to is that in Pittsburgh labor generally is paid so well that
• 29:34
  the workmen can save something every month, if only he will make the effort.
• 29:40
  Nothing can exceed the importance of saving part of his earnings. The workman
• 29:44
  who owns his own home has already assure a foundation upon which to build the
• 29:48
  competence which is to give him comfort and independence. In old age, I
• 29:55
  have said how desirable. It was that we should endeavor, by every means
• 29:57
  in our power, to bring about a feeling of mutuality and partnership between the
• 30:03
  employer and the employed. Believe me, the interests of capital and labor are
• 30:08
  one. He is an enemy of labor who seeks to array labor against capital.
• 30:15
  He is the enemy of capital who seeks to array capital against laborer.
• 30:19
  I have given the subject of labor and capital careful study for years, and
• 30:25
  I wish to quote a few paragraphs from an article I published years ago.
• 30:30
  Quote the greatest cause of the friction which prevails between capital and labor, the
• 30:34
  real essence of the trouble, and the remedy I have to propose for this
• 30:38
  unfortunate friction. The trouble is that men are not paid at any time the
• 30:44
  compensation proper to that time. All large concerns necessarily keep filled with orders save
• 30:51
  for six months in advance, and these orders are taken, of course,
• 30:53
  at prices prevailing when they are booked. This year's operations furnish perhaps the best
• 31:00
  illustration of the difficulty. Steel rails at the end of last year for delivery
• 31:06
  this year were twenty nine dollars per ton at the works. Of course,
• 31:10
  the mills entered orders freely at this price, and kept on entering them until
• 31:15
  the demand, growing unexpectedly great, carried prices up to thirty five dollars per
• 31:19
  ton. Now the various mills in America are compelled for the next six months
• 31:26
  or more to run upon orders which do not average thirty one dollars per ton
• 31:32
  at the Seaboard and Pittsburgh, and say thirty four dollars at Chicago. Transportation.
• 31:38
  Ironstone and prices of all kinds have advanced upon them in the meantime,
• 31:44
  and they must therefore run for the bulk of the year upon very small margins
• 31:48
  of profit. But the men, noticing in the papers the great boom and
• 31:53
  steel rails, very naturally demand their share of the advance, and under our
• 31:59
  existing faulty arrangements between capital and labor, they have secured it. The employers
• 32:05
  therefore have grudgingly given what they know under proper arrangements they should not have been
• 32:09
  required to give, and there has been friction, and still is dissatisfaction upon
• 32:15
  the part of the employers. Reverse this picture, the steel rail market falls
• 32:22
  again. The mills have still six months work at prices above the prevailing market
• 32:27
  and can afford to pay men higher wages than the then existing state of the
• 32:31
  market would apparently justify. But having just been immersed in extra payments for labor
• 32:38
  which they should not have paid, they naturally attempt to reduce wages as the
• 32:43
  market price of the rails goes down and there arises discontent among the men,
• 32:49
  and we have a repetition of the negotiations and strikes which have characterized the beginning
• 32:53
  of this year. In other words, when the employer is going down,
• 32:59
  the employee insists on going up, and vice versa. What we must seek
• 33:05
  is a plan by which men will receive high wages when their employers are receiving
• 33:09
  high prices for the product and hence are making large profits, and per contra,
• 33:15
  when the employers are receiving low prices for product and therefore small if any
• 33:21
  profits, the men will receive lower wages. If this plan can be found,
• 33:25
  employers and employed will be in the same boat, rejoicing together in their
• 33:30
  prosperity and calling into play their fortitude together in adversity. There will be no
• 33:37
  room for quarrels, and instead of a feeling of antagonism, there will be
• 33:42
  a feeling of partnership between employers and employed. There is a simple means of
• 33:47
  producing this result, and to its general introduction, both employers and employed should
• 33:53
  steadily bend their energies. Wages should be based upon a sliding scale, well
• 34:00
  in proportion to the net prices received for product month by month. It is
• 34:05
  impossible for capital to defraud labor under a sliding scale. End. One advantage
• 34:14
  of this library, Carnegie Library at Braddock, Pennsylvania, will be that it
• 34:19
  will bring before you every local newspaper and every trade journal. And I beg
• 34:23
  you all to read these carefully. You will find many misstatements, many blunders.
• 34:30
  These are inseparable from the newspaper press, which must work hastily and report
• 34:35
  even rumors. But by studying the principal journals, the tendency of affairs can
• 34:40
  be correctly seen. Newspapers will not give you a correct statement of the prices
• 34:46
  of material. Manufacturers are disposed to give the brightest coloring to the situation to
• 34:52
  report the highest sales made with a view to maintain prices and induce customers to
• 34:58
  purchase. They will probably not report how low they have been compelled to sell
• 35:02
  in order to meet competition and keep works running. Nevertheless, the careful perusal
• 35:08
  of the newspapers and trade journals, as I have said, will enable you
• 35:14
  to form a general opinion of the trend of events in the commercial world.
• 35:19
  If you read the papers today, you will know that out of thirteen meals
• 35:22
  engaged in the manufacture of steel rails in this country, not more than three
• 35:27
  are running to their capacity. Only one mill in all the West is making
• 35:31
  rails North Chicago, and I am sorry to say that it seems probable that
• 35:37
  even that one will not be able to run continuously. The most melancholy feature
• 35:44
  in all the disputes between labor and capital is that it is scarcely ever capital
• 35:49
  that succeeds in breaking down the price of labor, but alas it is labor
• 35:53
  which stabs labor. Look around you and see labor working for ten and even
• 36:00
  thirty percent less in some mills, and at Johnstown and Harrisburg, for less
• 36:05
  than one half what we pay for skilled labour in this district. And then,
• 36:09
  in your hearts, blame not capital, but consider employers who regret their
• 36:15
  reductions in wages, who stand out against them and run for years at higher
• 36:20
  prices. As the best friends of labour, even although at last they must
• 36:24
  frankly confess that if they are to give their men steady employment and save their
• 36:30
  capital and works, they are forced to ask them to work at the rates
• 36:34
  obtained by their competitors. The first employer who reduces labour is labourer's enemy,
• 36:40
  but the last employer to reduce labour may be labour's staunchest friend. The fatal
• 36:46
  enemy of labour is labour, not capital, the greatest character in the public
• 36:53
  life of Britain, and the staunchest friend of the republic in its hour of
• 36:58
  need. The radical job on Bright, being once asked what was his most
• 37:02
  valuable acquisition, replied a taste for reading. I can truthfully say, from
• 37:08
  my own experience that I agree with that great man. Most anxious to give
• 37:14
  you the best advice in my power, I advise you to cultivate the taste
• 37:17
  for reading. When I was a boy in my teens in Allegheny's City,
• 37:23
  Colonel Anderson, whose memory I must ever Revere, who had a few hundred
• 37:29
  books, gave notice that he would lend these books every Saturday afternoon to boys
• 37:35
  and young men. You cannot imagine with what anxiety some of us, who
• 37:38
  embraced this opportunity to obtain knowledge, looked forward to every Saturday afternoon when we
• 37:45
  could get one book exchanged for another. The principal partner with me in all
• 37:51
  our business, mister Phipps, equally with myself, had obtained access to the
• 37:55
  stories of knowledge by means of this benefactor. It is from personal experience that
• 38:00
  I feel that there is no human arrangement so powerful for good. There is
• 38:06
  no benefit that can be bestowed upon a community so great as that which places
• 38:12
  within the reach of all the treasures of the world which are stored up in
• 38:15
  books. We occasionally find traces, even at this day, of the old
• 38:21
  prejudice which existed against educating the masses of the people. I do not wonder
• 38:27
  that this should exist when I reflect upon what has hitherto passed for education.
• 38:32
  Men have wasted their precious years trying to extract education from an ignorant past,
• 38:37
  whose chief province is to teach us not what to adopt, but what to
• 38:43
  avoid. Men have sent their sons to college to waste their energies upon obtaining
• 38:49
  a knowledge of such languages as Greek and Latin, which are of no more
• 38:52
  practical use to them than Choctaw. I have known few college graduates that knew
• 38:58
  Shakespeare or mis Hilton. They might be able to tell you all about Ulysses,
• 39:04
  or Agamemnon or a hector, But what are these compared to the characters
• 39:08
  that we find in our own classics. One service Russell Lowell has done for
• 39:15
  which he should be thanked. He has boldly said that in Shakespeare alone we
• 39:20
  have a greater treasure than in all the classics of ancient time. They have
• 39:23
  been crammed with the details of petty and insignificant skirmishes between savages, and taught
• 39:30
  to exalt a band of ruffians into heroes, and we have called them educated.
• 39:37
  They have been educated as if they were destined for life upon some other
• 39:40
  planet than this. They have in no sense received instruction. On the contrary,
• 39:46
  what they have obtained has served to imbue them with false ideas and to
• 39:51
  give them a distaste for practical life. I do not wonder that a prejudice
• 39:55
  has arisen and still exists against such education. In my own experience, I
• 40:01
  can say that I have known few young men intended for business who were not
• 40:07
  injured by a collegiate education. Had they gone into active work during the year's
• 40:12
  spent at college, they would have been better educated men in every true sense
• 40:16
  of that term. The fire and energy have been stamped out of them.
• 40:21
  And how to so manage as to live a life of idleness and not a
• 40:24
  life of usefulness has become the chief question with them. But a new idea
• 40:30
  of education is now upon us. We have begun to realize that a knowledge
• 40:36
  of chemistry, for instance, is worth more than a knowledge of all the
• 40:39
  dead languages that ever were spoken, a knowledge of mechanics more useful than all
• 40:45
  the classical learning that can be crammed into young men at college. What is
• 40:50
  the young man to do who knows Greek with a young man who knows stenography
• 40:53
  or telegraphy, for instance, or bookkeeping or chemistry? Are the laws of
• 41:00
  mechanics in these days? Not that any kind of knowledge is to be underrated.
• 41:07
  All knowledge is in a sense useful. The point I wish to make
• 41:10
  is this that, except for the few who have the taste for the antiquarian,
• 41:15
  and who find that their work in life is to delve among the dusty
• 41:19
  records of the past, and for the few that lead professional lives, the
• 41:23
  education given today in our colleges is a positive disadvantage. The lack of education
• 41:30
  in its true sense, has done more than all the other causes combined to
• 41:35
  prevent the universal recognition of labor. I remember that the great President, the
• 41:40
  greatest of all railway managers, Edgar Thompson, after whom the works here are
• 41:45
  called, once asked me to remove from Pittsburgh to be Master of Machinery of
• 41:52
  the Pennsylvania Railroad. Well, you may smile, and I said to mister
• 41:57
  Thompson. Why, mister Thompson, I know nothing whatever about machinery. That
• 42:04
  is the reason I want you to take charge of it. He replied,
• 42:07
  I have never known a mechanic with judgment and good sense except one. This
• 42:13
  was before the time of Captain Jones, so he could not have referred to
• 42:15
  the Captain. This lack of judgment and mechanics was because at that day in
• 42:21
  this country they had failed to receive an all round education, I mean,
• 42:25
  the true education and knowledge of matters in things in general by which we are
• 42:31
  surrounded and with which we have to deal. The unprecedented success which has attended
• 42:37
  the development of the Bessemer works in this country has arisen from this cause above
• 42:43
  all others, that, unlike the manufacture of iron, it has fallen into
• 42:47
  the hands of men of great scientific knowledge. The services of these men are
• 42:52
  recognized throughout the world and received compensation which a few years ago would have been
• 42:59
  considered in enormous. And in consequence they have lifted mechanical labor with them and
• 43:05
  served to dignify it in the eyes of the world. The mechanic, the
• 43:09
  mechanical engineer, the manager of steel mills are now titles of honor. If
• 43:15
  you want to make labor what it should be, educate yourself in useful knowledge.
• 43:21
  That is the moral I would emphasize. Get knowledge, cultivate a taste
• 43:25
  for reading, that you may know what the world has done and is doing
• 43:30
  and the drift of affairs. The value of the education which young men can
• 43:35
  now receive cannot be overestimated. And it is to this education, as given
• 43:39
  in technical schools to which I wish to call your attention. Time was when
• 43:46
  men had so little knowledge that it was easy for one man to embrace it
• 43:51
  all, and the courses in colleges bear painful evidence of this fact. Today
• 43:57
  knowledge is now so various, so extensive, so minute, that it is
• 44:00
  impossible for any man to know thoroughly more than one small branch. This is
• 44:06
  the age of the specialist. Therefore, you who have to make your living
• 44:10
  in this world, should resolve to know the art which gives you support,
• 44:15
  to know that thoroughly and well, to be an expert in your specialty.
• 44:20
  If you are a mechanic, then from this library study every work bearing upon
• 44:24
  the subject of mechanics. If you are a chemist, than every work bearing
• 44:30
  upon chemistry. If you are at the blast furnaces, then every work upon
• 44:34
  the blast furnace. If in the minds, then every work upon mining.
• 44:38
  Let no man know more of your specialty than you do yourself. That should
• 44:44
  be your ideal. Then, far less important, but still important, to
• 44:49
  bring sweetness and light into your life. Be sure to read promiscuously and know
• 44:53
  a little about as many things as you have time to read about. Just
• 44:59
  as on his farm, the farmer must first attend well to his potatoes and
• 45:02
  his corn, and his wheat from which he derives his revenue, so he
• 45:07
  may spend his spare hours as a labor of love, in cultivating the flowers
• 45:12
  that surround his home. One domain your work, the other your recreation.
• 45:20
  In these days of transition, and of struggles between labor and capital. To
• 45:24
  no better purpose can you devote a few of your spare hours than to a
• 45:28
  study of economic questions. There are certain great laws which will be obeyed.
• 45:34
  The law of supply and demand, the law of competition, the law of
• 45:38
  wages and profits. All these you will find laid down in the text books.
• 45:44
  And remember that there is no more possibility of defeating the operation of these
• 45:49
  laws than there is of thwarting the laws of nature which determine the humidity of
• 45:53
  the atmosphere or the revolution of the earth upon its axis. A severe body
• 46:00
  of scientific books must not be permitted to exclude the equally important duty of reading
• 46:05
  the masters of literature, and by all means of fiction. The feeling which
• 46:10
  prevails in some quarters against fiction is, in my opinion, only a prejudice.
• 46:16
  I know that some, indeed most, of the eminent men, find
• 46:20
  in a good work of fiction, one of the best means of enjoyment and
• 46:23
  of rest when exhausted in mind and body, and especially in mind. Nothing
• 46:29
  is so beneficial to them as to read a good novel. The fact that
• 46:34
  they know more about a problem than their fellows, and are able to suggest
• 46:37
  the remedy or improvement is what is of value to them and their employer.
• 46:44
  There is no means so sure for enabling the workmen to rise to the foremanship,
• 46:49
  managership, and finally partnership, as knowledge of all that has been done
• 46:53
  and is being done in the world today in a special department in which he
• 46:59
  labors from the highest down to the lowest. A better grade of services rendered
• 47:05
  by the intelligent man than it is possible for the ignorant man to render.
• 47:09
  His knowledge always comes in. And whether you have knowledge on the part of
• 47:15
  the manager who directs, or of the man who only handles a shovel,
• 47:19
  you have in him a valuable employee in proportion to his knowledge of the things
• 47:23
  being equal. In the course of my experience as a manufacturer, I know
• 47:29
  our firm has made many mistakes by neglecting one simple rule, never to undertake
• 47:35
  anything new until your managers have had an opportunity to examine everything that has been
• 47:40
  done throughout this world in that department. Neglect of this has cost us many
• 47:46
  hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we have become wise now. I say
• 47:52
  here to the man who is ambitious to learn, who perhaps thinks that he
• 47:57
  has some improvement in his mind. If you're in the rooms of this library,
• 48:01
  there is, or I hope soon will be, the whole world's experience
• 48:06
  upon that subject brought right before you, down to a recent date. In
• 48:10
  any question of mechanics, or any question of chemistry, any question of furnace
• 48:15
  practice, you will find the records of the world at your disposal. Here.
• 48:21
  If you are on the wrong track, these books will tell you if
• 48:24
  you are on the right track. They will tell you if you are on
• 48:28
  the right track. They will afford you encouragement. You can go through hall
• 48:31
  after hall in the Patent Office in Washington and see thousands of models of inventions
• 48:37
  bearing upon all branches of human industry, and ninety nine out of every hundred
• 48:44
  would never have been placed there had the ignorant inventor had at command such facilities
• 48:49
  as will be yours in this library. I have heard employers say that there
• 48:55
  was great danger that the masses of the people might become too well educated to
• 49:00
  be content in their useful and necessary occupations. It has required an effort upon
• 49:06
  my part to listen to this doctrine with patients. It is all wrong.
• 49:10
  I give it an unqualified contradiction. The trouble between capital and labor is just
• 49:16
  in proportion to the ignorance of the employer and the ignorance of the employed.
• 49:22
  The more intelligent the employer, the better, and the more intelligent the employed,
• 49:27
  the better. It is never education, It is never knowledge that produces
• 49:31
  collision. It is always ignorance on the part of one or the other of
• 49:37
  the two forces. Speaking from an experience not inconsiderable, I make this statement.
• 49:44
  Capital is ignorant of the necessities and the just dues of labour, and
• 49:49
  labour is ignorant of the necessities and dangers of capital. That is the true
• 49:54
  origin of friction between them. More knowledge on the part of capital of the
• 50:00
  good qualities of those that serve it, and some knowledge on the part of
• 50:04
  the men of the economic laws which hold the capitalists in their relentless grasp,
• 50:08
  would aviate most of the difficulties which arise between these two forces, which are
• 50:15
  indispensably necessary to each other. I hope that those of our men who possess
• 50:20
  that inestimable prize, the taste for reading, will make it a point to
• 50:24
  study carefully a few of the fundamental laws from which there is no escape either
• 50:30
  on the part of labor or capital. If this library be instrumental in the
• 50:36
  slightest degree in spreading knowledge in this department, it will have justified its existence.
• 50:44
  I trust that you will not forget the importance of amusements. Life must
• 50:47
  not be taken too seriously. It is a great mistake to think that the
• 50:52
  man who works all the time wins the race. Have your amusements. Learn
• 50:58
  to play a good game of whist or a good game of drafts, or
• 51:00
  a good game of billiards. Become interested in baseball or cricket or horses,
• 51:07
  anything that will give you innocent enjoyment and relieve you from the usual strain.
• 51:13
  There is not anything better than a good laugh. I attribute most of my
• 51:17
  success in life to the fact that, as my partners often say, trouble
• 51:22
  runs off my back like water from a duck. There is a poetical quotation
• 51:28
  from Shakespeare that is applicable. It is to wear your troubles as your outsides,
• 51:35
  like your garments, carelessly. Many men are to be met with in
• 51:40
  this life who would have been great and successful had the world rated them at
• 51:45
  the value which they placed upon themselves. This class are the victims of an
• 51:50
  hallucination. Nobody in the world desires to keep down ability. Everybody in the
• 51:54
  world has an outstretched hand for it. Every employer of labor is studying the
• 52:00
  young men around him, most anxious to find one of exceptional ability. Nothing
• 52:06
  in the world so desirable for him and so profitable for him as such a
• 52:10
  man. Every manager in the works stands ready to grasp, to utilize the
• 52:16
  man that can do something that is valuable. Every foreman wants to have under
• 52:22
  him in his department, able men upon whom he can rely and whose merits
• 52:27
  he obtains credit for. Because the greatest test of ability in a manager is
• 52:31
  not the man himself, but the men with whom he is able to surround
• 52:36
  himself. These books on the shelves will tell you the story of the rise
• 52:40
  of many men from our own ranks. It is not the educated or so
• 52:45
  called classically educated man. It is not the aristocracy. It is not the
• 52:51
  monarchs that have ruled the destinies of the world, either in camp, council,
• 52:55
  laboratory or workshop. The great inventions, the improvements, the discoveries in
• 53:01
  science, the great works in literature have sprung from the ranks of the poor.
• 53:07
  You can scarcely name a great invention or a great discovery. You can
• 53:12
  scarcely name a great picture or a great statue, a great song or a
• 53:16
  great story, nor anything great that has not been the product of men who
• 53:22
  started, like yourselves, to earn an honest living by honest work. And
• 53:28
  believe me, the man whom the foreman does not appreciate, and the foreman
• 53:31
  whom the manager does not appreciate, and the manager whom the firm does not
• 53:37
  appreciate, has to find the fault not in the firm, nor the manager,
• 53:40
  nor the foreman, but in himself. He cannot give the service that
• 53:45
  which is so invaluable and so anxiously looked for. There is no man who
• 53:52
  may not rise to the highest position, Nor is there any man who,
• 53:55
  from lack of the right qualities are failure to exercise them, may not sink
• 54:00
  to the lowest. Employees have chances to rise to higher work, to rise
• 54:06
  to be foreman, to be superintendents, and even to rise to be partners
• 54:10
  and even to be chairmen in our service. If they prove themselves possessed of
• 54:15
  the qualities required, they need never fear of being dispensed with it. Is
• 54:21
  we who fear that the abilities of such men may be lost to us.
• 54:27
  It is highly gratifying to know that the hours of labor are being gradually reduced
• 54:30
  throughout the country. Eight hours to work, eight hours to play, eight
• 54:36
  hours to sleep seems the ideal division. If we get only established by law
• 54:42
  that all manufacturing concerns which run day and night should use three turns, it
• 54:47
  would be most desirable. You know, we try to do so for several
• 54:52
  years, at a cost of some hundreds of thousands of dollars, but were
• 54:55
  finally compelled by our competitors to give up the struggle. The best plan perhaps
• 55:00
  is to reach it by slow degrees through state laws. No one firm can
• 55:06
  do much. All its competitors in the various states must be compelled to do
• 55:12
  likewise. For in our days profits are upon so narrow a margin that no
• 55:16
  firm can run its works except under similar conditions with its competitors. It is
• 55:22
  necessary therefore that laws should be secured binding upon all. We should be glad
• 55:29
  to support such a law. But even as at present, if workmen use
• 55:32
  well the time they have at their disposal, they will soon rise to higher
• 55:37
  positions. You need not work twelve hours very long. Most of us have
• 55:42
  worked more hours than twelve in our youth. The workman has many advantages to
• 55:47
  day over his predecessors. A sliding scale for his labor ranks him higher than
• 55:53
  before as a man and a citizen. The proportion of the joint earnings of
• 55:59
  capital and labor given to labor never was so great, and is constantly rising.
• 56:05
  The earnings of capital never were so low. I hope the future is
• 56:10
  to add many more advantages, and that the toilsome march which labor has had
• 56:15
  to make on its way from serfdom when our forefathers were bought and sold with
• 56:20
  the minds and factories they worked up to its present condition is not yet ended,
• 56:25
  but that it is destined to continue and lead to other important results for
• 56:30
  the benefit and dignity of labor. End of Section two. Section three.
• 56:37
  Thrift as a duty the duties of rich men. The importance of the subject
• 56:44
  is suggested by the fact that the habit of thrift constitutes one of the greatest
• 56:49
  differences between the savage and the civilized man. One of the fundamental differences between
• 56:54
  savage and civilized life is the absence of thrift in the one and the presence
• 57:00
  of it in the other. When millions of men each receive a little of
• 57:05
  their daily earnings, these petty sums combined make an enormous amount, which is
• 57:09
  called capital, about which so much is written. If men consumed each day
• 57:15
  of each week all they earned, as does the savage, of course,
• 57:20
  there would be no capital, that is, no savings laid up for future
• 57:23
  use. Now let us see what capital does in the world. We will
• 57:28
  consider what the shipbuilders do when they have to build great ships. These enterprising
• 57:32
  companies offer to build an ocean greyhound for let us say, five hundred thousand
• 57:38
  pounds, to be paid only when the ship is delivered after satisfactory trial trips.
• 57:45
  Where how do these shipbuilders get this sum of money to pay the workmen,
• 57:50
  the wood merchant, the steel manufacture, and all the people who furnish
• 57:53
  material for the building of the ship. They get it from the savings of
• 57:58
  civilized men. It is part of the money saved for investment by the millions
• 58:02
  of industrious people. Each man, by thrift saves a little, puts the
• 58:07
  money in a bank, and the bank lends it to the shipbuilders, who
• 58:10
  pay interest for the use of it. It is the same with the building
• 58:15
  of a manufactory, a railroad, a canal, or anything costly. We
• 58:20
  could not have had anything more than the savage had except for a thrift.
• 58:24
  Thrift the first duty. Hence, thrift is mainly at the bottom of all
• 58:30
  improvement. Without it, no railroads, no canals, no ships, no
• 58:34
  telegraphs, no churches, no universities, no schools, no newspapers. Nothing
• 58:39
  great or costly could we have. Man must exercise thrift and save before he
• 58:45
  can produce anything material of great value. There was nothing built, no great
• 58:50
  progress made, as long as man remained a thriftless savage. The civilized man
• 58:55
  had no clearer duty than from early life to keep steadily in view the necessity
• 59:00
  of providing for the future of himself and those dependent upon him. There are
• 59:06
  few rules more of salutary than that which has been followed by most wise and
• 59:10
  good men, namely that expenses should always be less than income. In other
• 59:15
  words, one should be a civilized man saving something, and not a savage
• 59:21
  consuming every day all that which he has earned. The great poet Burns,
• 59:25
  in his advice to a young man, says, to catch Dame Fortune's golden
• 59:30
  smile assiduous weight upon her and gather gear by every while. That's justified by
• 59:36
  honor, not for to hide it in a hedge, not for a train
• 59:39
  attendant, but for the glorious privilege of being independent. That is sound advice
• 59:45
  so far as it goes, and I hope the reader will take it to
• 59:49
  heart and adopt it. No proud, self respecting person can never be happy
• 59:53
  or even satisfied who has to be dependent upon others for his necessary wants.
• 1:00:00
  He who is dependent has not reached the full measure of manhood, and can
• 1:00:04
  hardly be counted among the worthy citizens of the republic. The safety and progress
• 1:00:09
  of our country depend not upon the highly educated man, nor the few millionaires,
• 1:00:15
  nor upon the greater number of the extreme poor, but upon the mass
• 1:00:19
  of sober, intelligent, industrious, and saving workers, who are neither very
• 1:00:23
  rich nor very poor. Thrift duty has its limit. As a rule,
• 1:00:29
  you will find that the saving man is a temperate man, a good husband
• 1:00:32
  and father, a peaceful, law abiding citizen. Nor need the saving be
• 1:00:37
  great. It is surprising how little it takes to provide for the real necessities
• 1:00:43
  of life. A little home paid for and a few hundred pounds a very
• 1:00:46
  few make all the difference. These are more easily acquired by frugal people than
• 1:00:52
  you might suppose. Great wealth is quite another, in a far less desirable
• 1:00:58
  matter. Is not the aim of thrift, nor the duty of men to
• 1:01:01
  acquire millions. It is in no respective virtue to set this before us as
• 1:01:07
  an end. Duty to save ends when just money enough has been set aside
• 1:01:10
  to provide comfortably for those dependent upon us. Hoarding millions is avarice, not
• 1:01:16
  thrift. Course, under our industrial conditions, it is inevitable that a few,
• 1:01:22
  a very few men will find money coming to them far beyond their wants.
• 1:01:27
  The accumulation of millions is usually the result of enterprise and judgment, and
• 1:01:31
  some exceptional ability for organization. It does not come from savings in the ordinary
• 1:01:37
  sense of that word. Men who in old age strive only to increase their
• 1:01:43
  already great cords are usually slaves of the habit of hoarding formed in their youth.
• 1:01:47
  At first, they own the money they have made and saved. Later
• 1:01:52
  in life the money owns them, and they cannot help themselves. So overpowering
• 1:01:55
  is the force of habit, either for good or evil. It is the
• 1:02:00
  abuse of the civilized saving instinct, and not its use that produces this class
• 1:02:06
  of men. No one need be afraid of falling a victim to this abuse
• 1:02:09
  of the habit. He always bears in mind that whatever surplus wealth may come
• 1:02:15
  to him is to be regarded as a sacred trust which he is bound to
• 1:02:19
  administer for the good of his fellows. The man should always be master.
• 1:02:23
  He should keep money in the position of a useful servant. He must never
• 1:02:28
  let it master make a miser of him. The man's first duty is to
• 1:02:31
  make a competence and be independent, but his whole duty does not end there.
• 1:02:37
  It is his duty to do something for his needy neighbors, who are
• 1:02:40
  less favored than himself. It is his duty to contribute to the general good
• 1:02:45
  of the community in which he lives. He has been protected by its laws.
• 1:02:51
  Because he has been protected in his various enterprises, he has been able
• 1:02:54
  to make money sufficient for his needs and those of his family. All beyond
• 1:03:00
  this belongs in justice to the protecting power that has fostered him and enabled him
• 1:03:06
  to win pecuniary success. To try to make the world in some way better
• 1:03:10
  than you found it is to have a noble motive in life. Your surplus
• 1:03:15
  wealth should contribute to the development of your own character and place you in the
• 1:03:20
  ranks of nature's noblemen. It is no less than a duty for you to
• 1:03:24
  understand how important it is and how clear your duty is to form the habit
• 1:03:30
  of thrift. When you begin to earn, always save some part of your
• 1:03:34
  earnings like a civilized man, instead of spending all like the poor savage.
• 1:03:40
  End of Section three, Section four, How to Win Fortune. Labor is
• 1:03:47
  divided into two great armies, the agricultural and the industrial. In these diverse
• 1:03:55
  forces are in operation. In the former, every thing tends to a further
• 1:04:00
  distribution of land among the many. In the latter, everything tends to a
• 1:04:06
  concentration of business in the hands of the few. One of the two great
• 1:04:13
  fallacies upon which progress and poverty mister George's book is founded is that the land
• 1:04:20
  is getting more and more into the hands of the few. Now the only
• 1:04:25
  source from which mister George could obtain correct information upon this point is the census,
• 1:04:31
  and this tells us that in eighteen fifty, the average extent of farms
• 1:04:38
  in the United States was two hundred and three acres. In eighteen sixty,
• 1:04:44
  one hundred and ninety nine acres in eighteen seventy one hundred and fifty three acres,
• 1:04:49
  and that in eighteen eighty it was still further reduced to one hundred and
• 1:04:56
  thirty four acres. The reason is obvious for this rapid distribution of the land.
• 1:05:02
  The farmer who cultivates a small farm by his own labor is able to
• 1:05:08
  drive out of the field the ambitious capitalist who attempts to farm upon a large
• 1:05:14
  scale with the labor of others. In Great Britain, nothing has been more
• 1:05:19
  significant than that the tillers of small farms have passed through the agricultural depression there
• 1:05:27
  far better than those who cultivated large farms. So in both countries we have
• 1:05:33
  proof that under the free play of equal laws, land is becoming more and
• 1:05:40
  more divided among the masses of the people. In the whole range of social
• 1:05:45
  questions, no fact is more important than this, and nothing gives the thoughtful
• 1:05:51
  student greater satisfaction. The triumph of the small proprietor over the large proprietor is
• 1:06:00
  ensures the growth and maintenance of that element in society upon which civilization can most
• 1:06:06
  securely depend. For there is no force in a nation so conservative of what
• 1:06:14
  is good, so fair, so virtuous as a raise of men who tell
• 1:06:19
  the soil they own happily for mankind. Experience proves that men cannot work more
• 1:06:27
  soil profitably than he can till himself with the aid of his own family.
• 1:06:33
  When we turn to the other army of labor, the industrial, we are
• 1:06:39
  obliged to confess that it is swayed by the opposite law, which tends to
• 1:06:45
  concentrate manufacturing and business affairs generally in a few vast establishments. The fall in
• 1:06:53
  prices of manufactured articles has been startling. Never were the principal of our articles
• 1:07:00
  of consumption so low as they are today. This cheapening process is made possible
• 1:07:06
  only by concentration. We find one thousand, seven hundred watches per day turned
• 1:07:14
  out by one company, and watches are sold for a few dollars a piece.
• 1:07:19
  We have mills making many thousand yards of calico per day, and this
• 1:07:26
  necessary article is to be had for a few cents per yard. Manufacturers of
• 1:07:31
  steel make two thousand, five hundred tons per day, and four pounds of
• 1:07:38
  finished steel are sold for five cents, and so on through the entire range
• 1:07:45
  of industries. Divide the huge factories into smaller establishments, and it will be
• 1:07:51
  found impossible to manufacture some of the articles at all, the success of the
• 1:07:57
  process being often dependent on its being operated upon a large scale. While the
• 1:08:03
  cost of such articles as could be produced in small establishments would be two or
• 1:08:10
  three times their present prices. There does not appear to be any counteracting force
• 1:08:16
  to this law of concentration in the industrial world. On the contrary, the
• 1:08:24
  active forces at work seem to demand greater and greater output or turnover from each
• 1:08:30
  establishment in order that the minimum of costs should be reached. Hence comes the
• 1:08:38
  rapid and continuous increase of the capital of manufacturing and commercial concerns five, ten,
• 1:08:45
  fifteen, and even twenty millions being sometimes masked in one corporation. Has
• 1:08:53
  the young man now a chance? This has given rise to a complaint which
• 1:08:59
  is often heard, but which I hope to show has no foundation. The
• 1:09:04
  young practical man points to these and says to himself, quote, it is
• 1:09:11
  no longer possible for our class without capital to rise beyond the position of employees
• 1:09:17
  upon salaries. There is a lion in the path which leads to independent commands
• 1:09:24
  or to partnership, and this lion is the huge establishments already existing, which
• 1:09:30
  are an impassable barrier to our advancement end quote. The men engaged in the
• 1:09:38
  agricultural army, as we have seen, has nothing to fear from capital.
• 1:09:44
  With a small sum which is not very difficult for him to save or borrow,
• 1:09:47
  he can begin farming, the only competition with which he has to contend
• 1:09:54
  being that of others of his own class situated like himself. It is certain
• 1:10:00
  more difficult for a mechanic or practical man to establish a new business or to
• 1:10:05
  win partnership in one that exists, than it is for the young farmer to
• 1:10:12
  begin his business. Yet the difficulties are not insuperable, nor greater than have
• 1:10:17
  hitherto existed. They are not such as to stimulate the ambitious, And this
• 1:10:25
  is always to be taken into account that if the race in the industrial and
• 1:10:30
  business world be harder to win, the prize is infinitely greater. Before considering
• 1:10:38
  the prospects of the mechanic in the industrial of the clerk in the mercantile,
• 1:10:43
  commercial and financial worlds, let me show that no classes other than these two
• 1:10:48
  have had much to do with establishing the factories, business houses, and financial
• 1:10:55
  institutions which are best known in the United States today, and first, as
• 1:11:01
  to the part of trained mechanics. I select the best known industrial establishments in
• 1:11:08
  each department, many of them the most extensive works of their kind and of
• 1:11:14
  worldwide reputation. Baldwin Works for locomotives, Sellers and Company, Benmen and Doherty
• 1:11:20
  for mechanical tools, Distance Works for sALS, Works of the Master, Stobson
• 1:11:28
  and of Thomas Dolan, Philadelphia, and Gary of Baltimore Textile fabrics, Fairbanks
• 1:11:34
  for scales, Studebakers for wagons who count their wagons by the acre Pullmen of
• 1:11:43
  Chicago, Allison of Philadelphia for cars, Washburn and Mowen, and Cleveland Rolling
• 1:11:49
  Mills, Steel Wire, etc. Barlett Iron Founder Baltimore, Sloan's Ossil,
• 1:11:58
  Higgins Carpets, Westinghouse Electrical Apparatus, Peter Henderson and Company, and Landreth and
• 1:12:06
  Company Seats, Harper Brothers Publishers, Babbitt for Babbitt's Medal, BoatUS Works,
• 1:12:15
  Cleveland Boiler Steel, The Remington Works and Colts Works, Hartford Firearms, Singer
• 1:12:24
  Company, Whole Grover Sewing Machines, McCormick Works of Chicago, Balls of Canton,
• 1:12:32
  and Walter A. Woods for agricultural implements, steamship building, Roach Cramp
• 1:12:41
  near Fee on the Atlantic, Scott upon the Pacific, Parkhurst Wheeler, Kirby
• 1:12:47
  McDougall, Craig Coffinbury Wallace, the leading officials of shipbuilding companies on our great
• 1:12:56
  lakes, Horseshoes, Burtons, Atterbury Works for glass girlsingers, Tanning Aimes Works
• 1:13:05
  for shuffles, Steinway chickering and Kanabi pianos. Every one of these great works
• 1:13:14
  was founded and managed by mechanics men who served their apprenticeship. The list could
• 1:13:20
  be greatly extended, and if we were to include those which were created by
• 1:13:26
  men who entered life as office boys or clerks, we should embrace almost every
• 1:13:32
  famous manufacturing concern in the country. Addison, for instance, was a telegraph
• 1:13:39
  operator. Corliss of Corless Engine, Cheney of Cheney, Silk, Ropelin of
• 1:13:46
  wire Fame, Sprinkles in sugar refining. All and many more captains of industry
• 1:13:55
  were poor boys with natural aptitude, to whom a regular apprenticeship was scarcely necessary.
• 1:14:02
  In the mercantile, commercial and financial branches of business, which are all
• 1:14:09
  under the law which drives business affairs into large concerns. The poor clerk takes
• 1:14:14
  the place of the trained mechanic in the industrial world. Cleveland's Jeffreys, Sloan's,
• 1:14:21
  the Lords, the Taylor's, the Phelpses, the Dodgers, the gigantic
• 1:14:28
  houses of Jordan and Marsh in Boston, a Field in Chicago, Bar in
• 1:14:32
  Saint Louis, Wannamaker in Philadelphia, Meldrum and Anderson, Buffalo, Newcombe,
• 1:14:42
  Endicott and Company, Detroit, Taylor, Cleveland, Daniels and Fisher, Denver,
• 1:14:48
  Born and Campbell and Dick Pittsburgh. All these and the corresponding houses throughout
• 1:14:57
  the country, as far as I am able to trace their history, have
• 1:15:00
  the same story to tell. Wannamaker, Claflin, Jordan, Lord, Field,
• 1:15:08
  Barr and others, all poor boys in the store and Phelps and Dodged,
• 1:15:13
  both poorer clerks in banking and finance. It is an oft repeated story
• 1:15:19
  that are Stanford's, Rockefellers, Goulds, Sages, Fields, Dylan's, Seligman's,
• 1:15:27
  Wilson's and Huntington's came from the ranks. The millionaires who are in active
• 1:15:33
  control started as poor boys and were trained in that sternest but most efficient of
• 1:15:42
  all schools poverty. Where is the college made men? I asked a city
• 1:15:49
  banker to give me a few names of presidents and vice presidents and cashiers of
• 1:15:55
  our great New York City banks who had begun as boys or clerks. He
• 1:16:00
  sent me thirty six names and wrote he would send me more next day.
• 1:16:06
  I cannot take the reader's time with a complete list, but here are a
• 1:16:12
  few of the best known. Williams President, Chemical Bank, Watson and Lang
• 1:16:18
  Bank of Montreal, Tappan President, Gallican National, Brinkerhoff President, Butcher's and
• 1:16:28
  Drovers Bank, Clark Vice President, American Exchange, do Witt President, Urvin
• 1:16:38
  National, Harris President, Nassau Bank, Crane President, Shoe and Leatherbank,
• 1:16:47
  Nash President, Corn Exchange Bank, Cannon President, Chase National, Cannon Vice
• 1:16:59
  president, Fourth National, Montaigue President, Second National, Baker president, First
• 1:17:08
  National, Hamilton Vice President, Bowerwee Bank, and so on. The absence
• 1:17:16
  of the college graduate in this list should be deeply weighed. I have inquired
• 1:17:21
  and searched everywhere in all quarters, but find small trace of him as the
• 1:17:28
  leader in affairs, although not seldom occupying positions of trust in financial institutions.
• 1:17:35
  Nor is this surprising. The prize takers have too many years the start of
• 1:17:42
  the graduate They have entered for the race, invariably in their teens, in
• 1:17:47
  the most valuable of all the years for learning, from fourteen to twenty.
• 1:17:54
  While the college student has been learning a little about the barbaras and patty squabbles
• 1:17:59
  of a far distant past, or trying to master languages which are dead,
• 1:18:04
  such knowledge as seems adapted for life upon another planet than this. As far
• 1:18:11
  as business affairs are concerned, the future captain of industry is hotly engaged in
• 1:18:17
  the school of experience, obtaining the very knowledge required for his future triumphs.
• 1:18:25
  I do not speak of the effect of college education upon young men training for
• 1:18:30
  the learned professions, for which it is, up to a certain point almost
• 1:18:35
  indispensable in our day for the average youth. But the almost total absence of
• 1:18:43
  the graduate from high position in the business world seems to justify the conclusion that
• 1:18:49
  college education as it exists, seems almost fatal to success in that domain.
• 1:18:57
  It is to be noted that salaried officials are not in a strict sense in
• 1:19:01
  business. A captain of industry is one who makes his all in his business
• 1:19:08
  and depends upon success for compensation. It is in this field that the graduate
• 1:19:15
  has little chance entering at twenty against the boy who swept the office, or
• 1:19:20
  who begins as shipping clerk at fourteen. The facts prove this. There are
• 1:19:27
  some instances of the sons of businessmen, graduates of colleges who address themselves to
• 1:19:33
  a business life and succeed in managing a business already created, but even these
• 1:19:40
  are few compared with those who fail in keeping the fortune received. There has
• 1:19:46
  come, however, in recent years, the polytechnic and scientific school, or
• 1:19:53
  course of study for boys, which is beginning to show most valuable fruits in
• 1:19:59
  the manufactur branch. The trained mechanic of the past, who has, as
• 1:20:04
  we have seen hitherto carried off most of the honors in our industrial works,
• 1:20:11
  is now to meet a rival in the scientifically educated youth, who will push
• 1:20:15
  him hard, very hard. Indeed, three of the largest steel manufacturing concerns
• 1:20:23
  in the world are already under the management of three young educated men students of
• 1:20:29
  these schools, who left theory at school for practice in the works while yet
• 1:20:34
  in their teens. Walker Illinois Steel Company, Chicago, schwab Edgar Thompson Works
• 1:20:44
  Potter Homestead steel Works, Pittsburgh are types of the new product. Not one
• 1:20:49
  of them, yet thirty most of the chiefs of departments under them are of
• 1:20:55
  the same class. Such young educated men have one important advantage over the apprenticed
• 1:21:02
  mechanic. They are open minded and without prejudice. The scientific attitude of mind
• 1:21:11
  that of the searcher after truth, renders them receptive of new ideas great and
• 1:21:17
  invaluable as the working mechanic has been, and is and will always be,
• 1:21:24
  Yet he is disposed to adopt narrow views of affairs, for he is generally
• 1:21:30
  well up in years before he comes into power. It is different with the
• 1:21:34
  scientifically trained boy. He has no prejudices and goes in for the latest invention
• 1:21:43
  or newest method, no matter if another has discovered it. He adopts the
• 1:21:48
  plan that will beat the record, and discards his own devices or ideas,
• 1:21:55
  which the working mechanic superintendent can really be induced to do. Let no one
• 1:22:00
  therefore underrate the advantage of education. Only it must be education adapted to the
• 1:22:09
  end in view, and must give instruction bearing upon a man's career if he
• 1:22:15
  is to make his way to fortune. Thus, in the financial commercial amercantile
• 1:22:21
  branches of business, as in manufacturing, we have to ask not what place
• 1:22:28
  the educated mechanic and practical men occupy, but what these two types have left
• 1:22:34
  for others throughout the entire business world. Very little, indeed, have they
• 1:22:41
  left. In the industrial department, the trained mechanic is the founder and manager
• 1:22:47
  of famous concerns. In the mercantile, commercial and financial it is the poor
• 1:22:55
  office boy who has proved to be the merchant prince in this guys who surely
• 1:23:00
  comes into his heritage. They are the winning classes. It is the poor
• 1:23:06
  clerk and the working mechanic who finally rule in every branch of affairs. Without
• 1:23:14
  capital, without family influence, and without college education. It is they who
• 1:23:20
  have risen to the top and taken command, who have abandoned salary positions and
• 1:23:28
  boldly risk all. In the founding of a business, college graduates will usually
• 1:23:33
  be found under salaries trusted subordinates. Neither capital, nor influence, nor college
• 1:23:42
  learning, nor all combined, have proved able to contend in business successfully against
• 1:23:49
  the energy and indomitable will which spring from all conquering poverty. Lest anything here
• 1:23:58
  said may be stud is tending to decry or disparage university education. Let me
• 1:24:05
  clearly state that those addressed are the fortunate, poorer young men who have to
• 1:24:12
  earn a living, For such as can afford to obtain a university degree and
• 1:24:18
  have means sufficient to ensure a livelihood. The writer is the last man to
• 1:24:26
  advise its rejection, compared with which all the pecuniar regains of the multi millionaire
• 1:24:32
  are draws. But for poor youth, the earning of a competence is a
• 1:24:39
  duty, and duty done is worth even more than university education. Precious as
• 1:24:45
  that is, liberal education gives a man who really absorbs it, higher tastes
• 1:24:51
  and aims than the acquisition of wealth and the world to enjoy, into which
• 1:24:58
  the mere millionnaire cannot enter. To find, therefore, that it is not
• 1:25:03
  the best training for business is to prove its claim to a higher domain.
• 1:25:09
  True education can be obtained outside of the schools. Genius is not an indigenous
• 1:25:15
  plant in the groves. Academic a wildflower found in the woods all by itself,
• 1:25:24
  needing no care from society. But average men needs universities our corporations to
• 1:25:31
  disappear the young practical men of today working at the bench or counter to whom
• 1:25:39
  the fair goddess fortune has not yet beckoned. May be disposed to conclude that
• 1:25:45
  it is impossible to start business in this age. There is something in that.
• 1:25:51
  It is, no doubt infinitely more difficult to start a new business of
• 1:25:56
  any kind today than it was, But it is only a difference in form,
• 1:26:01
  not in substance. It is infinitely easier for a young, practical man
• 1:26:08
  of ability to obtain an interest in existing firms than it has ever been.
• 1:26:14
  The doors have not closed upon ability. On the contrary, they swing easier
• 1:26:19
  upon their hinges. Capital is not requisite. Family influence as before, passes
• 1:26:27
  for nothing. Real ability the capacity for doing things, never was so eagerly
• 1:26:33
  searched for as now, and never commended such rewards. The law which concentrates
• 1:26:41
  the leading industries and commercial, mercantile and financial affairs in a few great factories
• 1:26:48
  or firms, contains within itself another law not less imperious. These vast concerns
• 1:26:57
  cannot be successfully conducted by salaried employees. No great business of any kind can
• 1:27:04
  score an unusually brilliant and permanent success which is not in the hands of practical
• 1:27:11
  men pecuniarily interested in its results. In the industrial world, the days of
• 1:27:18
  corporations seem likely to come to an end. It has been necessary for me
• 1:27:25
  to watch closely most of my life the operations of great establishments owned by hundreds
• 1:27:31
  of absent capitalists and conducted by salaried officers. Contrasted with these, I believe
• 1:27:40
  that the partnership conducted by men vitally interested and owning the works will make satisfactory
• 1:27:47
  dividends when the corporation is embarrassed and scarcely knows upon which side the balance is
• 1:27:55
  to be at the end of a year's operations. The great dry goods houses
• 1:28:00
  that interest their most capable men in the profits of each department succeed when those
• 1:28:06
  fail that endeavor to work with salary men only. Even in the management of
• 1:28:13
  our great hotels, it is found wise to take into partnership the principal men
• 1:28:18
  in every branch of business. This law is at work, and concerns are
• 1:28:24
  prosperous, generally speaking, just in proportion as they succeed in interesting in the
• 1:28:31
  profits a larger and larger proportion of their ablest workers. Cooperation in this form
• 1:28:39
  is fast coming in all great establishments. The manufacturing business that does not have
• 1:28:45
  practical manufacturing partners have better supply the omission without delay, and probably the very
• 1:28:53
  men required are the bright young mechanics who have distinguished themselves while we're looking for
• 1:29:00
  a few dollars per day, or the youths from the polytechnic school. Instances
• 1:29:06
  constantly occur where the corporation unwilling to interest a promising practical man loses his services
• 1:29:15
  and sees an interest given him by some able individual manufacturer or commercial firm who
• 1:29:23
  are constantly on the lookout for that indispensable article ability. It has not hitherto
• 1:29:30
  been the practice for corporations properly to reward these embryo managers, but this they
• 1:29:38
  must come to if they are to stand the competition of works operated by those
• 1:29:44
  interested in the profits. Corporations, on the other hand, as I desire
• 1:29:49
  to point out to, practical young men, have one advantage. Their shares
• 1:29:55
  are sold freely. If a worker wishes to become interest in any branch of
• 1:30:00
  manufacturing in America today, the path is easy. For fifty to one hundred
• 1:30:06
  dollars he can become a stockholder. It is becoming more and more common for
• 1:30:13
  workers so to invest their savings. There are many well managed corporations whose assets
• 1:30:19
  and prestige enable them to earn satisfactory returns, And no better evidence of capacity
• 1:30:28
  and of good judgment can a workman give to his employers than that furnished by
• 1:30:33
  the presence of his name upon the books as a shareholder in the concern.
• 1:30:40
  Workingmen have a prejudice against showing their employers that the wages they earn suffice to
• 1:30:46
  enable them to save. But this is a mistake. The saving workmen is
• 1:30:51
  the valuable workman, and the wise employer regards the fact that he does save
• 1:30:58
  as prime of facial evidence that there is something exceptionally valuable in him. It
• 1:31:04
  should be the effort of every corporation to induce its principal workers to invest their
• 1:31:12
  savings in its shares. Only in this way can corporations hope to cope successfully
• 1:31:18
  with individual manufacturers, who have already discovered one of the valuable secrets of unusual
• 1:31:26
  success, that is, to share their profits with those who are most instrumental
• 1:31:31
  in producing them. The day of the absent capitalist stockholder, who takes no
• 1:31:38
  interest in the operation of the works beyond the receipt of his dividend, is
• 1:31:44
  certainly passing away. The day of the valuable active worker in the industrial world
• 1:31:50
  is coming. Let therefore, no young practical workmen be discouraged. On the
• 1:31:57
  contrary, let him be cheered more and more. It is becoming easier for
• 1:32:02
  the mechanic or practical men of real ability to dictate terms to his employers.
• 1:32:10
  Where there was one avenue of promotion, there are now a dozen. The
• 1:32:15
  enormous concern of the future is to divide its profits not among hundreds of idle
• 1:32:23
  capitalists who contribute nothing to its success, but among hundreds of its ablest employees,
• 1:32:30
  upon whose abilities and exertions success greatly depends. The capitalist absent stockholder is
• 1:32:40
  to be replaced by the able and present worker. As to the qualifications necessary
• 1:32:46
  for the promotion of young practical men, one cannot do better than quote George
• 1:32:51
  Eliot, who put the matter very privily quote I'll tell you how I got
• 1:32:58
  on my years and my eyes open, and I made my master's interest my
• 1:33:03
  own end quote. The condition precedent for promotion is that the men must first
• 1:33:12
  attract notice. He must do something unusual, and especially must this be beyond
• 1:33:18
  the strict boundary of his duties. He must suggest, or save, or
• 1:33:25
  perform some service for his employer, which he could not be censured for not
• 1:33:30
  having done. When he has thus attracted the notice of his immediate superior,
• 1:33:35
  Whether that be only the fore men of a gang, it matters not the
• 1:33:41
  first great step has been taken, for upon his immediate superior promotion depends how
• 1:33:48
  high he climbs is his own affair. We often hear men complaining that they
• 1:33:56
  get no chance to show their ability. When they do show up ability,
• 1:34:00
  that it is not recognized. There is very little in this self interest compels
• 1:34:06
  the immediate superior to give the highest place under him to the men who can
• 1:34:12
  best feel it, For the officer is credited with the work of his department
• 1:34:17
  as a whole. No men can keep another down. It will be noticed
• 1:34:23
  that many of the practical men who have earned fame and fortune have done so
• 1:34:29
  through holding on to improvements which they have made. Improvements are easily made by
• 1:34:35
  practical men in the branch in which they are engaged, for they have the
• 1:34:41
  most intimate knowledge of the problems to be solved there. It is in this
• 1:34:46
  way that many of our valuable improvements have come. The man who has made
• 1:34:53
  an improvement should always have an eye upon obtaining an interest in the business rather
• 1:34:59
  than an increase of salary. Even if the business up to this time has
• 1:35:04
  not become very prosperous, if he has the proper stuff in him, he
• 1:35:10
  believes that he could make it so, and so he could. All forms
• 1:35:15
  of business have their ups and downs, seasons of depression and buoyancy succeed each
• 1:35:23
  other. One year of great profits, several years with little or none.
• 1:35:29
  This is a law of the business world, into the reasons of which I
• 1:35:33
  need not enter. Therefore, the able young practical men should not have much
• 1:35:41
  regard as to a choice of the branch of business. Any business properly conducted
• 1:35:46
  will yield, during a period of years a handsome return. Dangerous to young
• 1:35:53
  men. There are three great rocks ahead of the practical young men who has
• 1:35:59
  his foot upon the latter and is beginning to rise. First drunkenness, which
• 1:36:05
  of course is fatal. There is no use in wasting time upon any young
• 1:36:12
  man who drinks liquor, no matter how exceptional his talents. Indeed, the
• 1:36:16
  greater his talents are, the greater the disappointment must be. The second rock
• 1:36:23
  ahead is speculation, the business of a speculator and that of a manufacturer.
• 1:36:30
  Or a man of affairs are not only distinct but incompatible. To be successful
• 1:36:36
  in the business world, the manufacturers and the merchant's profits only should be salt.
• 1:36:44
  The manufacturer should go forward steadily, meeting the market price when there are
• 1:36:49
  goods to sell, sell them. When supplies are needed, purchase them without
• 1:36:55
  regard to the market price. In either case, I have never own a
• 1:37:00
  speculative manufacturer or businessman who scored a permanent success. He is rich one day,
• 1:37:08
  bankrupt the next. Besides this, the manufacturer aims to produce articles,
• 1:37:15
  and in so doing to employ labor. This furnishes a laudable career. A
• 1:37:21
  man in this avocation is useful to his kind. The merchant is usefully occupied
• 1:37:29
  distributing commodities, the banker in providing capital. The third rock is akin to
• 1:37:35
  speculation. Endorsing businessmen require irregular supplies of money at some periods, little at
• 1:37:45
  others, enormous sums others. Being in the same condition, there is strong
• 1:37:50
  temptation to endorse mutually. This rock should be avoided. There are emergencies,
• 1:37:58
  no doubt, in which men should help their friends, But there is a
• 1:38:02
  rule that will keep one safe. No man should place his name upon the
• 1:38:08
  obligation of another, if he has not sufficient to pay it without detriment to
• 1:38:13
  his own business, it is dishonest to do so. Men are trustees for
• 1:38:18
  those who have trusted them, and the creditor is entitled to all his capital
• 1:38:25
  and credit for one's own firm. Quote your name, your fortune, and
• 1:38:31
  your sacred honor end quote. But for others, no matter under what circumstances,
• 1:38:39
  only such aid as you can render without danger to your trust. It
• 1:38:45
  is a safe rule therefore, to give the cash direct that you have to
• 1:38:49
  spare for others, and never your endorsement or guarantee. One great cause of
• 1:38:57
  failure of young men in business is lack of concentration. They are prone to
• 1:39:02
  seek outside investments. The cause of many a surprising failure lies in so doing.
• 1:39:11
  Every dollar of capital and credit, every business thought should be concentrated upon
• 1:39:16
  the one business upon which a man has embarked. He should never scatter his
• 1:39:23
  shot. It is a poor business which will not yield better returns for increased
• 1:39:29
  capital than any outside investment. No man, or set of men, or
• 1:39:34
  corporation can manage a businessman's capital as well as he can manage it himself.
• 1:39:41
  The rule quote do not put all your eggs in one basket. End quote
• 1:39:46
  does not apply to a man's life work. Put all your eggs in one
• 1:39:53
  basket and then watch that basket is the true doctrine, the most valuable room
• 1:40:00
  rule of awe. While business of all kinds has gone and is still going
• 1:40:04
  rapidly into a few vast concerns, it is nevertheless demonstrated every day that genuine
• 1:40:13
  ability interested in the profits is not only valuable, but indispensable to their successful
• 1:40:19
  operation. Through corporations whose shares are sold daily upon the market, Through partnership
• 1:40:28
  that finds it necessary to interest their ablest workers. Through merchants who can manage
• 1:40:34
  their vast enterprises successfully only by interesting exceptional ability. In every quarter of the
• 1:40:43
  business world, avenues greater in number, wider in extent, easier of access
• 1:40:49
  than ever before existed, stand open to the sober, frugal, energetic,
• 1:40:57
  and able mechanic, to the scientifically educated youth, to the office boy,
• 1:41:02
  and to the clerk, avenues through which they can reap greater successes than wherever
• 1:41:10
  before within the reach of these classes in the history of the world. When
• 1:41:15
  therefore, the young men in any position or in any business explains and complains
• 1:41:23
  that he has not opportunity to prove his ability and to rise to partnership.
• 1:41:29
  The old answer suffices. Quote The fault, dear brutus, is not in
• 1:41:35
  our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. End quote.
• 1:41:44
  End of Section four. Section five, Wealth and its uses. Wealth,
• 1:41:50
  as mister Gladstone has recently said, quote is the business of the world.
• 1:41:57
  End quote. That the acquisition of money is the business of the world,
• 1:42:01
  arises from the fact that, with few unfortunate exceptions, young men are born
• 1:42:09
  to poverty, and therefore under the solutary operation of that remarkably wise law which
• 1:42:15
  makes for their good quote, thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of
• 1:42:21
  thy brow end quote. It is the fashion nowadays to bewail poverty as an
• 1:42:29
  evil, to pity the young man who is not born with a silver spoon
• 1:42:33
  in his mouth. But I heartily subscribe to President Garfield's doctrine that quote the
• 1:42:41
  richest heritage a young man can be born to is poverty. End quote.
• 1:42:46
  I make no idle prediction when I say that it is from that class from
• 1:42:51
  whom the good and the great will spring. It is not from the sons
• 1:42:57
  of the millionaire or the noble. All that the world receives, its teachers,
• 1:43:02
  its martyrs, its inventors, its statesmen, its points, or even
• 1:43:09
  its men of affairs. It is from the cottage of the poor that all
• 1:43:15
  these spring. We can scarcely read one among the few immortal names that were
• 1:43:20
  not born to die, or who has rendered exceptional service to our race,
• 1:43:28
  who had not the advantage of being cradled, nursed, and reared in the
• 1:43:32
  stimulating school of poverty. There is nothing so enervating, nothing so deadly in
• 1:43:40
  its effects upon the qualities which lead to the highest achievement moral or intellectual,
• 1:43:46
  as hereditary wealth. And if there be among you a young man who feels
• 1:43:54
  that he is not compelled to exert himself in order to earn and live from
• 1:44:00
  his own efforts, I tender him my profound sympathy. Should such an one
• 1:44:05
  prove an exception to his fellows and become a citizen, living alive, creditable
• 1:44:12
  to himself, and useful to the state. Instead of my profound sympathy,
• 1:44:17
  I bow before him with profound reverence. For one who overcomes the seductive temptations
• 1:44:26
  which surround hereditary wealth is of the salt of the earth, and entitled to
• 1:44:31
  double honor. One gets a great many good things from the New York Sun,
• 1:44:36
  the distinguished proprietor and editor of which you had recently the pleasure, benefit,
• 1:44:44
  and honor of hearing, I beg to read this to you as one
• 1:44:47
  of its numerous rays of light. Our boys quote every moralist hard up for
• 1:44:56
  a theme, asks, at intervals, what is the matter with the sons
• 1:45:00
  of our rich and great men. The question is followed by statistics on the
• 1:45:06
  wickedness and bad endings of such sons. The trouble with the moralist is that
• 1:45:14
  they put the question wrong. And first, there is nothing wrong with those
• 1:45:18
  foolish sons, except that they are unlucky, but there is something wrong with
• 1:45:25
  their fathers. Suppose that a fine specimen of an old deer hound, very
• 1:45:30
  successful in his business, should collect untold deer in the park, fatten them
• 1:45:36
  up, and then say to his puppies. Here, boys, I've had
• 1:45:42
  a hard life catching these deer, and I mean to see you enjoy yourselves.
• 1:45:46
  I'm so used to racing through the woods and hunting that I can't get
• 1:45:51
  out of the habit. But you boys just pile into that park and help
• 1:45:56
  yourselves. Such a deer hound as that would be scorned by every human father.
• 1:46:02
  The human father would say to such a dog, mister hound, you're
• 1:46:08
  simply ruining those puppies. Too much meat and no exercise will give them the
• 1:46:14
  mange and seventeen other troubles, And if distemper doesn't kill them, they will
• 1:46:20
  be a not need watery eyed lot of disgraces to you. For Heaven's sake,
• 1:46:27
  Keep them down to dog biscuits and work them hard. That same human
• 1:46:31
  father does, with great pride the very thing that he would condemn in a
• 1:46:38
  dog or a cat. He ruins his children, And then, when he
• 1:46:43
  gets old, profusely and sadly observes that he has done everything for them,
• 1:46:49
  and yet they have disappointed him. He who gives to his son an office
• 1:46:57
  which he has not deserved, and enables him to disgrace his father and friends,
• 1:47:01
  deserves no more sympathy than any mister Fagin deliberately educating a boy to be
• 1:47:09
  dishonest. The fat, useless puck dogs which young women drag wheezing about at
• 1:47:15
  the end of strings, are not to blame for their condition, And the
• 1:47:19
  same thing is true of Richmond's sons. The young women who overfeed the dogs,
• 1:47:26
  and the fathers who ruin their sons have themselves to think. No men
• 1:47:31
  would advocate the thing. Perhaps, But who can doubt that if there could
• 1:47:36
  be a law making it impossible for men to inherit anything but a good education
• 1:47:44
  and a good constitution, it would supplied us in short order with a better
• 1:47:48
  lot of men. This is sound if you see it in the sun.
• 1:47:54
  It is so, at least it is in this case. It is not
• 1:47:59
  the poor young man who goes forth to his work in the morning and labors
• 1:48:03
  until evening that we should pity. It is the son of the rich man
• 1:48:09
  to whom providence has not been so kind as to trust with this honorable task.
• 1:48:15
  It is not the busy man, but the man of idleness, who
• 1:48:18
  should arouse our sympathy and cause us sorrow. Happy is the man who has
• 1:48:25
  found his work, says Carlyle. I say happy is the man who has
• 1:48:30
  to work, and to work hard and work long. A great point has
• 1:48:36
  said, he prayeth best, who loveth best. Someday this may be parodied
• 1:48:44
  into he prayeth best, who worketh best. An honest day's work, well
• 1:48:50
  performed is not a bad sort of prayer. The cry goes forth often nowadays,
• 1:48:58
  abolish poverty. But fortunately this cannot be done. And the poor we
• 1:49:02
  are always to have with us. Abolish poverty, And what would become of
• 1:49:09
  the race progress development with seas? Consider its future if dependent upon the rich
• 1:49:17
  the supply of the good and the great with seas, and human society retrograde
• 1:49:23
  into barbarism. Abolished luxury, if you please, but leave us the soil
• 1:49:30
  upon which alone the virtues and all that is precious in human character grow.
• 1:49:36
  Poverty, honest poverty. I will assume for the moment, gentlemen, that
• 1:49:44
  you were all fortunate enough to be born poor. Then the first question that
• 1:49:49
  presses upon you is this, what shall I learn to do for the community
• 1:49:56
  which will bring me in exchange enough well to feed, clothes, lodge,
• 1:50:02
  and keep me independent of charitable aid from others? What shall I do for
• 1:50:09
  a living? And the young men may like or think that he would like
• 1:50:14
  to do one thing rather than another, to pursue one branch or another,
• 1:50:19
  to be a businessman, or a craftsman of some kind, or minister,
• 1:50:26
  physician, electrician, architect, editor, or lawyer. I have no doubt
• 1:50:32
  some of you, in your wildest flights, aspire to be journalists. But
• 1:50:39
  it does not matter what a young man likes or dislikes. He always has
• 1:50:43
  to keep in view the main point. Can I attain such a measure of
• 1:50:48
  proficiency in the branch preferred as will certainly enable me to earn a livelihood by
• 1:50:56
  its practice. The young man, therefore, who resolves to make himself useful
• 1:51:01
  to his kind, and therefore entitled to receive in return from a grateful community
• 1:51:08
  which he benefits, the sum necessary for his support, sees clearly one of
• 1:51:13
  the highest duties of a young man. He meets the vital question immediately pressing
• 1:51:18
  upon him for decision, and decides it rightly. So far then there's no
• 1:51:26
  difference about the acquisition of wealth. Everyone is agreed that it is the first
• 1:51:31
  duty of a young man to so train himself as to be self supporting.
• 1:51:38
  Nor is there difficulty about the next step. For the young man cannot be
• 1:51:42
  said to have performed the whole of his duty if he leaves out of account
• 1:51:47
  the contingencies of life, liability to accident, illness, and trade depressions.
• 1:51:55
  Like the present wisdom calls upon him to have regard for these things, And
• 1:52:00
  it is a part of his duty that he begins to save a portion of
• 1:52:05
  his earnings and invest them not in speculation, but in securities, or in
• 1:52:12
  property, or in a legitimate business, in such form as will perhaps slowly,
• 1:52:17
  but yet surely grow into the reserve upon which he can fall back in
• 1:52:23
  emergencies or in old age, and live upon his own savings. I think
• 1:52:29
  we are all agreed as to the advisability, nay, the duty of laying
• 1:52:34
  up a competence and has to retain our self respect. Besides this, I
• 1:52:42
  take it that some of you have already decided, just as soon as possible,
• 1:52:46
  to ask a certain young lady to share his lot, or perhaps his
• 1:52:51
  lots, and of course he should have a lot or two to share.
• 1:52:57
  Marriage is a very serious business, indeed, and gives rise to many weighty
• 1:53:02
  considerations. Be sure to marry a woman with good common sense, was the
• 1:53:08
  advice given me by my mentor, and I just hand it down to you.
• 1:53:14
  Common sense is the most uncommon and most valuable quality in men or women.
• 1:53:20
  But before you have occasion to provide yourself with a helpmate, there comes
• 1:53:27
  the subject upon which I am to address you. Wealth not wealth, in
• 1:53:32
  millions, but simply revenue sufficient for modest independent living. This opens up the
• 1:53:40
  entire subject of wealth in a greater or less degree. Now what is wealth?
• 1:53:47
  How is it created? And distributed? There are not far from us
• 1:53:54
  in men's beds of coal which have lain for millions of years, useless and
• 1:53:59
  there or valueless. Through some experiment, or perhaps accident, it was discovered
• 1:54:05
  that black stone would burn and give forth heat. Men sank shafts, erected,
• 1:54:12
  machinery, mined and brought forth coal, and sold it to the community.
• 1:54:17
  It displaced the use of wood as fuel, say, at one half
• 1:54:21
  the cost. Immediately every bed of coal became valuable because useful or capable of
• 1:54:30
  being matzal. And here a new article with hundreds, yes thousands, of
• 1:54:38
  millions was added to the wealth of the community. A Scotch mechanic. One
• 1:54:43
  day, as the story goes, gazing into the fire upon which water was
• 1:54:47
  boiling in a cattle, saw the steam raise the lid, as hundreds of
• 1:54:54
  thousands had seen before him, But none saw in that site what he did.
• 1:55:00
  The steam engine, which does the work of the world at a cost
• 1:55:04
  so infinitely trifling compared with what the plans known before involved that the wealth of
• 1:55:12
  the world has been increased, one dares not estimate how much the saving that
• 1:55:18
  the community makes is the root of wealth in any branch of material development.
• 1:55:26
  Now a young man's labor or service to the community creates wealth just in proportion
• 1:55:32
  as his service is useful to the community, as it either saves or improves
• 1:55:40
  upon existing methods. Commodore Vanderbilt saw I think thirteen different short railway lines between
• 1:55:47
  New York and Buffalo, involving thirteen different managements and a disjointed and tedious service.
• 1:55:57
  Albany, Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Auburn, Rochester, et cetera.
• 1:56:03
  Were heads of some of these companies. He consolidated them all, making
• 1:56:09
  one direct line over which your Empire State Express flies fifty one miles an hour,
• 1:56:15
  the fastest time in the world, and one hundred passengers patronized the lines
• 1:56:21
  where one did in odin days. He rendered the community a special service which,
• 1:56:29
  being followed by others, reduces the cost of bringing food from the prairies
• 1:56:33
  of the west to your doors to a trifling sum per ton He produced and
• 1:56:40
  is every day producing untold wealth to the community by so doing, and the
• 1:56:46
  profit he reaped for himself was but a drop in the bucket compared with that
• 1:56:53
  which he showered upon the state and the nation. Now. In the olden
• 1:56:58
  days, before a steam electricity or any other of the modern inventions which unitedly
• 1:57:04
  have changed the whole aspect of the world, everything was done upon a small
• 1:57:11
  scale. There was no room for great ideas to operate upon a large scale
• 1:57:16
  and thus to produce great wealth to the inventor, discoverer, originator, or
• 1:57:23
  executive. New inventions gave this opportunity, and many large fortunes were made by
• 1:57:30
  individuals. But in our day we are rapidly passing, if we have not
• 1:57:34
  already passed, this stage of development, and few large fortunes can now be
• 1:57:42
  made in any part of the world, except from one cause, the rise
• 1:57:47
  in the value of real estate, Manufacturing, transportation, both upon the land
• 1:57:54
  and upon the sea, banking, insurance have all passed in to the hands
• 1:58:00
  of corporations composed of hundreds and in many cases thousands of shareholders. The New
• 1:58:08
  York Central Railroad is owned by more than ten thousand shareholders, the Pennsylvania Railroad
• 1:58:15
  is owned by more people than the vast army which it employs, and nearly
• 1:58:20
  one fourth of the number are the estates of women and children. It is
• 1:58:27
  so with the great manufacturing companies, so with the great steamship lines. It
• 1:58:32
  is so, as you know, with banks, insurance companies, and indeed
• 1:58:38
  with all branches of business. It is a great mistake for young men to
• 1:58:43
  say to themselves, oh, we cannot enter into business if any of you
• 1:58:48
  have saved as much as fifty dollars or one hundred dollars. I do not
• 1:58:53
  know any branch of business into which you cannot plunge at once. You can
• 1:58:58
  get your certificate of stock and attend the meeting of stockholders, make your speeches
• 1:59:03
  and suggestions, quarrel with the president, and instruct the management of the affairs
• 1:59:09
  of the company, and have all the rights and influence of an owner.
• 1:59:14
  You can buy shares in anything from newspapers to tenement houses. But capital is
• 1:59:20
  so poorly paid in these days that I advise you to exercise much circumspection before
• 1:59:28
  you invest. As I have said to workingmen and two ministers, college professors,
• 1:59:34
  artists, musicians and physicians, and all the professional classes, do not
• 1:59:41
  invest in any business concerns. Whatever the risks of business are not for such
• 1:59:47
  as you buy a home for yourself first, and if you have any surplus,
• 1:59:53
  buy another lot or another house, or take a mortgage upon one or
• 1:59:59
  upon a railway, and let it be a first mortgage, and be satisfied
• 2:00:03
  with moderate interest. Do you know that out of every hundred that attempt business
• 2:00:10
  upon their own account, statistics are set to show that ninety five, sooner
• 2:00:15
  or later fail. I know that from my own experience. I can quote
• 2:00:21
  the lines of Houdibras and tell you as far as one manufacturing branch is concerned,
• 2:00:28
  that what he found to be true is still true to an eminent degree
• 2:00:32
  today. Quote I me, what perils do environ the man that meddles with
• 2:00:39
  coat iron? End? Quote? The shareholders of iron and steel concerns today
• 2:00:45
  can certify that this is so, whether the iron or steel be hot or
• 2:00:49
  cold. And such is also the case in other branches of business. The
• 2:00:55
  principal complaint against our industrial conditions of today is that they caused great wealth to
• 2:01:01
  flow into the hands of the few, well of the very few. Indeed,
• 2:01:08
  is this true? It was formerly so, as I have explained,
• 2:01:12
  immediately after the new inventions had changed the conditions of the world. Today it
• 2:01:18
  is not true. Wealth is being more and more distributed among the many.
• 2:01:25
  The amount of the combined profits of labor and capital which goes into labor was
• 2:01:30
  never so great as today, the amount going to capital never so small,
• 2:01:36
  while the earnings of capital have fallen more than one half in many cases have
• 2:01:43
  been entirely obliterated. Statistics prove that the earnings of labor were never so high
• 2:01:49
  as they were previous to the recent unprecedented depression in business, while the cost
• 2:01:57
  of living the necessaries of life have fallen in some cases nearly one half Great
• 2:02:03
  Britain has an income tax, and our country is to be subject to this
• 2:02:08
  imposition for a time. The British returns show that during the eleven years from
• 2:02:15
  eighteen seventy six to eighteen eighty seven, the number of men receiving from seven
• 2:02:20
  hundred and fifty dollars to twenty five hundred dollars per year increased more than twenty
• 2:02:27
  one percent, while the number receiving from five thousand dollars to twenty five thousand
• 2:02:32
  dollars actually decreased two and a half percent. You may be sure, gentlemen,
• 2:02:40
  that the question of the distribution of wealth is settling itself rapidly under present
• 2:02:45
  conditions, and settling itself in the right direction. The few rich are getting
• 2:02:51
  poorer, and the toiling masses are getting richer. Nevertheless, a few exceptional
• 2:02:59
  men may yet make fortunes, but these will be more moderate than in the
• 2:03:03
  past. This may not be quite as fortunate for the masses of the people
• 2:03:10
  as is now believed, because great accumulations of wealth in the hands of one
• 2:03:15
  enterprising man who still toils on, are sometimes most productive of all the forms
• 2:03:21
  of wealth. Take the richest man the world ever saw, who died in
• 2:03:27
  New York some years ago. What was found in his case that, with
• 2:03:32
  the exception of a small percentage used for daily expenses, his entire fortune and
• 2:03:39
  all its surplus earnings were invested in enterprises which developed the railway system of our
• 2:03:45
  country, which gives to the people the cheapest transportation known. Whether the millionaire
• 2:03:53
  wishes it or not, he cannot evade the law, which, under present
• 2:03:58
  conditions compels him to use his millions for the good of the people. All
• 2:04:03
  that he gets during the few years of his life is that he may live
• 2:04:08
  in a finer house, surround himself with finer furniture, and works of art,
• 2:04:13
  which may be added. He could even have a grander library, more
• 2:04:18
  of the gods around him. But as far as I have known millionnaires,
• 2:04:24
  the library is the least used part of what he would probably consider furniture.
• 2:04:30
  In all his mention, he can eat richer food and drink richer wines,
• 2:04:35
  which only hurt him. But truly, the modern millionaire is generally a man
• 2:04:42
  of very simple tastes and even miserly habits. He spends little upon himself,
• 2:04:48
  and is the toiling bee laying up the honey in the industrial hive, which
• 2:04:54
  all the inmates of that hive the community in general, will certainly enjoy.
• 2:05:00
  Here is the true description of the millionaire, as given by mister Carter in
• 2:05:05
  his remarkable speech before the Bearing Sea Tribunal at Paris. Cout those who are
• 2:05:13
  most successful in the acquisition of property, and who acquire it to such an
• 2:05:18
  enormous extent, are the very men who are able to control it, to
• 2:05:24
  invest it, and to handle it in a way most useful to society.
• 2:05:29
  It is because they have those qualities that they are able to engross it to
• 2:05:33
  so large an extent. They really own in any just sense of the word.
• 2:05:40
  Only what they consume. The rest is all held for the benefit of
• 2:05:45
  the public. They are the custodians of it. They invest it. They
• 2:05:49
  see that it is put into this employment, that employment another employment. All
• 2:05:57
  labor is employed by it and employed in the best manner, and it is
• 2:06:01
  thus made the most productive. These men who acquire these hundreds of millions are
• 2:06:09
  really groaning under a servitude to the rest of society, for that is practically
• 2:06:15
  their condition, and society really endures it because it is best for them that
• 2:06:20
  it should be so. End Quote. Here is another as bit by a
• 2:06:26
  no less remarkable man, your friend mister Dana justly said at Cornell. Quote,
• 2:06:33
  that is one class of men that I refer to, the thinkers,
• 2:06:38
  the men of science, the inventors. And the other class is that of
• 2:06:43
  those whom God has endowed with a genius for saving, for getting rich,
• 2:06:48
  for bringing wealth together, for accumulating and concentrating money, men against whom it
• 2:06:56
  is now fashionable to declaim, and against whom legislation is sometimes directed. And
• 2:07:02
  yet is there any benefactor of humanity who is to be envied in his achievements
• 2:07:09
  and in the memory and the monuments he has left behind him More than Ezra
• 2:07:15
  Cornell, or to take another example that is here before our eyes, more
• 2:07:20
  than Henry W. Sh These are men who knew how to get rich because
• 2:07:27
  they had been endowed with that faculty. And when they got rich, they
• 2:07:31
  knew how to give it for great public enterprises, for uses that will remain
• 2:07:38
  living, immortal, as long as men remains upon the earth. The men
• 2:07:44
  of genius and the men of money, those who prepare new agencies of life,
• 2:07:49
  and those who accumulate and save the money for great enterprises and great public
• 2:07:55
  works. These are the leaders of the world, as the toy indieth century
• 2:08:01
  is opening upon us. The bees of a hive do not destroy the honeymaking
• 2:08:07
  bees, but the drones. It will be a great mistake for the community
• 2:08:13
  to shoot the millionaires, for they are the bees that make the most honey
• 2:08:18
  and contribute most to the hive, even after they have gorged themselves full.
• 2:08:24
  It is a remarkable fact that any country is prosperous and comfortable in proportion to
• 2:08:30
  the number of its millionnaires. Take Russia, with its population little better than
• 2:08:37
  serfs, and living at the point of starvation upon the meanest fair such fare
• 2:08:43
  as none of our people could or would eat and you find comparatively few millionnaires,
• 2:08:48
  excepting the Emperor and a few nobles who own the land. It is
• 2:08:54
  the same to a great extent in Germany, though in recent years industrial deval
• 2:09:00
  has produced a few pounds sterling millionnaires. In Berlin in nineteen o two three
• 2:09:07
  had more than six millions, and in Prussia six persons had an income of
• 2:09:13
  one million. In friends, where the people are better off than in Germany,
• 2:09:18
  you can count but few millionnaires in the old home of our race.
• 2:09:24
  In Britain, which is the richest country in the world save one our own,
• 2:09:30
  there are more millionnaires in pounds sterling, which may be considered the European
• 2:09:35
  standard, than in the whole of the rest of Europe, and its people
• 2:09:39
  are better off than in any other. You come to our own land,
• 2:09:46
  we probably have more millionaires and multimillionaires, both in pounds and dollars, than
• 2:09:52
  all the rest of the world put together, although we have not one to
• 2:09:56
  every ten that is reputed. So I have seen a list of supposed millionaires
• 2:10:03
  prepared by a well known lawyer of Brooklyn, which made me laugh, as
• 2:10:07
  it did many others. I saw men rated there as millionaires who could not
• 2:10:13
  pay their debts. Some should have had a cipher cut from their reputed millions.
• 2:10:20
  Some time ago, I set next mister Effarts at dinner, and the
• 2:10:24
  conversation touched upon the idea that men should distribute their wealth during their lives for
• 2:10:31
  the public good. One gentleman said that was correct, giving many reasons,
• 2:10:37
  one of which was that, of course they could not take it with them
• 2:10:41
  at death. Well, said mister Evarts, I do not know about that.
• 2:10:46
  My experience as a New York lawyer is that somehow or other they do
• 2:10:52
  succeed in taking at least four fifths of it. Their reputed wealth was never
• 2:10:58
  found at death. Whatever the ideal conditions may develop, it seems to me
• 2:11:05
  mister Carter and mister Dana are right. Under present conditions. The millionaire who
• 2:11:11
  toils on is the cheapest article the community secures at the price it pays for
• 2:11:16
  him, namely his shelter, clothing, and food. The inventions of today
• 2:11:22
  lead to concentrating industrial and commercial affairs into huge concerns. You cannot work the
• 2:11:31
  Bessemer process successfully without employing thousands of men upon one spot. You could not
• 2:11:37
  make the armor for ships without first expending seven millions of dollars as the Bethlehem
• 2:11:45
  Company has spent. You cannot make a yard of cotton goods in competition with
• 2:11:50
  the world without having an immense factory and thousands of men and women aiding in
• 2:11:58
  the process. The electric establishment here in your town succeeds because it has spent
• 2:12:05
  millions and is prepared to do its work upon a great scale. Under such
• 2:12:11
  conditions, it is impossible but that wealth will flow into the hands of a
• 2:12:16
  few men in prosperous times, beyond their needs. But out of fifty great
• 2:12:24
  fortunes which mister Blaine had a list made of, he found only one man
• 2:12:30
  who was reputed to have made a large fortune. In manufacturing fortunes are most
• 2:12:37
  often made from real estate. Next follow transportation, banking. The whole manufacturing
• 2:12:43
  world furnished but one millionaire. But assuming that surplus wealth flows into the hands
• 2:12:52
  of a few men, what is their duty? How is the struggle for
• 2:12:56
  dollars to be lifted from the sword atmosphere surrounding business and made a noble career.
• 2:13:05
  Now wealth has hitherto been distributed in three ways. The first and chief
• 2:13:11
  one is by willing it at death to the family. Now beyond bequeathing to
• 2:13:18
  those dependent upon one the revenue needful for modest and independent living. Is such
• 2:13:24
  a use of wealth, either right or wise. I ask you to think
• 2:13:31
  over the result as a rule of millions given over to young men and women,
• 2:13:37
  and sons and daughters of the millionaire. You will find that, as
• 2:13:41
  a rule it is not good for the daughters, and this is seen in
• 2:13:46
  the character and conduct of the men who marry them. As for the sons,
• 2:13:52
  you have their conditions as described in the extract which I read you from
• 2:13:56
  the Sun. Nothing is truer than this, that, as a rule,
• 2:14:03
  the almighty dollar bequeathed to sons or daughters by millions proved in all mighty curse.
• 2:14:11
  It is not the good of the child which the millionaire parent considers when
• 2:14:16
  he makes these bequests. It is his own vanity. It is not affection
• 2:14:22
  for the child. It is self glorification for the parent, which is at
• 2:14:28
  the root of this injurious disposition of wealth. There is only one thing to
• 2:14:35
  be said for this mode. It furnishes one of the most efficacious means of
• 2:14:41
  rapid distribution of wealth ever known. There is a second use of wealth less
• 2:14:48
  common than the first, which is not so injurious to the community, but
• 2:14:54
  which should bring no credit to the testator. Money is left by million millionaires
• 2:15:00
  to public institutions when they must relax their grasp upon it. There is no
• 2:15:05
  grace and can be no blessing in giving what cannot be withheld. It is
• 2:15:11
  no gift, because it is not tearfully given, but only granted at the
• 2:15:16
  stern summons of death. The miscarriage of these bequests, the litigation connected with
• 2:15:24
  them, and the manner in which they are frittered away seem to prove that
• 2:15:30
  the faiths do not regard them with a kindly eye. We are never without
• 2:15:35
  a lesson that the only mode of producing lasting good by giving large sums of
• 2:15:43
  money is for the millionaire to give as close attention to its distribution during his
• 2:15:50
  life as he did to its acquisition. We have today the noted case of
• 2:15:54
  five or six millions of dollars left by a great lawyer to found a public
• 2:16:01
  library in New York, an institution needed so greatly that the failure of this
• 2:16:07
  bequest is a misfortune. It is years since he died. The will is
• 2:16:13
  pronounced invalid through a flaw, although there is no doubt of the intention of
• 2:16:20
  the donor. It is sad commentary upon the folly of men holding the millions
• 2:16:26
  which they cannot use until they are unable to put them to the end they
• 2:16:31
  desire. Peter Cooper, Pratt of Baltimore, and Pratt of Brooklyn, and
• 2:16:37
  others are the type of men who should be taken by you as your model.
• 2:16:43
  They distributed their surplus during life. The third use, and the only
• 2:16:48
  noble use of surplus wealth, is this, that it be regarded as a
• 2:16:54
  sacred trust, to be administered by its possessor, into whose hands it flows
• 2:17:01
  for the highest good of the people. Man does not live by bread alone,
• 2:17:07
  and five or ten cents a day. More revenues scattered over thousands would
• 2:17:13
  produce little or no good. Accumulated into a great fund and expended, as
• 2:17:18
  mister Cooper expended it for the Cooper Institute, it establishes something that will last
• 2:17:26
  for generations. It will adjucate the brain, the spiritual part of man.
• 2:17:33
  It furnishes a ladder upon which the aspiring poor may climb. And there is
• 2:17:39
  no use whatever, gentlemen trying to help people who do not help themselves.
• 2:17:46
  You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little
• 2:17:50
  himself. When you stop boosting, he falls to his injury. Therefore,
• 2:17:58
  I have often said, and I now repeat, that the day is coming,
• 2:18:03
  and already we see it's dawn, in which the men who dies possessed
• 2:18:09
  of millions of available wealth, which was free and in his hands ready to
• 2:18:15
  be distributed, will die disgraced. Of course, I do not mean that
• 2:18:20
  the men in business may not be stricken down with his capital in the business,
• 2:18:26
  which cannot be withdrawn, for capital is the tool with which he works
• 2:18:31
  his wonders and produces more wealth. I refer to the man who dies possessed
• 2:18:39
  of millions of securities, which are held simply for the interest they produce,
• 2:18:46
  that he may add to his horde of miserable dollars. By administering surplus wealth
• 2:18:54
  during life, great wealth may become a blessing to the community and the occupation
• 2:19:01
  of the businessmen. Accumulating wealth may be elevated so as to rank, even
• 2:19:07
  with the physician, one of the highest of our professions, because he too,
• 2:19:13
  in a sense, will be a physician, looking after and trying not
• 2:19:18
  to cure, but to prevent the ills of humanity. To those of you
• 2:19:24
  who are compelled or who desire to follow a business life and to accumulate wealth.
• 2:19:31
  I commend this idea. The epitaph which every rich man should wish himself
• 2:19:39
  justly entitled to is that seen upon the monument to pit. He lived without
• 2:19:46
  ostentation, and he died poor. Such is the man whom the future is
• 2:19:52
  to honor, while he who dies in old age, retired from business,
• 2:19:58
  possessed of millions of available wealth, is to die unwept, unhonored, and
• 2:20:05
  unsum. I may justly divide young men into four classes. First those who
• 2:20:15
  must work for a living, and set before them as their aim the acquisition
• 2:20:20
  of a modest competence, of course, with a modest but picturesque cottage in
• 2:20:26
  the country. And one as a companion who maketh sunshine in a shady place
• 2:20:31
  and is the gold angel of his life. The motto of this class number
• 2:20:37
  one might be given as quote, give me neither poverty, nor riches from
• 2:20:46
  the anxieties of poverty, as from the responsibilities of wealth. Good Lord,
• 2:20:52
  deliver us end quote. Class number two, comprising those among you are who
• 2:20:58
  determined to acquire wealth, whose aim in life is to belong to that much
• 2:21:05
  talked off and grantly abused class, the millionnaires, those who start to labor
• 2:21:11
  for the greatest good of the greatest number, but the greatest number always number
• 2:21:18
  one. The motto of this class being short and to the point, quote
• 2:21:24
  put money in thy purse end quote. Now the third class comes along.
• 2:21:31
  The god they worship is neither wealth nor happiness. They are inflamed with noble
• 2:21:39
  ambition. The desire of fame is the controlling element of their lives. Now,
• 2:21:46
  while this is not so ignoble as the desire for material wealth, it
• 2:21:50
  must be said that it betrays more vanity. The shrine of fame has many
• 2:21:56
  worshipers. Of vanity is seen in its fiercest face among those who come before
• 2:22:05
  the public. It is well known, for instance, that musicians, actors,
• 2:22:11
  and even painters, all the artistic class, are peculiarly prone to excessive
• 2:22:18
  personal vanity. This has often been wondered at, but the reason probably is
• 2:22:24
  that the musician, and the actor, and even the painter may be transcendent
• 2:22:30
  in his special line without being even highly educated, without having an all around
• 2:22:37
  brain, some peculiarities some one element in his character may give him prominence or
• 2:22:46
  fame, so that his love of art, or of use through art,
• 2:22:50
  is entirely drowned by a narrow, selfish personal vanity. But we find this
• 2:22:58
  liability in a lesser degree all through the professions the politician, the lawyer,
• 2:23:05
  and with reverence be it spoken, sometimes the minister less, I think in
• 2:23:11
  the physician than in any of the professions, probably because he, more than
• 2:23:16
  in any other profession, is called to deal with the sad realities of life
• 2:23:22
  face to face. He, if all men, sees the vanity of vanities.
• 2:23:28
  An illustration of this class is well drawn in Hotspur's Address by heavens.
• 2:23:35
  Methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale faced moon,
• 2:23:43
  or dive into the bottom of the deep, where phantom line could never
• 2:23:48
  touch the ground, and pluck up drowned honor by the locks. So he
• 2:23:54
  that doth redeem her thens might wear without carival all her dignities. Mark,
• 2:24:01
  young, gentleman, he cares not for use, He cares not for state.
• 2:24:07
  He cares only for himself, And as a vain peacock struts across the
• 2:24:13
  state. Now, gentlemen, it does not seem to me that the love
• 2:24:18
  of wealth is the controlling desire of so many as the love of fame.
• 2:24:24
  And this is matter for sincere congratulation, and proves that under the irresistible laws
• 2:24:33
  of evolution, the race is slowly moving onward and upward. Take the whole
• 2:24:39
  range of the artistic world, which gives sweetness and light to life, which
• 2:24:46
  refines and adorns. And surely the great composer, painter, pianist, lawyer,
• 2:24:54
  judge, statesman, all those in public life care less for millions,
• 2:25:01
  then for professional reputation in their respective fields of labor. What cared Washington,
• 2:25:09
  Franklin, Lincoln or Grant and chairman for wealth nothing? What cared Harrison or
• 2:25:16
  Cleveland? Two poor men, not unworthy successors? What cared the judges of
• 2:25:22
  our Supreme Court or even the leading counsul that plead before them? The great
• 2:25:30
  preachers, physicians, great teachers are not concerned about the acquisition of wealth.
• 2:25:37
  The treasure they seek is in the reputation acquired through their service to others.
• 2:25:43
  And this is certainly a great step from the millionaire class who struggled to o
• 2:25:48
  age and through age to the verge of the grave with no ambition. Apparently
• 2:25:54
  except to add to their pile of miserable dollars. But there is a fourth
• 2:26:01
  class, higher than all the preceding, who worship neither at the shrine of
• 2:26:09
  wealth nor fame, but at the noblest of all shrines, the shrine of
• 2:26:15
  service service to the race. Self abnegation is its watchword. Members of this
• 2:26:22
  inner and higher circle seek not popular applause. Are concerned not with being popular,
• 2:26:30
  but with being right. They say with Confucius quote, it concerns me
• 2:26:37
  not that I have not high office. What concerns me is to make myself
• 2:26:41
  worthy of office end quote. It is not cast down by poverty, neither
• 2:26:48
  unduly elated by prosperity. The man belonging to this class simply seeks to do
• 2:26:54
  his duty day by day, in such manner as may enable him to honor
• 2:27:01
  himself, fearing nothing but his own self reproach. I have known men and
• 2:27:07
  women not prominently before the public. For this class courts not prominence, but
• 2:27:13
  who in their lives proved themselves to have reached this ideal stage. Now I
• 2:27:20
  will give you for this class, befitting illustration from the words of a Scotch
• 2:27:26
  point who died altogether too young. I will go forth among men, not
• 2:27:33
  mailed in scorn, but in the armor of a pure intent. Great duties
• 2:27:39
  are before me, and great songs. And whether crowned or crownless, when
• 2:27:46
  I fall, it matters not so as God's work is done. I've learned
• 2:27:52
  to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels,
• 2:28:00
  which men call fame. Then, gentlemen, standing upon the threshold of
• 2:28:07
  life, you have the good better best presented to you. The three stages
• 2:28:13
  of development, the natural, spiritual, and celestial, they may fitly be
• 2:28:20
  called. One has success in material things of its aim, not without benefit,
• 2:28:26
  this for the race as a whole, because it lifts the individual from
• 2:28:31
  the animal, and demands the exercise of many valuable qualities, sobriety, industry,
• 2:28:37
  and self discipline. The second rise is still higher, the reward sought
• 2:28:43
  for being things more of the spirit, not gross, immaterial but invisible,
• 2:28:50
  And not of the flesh, but of the brain, the spiritual part of
• 2:28:56
  men. And this brings into play in innumerable virtues which make good and useful
• 2:29:03
  men. The third or celestial class, stands upon an entirely different footing from
• 2:29:11
  the others. In this that selfish considerations are subordinated in the select brotherhood of
• 2:29:18
  the best, the service to be done for others being the first consideration.
• 2:29:26
  The reward of either wealth or fame is unsought, for these have learned and
• 2:29:31
  know full well that virtue is its own and the only exceeding great reward,
• 2:29:39
  And this one's enjoyed. All other rewards are not worth seeking, And so
• 2:29:46
  wealth and even fame are dethroned, and their stands enthroned the highest standard of
• 2:29:54
  all, your own approval, flowing from a faithful discharge of duty as you
• 2:30:01
  see it, fearing no consequences, seeking no reward. It does not matter
• 2:30:07
  much what branch of effort, your tastes or judgment draw you too. The
• 2:30:13
  one great point is that you should be drawn to some one branch, then
• 2:30:20
  perform your whole duty in it, and a little more, the little more
• 2:30:26
  being vastly important. We have the words of a great point, for it
• 2:30:31
  that the man who does the best he can can whilst do more, maintain
• 2:30:37
  your self respect as the most precious jewel of all, and the only true
• 2:30:43
  way to win the respect of others. And then remember what Emerson says.
• 2:30:50
  For what he says here is true quote. No young man can be cheated
• 2:30:56
  out of an honorable career in life unless he cheat himself. End of Section
• 2:31:03
  five. Section six Anglo American Trade relations. This section contrasts the commercial methods
• 2:31:13
  of the two countries, the part the tariff plays in trade, protective tariff
• 2:31:18
  in the United States, free trade into Britain, and a comparison of results.
• 2:31:26
  Upon the threshold of this great question, we encounter that evergreen subject of
• 2:31:31
  discussion, free trade versus protection. There is only one kind of free trade,
• 2:31:35
  but there are two kinds of protection, first the British kind and then
• 2:31:41
  the American variety, very different. Indeed, in theory and in practice,
• 2:31:46
  protection in Britain simply means that the food of the people should be permanently made
• 2:31:50
  dearer to the consumer, and consequently that the value of land should be permanently
• 2:31:56
  and artificially enhanced. Now, the American idea of protession is that foreshadowed by
• 2:32:03
  mill It adheres to Adam Smith's great doctrine that the end to be aimed at
• 2:32:09
  is the best supply of an article at the lowest price under the free exchange
• 2:32:13
  of commodities. Thus he keeps ever in view the consumer. If we have
• 2:32:20
  reason to believe that the resources of a country are such as only need development
• 2:32:24
  to furnish a better and cheaper supply of an article than has ever been or
• 2:32:28
  could ever be obtained from other lands. We believe with Adam Smith, that
• 2:32:33
  it is sometimes advisable to pay dearer for that article for a time, if
• 2:32:37
  the end be the conquest of a greater market. Adam Smith was not a
• 2:32:43
  wild dogmatist upon the subject of free trade. Indeed, he has recorded his
• 2:32:48
  opinion that he might as well expect utopia upon Earth as the establishment of complete
• 2:32:52
  free trade, even in Britain. And where changes were to be made in
• 2:32:58
  fiscal laws, he is clear always upon this point that these must be slowly
• 2:33:03
  made and without serious injury to trade as it exists. Here are two examples
• 2:33:09
  to illustrate the difference between protection in England and in America. During the War
• 2:33:15
  for the Union, the American people were hurt and incensed by hostility shown not
• 2:33:20
  by the British people but by the British government. They determined to limit the
• 2:33:26
  use of British products as much as possible, and especially to be independent in
• 2:33:30
  the supply of iron and steel. The sinews of war. Since by England's
• 2:33:35
  warlike attitude and the building of the Alabama, it was not as certain as
• 2:33:41
  thank the fates, it is now that war between the two countries could not
• 2:33:45
  come. Thus does wrong gun, nations or people bring retribution, And every
• 2:33:50
  foe created is a danger ready to explode. The Alabama gave us thirty years
• 2:33:56
  continuous protection and enables us to invade Britain successfully with our steel. The government
• 2:34:03
  asked manufacturers how much duty would be required to induce them to enter the new
• 2:34:07
  business of making steel. Up to that time we had made none successfully.
• 2:34:13
  Thirty percent duty was asked and obtained all another result, not only is the
• 2:34:18
  American supplied with cheaper steel than any nation in the world. Britain not accepted,
• 2:34:24
  but it is certain that a large part of the wants of the world
• 2:34:28
  is to be supplied by this country. It is beyond all question the country
• 2:34:33
  which can best produce steel today. Now we think the temporary protection given,
• 2:34:39
  and which has been reduced to one fourth its first extent, is here fully
• 2:34:43
  vindicated. Take the other case, the best men of every nation must ever
• 2:34:48
  labor to advance the material progress of that nation by introducing new manufacturers. And
• 2:34:54
  it was thought that with proper protection, for a time, the Union would
• 2:34:58
  grow a full supply of sugar, or cheaper than it could be brought from
• 2:35:01
  abroad. This experiment, however, resulted in failure. We were mistaken.
• 2:35:07
  Therefore protection was abandoned and sugar made free. In the one case, protection
• 2:35:13
  was a success, in the other a failure. I think that what has
• 2:35:18
  taken place in the United States may be expected to take place in other nations,
• 2:35:22
  one after the other as they develop. Every nation will try to produce
• 2:35:26
  within its own borders an article when there is a probability of its being able
• 2:35:31
  to make it cheaper and better than it could be had from abroad, And
• 2:35:35
  we must wait patiently the result of these trials. Just as the United States
• 2:35:41
  abandoned the protection of sugar, so I believe other nations will come to the
• 2:35:45
  American idea of protection, that it is folly to protect forever, that the
• 2:35:50
  attempt of a nation to benefit itself by a permanent tax upon any article as
• 2:35:54
  a matter of protection is akin to the attempt of a man to raise himself
• 2:36:00
  by pulling up his suspenders. Thorough believer as I am, in the theory
• 2:36:05
  that sometimes it is wise for a young nation to induce capital and brains to
• 2:36:09
  engage in the experiment of manufacturing something new, which is always attended with special
• 2:36:15
  risks. I am, nonetheless a believer in Adam Smith's great doctrine that the
• 2:36:20
  end must be the free exchange of commodities by all the nations of the world,
• 2:36:24
  subject only to the necessity of revenue. But this matter of revenue is
• 2:36:30
  important. You remember, mister Chamberlain was at one time carried away with the
• 2:36:35
  idea of his Olvereign of the Empire, you were to have free trade within
• 2:36:41
  its bouse, as we have within the forty five states embraced in the Union.
• 2:36:46
  A brilliant idea at first sight. But after conferring with the colonials at
• 2:36:50
  the Jubilee, mister Chamberlain announced that he could not be induced to touch the
• 2:36:54
  subject with tongs. It is well for a statesman to change in his opinions
• 2:37:01
  when he finds them wrong. The British colonies today feel that they have to
• 2:37:05
  raise most of their revenue from taxing imports, and therefore as old Varigne did
• 2:37:11
  not seem practicable. And there are other objections. For instance, the United
• 2:37:18
  States adds to its duties upon sugar an amount equal to the bounty paid by
• 2:37:22
  any nation upon its growth. This is considered only fair to our own producers
• 2:37:28
  of sugar. It is probable, therefore, that for the present, probably
• 2:37:33
  for our own day, the needs of revenue and the impracticability of collecting it
• 2:37:37
  from internal taxes, will cause the British colonies to continue high duties upon imports,
• 2:37:45
  especially such as may be classed as luxuries, which means the finest things
• 2:37:50
  of all grades, in other words, things used not by the masses of
• 2:37:54
  the poor, but by the rich few. Such is certainly a popular policy,
• 2:38:00
  and it is well known how potent votes are to the politician. The
• 2:38:03
  same influences will, I believe, prevail in the United States. I know
• 2:38:09
  of no mode of raising revenue so easy, are one so satisfactory to the
• 2:38:13
  voters. It may be a surprise, but I believe it is true that
• 2:38:18
  under our present tariff policy, the masses of the American people practically escape taxation.
• 2:38:24
  They use almost, indeed, I might say, wholly homemade articles,
• 2:38:30
  home tobacco, wine, spirits and beer, homemade cotton and woolen, cloths
• 2:38:35
  and silks serviceable but not so fine as the foreign And all these are today
• 2:38:41
  surprisingly cheap. I had a proof of that. Recently, a family in
• 2:38:46
  comfortable circumstances, not rich, went to England each year with their five children
• 2:38:50
  to visit parents. Formerly, the cost of their passage was saved by the
• 2:38:54
  purchase of clothing and other articles. The lady told us she bought nothing on
• 2:39:00
  the other side. Now she could clothe her children cheaper. In New York.
• 2:39:03
  There is much testimony tending to bear this out. We find our servants
• 2:39:09
  who pass with us to and fro buying many articles in New York. But
• 2:39:13
  pray remember not fine luxurious articles in which people with ample means indulge upon these
• 2:39:20
  about which there need be no fear. Our rich class will ever forego.
• 2:39:24
  We can, by high duties, raise a large amount of needed revenue without
• 2:39:28
  greatly restricting the demand. The rich classes of the Republic hesitate little about costs
• 2:39:35
  in their luxuries, and fine silks, fine linen, fine lace, finest
• 2:39:39
  woolen fabrics, fine wines are Scotch, whiskey and British beer are among our
• 2:39:45
  luxuries. Pray note that this policy will no longer be pursued primarily for protection,
• 2:39:50
  but for revenue only. Even if protection as a policy were discarded,
• 2:39:56
  it is probable such articles would be the masses would demand this. It is
• 2:40:03
  a great mistake to think that it is the few and not the many,
• 2:40:05
  who favor taxing the imported articles used by the few rich. It is my
• 2:40:11
  opinion that there can be no abolition of such duties in our day. This
• 2:40:16
  is the most popular of all means of raising revenue. There is a new
• 2:40:20
  revelation in trade between nations which cannot be overlooked. It may now be taken
• 2:40:26
  as established that raw materials in favored parts of the world have now attained the
• 2:40:31
  power to attract to them capital and ability, so that they will, as
• 2:40:35
  a rule, be manufactured close at hand. The various peoples display unsuspected capacity
• 2:40:43
  for manufacturing. The poor men and women of India, the Peans of Mexico,
• 2:40:48
  the Negroes of America make satisfactory mill operatives. The Chinese and Japanese are
• 2:40:54
  becoming so. Also. Britain and the United States furnish a few heads of
• 2:41:00
  departments. Automatic machines need little skill in the mere workers. We must expect
• 2:41:05
  great changes to flow from this fact. It behooves Britain long the chief,
• 2:41:11
  and at one time indeed almost the sole manufacturing nation of importance, and the
• 2:41:18
  United States also to keep our standard of efficiency at the very highest in every
• 2:41:22
  department. There may come changes amounting to revolution from this cause. Sir Sutherland
• 2:41:30
  of the p and O recently spoke to his shareholders of the probability of ordering
• 2:41:35
  steamships in the Far East. I think, however, he will first obtain
• 2:41:41
  these from Britain and America. It is a far cry to the Far East.
• 2:41:46
  While we may not look for any great increase in the foreign trade of
• 2:41:50
  nations, nothing comparable, for instance, to the growth of their domestic trade,
• 2:41:56
  since the tendency is for nations to supply their chief wants. Still,
• 2:42:01
  I believe that the increase of the population and of wealth, creating new wants
• 2:42:05
  and extending the field of present wants, must be such as to keep the
• 2:42:09
  exchange of articles not only at its present volume, but with a small ratio
• 2:42:15
  of increase. How small, foreign trade is at best compared to internal trade.
• 2:42:22
  In the case of the United States, notwithstanding its exported manufacturers last year
• 2:42:28
  eighteen ninety nine to the extent of eighty millions pounds sterling four hundred million dollars,
• 2:42:35
  this was not quite a paltry five percent of the total value of its
• 2:42:39
  manufactures above eighteen hundred millions, there is little to fear as to the wants
• 2:42:46
  of the world. Britain's only concern is to remain and become the country which
• 2:42:50
  can best supply them. So much for Anglo American trade relations. In these
• 2:42:56
  days of bitter partisanship and sectarianism, it seems on most essential that there should
• 2:43:01
  arise a body of intelligent men in each center, who know neither rank,
• 2:43:05
  wealth, party, nor creed in their deliberations. As members of such body,
• 2:43:11
  who subordinate all other issues to those which concern the peace and prosperity of
• 2:43:16
  their country, which extends its view to all peoples of all lands, rightly
• 2:43:22
  regarding men everywhere as a brotherhood bound together and therefore dependent in greater or less
• 2:43:28
  degree in a common prosperity, and which sees in the peace and prosperity of
• 2:43:35
  other nations results not antagonistic, but tributary to their own. Discarding these narrow
• 2:43:41
  conceptions of the ordinary politician who sees in war against other lands benefits to his
• 2:43:46
  own, and I fear sees even more clearly popularity for himself, it is
• 2:43:54
  essentially true concerning commercial nations, especially such as Great Britten long has been and
• 2:44:01
  must remain, and such as our newer Republic is becoming, which is fast
• 2:44:05
  sharing with the mother country. The business of the world that there is no
• 2:44:09
  measure of prosperity in any part of the world in which we do not share.
• 2:44:15
  The whole world pays tribute to the nations which supply in any considerable degree
• 2:44:20
  it's wants. Hence, the greatest interest of Britain and of America is peace.
• 2:44:26
  Hence also a wise policy to sustain peace a grave error of policy to
• 2:44:31
  disturb it. Since we cannot destroy the prosperity of any nation without impairing our
• 2:44:37
  own, any seeming temporary gain from the injury of others is really lost in
• 2:44:43
  the end. This is perhaps what may be called a view for the future,
• 2:44:48
  but steps toward its acceptance are being taken even in our own day.
• 2:44:52
  The first step lies in exploding the idea that trade follows the flag. The
• 2:44:58
  fact is that trade it sends the best to bargain. Trade is no respector
• 2:45:03
  of flags. Loyal Canada buys her Union Jackson, New York. She trades
• 2:45:07
  with the Republic to three times the extent she trades with England, and to
• 2:45:13
  a greater extent than with all other nations combined in vain, does any nation
• 2:45:18
  seek political or nominal control over foreign territory with a view to permanent commercial advantage
• 2:45:24
  under free trade or equal laws for all she secures or holds only the market
• 2:45:28
  which she can best supply to spend millions of money and thousands of lives for
• 2:45:35
  the political control of new territory may be considered necessary, sometimes for political reasons,
• 2:45:41
  but never for the requirements of trade. We shall have gained one step
• 2:45:46
  forward, then, when it is freely recognized that political acquisition is not essential
• 2:45:52
  for acquiring the trade of a new territory. This truth even America just now
• 2:45:58
  needs to relearn she is trying to acquire political control of the Philippines. British
• 2:46:03
  and American interests are safeguarded when equal laws for all nations are secured. Thus
• 2:46:11
  the interests of both countries in foreign trade have become the same and should lead
• 2:46:16
  to a common policy, the open door and peace, allowing all nations all
• 2:46:22
  peoples to follow their own laws of development in perfect freedom. We have had
• 2:46:26
  many proofs recently of the familiar adage that blood is thicker than water, very
• 2:46:31
  much thicker, as I believe, between the members of our own race.
• 2:46:35
  In the evident drawing together of the English speaking race, and all that this
• 2:46:41
  implies, we see the dawn of a new sentiment rising, the patriotism of
• 2:46:46
  race, a sentiment of pride and devotion in the race now given by one
• 2:46:50
  half of the race to the Union jack and by the other half of the
• 2:46:54
  race to the Stars and stripes, the other of the two flags, which
• 2:46:58
  unitedly holds sway over all English speaking men. For no community exists speaking our
• 2:47:03
  tongue which does not owe allegiance to one or the other of these symbols.
• 2:47:09
  The silver lining to the clouds of war in which alas the two branches of
• 2:47:13
  our race are at present engaged, is that it has so turned out that
• 2:47:18
  these now stand closer to each other than at any time since they separated.
• 2:47:22
  We may safely, I believe, quite safely, assume that no question can
• 2:47:28
  ever arise between the two nations but one people which will not be amicably settled,
• 2:47:33
  That no government can ever exist in either land strong or wicked enough to
• 2:47:37
  resist the demand of the best of the people of both, That the settlement
• 2:47:41
  of differences shall not be by the brutal arbitrament of the sword. The day
• 2:47:48
  has passed when English speaking men will ever be called upon to kill each other
• 2:47:52
  in battle. The sun is never again to shine upon such a spectacle.
• 2:47:58
  We have passed that stage and turned down the pages of that horrid story forever.
• 2:48:03
  What then, of the future, charged with this potent new sentiment of
• 2:48:07
  race, patriotism which seems drawing upon us. Our own race especially is prone
• 2:48:13
  to the disease known as land hunger. Great Britain has spread its red spots
• 2:48:18
  of sovereignty all over the world. We have stretched from the shores of the
• 2:48:24
  Atlantic three thousand miles to the Pacific, from the Saint Lawrence to the Gulf
• 2:48:28
  of Mexico. And not content, I fear, following Britain's perilous example,
• 2:48:33
  we are trying to annex foreign territory. The truth is that we have taken
• 2:48:39
  the scripture much to heart, which tells us that the meek shall inherit the
• 2:48:43
  earth, and which our humorist Mark Twain said, explained it all. Our
• 2:48:48
  race is so meek at all events. We seem to have lost no time
• 2:48:52
  in discovery that the true and only reliable proof of the true inheritors was whether
• 2:48:56
  they spoke English. Expanding epic must soon pass. It is the law of
• 2:49:03
  development that each country shall eventually rule itself. Canada does so, Australia is
• 2:49:09
  about to assume sovereign sway. Both have their own fiscal tariffs against even English
• 2:49:16
  products. The seventeen republics of South America, only recently governed by Spain,
• 2:49:22
  are now all independent and self governing. It is only during the periods of
• 2:49:26
  development that distant powers can govern and hold sway over a people. But during
• 2:49:31
  this stage such may be the benign effects of the government that even after practical
• 2:49:37
  control has been taken over by the new community, the ties between mother and
• 2:49:41
  child may not only remain unbroken, but stronger than ever before. Of this.
• 2:49:46
  Canada and Australia give ample proof by the wise, kind, peaceful and
• 2:49:52
  conciliatory policy pursued a race patriotism has been created within the empire, which it
• 2:50:00
  depends upon moral forces, the most enduring of all, not upon law,
• 2:50:03
  but upon love. The success of Britain's colonial policy in recent times is one
• 2:50:11
  of the grandest triumphs ever achieved by a nation, perhaps the grandest of all.
• 2:50:16
  It has been possible only by peaceful not by warlike means, a victory
• 2:50:20
  much more renowned than any conquest by force, and more enduring, as the
• 2:50:26
  future is to show. The flag of Great Britain floats over Canada and Australia
• 2:50:33
  by the desire of their people. They are parts of the solid united whole.
• 2:50:37
  And the question now is whether this federation of the race is to stop
• 2:50:41
  within the empire or finally develop into a federal council for the entire race,
• 2:50:48
  governing international relations which involve the peace of the world, and leaving home rule
• 2:50:52
  to each country in all other affairs. Even as to the form of government
• 2:50:58
  itself, a crown uncrowned republic, I am on record as having predicted years
• 2:51:03
  ago that our English speaking race would one day be again united. It was
• 2:51:09
  not so very long since here is a fit field for our Chamber of Commerce
• 2:51:15
  to cultivate, for it lies in the direction of peace and goodwill. For
• 2:51:20
  the present, at least they can exert their influence to strengthen the good feeling.
• 2:51:24
  The drawing together of the two branches. I failed to mention one of
• 2:51:28
  the best, perhaps the best of all, the results of our temporary policy
• 2:51:33
  of protection. It has brought to us so many British manufacturers to establish industries
• 2:51:39
  and thus develop our resources. The Clerks and the Coats of Paisley, the
• 2:51:45
  Dolans of Yorkshire, the Sandersons of Sheffield, and last, but certainly not
• 2:51:50
  least a great prize from Halifax. Who could expect us not to extol our
• 2:51:56
  idea of protection. If we capture the firths, we must not line them
• 2:52:01
  up for a king's ransom. We need as many of the Halifax quality as
• 2:52:05
  can be had. Whenever our tariffs suit, all may take a sweeping revenge.
• 2:52:11
  Come over and enjoy a perfect free trade in the forty five nations of
• 2:52:15
  the Union, and be happy. The Republic calls them to come, one,
• 2:52:20
  come all. It taxes highest the gems and precious things imported, but
• 2:52:24
  these jewels, beyond price are admitted duty free. It is not only for
• 2:52:31
  their value industrially that they should be valued, but as links binding the old
• 2:52:35
  and the new lands, the mother and the child together. Some of the
• 2:52:39
  younger members of the firm settle among us. Their children marry Americans, or
• 2:52:45
  when they visit the old home, contract alliances there, and the true Anglo
• 2:52:50
  American is the result. Who is not unlikely to prove the coming man possessed
• 2:52:54
  of the virtues and strength of both races, and the vices or weaknesses of
• 2:53:00
  neither, and who, at all events we may rest assured, will be
• 2:53:03
  the foremost disciple of race, patriotism, and labor for the coming of the
• 2:53:09
  day of common citizenship within the wide and ever expanding boundaries of our race.
• 2:53:16
  End of Section six, Section seven, Business, Part one. Business is
• 2:53:24
  a large word, and in its primary meaning, covers the whole range of
• 2:53:28
  men's efforts. It is the business of the preacher to preach, of the
• 2:53:33
  physician to practice, of the poet to write, the business of the university
• 2:53:39
  professor to teach, and the business of the college student, one might sometimes
• 2:53:43
  think, from the amount of attention bestowed upon it to play football. I
• 2:53:50
  am not to speak of business in this wide sense, but specifically as defined
• 2:53:54
  in a century dictionary quote mercantile and manufacturing pursuits collectively employment requiring knowledge of accounts
• 2:54:05
  and financial methods, the occupation of conducting trade or monetary transactions of any kind.
• 2:54:11
  Close quote. The illustration which follows is significant and clearly defines this view
• 2:54:18
  of business. It reads it seldom happens that men of a studious turn acquire
• 2:54:26
  any degree of reputation for their knowledge of business. But we must go one
• 2:54:31
  step further more strictly to define business, as I am to consider it.
• 2:54:37
  Is a railway president receiving a salary, or the president of a bank,
• 2:54:43
  or a salaried officer of any kind in business. Strictly speaking, he is
• 2:54:48
  not. For a man to be in business must be at least part owner
• 2:54:54
  of the enterprise which he manages and to which he gives his attention, and
• 2:54:58
  chiefly depend for his revenues not upon salary, but upon its profits. This
• 2:55:05
  view rules out the entire salaried class. None of these men is now a
• 2:55:11
  man in business, but many of them have been, and most successful therein.
• 2:55:18
  The businessman, pure and simple, plunges into and tosses upon the waves
• 2:55:24
  of human affairs. Without a life preserver in the shape of salary, he
• 2:55:28
  risks all choice of a career. There is no great fortune to come from
• 2:55:37
  salary, however high, and the businessman pursues fortune if he be wise.
• 2:55:43
  He puts all his eggs in one basket and then watches that basket. If
• 2:55:50
  he is a merchant in coffee, he attends to coffee. If a merchant
• 2:55:54
  in sugar, he attends to sugar and lets coffee alone, and only mixes
• 2:56:00
  them when he drinks his coffee with sugar in it. If he mine coal
• 2:56:05
  and sell it, he attends to the black diamonds. If he own and
• 2:56:11
  sail ships, he attends to shipping, and he ceases to ensure his own
• 2:56:15
  ships, just as soon as he has surplus capital and can stand the loss
• 2:56:20
  of one without imperiling solvency. If he manufactures steel, he sticks to steel
• 2:56:26
  and severely lets copper alone. If he mine ironstone, he sticks to that
• 2:56:33
  and avoids every other kind of mining, silver and gold mining especially. This
• 2:56:39
  is because men can thoroughly master only one business, and only an able man
• 2:56:46
  can do this. I have never yet met a man who fully understood two
• 2:56:50
  different kinds of business. You cannot find him any sooner than you can find
• 2:56:56
  a man who thinks in two languages equally, and does not invariably think only
• 2:57:01
  in one subdivision. Specialization is the order of the day. Every man to
• 2:57:11
  his trade or his specialty. I have before me many representatives of all classes
• 2:57:18
  of students. If I can look into your hearts, I should find many
• 2:57:24
  differing ambitions, some aiming at distinction in each of the professions. Some would
• 2:57:30
  be lawyers, some ministers, some doctors, some architects, some electricians,
• 2:57:35
  some engineers, some teachers, and each sets before him as models honored names
• 2:57:43
  that have reached the highest rank in those professions. The imbrial lawyers before me
• 2:57:48
  would rival Marshal and Story of the past, or Carter and Choate of the
• 2:57:54
  present. The preacher would be a Brooks or a van Dyck, the physician
• 2:58:00
  a Janeway or Garminye. The editor would be a Dana, the architect a
• 2:58:05
  Richardson end. Having reached the top of his darling profession, his ambition then
• 2:58:11
  would be satisfied, at least, so he thinks, at present, with
• 2:58:16
  these classes, I have nothing whatever to do directly today, because all these
• 2:58:22
  are professional enthusiasts. Nevertheless, the quality is essential for success in the professions,
• 2:58:30
  being in the main the same which ensures success in business. Much that
• 2:58:33
  I have to say applies equally to you all. There remains among you those
• 2:58:39
  who would sail the uncertainties of business and devote themselves to making money a great
• 2:58:45
  fortune, so that you shall be millionaires. I am sure that while this
• 2:58:50
  may be chiefly in your thoughts. It is not all you seek in a
• 2:58:54
  business career. You feel that in it there is scope for exercise of great
• 2:58:58
  apellities of enterprise, energy, judgment, and all the best traits of human
• 2:59:05
  nature, and also that men in business perform useful service to society. I
• 2:59:11
  am to try to shed a little light upon the path to success, to
• 2:59:16
  point out some of the rocks and shoals in that treacherous sea, and give
• 2:59:22
  a few hints as to the mode of sailing your ship or rowing your shell,
• 2:59:26
  whether, for instance, the quick or the slow stroke is surer to
• 2:59:31
  win the long race. The start in line, Let us begin, then
• 2:59:37
  at the beginning, is any would be business men before me, content and
• 2:59:43
  forecasting his future, to figure himself as laboring all his life for a fixed
• 2:59:48
  salary? Not one? I am sure In this you have the dividing line
• 2:59:56
  between business and non business. The one is a master and depends upon profits,
• 3:00:01
  the other a servant and depends upon salary. Of course, you have
• 3:00:07
  all to begin as servants with salary, but you have not all to end
• 3:00:11
  there. You have some difficulty in obtaining a start, great difficulty as a
• 3:00:18
  rule. But here comes in the exceptional student there is not much difficulty for
• 3:00:24
  him. He has attracted the attention of his teachers, who know many men
• 3:00:28
  of affairs, has taken prizes, He is ahead of his class, has
• 3:00:33
  shown unusual ability founded upon characteristics which are sure to tell in the race.
• 3:00:41
  He has proved himself self respecting, has irreproachable habits, good sense, method,
• 3:00:48
  untiring industry, and his spare hours are spent in pursuing knowledge that being
• 3:00:54
  the laborer in which he most delights one vital point. More, his finances
• 3:01:03
  are always sound, he rigorously lives within his means, and last, but
• 3:01:09
  not least, he has shown that his heart is in his work. Besides
• 3:01:13
  all this, he has usually one strong guarantee of future industry and ambitious usefulness.
• 3:01:20
  He is not burdened with wealth. It is necessary that he make his
• 3:01:26
  own way in the world. He is not yet a millionaire, but is
• 3:01:31
  only going to be one. He has no rich father, orse still more
• 3:01:35
  dangerous rich mother, who can and will support him in idleness should he prove
• 3:01:41
  a failure. He has no life preserver, and therefore must sink or swim
• 3:01:48
  Before that young man leaves college. He is a marked man. More than
• 3:01:52
  one avenue is open for him. The door opens before he is ready to
• 3:01:56
  knock. He is waited for by this sick, gacious employer, not the
• 3:02:01
  written certificate of his professor, for certificates have generally to be read and are
• 3:02:07
  read within the lines. But a word or two spoken to the businessman,
• 3:02:13
  who is always on the lookout for the exceptional young graduate, has secured the
• 3:02:18
  young man all that a young man needs a start. The most valuable acquisition
• 3:02:24
  to his business which an employer can obtain is an exceptional young man. There
• 3:02:31
  is no bargain so fruitful for him as this. It is, of course
• 3:02:37
  much more difficult for only the average student. He has generally to search for
• 3:02:41
  employment, but finally he also gets a start openings to success. It is
• 3:02:52
  the career of the exceptional student which illustrates the pathway to success. We need
• 3:02:58
  not render ourselves anxious about him. He is all right. He has been
• 3:03:03
  thrown into the sea, but he does not need any life preserver. He
• 3:03:07
  does not need to be coddled. He will swim. He was not born
• 3:03:11
  to be drowned, and you see him breast the waves year after year until
• 3:03:16
  he is at the head of a great business. His start, of course,
• 3:03:20
  is not at the head. He is at the foot, fortunately so,
• 3:03:26
  for that is the reason his progress has always been upward. If he
• 3:03:31
  had started high, he would not have had the chance to make a continual
• 3:03:35
  ascent. It does not matter how he starts, for the qualities in him
• 3:03:41
  are such as to produce certain effects in any field he enters. He goes
• 3:03:46
  forward upon a very small salary, performing certain small uses, indeed much smaller
• 3:03:52
  than he thinks himself capable of performing. But these he performs thoroughly. Some
• 3:04:00
  day, in some way, something happens that brings him to the notice of
• 3:04:05
  his immediate superior. He objects to some plan proposed and thinks it can be
• 3:04:11
  better in some way. Or he volunteers to assist in a department other than
• 3:04:15
  his own, or he stays one day later at his work than usual,
• 3:04:20
  or goes some morning sooner because there was some part of the business that had
• 3:04:26
  not been entirely settled the night before, or there was something to start next
• 3:04:31
  morning that he was afraid might not be ready or just right, and he
• 3:04:37
  just goes down early to be sure. His employer has been somewhat anxious upon
• 3:04:43
  the same point, and he too goes down early that morning and finds his
• 3:04:48
  salaried young man, showing that he does not work for salary alone. It
• 3:04:54
  is not solely an affair of hire and salary with him. He is not
• 3:04:58
  that kind of a young man. He is working for the success of the
• 3:05:01
  business. Or it may be that some day his employer proposes a certain mode
• 3:05:07
  of action in regard to a customer's account. Perhaps a young man has started
• 3:05:13
  in the office and has been asked to look after the credits a most important
• 3:05:16
  part. His employers wish to close this credit, which perhaps would embarrass the
• 3:05:22
  customer. This young man, known to the customer, has had to visit
• 3:05:28
  his place occasionally in the course of business, collecting his accounts or trying to
• 3:05:33
  collect them, And the young man modestly says he is a splendid fellow,
• 3:05:39
  bound to succeed, does his business upon fair in wise methods, and only
• 3:05:45
  needs a little temporary indulgence to come out all right. The employer has faith
• 3:05:52
  in the young man's judgment and ability, thinks it a rather strong suggestion for
• 3:05:56
  a clerk to make, but says to him, look out for this matter
• 3:06:01
  and see that we do not lose. But of course we do not wish
• 3:06:05
  to injure one of our customers. If we can help him without risk,
• 3:06:09
  we wish to do it. The young man takes the matter in hand,
• 3:06:13
  and results prove he was quite right. The customer becomes one of the very
• 3:06:18
  best of all their customers, and one that it would require a great deal
• 3:06:24
  to take away from the firm. Or perhaps the bright young men may have
• 3:06:28
  noted the insurance policies upon the works and their days of expiration. He finds
• 3:06:33
  the fact has been overlooked that some of the insurances have lapsed and are invalid.
• 3:06:41
  It is none of his business. He is not paid to look after
• 3:06:43
  the insurance of the firm in one sense, the narrow sense that is the
• 3:06:48
  business of some other man. But he ventures to call attention to the fact,
• 3:06:52
  and suggests that the premiums should be paid. But now mark the advantage
• 3:06:58
  of general reading an education. This young man has read the newspapers and reviews,
• 3:07:03
  and learns of several sharp business practices by which the insurer is sometimes defrauded
• 3:07:11
  of his insurance. And especially has he read of new methods and cheap plans
• 3:07:16
  of insurance. He suggests that it would be well to change this and that
• 3:07:22
  policy to another, and very solid old company. You see, gentlemen,
• 3:07:26
  the business man of this day has to read, yes, and study,
• 3:07:31
  and go to the roots of many things, that he may avoid the pitfalls
• 3:07:35
  that surround business upon every side. He would not be an employer worth having
• 3:07:41
  that did not note what kind of a young man that was. Although now
• 3:07:46
  in the humble guise of a clerk the second step upward. Suppose he is
• 3:07:52
  any electrician or engineer, and comes from Sibley, which is a good place
• 3:07:58
  to come from in the great manufacturing concern, so fortunate as to secure his
• 3:08:03
  services. He has to do with some humble branch of the work. But
• 3:08:07
  he discovers that there are a few boilers which are not quite safe, and
• 3:08:11
  that the engines or motors are built upon false mechanical principles and are very wasteful
• 3:08:16
  of fuel, and that one of the engines will soon give trouble. There
• 3:08:22
  is a foundation under it, upon which he finds that the contractor has not
• 3:08:26
  done honest work. Or dropping into the works one night just to see that
• 3:08:31
  all is going well, perhaps he discovers that a man trusted by the firm
• 3:08:35
  has fallen into bad habits and is not fit for duty. Or perhaps is
• 3:08:41
  not on duty, and that an accident might thus happen. He feels it
• 3:08:46
  to be his duty to take action here and safeguard the business from the danger
• 3:08:50
  of an accident. He draws the plans which show some defects in the machinery,
• 3:08:56
  lays them before his employers, with suggestions how to cure these, made
• 3:09:01
  upon the latest scientific principles that he has been taught in Siby. The employer,
• 3:09:07
  of course, is very averse to spend money and angry to learn that
• 3:09:11
  his machinery is not what it should be. But although his anger explodes and
• 3:09:16
  envelops the young man for a moment, he is not shooting at him.
• 3:09:20
  When the debris clears, he sets down and learns from the young man what
• 3:09:24
  a few thousand dollars now might save. And the result is that he tells
• 3:09:31
  the Siby boy he wishes him to take up the subject and attend to it,
• 3:09:35
  and be sure to make all right. Already that young man's fortune is
• 3:09:41
  almost as good as made. He could not hide his light under a bushel
• 3:09:46
  if he tried. And the coming business man is not excessively liable to that
• 3:09:50
  sin, and does not want to. He is business all over. There
• 3:09:56
  are no affectation or false modesty about him. He knows his business, and
• 3:10:01
  he feels fully conscious and proud of the fact that he knows it. And
• 3:10:05
  that is one of the many advantages sibly gives him. And he is determined
• 3:10:09
  that his employers should not, at least upon that point no less than he
• 3:10:15
  does. You must never fail to enlighten your employer. You cannot keep such
• 3:10:20
  a young man as that back. And this, let me tell you,
• 3:10:26
  no employer wishes to keep him back. There is only one person as happy
• 3:10:31
  at finding this young man as the young man is in finding himself, and
• 3:10:35
  that is his employer. He is worth a million more or less, but
• 3:10:41
  of course it would not be good for him to get it while so young.
• 3:10:46
  He has now made two steps upward. First he has got a start,
• 3:10:52
  and secondly he has satisfied his employer that he renders exceptional service, a
• 3:10:56
  decisive step, as the French say, He has arrived, and he is
• 3:11:01
  there to stay. His foot is upon the ladder. How high he climbs
• 3:11:07
  is his own affair. He is among the few within the very threshold of
• 3:11:11
  the whole business. There is a good deal to be done after this However,
• 3:11:16
  the young man has zeal and ability, and he has shown that he
• 3:11:20
  has also that indispensable quality judgment. And he has shown another indispensable quality,
• 3:11:28
  that his heart is in the business, that no other cause takes him from
• 3:11:33
  it, that he pushes aside the very seductive temptations which surround young men,
• 3:11:39
  and concentrates his attention, his time, his efforts upon the performance of his
• 3:11:43
  duties to his employer. All other studies, occupations, and all amusements are
• 3:11:50
  subordinate to the business which holds paramount's sway. His salary, of course,
• 3:11:56
  increases if he has happened to engage with an employer who does not fully appreciate
• 3:12:03
  such services as he has rendered and is ready to render. Other employers have
• 3:12:07
  not failed to note that here is that rare article, the exceptional young man
• 3:12:13
  in the service of their rival. And it is possible that our young hero
• 3:12:18
  may have to change employers. It does not often happen, but it does
• 3:12:22
  sometimes that a young man has to do so. As a rule, the
• 3:12:28
  employer is only too thankful that such a young man has come to him,
• 3:12:33
  and he makes it his interest to remain. Confidence is a matter of slow
• 3:12:37
  growth, however, and it is a far cry from a high salary,
• 3:12:43
  as a hiring into equality as a partner. The crucial question. Let us
• 3:12:52
  trace him a little further. This young man's services to the firm have been
• 3:12:56
  such as to render it necessary some day that he should visit his employer at
• 3:13:01
  his house. It is not long before many occasions arise which call the young
• 3:13:07
  man to the house, where he is now favored upon his merits by the
• 3:13:11
  household, and to whom his nature soon becomes known. And the master soon
• 3:13:16
  begins to ask himself whether he might not some day make him a partner.
• 3:13:22
  And then comes the question of questions, is he honest and true? Let
• 3:13:30
  me pause here one moment, gentlemen, This is the crucial question, the
• 3:13:35
  keystone of the arch. For no amount of ability is of the slightest avail
• 3:13:41
  without honor. When Burns pictured the genius of Scotland in the vision, these
• 3:13:48
  marvelous words came to him. Her eye even turned on empty space, beamed
• 3:13:54
  keen with honor. No concealment, no prevarication, no speculation trying to win
• 3:14:01
  something for which no service is given, nothing done which, if published,
• 3:14:05
  would involve your shame. The business man seeks first in his partner the soul
• 3:14:11
  of honor. One who would swerve from the narrow path even to serve him,
• 3:14:16
  would only forfeit his confidence. Is he intelligent? Is he capable of
• 3:14:22
  forming a correct judgment based upon knowledge upon distant and far reaching issues? Young
• 3:14:28
  men, yes, and old men also sometimes marry in haste, which is
• 3:14:33
  very foolish in both cases. But there is this to be said for the
• 3:14:39
  partnership. It has rarely entered upon in a hurry. It is not one
• 3:14:43
  or two qualities which insure it, but in all round character desirable in many
• 3:14:50
  respects, highly objectionable in none, and with special ability in one or two.
• 3:14:56
  We often hear in our day that it is impossible for you young men
• 3:15:00
  to become owners, because business is conducted upon so great a scale that the
• 3:15:05
  capital necessary reaches millions, and therefore the young men is doomed to a salaried
• 3:15:11
  life. Now there is something in that view, only so far as the
• 3:15:15
  great corporations are concerned, because an interest in these is only attainable by capital.
• 3:15:22
  You can buy so many shares for so many dollars. And as the
• 3:15:26
  class of young men I address are not willing to remain forever salaried men,
• 3:15:31
  but are determined sooner or later to become business men upon their own account as
• 3:15:37
  masters. I do not believe that employment in a great corporation is as favorable
• 3:15:43
  for them as with private owners, because while a young man can look forward
• 3:15:50
  to a large salary in their service, that is all to which he can
• 3:15:54
  aspire. Even the presidents of these corporations, being only salaried men, are
• 3:16:00
  not to be classed as strictly business men at all. How then can a
• 3:16:05
  young man under them be anything but a salaried man? His life long where
• 3:16:13
  to look for opportunities? Many a business which has long been successful as a
• 3:16:18
  partnership is put into a joint stock concern and the shares are offered in the
• 3:16:24
  market, and professional men guilelessly, innocent of business, and sometimes women of
• 3:16:31
  a speculative term. And I am sorry to say many times clergymen and artists
• 3:16:37
  are deluded into purchasing. The public buys the business, but they should have
• 3:16:43
  bought the man or the men who made the business. You remember the Travers
• 3:16:50
  story. A friend called Travers and to see a dog that he wished to
• 3:16:54
  buy to clear his conservatory of rats. And when the dog fancier undertook to
• 3:17:00
  show him how this dog demolished these pests. One great, big old rat
• 3:17:05
  chase the dog. Trevor's friend said to him, Oh, what would you
• 3:17:11
  do? Trevors replied, A by the rat. The public often buys the
• 3:17:18
  wrong thing. It would be an excellent study for you to read frequently the
• 3:17:22
  stocklists of miscellaneous companies. You will find some of the newspapers. Give the
• 3:17:28
  list, then note the power value of the shares and the price at which
• 3:17:33
  you may purchase them. It may be said that this par value is upon
• 3:17:37
  fictitious capital. That is so only in some instances. In manufacturing companies especially,
• 3:17:45
  I think they reverse is the rule the capital does not fully represent the
• 3:17:50
  cost of the properties. But there are many corporations which are not corporations,
• 3:17:56
  many instances of partnerships in which the corporate form has been a opted, and
• 3:18:01
  yet the business continues substantially as a partnership. And comparing such institutions with the
• 3:18:07
  great corporations whose ownership is here, there, and everywhere, we find a
• 3:18:13
  most notable difference. Take, for instance, the great steamship lines of the
• 3:18:18
  world. Most of these, as those of you who read well know,
• 3:18:22
  fail to make returns to their shareholders. The shares of some of the greatest
• 3:18:28
  companies have been selling at one half and sometimes one third their costs. These
• 3:18:35
  are corporations, pure and simple. But if we look at other lines engaged
• 3:18:39
  upon the same oceans, which are managed by their owners, and in which
• 3:18:43
  generally one great business man is deeply interested and at the head, we find
• 3:18:50
  large dividends each year and amounts placed into the reserve fund. It is the
• 3:18:56
  difference between individualism and communeanism applied to business, between the owners managing their own
• 3:19:03
  business as partners and a joint stock concern of a thousand shifting owners ignorant of
• 3:19:09
  the business. The same contrast can be drawn in every branch of business,
• 3:19:16
  in merchandising, in manufacturing, in finance, and transportation by land as well
• 3:19:22
  as sea. It is so with banks. Many banks are really the property
• 3:19:26
  of a few businessmen. These soon become the leading banks, and their shares
• 3:19:31
  are invariably quoted at the highest premium, especially if the president of the bank
• 3:19:37
  be the largest owner, as he is in many of the most remarkable cases
• 3:19:41
  of success. In such partnership corporations, there is every opportunity for the coming
• 3:19:48
  businessman to obtain ownership, which exists in pure partnerships. For the owners of
• 3:19:52
  both manage affairs and are on the constant watch for ability. Do not be
• 3:20:00
  fastidious. Take what the gods offer, begin, if necessary, with a
• 3:20:05
  corporation, always keeping your eye open for a chance to become interested in a
• 3:20:09
  business of your own. Remember, every business can be made successful because it
• 3:20:16
  supplies some essential want of the community. It performs a needed office, whether
• 3:20:20
  it be in manufacturing, which produces an article, or in gathering and distributing
• 3:20:26
  it by the merchant or the banker, whose business is to take care of
• 3:20:31
  and invest capital. There is no line of business in which success is not
• 3:20:35
  attainable. A secret of success. It is a simple matter of honest,
• 3:20:45
  ability, and concentration. There is no question about there being room at the
• 3:20:50
  top for exceptional men in any profession. These have not to seek patronage.
• 3:20:56
  The question is whether how can their services be secured? And, as with
• 3:21:01
  every profession, so in every line of business, there is plenty of room
• 3:21:07
  at the top. Your problem is how to get there. The answer is
• 3:21:11
  simple. Conduct your business with just a little more ability than the average man
• 3:21:16
  in your line. If you are only above the average, your success is
• 3:21:22
  secured, and the degree of success is in racial to the greater degree of
• 3:21:26
  ability and attention which you give above the average. There are always a few
• 3:21:33
  in business who stand near the top, but there are always an infinitely greater
• 3:21:37
  number at and near the bottom. And should you fail to ascend, the
• 3:21:43
  fault is not in your stars, but in your selves. Those who fail
• 3:21:48
  may say that this or that man had great advantages, the faiths were propitious,
• 3:21:54
  the conditions favorable. Now there is very little in this. One man
• 3:22:01
  lands in the middle of a stream which he tries to jump and has swept
• 3:22:03
  away, and another tries the same feet and lands on the other side.
• 3:22:09
  Examine these two men, you will find that the one who failed lacked judgment.
• 3:22:16
  He had not calculated the means to the end, was a foolish fellow,
• 3:22:20
  had not trained himself, could not jump. He took the chances.
• 3:22:26
  He was like the young lady who was asked if she could play the violin,
• 3:22:31
  and she said she did not know, she had never tried. Now,
• 3:22:35
  the other men who jumped the stream had carefully trained himself. He knew
• 3:22:41
  about how far he could jump, and there was one thing dead sure with
• 3:22:45
  him. He knew he could at any rate jump far enough to land at
• 3:22:50
  a point from which he could wade ashore and try again. He had shown
• 3:22:54
  judgment. Prestige is a great matter, my friends. A young man who
• 3:23:01
  has the record of doing what he sets out to do will find year after
• 3:23:05
  year his field of operations extended, and the tasks committed to him greater and
• 3:23:09
  greater. On the other hand, the man who has to admit failure and
• 3:23:15
  comes to friends trying to get assistants in order to make a second start is
• 3:23:20
  in a very bad position. Indeed, college graduates in business, the graduates
• 3:23:28
  of our colleges and universities in former years graduated while still in their teens.
• 3:23:35
  We have changed this, and graduates are older as a rule when they enter
• 3:23:39
  upon life's struggle. But they are taught much more. Unless the young university
• 3:23:45
  man employs his time to the very best advantage in acquiring knowledge upon the pursuit
• 3:23:50
  which he is to make the chief business of his life, he will enter
• 3:23:54
  business at a disadvantage with the younger men who enter in their teens. Although
• 3:23:58
  likely in university education. This goes without saying. Now, the question is
• 3:24:05
  will the graduate who has dwelt in the region of theory overtake the man who
• 3:24:11
  has been for a year or two in advance of him, engaged in the
• 3:24:15
  hard, instern educative field of practice. That it is possible for the graduate
• 3:24:20
  to do so also goes without saying, And that he should, in after
• 3:24:26
  life possess views broader than the ordinary business man deprived of university education is also
• 3:24:31
  certain. And of course the race in life is to those whose record is
• 3:24:37
  best at the end. The beginning is forgotten and is of no moment.
• 3:24:43
  But if the graduate is ever to overtake the first starter in the race,
• 3:24:48
  it must be by possessing stronger staying powers. His superior knowledge, leading to
• 3:24:52
  a sounder judgment, must be depended upon to win the race at the finish.
• 3:24:58
  If you disa advantages, he mus strenuously guard against the lack of severe
• 3:25:03
  self discipline, of strenuous concentration and intense ambition, which usually characterize the men
• 3:25:11
  who starts before the habits of manhood are formed. The habits of the young
• 3:25:16
  man at college after he is a man, and the habits of the youngster
• 3:25:20
  in the business arena are likely to differ. There is another great disadvantage which
• 3:25:26
  the older man has to overcome. In most successful business establishments, there will
• 3:25:33
  be found in operation. There is a strict civil service system and promotion without
• 3:25:37
  favor. It is therefore most difficult to find admission to the service in any
• 3:25:43
  but the lowest grades. One has to begin at the foot, and this
• 3:25:48
  is better for all parties concerned, especially the young graduate. The exceptional graduate
• 3:25:56
  should excel the exceptional non graduate more education and education will always tell the other
• 3:26:03
  qualities being equal. Take two men of equal natural ability, energy, and
• 3:26:09
  the same ambition and characteristics, and the man who has received the best,
• 3:26:13
  widest, most suitable education has the advantage over the other, undoubtedly. Hindo
• 3:26:22
  of the Empire of Business Section seven, Section eight Business, Part two.
• 3:26:28
  Businessmen and speculators. All pure coins have their counterfeits. The counterfeit of business
• 3:26:37
  is speculation. A man in business always gives value in return for his revenue,
• 3:26:41
  and thus performs a useful function. His services are necessary and benefit the
• 3:26:48
  community. Besides, he labors steadily in developing the resources of the country and
• 3:26:54
  thus contributes to the advancement of the race. This is genuine coin. Speculation,
• 3:27:01
  on the contrary, is a parasite fastened upon the labor of business men.
• 3:27:05
  It creates nothing and supplies no want. When the speculator wins, he
• 3:27:11
  takes money without rendering service or giving value. Therefore, and when he loses,
• 3:27:16
  his fellow speculator takes the money from him. It is a pure gambling
• 3:27:22
  operation between them, degrading to both. You can never be an honest man
• 3:27:26
  of business and a speculator. The modes and aims of the one career are
• 3:27:33
  fatal to the other. No business man can honestly speculate, for those who
• 3:27:37
  trust him have a right to expect strict adherents to business methods. The creditor
• 3:27:43
  takes the usual risks of business, but not those of speculation. The genuine
• 3:27:50
  and the counterfeit have nothing in common. That ninety five percent fail of those
• 3:27:56
  who start in business upon their own account aims incredible, and yet such are
• 3:28:01
  said to be the statistics upon the subject. Although it is said that figures
• 3:28:07
  will say anything. Still it is a fact that the proportion is very great.
• 3:28:13
  Do not think that I wish to discourage you against attempting to be your
• 3:28:16
  own masters and having a business of your own. Very far from it.
• 3:28:20
  Besides, the coming business man is not to be discouraged by anything that anybody
• 3:28:26
  can say. He is a true knight who says with Fitzjames, if the
• 3:28:31
  path be dangerous, known, the danger yourself is lure alone. The young
• 3:28:37
  man who is determined to be a business man will not be thwarted, neither
• 3:28:41
  will he be diverted into any other channel. And he is going to start
• 3:28:46
  and have a trial. He will make a spoon or spoil a horn trying
• 3:28:50
  to make it. He must go ahead and find it out. Time enough
• 3:28:54
  to confine yourself to a lifelong bondage as mere receivers of a salary, after
• 3:29:01
  you have tried business and really discovered whether or no you are one of the
• 3:29:05
  gifted who possess all the necessary qualities. I have tried to sketch the path
• 3:29:11
  of the exceptional graduate from salary to partnership. It is no fancy sketch.
• 3:29:16
  There is not a day passes without changes in many firms which raise young men
• 3:29:20
  into partnership, and in every single city, no first of January passes without
• 3:29:26
  such promotions. Business requires fresh young blood for its existence. If any of
• 3:29:33
  you are discouraged upon this point, let me give you two stories within my
• 3:29:37
  own experience, which should certainly cheer you a sketch from life. There is
• 3:29:45
  a large manufacturer, the largest in the world in his line. I know
• 3:29:48
  him well, a splendid man who illustrates the business career at its best.
• 3:29:54
  Now, like all sensible business men, as he grew in years, he
• 3:29:58
  realized that fresh blood must be introduced into his business. That while it was
• 3:30:03
  comparatively easy for him to manage the extensive business at present, it was wise
• 3:30:09
  to provide for its continuance in able hands after he had retired. Rich Men
• 3:30:16
  seldom have sons who inherit a taste for business. I am not concerned to
• 3:30:20
  say whether this is well or otherwise. Looking at the human race as a
• 3:30:24
  whole, I believe it is for good. If rich men's sons had poor
• 3:30:30
  men's necessities, and hence their ambitious abilities, there would be less chance for
• 3:30:35
  the students of colleges than there is. It was not to any member of
• 3:30:41
  his family that this man looked for the new young blood. A young man
• 3:30:46
  in the service of a corporation had attracted his attention in the management of certain
• 3:30:50
  business matters connected with the firm. The young men had to call upon this
• 3:30:56
  gentleman frequently. The wise men did not move hastily in the matter about his
• 3:31:01
  ability. He was soon satisfied. But that covered only one point of many.
• 3:31:07
  What were the young men surroundings, habits, tastes, acquirements beyond his
• 3:31:11
  immediate business, What was his nature? He found everything in these matters just
• 3:31:16
  as he would have it. The young man was supporting a widowed mother and
• 3:31:20
  his sister. He had his friends, some excellent young men and some older
• 3:31:26
  than himself. He was a student, he was a reader, had high
• 3:31:30
  tastes. Of course, I need hardly say that. He was a young
• 3:31:33
  gentleman, highly self respecting and soul of honor, incapable of anything low or
• 3:31:39
  vulgar. In short, a model young man, and of course poor.
• 3:31:45
  That goes without saying. The young man was sent for, and the millionaire
• 3:31:50
  told him that he should like very much to try him in his service,
• 3:31:54
  and ask the young men if he would make the trial. The millionaire stated,
• 3:31:58
  frankly, what he was looking for a young businessman who might develop and
• 3:32:03
  finally relieve him of much care. The arrangement was that he should come for
• 3:32:09
  two years as a clerk, subject to clerk's rules, which in this case
• 3:32:13
  were very hard, because he had to be at the factory a few minutes
• 3:32:16
  before seven in the morning. He was to have a salary somewhat larger than
• 3:32:22
  he had received, and if at the end of two years nothing had been
• 3:32:26
  said on either side no obligations were given, each was free. He was
• 3:32:31
  simply on trial. The young man proudly said he would not have it otherwise.
• 3:32:37
  The business went on before the two years expired. The employer was satisfied
• 3:32:43
  that he had found that exceedingly rare thing a young business man. What a
• 3:32:48
  number of qualities this embraces, including judgment, for without judgment a business man
• 3:32:54
  amounts to nothing. The employer stated to the young men that he was delighted
• 3:32:58
  with him, pleased with the services, and expressed his joy at having found
• 3:33:03
  him. He had now arranged to interest him in the firm. But to
• 3:33:09
  his amazement, the young man replied, thanks, thanks, but it is
• 3:33:15
  impossible for me to accept. What is the matter? You suit me?
• 3:33:20
  Do I not suit you? Excuse me, sir, but for reasons which
• 3:33:24
  I cannot explain, I am to leave your service in six months when my
• 3:33:28
  two years are up, and I intend to give you notice of this that
• 3:33:31
  you might fill my place. Where are you going I am going abroad.
• 3:33:37
  Have you made any engagement? No, sir. Do you not know where
• 3:33:43
  you are going? No, sir, nor what you are to do?
• 3:33:46
  No, sir, Sarah. I have treated you well, and I do
• 3:33:52
  think I am entitled to know the real reason. I think it is your
• 3:33:56
  duty to tell me the reason was dragged out of the young men. You
• 3:34:01
  have been too good to me. I would give anything to be able to
• 3:34:05
  remain with you. You even invited me to your house. You have been
• 3:34:09
  absent traveling. You asked me to call often, to take your wife and
• 3:34:13
  daughter to such entertainments as they wish to attend. And I cannot stand it
• 3:34:18
  any longer. Well, the millionaire, of course, discovered what all of
• 3:34:22
  you have suspected, just what you would have done under the circumstances. He
• 3:34:28
  had fallen in love with the daughter. Now in this country, that would
• 3:34:33
  not have been considered much of an indiscretion, and I do not advise any
• 3:34:37
  of you to fight much against it. If you really love you should overlook
• 3:34:43
  the objection that it is your employer's daughter who has conquered, and that you
• 3:34:48
  may have to bear the burden of riches. But in the land of which
• 3:34:52
  I speak, it would have been considered dishonorable for a young clerk to make
• 3:34:56
  love to any young lady with out the parent's permission. Have you spoken to
• 3:35:03
  my daughter? Was the question the young men scarcely deigned to reply to that,
• 3:35:07
  of course not, never said a word or let her to suspect in
• 3:35:13
  any way. Of course, not well, he said, I do not
• 3:35:18
  see why you should not. You are the very kind of son in law
• 3:35:22
  I want if you can win my daughter. Very strange, but somehow other.
• 3:35:28
  The young lady did not differ from Papa. He was the kind of
• 3:35:31
  husband she wanted. Now that young man is a happy business man to day
• 3:35:39
  romance in business. I have another story which happened in another country. Both
• 3:35:46
  the fathers in law told me these stories themselves, and proud men they are,
• 3:35:50
  and proud am I of their friendship. You see, business is not
• 3:35:54
  all this hard prosaic life that is pictured. It bears romance and sentiment in
• 3:36:01
  it. And the greater the business, the more successful, the more useful.
• 3:36:05
  In my experience, there is found more romance and imagination. The highest
• 3:36:11
  triumphs, even in business, flow from romance, sentiment, imagination, particularly
• 3:36:18
  in the business of a world wide firm. The other story is so similar
• 3:36:22
  to the first that successful telling is impossible. You will all jump to the
• 3:36:28
  conclusion, and the details in these cases are nothing. It is as when
• 3:36:33
  I begin to tell my young nephews about the Battle of Bannockburn. There were
• 3:36:39
  the English and there stood the Scotch, which whipt uncle cried the three at
• 3:36:45
  once. Details unnecessary. But there was no battle. In this case I
• 3:36:50
  inferred, was all settled by amicable arbitration. I shall not tell it at
• 3:36:54
  length as I did the other, but it is precisely the same. The
• 3:37:00
  young men in this other case was not employed except in the ordinary manner.
• 3:37:05
  The young men's services were needed, and he was employed. He finally became
• 3:37:09
  private secretary to the millionaire, and with equally fatal results. In this case,
• 3:37:16
  however, the father asked his exemplary and able young men to look after
• 3:37:20
  his sons during his absence. This necessitated visits to the residents at the country
• 3:37:26
  house, and sports and games with his sons. My friend forgot he had
• 3:37:31
  a daughter, and he should not have done this. When you become not
• 3:37:35
  only heads of business, but heads of families, you should make a note
• 3:37:41
  of this and not think your sons everything. The private secretary, who was
• 3:37:46
  requested to attend to the sons somehow or another, getting his instructions verbally,
• 3:37:50
  seemed to have understood them as having a slightly wider range. The daughter apparently
• 3:37:56
  needed most of his attention. But note this, These two young men won
• 3:38:03
  the confidence and captured the judgment and admiration of their employer's business men first,
• 3:38:09
  and then fell in love with the daughters. You will be perfectly safe if
• 3:38:13
  you take matters in the same order of precedence value of a business career.
• 3:38:20
  Perhaps I may be permitted, without going too far beyond the scope of my
• 3:38:26
  text, to make a few remarks upon the influence of a business career upon
• 3:38:31
  men as compared with other pursuits. First, then I have learned that the
• 3:38:37
  artistic career is most narrowing, and produces such petty jealousies, unbounded vanities,
• 3:38:43
  and spitefulness as to furnish me with a great contrast to that which I have
• 3:38:48
  found in men of affairs, music, painting, sculpture. One would think
• 3:38:54
  should prove most powerful in the beneficent effects upon those who labor with them as
• 3:39:00
  their daily vocation. Experience, however, shows against us. Perhaps because of
• 3:39:07
  the work or the performance of artists is so highly personal, so clearly seen
• 3:39:13
  being brought directly before the public, that petty passions are stimulated. However that
• 3:39:18
  may be, I believe it will not be controverted that the artistic mind becomes
• 3:39:24
  prejudiced and narrow. But understand I speak only of classes and of the general
• 3:39:30
  effect. Everywhere we find exceptions which render the average still more unsatisfactory. In
• 3:39:37
  regards to patter called the learned professions, we notice the effect produced by specialization
• 3:39:43
  in a very marked degree in the ministerial class. This is not so marked
• 3:39:48
  in our day, because leaders in that great function permit themselves a wider range
• 3:39:54
  of subjects than ever before, and are dealing less with creeds and formulas,
• 3:39:58
  and more and more with the practical evils and shortcomings of human life in its
• 3:40:05
  various phases. This naturally broadens the mind. It has been held that the
• 3:40:11
  legal profession must tend to make clear but narrow intellects, and it is pointed
• 3:40:16
  out that the great lawyers have seldom risen to commanding position and power over their
• 3:40:22
  fellows. This does not mean that men who study the law become unsatisfactory legislators
• 3:40:28
  or statesmen and rulers. If it did, our country, of all others,
• 3:40:33
  should be in a bad way, because we are governed by lawyers.
• 3:40:37
  But the most famous Americans who have been great men were not great lawyers.
• 3:40:43
  That is, they have seldom attained the foremost rank in the profession, but
• 3:40:48
  have availed themselves of the inestimable advantage which the city of law confers upon statesmen,
• 3:40:56
  and developed beyond the bounds of the profession. We are minded that the
• 3:41:00
  great lawyer and the great judge must deal with rules and precedents already established.
• 3:41:05
  The lawyer follows precedents, but the ruler of men makes precedents. Merchants and
• 3:41:13
  professional men the tendency of all professions, it would seem, must be to
• 3:41:20
  make what is known as the professional mind clear but narrow. Now, what
• 3:41:24
  may be claimed for business as a career is that the man in business is
• 3:41:28
  called upon to deal with an ever changing variety of questions. He must have
• 3:41:33
  an all round judgment based upon knowledge of many subjects. It is not sufficient
• 3:41:39
  for the great merchant and businessmen of our day that he knows his country well,
• 3:41:45
  its physical conditions, its resources, statistics, crops, waterways, its
• 3:41:50
  finances and short all conditions which affect not only the president, but will give
• 3:41:56
  him data upon which he can predict with some degree of sar the future.
• 3:42:01
  The merchant, whose operations extend to various countries must also know these countries and
• 3:42:07
  also the chief things pertaining to them. His view must be worldwide. Nothing
• 3:42:13
  can happen of moment which had not its bearing upon his action. Political complications
• 3:42:20
  at Constantinople, the appearance of the cholera in the East, monsoon in India,
• 3:42:24
  the supply of gold at Cripple Creek, the appearance of the Colorado beetles,
• 3:42:30
  or the fall of a ministry, the danger of war, the likelihood
• 3:42:35
  of arbitration compelling settlement. Nothing can happen in any part of the world which
• 3:42:41
  he has not to consider. He must possess, one of the rarest qualities.
• 3:42:46
  Be an excellent judge of men. He often employs thousands and knows how
• 3:42:52
  to bring the best out of various characters. He must have the gift of
• 3:42:56
  organization. Another rare gift. Must have executive ability, must be able to
• 3:43:01
  decide promptly and wisely. Now, none of these rare qualities is so absolutely
• 3:43:09
  essential to the specialist in any branch or profession. He follows a career,
• 3:43:15
  therefore, which tends not only to sharpen his wits, but to enlarge his
• 3:43:18
  powers. Different also from any other careers, that it tends not to specialization
• 3:43:26
  and the working of the mind within narrow grooves, but tends to develop an
• 3:43:30
  a man's capacity to judge upon wide data. No professional life embraces so many
• 3:43:35
  problems. None other requires so wide a view of affairs in general. I
• 3:43:41
  think, therefore, that it may justly be said for the business career that
• 3:43:46
  it must widen and develop the intellectual powers of its devotee. On the other
• 3:43:52
  hand, the professional career is immeasurably nobler in this that it has not for
• 3:43:58
  its chief end the ignored aim of money making, and is free from the
• 3:44:03
  gravest danger which besets the career of business, which is, in one sense
• 3:44:07
  the most sordid of all careers, if entered upon in the wrong spirit.
• 3:44:13
  To make money is no doubt the primary consideration with most young men who enter
• 3:44:18
  it. I think, if you will look into your hearts, you will
• 3:44:20
  find this to be true. But while this may be the first, it
• 3:44:24
  should not be the last consideration. There is the great use which a man
• 3:44:30
  can perform in developing the resources of his country, in furnishing employment to thousands,
• 3:44:35
  in developing inventions which prove of great benefit to the race and help it
• 3:44:41
  forward. The successful men of affairs soon rises above the mere desire to make
• 3:44:46
  money as the chief end of his labors, that is superseded by thoughts of
• 3:44:52
  the uses he performs. In the line which I have just mentioned, the
• 3:44:58
  merchant soon find his strongest feeling to be that of pride in the extent of
• 3:45:03
  his international operations, in his ships sailing every sea. The manufacturer finds in
• 3:45:09
  his employees and in his works in machinery, in improvements, in the perfection
• 3:45:16
  of his factories and methods, his chief interest and reward. The profitable return
• 3:45:22
  they make is chiefly acceptable, not because this is mere money, but because
• 3:45:26
  it denotes success. There is a romantic as well as prosaic side to business.
• 3:45:33
  The young man who begins in a financial firm and deals with capital invested
• 3:45:37
  in a hundred different ways, in bonds upon a railway systems, in money
• 3:45:43
  lent to merchant and to the manufacture to enable them to work their wonders,
• 3:45:46
  soon finds romance in business unlimited room for the imagination. He can furnish credit
• 3:45:54
  worldwide in its range. His simple letter will carry the traveler to the farthest
• 3:45:58
  part of the use. He may even be of service to his country in
• 3:46:03
  a crisis, as Richard Morris, the great merchant in Philadelphia, was to
• 3:46:07
  General Washington in the revolutionary cause, or as in our own day, our
• 3:46:13
  great bankers have been in providing gold to our government in several crises, to
• 3:46:18
  avert calamity the vanished prejudice against trade. If the young man does not find
• 3:46:28
  romance in his business, it is not the fault of the business, but
• 3:46:31
  the fault of the young man. Consider the wonders the mysteries connected with the
• 3:46:37
  recent developments in that most spiritual of all agents, electricity, with its unknown
• 3:46:45
  and perhaps even unguests of powers. He must be a dull and prosaic young
• 3:46:50
  man who, being connected with electricity in any of its forms, is not
• 3:46:56
  lifted from hundrum business to the region of the mysterious. Business is not all
• 3:47:01
  dollars. These are but the shell the colonelized within, and is to be
• 3:47:07
  enjoyed later as the higher faculties of business men so constantly called into play,
• 3:47:13
  develop and mature. There was, in the reign of militarism and barbarous force
• 3:47:20
  much contempt for the man engaged in trade. How completely has all this changed,
• 3:47:26
  But indeed the feeling was of recent origin. For if we look further
• 3:47:31
  back, we find the oldest families in the world proud of nothing but the
• 3:47:35
  part they played in business. The Woolsack and the Galley still flourish in their
• 3:47:41
  coat of arms. One of the most, perhaps the most influential statesmen in
• 3:47:46
  England to day, is the Duke of Devonshire. Because he has the confidence
• 3:47:52
  of both parties. He is the president of the Barrel Steel Company. The
• 3:47:56
  members of the present Conservative Cabinet were found to hold sixty four directorships in various
• 3:48:03
  trading, manufacturing and mining companies in Britain to day. Not how to keep
• 3:48:09
  out of trade, but how to get in It is the question. The
• 3:48:13
  President of the French Republic, a man with a marvelous career, has been
• 3:48:18
  a business man all his days. The old feeling of aversion has entirely gone.
• 3:48:24
  You remember that the late Emperor of Germany wished to make his friend,
• 3:48:28
  the steel manufacturer Krupp, a prince of the Empire. But that business man
• 3:48:33
  was too proud of his works and the son of his father, and begged
• 3:48:37
  the Emperor to excuse him from degrading the rank he at present held as King
• 3:48:43
  of Steel. Herr Krupp's son, who has now succeeded to his father's throne,
• 3:48:50
  I doubt not would make the same reply to day. At present he
• 3:48:54
  is a monarch equal to his emperor, and from all I know of the
• 3:48:58
  young King krup just as proud of his position. The old prejudice against trade
• 3:49:05
  has gone, even from the strongholds of Europe. This change has come because
• 3:49:09
  trade itself has changed. In old days, every branch of business was conducted
• 3:49:15
  upon the smallest retail scale, and small dealings in small affairs breed small men.
• 3:49:22
  Besides, every man had to be occupied with the details, and indeed
• 3:49:26
  each man manufactured or traded for himself. The higher qualities of organization and of
• 3:49:33
  enterprise, of broad views and of executive ability were not brought into play.
• 3:49:39
  In our day, business in all princes was conducted upon so gigantic a scale
• 3:49:46
  that partners of a huge concern are rulers over a domain. The large employer
• 3:49:50
  of labor sometimes has more men in his industrial army than the pettied German kings
• 3:49:58
  had under their banners. It was said of old that two of a trade
• 3:50:03
  never agreed. To day, the warmest friendships are formed in every department of
• 3:50:09
  human effort among those in the same business. Each visits the other's counting house,
• 3:50:15
  factory, warehouse, and are shown the different methods and all the improvements
• 3:50:18
  and inventions, and freely adapt them to their own business affairs are now too
• 3:50:24
  great to breed petty jealousies, and there is now allied with the desire for
• 3:50:30
  gain, the desire for progress, inventioned, improved methods, scientific development,
• 3:50:37
  and pride of success in those important matters. So that the dividend which the
• 3:50:41
  business man seeks and receives to day is not alone in dollars. He receives
• 3:50:48
  with the dollar something better, a dividend in the shape of satisfaction, and
• 3:50:52
  being instrumental in carrying forward to higher stages of development the business which he makes
• 3:50:58
  his life work. Rewards of a business career. I can confidently recommend to
• 3:51:07
  you the business career as one in which there is abundant room for the exercise
• 3:51:11
  of man's highest power and of every good quality in human nature. I believe
• 3:51:18
  the career of the great merchant, or banker or captain of industry to be
• 3:51:22
  favorable to the development of the powers of the mind, and to the ripening
• 3:51:26
  of the judgment upon a wide range of general subjects, to freedom from prejudice
• 3:51:33
  and the keeping of an open mind. And I do know that permanent success
• 3:51:37
  is not obtainable except by fair and honorable dealing, by irreproachable habits and correct
• 3:51:45
  living, by the display of good sense and rare judgment in all the relations
• 3:51:50
  of human life. For credit and confidence fly from the business man foolish in
• 3:51:54
  word, indeed, or irregular inhabits, or even suspected of sharp press.
• 3:52:01
  There may be room for a foolish man in every profession, foolish as a
• 3:52:05
  child beyond the range of his specialty, and yet successful in that. But
• 3:52:09
  no man ever saw a foolish businessman successful. If without sound all round judgment,
• 3:52:16
  he must fail. The business career is thus a stern school of all
• 3:52:22
  the virtues. And there is one supreme reward which it often yields, which
• 3:52:28
  no other career can promise. I point to noble benefactions which it renders possible.
• 3:52:35
  It is two business men following business careers that we chiefly owe our universities,
• 3:52:39
  colleges, libraries, and educational institutions, as witness Gerard Lehigh, Chicago,
• 3:52:46
  Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and many others. What monument can a
• 3:52:50
  man leave behind him, productive of so much good and so certain to hand
• 3:52:56
  his name down to succeeding generations, followed with the blessings of thousands in each
• 3:53:01
  decade, who have within its walls received the most precious possession a sound and
• 3:53:09
  liberal education. These are the works of men who recognize that surplus wealth was
• 3:53:15
  a sacred trust to be administered during the life of its possessor for the highest
• 3:53:20
  good of his fellows. If then some businessmen may fall subject to the reproach
• 3:53:26
  of grasping, we can justly claim for them as a class what honest Thomas
• 3:53:31
  Cromwell claimed for the greatest cardinal and say, quote if they have agreed of
• 3:53:37
  getting, yet in bestowing, they are most princely, as witness these seats
• 3:53:43
  of learning close quote end of the Empire. Business Section eight, Section nine.
• 3:53:52
  The three legged stool. There is a partnership of three in the industrial
• 3:53:58
  world when an enterprises planned the first of these not in importance, but in
• 3:54:03
  time is capital. Without it, nothing costly can be built. From it
• 3:54:09
  comes the first breath of life into matter previously inert, the structures reared,
• 3:54:15
  equipped and ready to begin in any line of industrial activity. The second partner
• 3:54:20
  comes into operation, that is business ability. Capital has done its part.
• 3:54:26
  It has provided all the instrumentalities of production. But unless it can command the
• 3:54:31
  services of able men to manage the business, all that capital has done crumbles
• 3:54:37
  into ruin. Then comes the third partner, last in order of time,
• 3:54:43
  but not least, labor. If it fails to perform its part, nothing
• 3:54:48
  can be accomplished. Capital and business ability without it being brought into play,
• 3:54:54
  are dead. The wheels cannot revolve unless the hand of labor starts them.
• 3:55:00
  Now, volumes can be written as to which one of these three partners is
• 3:55:03
  first, second, or third in importance, and the subject will remain just
• 3:55:07
  as it was before. Political economists, speculative philosophers, and preachers have been
• 3:55:15
  giving their views on the subject for hundreds of years, but the answer has
• 3:55:20
  not yet been found, nor can it ever be. Because each of the
• 3:55:24
  three is all important, and every one is equally essential to the other two.
• 3:55:28
  There is no first, second, or last. There is no precedence.
• 3:55:35
  They are equal members of the great triple alliance which moves the industrial world.
• 3:55:41
  As a matter of history, labor existed before capital or business ability.
• 3:55:46
  For when Adam digged and Eve span, Adam had no capital, and if
• 3:55:50
  one might judge from the sequel, neither of the two were inordinately blessed with
• 3:55:56
  business ability. But this was before the reign of industrialis began and huge investments
• 3:56:01
  of capital were necessary in our day, Capital, business ability, manual labor
• 3:56:09
  are the legs of a three legged stool. While the three legs stand sound
• 3:56:13
  and firm, the stool stands. But let any one of the three weaken
• 3:56:18
  and break, let it be pulled out or struck out. Down goes the
• 3:56:22
  stool to the ground, and the stool is of no use until the third
• 3:56:26
  leg is restored. Now, the capitalist is wrong who thinks that capital is
• 3:56:33
  more important than either of the other two legs. Their support is essential to
• 3:56:37
  him. Without them, or with only one of them, he topples over.
• 3:56:43
  Business Ability is wrong when it thinks that the leg which it represents is
• 3:56:48
  the most important. Without the legs of capital and labor, it is useless.
• 3:56:54
  And last, let it not be forgotten that labor also is wrong,
• 3:56:58
  wildly wrong, when it assumes that it is of more importance than either of
• 3:57:03
  the other two legs. That idea has been in the past the source of
• 3:57:07
  many sad mistakes. That three are equal partners of a grand hole. Combined,
• 3:57:13
  they work wonders separate. Neither is of much account thus far. Notwithstanding
• 3:57:20
  the differences that from time to time have unfortunately rent them apart, they have
• 3:57:26
  made the closing century more munificent than all that have preceded it. Humanity the
• 3:57:31
  world over is better than it has ever been materially and morally, and I
• 3:57:37
  have the faith that it is destined to reach still higher and loftier planes than
• 3:57:41
  even the most sanguine have imagined. Capital, business, ability, and labor
• 3:57:46
  must be united. He is an enemy to all three who seeks to sow
• 3:57:52
  seeds of disunion among them. End of Section nine. Section ten Railroads past
• 3:58:01
  and Present. It is a matter of great satisfaction and some pride to me
• 3:58:07
  that I began in the railroad service as telegraph operator and rose to the position
• 3:58:13
  of superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Perhaps it would be
• 3:58:20
  interesting to contrast in a few particulars the condition of affairs in the railroad world.
• 3:58:26
  Then and now. We are always urged to look well ahead in railroading.
• 3:58:33
  It is one of the chief rules. But it is also well to
• 3:58:37
  cast a look back and see the progress that has been made. When I
• 3:58:41
  had the honor to become a railroad man, the Pennsylvania Railroad was not yet
• 3:58:48
  finished. To Pittsburgh. By means of some miles of staging between two points
• 3:58:54
  and a climb over the mountains by means of ten inclined planes, the passagenger
• 3:59:00
  was enabled to reach Philadelphia by rail. The rails on the mountains were iron
• 3:59:05
  fourteen feet lengths imported from England, lying on huge hewn blocks of stone.
• 3:59:13
  Although the line passed through woods and ties would have cost little, the company
• 3:59:18
  had no telegraph line and was dependent upon the use of the Western Union wire.
• 3:59:26
  Mister Scott, the superintendent, the celebrated Thomas A. Scott, who
• 3:59:31
  was afterward president, often came to the telegraph office in Pittsburgh to talk to
• 3:59:37
  his superior in Altoona, the General Superintendent. I was then a young operator,
• 3:59:43
  and made his acquaintance by doing this telegraphing for him. I was receiving
• 3:59:48
  the enormous salary of twenty five dollars per month then, and he offered me
• 3:59:54
  thirty five to become his secretary and telegrapher, which meant fortune. Let me
• 4:00:01
  congratulate you upon the great advance in your own wages and salaries since then,
• 4:00:07
  mister Scott received one hundred and twenty five dollars a month fifteen hundred dollars a
• 4:00:13
  year. And my wonder was what a man could do with that amount of
• 4:00:18
  money. I hadn't thought then of one use he might succeed by giving part
• 4:00:24
  of it away. What are the advantages a man receives from wealth is often
• 4:00:28
  discussed, But the best of wealth is not what it does for the owner,
• 4:00:33
  but what it enables him to do for others. I served for some
• 4:00:39
  time before I received an advance of salary of ten dollars per month that gave
• 4:00:45
  me an enormous revenue compared with the one dollar twenty cents a week at which
• 4:00:50
  I started in the cotton factory. It is one of the most cheering facts
• 4:00:54
  of our day that under present conditions, the wages of labor ten to rise,
• 4:01:01
  and the prices of the necessaries of life tend to fall. There never
• 4:01:05
  was a nation so splendidly situated as ours is at this moment. In regard
• 4:01:11
  to labor, every sober, capable and willing man finds employment at wages which,
• 4:01:18
  with thrift and a good wife to manage, will enable him to go
• 4:01:22
  far toward laying up a competence for old age. Those so fortunate as to
• 4:01:28
  be married know how much depends upon a wife who can manage your household affairs.
• 4:01:35
  And those who are not yet married will find that out there is nothing
• 4:01:39
  that the success and happiness of a working man so much depends upon, next
• 4:01:46
  to his own good conduct as a good managing wife. And here let one
• 4:01:52
  who has, almost without intention or desire, had himself loaded with somewhat more
• 4:01:58
  than a competence, tell soberly that what one has beyond this brings little with
• 4:02:05
  it, and sometimes nothing desirable with it. What all should strive for is
• 4:02:11
  a competence, without which Junius has wisely said, no man could be happy.
• 4:02:18
  No man should be happy without it, if it be within reach.
• 4:02:22
  And I urge everyone to save part of his earnings these prosperous days, and
• 4:02:28
  put in savings bank at interest, or better still, buy a home with
• 4:02:33
  it, but to revert to railroading. President Thompson one day amazed the community
• 4:02:39
  of Pittsburgh by stating that on some future day the Pennsylvania Railroad would transport one
• 4:02:46
  hundred cars a day over it. Cars then carried eight tons net. We
• 4:02:52
  had small locomotives, and the roadbed was something to frighten one. It was
• 4:02:58
  laid with life light rails, and cast iron joints were used. I have
• 4:03:03
  known forty seven broken joints found one morning in winter on my division, and
• 4:03:09
  it was over such a line that we ran our trains. It is no
• 4:03:15
  wonder that breakdowns were frequent. We had no cabooses on freight trains. Train
• 4:03:20
  men had to be out in all weathers. It was single track and not
• 4:03:26
  having a telegraph line. In case of delays, trains ran curves. That
• 4:03:31
  is, a flagman went ahead and the train followed and met when they could,
• 4:03:37
  and sometimes met with considerable force on the sharp curves. There is nothing,
• 4:03:43
  apparently takes so long to learn by the average railroad man as this proposition
• 4:03:50
  that two trains cannot pass each other successfully on a single track. We never
• 4:03:56
  did quite learn that lesson, even on the Pittsburgh dev being a telegrapher.
• 4:04:01
  I took charge of our own railroad telegraph wire when it was constructed, and
• 4:04:07
  I believe that I placed the first young woman telegraph student at work on a
• 4:04:13
  railroad. So I see it stated in those days the superintendent had to do
• 4:04:18
  everything. There was no division of responsibilities. It was supposed that no subordinate
• 4:04:26
  could be trusted to run trains by telegraph or attend to a wreck. And
• 4:04:31
  mister Scott and I his successor, were two of the most foolish men I
• 4:04:35
  have ever known in this respect. We went out to every wreck, worked
• 4:04:41
  all night. Often I was not at home for a week at a time,
• 4:04:46
  scarcely ever, sleeping except a few snatches lying down in a freight car.
• 4:04:52
  I now look back and see what poor superintendents we were. But I
• 4:04:56
  had a great example in mister Scott. It took me some time to learn,
• 4:05:03
  but I did learn that the supremely great managers, such as you have
• 4:05:07
  these days, never do any work themselves worth speaking about. Their point is
• 4:05:13
  to make others work while they think. I applied this lesson in after life,
• 4:05:20
  so that business with me has never been a care My young partners did
• 4:05:24
  the work, and I did the laughing, and I commend to all the
• 4:05:30
  thought that there is very little success where there is little laughter. The workman
• 4:05:35
  who rejoices in his work and laughs away its discomforts is the man sure to
• 4:05:41
  rise. For it is what we do easily and what we like to do
• 4:05:46
  that we do well. When you see a president or superintendent or a treasurer
• 4:05:52
  loaded down with his duties, oppressed with care, with a countenance as serious
• 4:05:58
  as a judge utter a death sentence, be sure that he has more responsibility
• 4:06:03
  than he is fit for, and should get relief. Compare the speed of
• 4:06:09
  trains. For instance, on the Great Pennsylvania Railroad, we thought that we
• 4:06:15
  had reached perfection when a passenger train was put on which ran between Pittsburgh and
• 4:06:22
  Philadelphia in thirteen hours, about twenty seven miles an hour. It was christened
• 4:06:28
  the Lightning Express. That was not because we thought the Lightning was so slow,
• 4:06:33
  but because we thought the train was so terrifically fast. Today, the
• 4:06:39
  Empire State Express is run at double this speed, which holds the world's record.
• 4:06:46
  But do not let us make the mistake again of thinking that we have
• 4:06:50
  reached perfection. The next generation will run trains at one hundred miles an hour,
• 4:06:56
  double the present speed, just as trains are run, and it doubled
• 4:07:00
  the speed of thirty years ago. The line will be straight. In the
• 4:07:05
  language of scripture, quote the crooked places unquote, that is, the curves
• 4:07:11
  quote shall be made straight unquote. In the improvements made today on the various
• 4:07:16
  lines. I don't think many managers look far enough ahead. They are spending
• 4:07:22
  on some parts, perhaps half a million dollars where they ought to spend,
• 4:07:28
  double and easing the curves which they should abolish. And some future president is
• 4:07:33
  to say that they wasted a good deal of money. Nothing but a straight
• 4:07:39
  line will be up to date in nineteen fifty or before that. But there
• 4:07:45
  is another department in which progress has been great, and even of greater importance
• 4:07:50
  than in that which has been referred to. It is in the care of
• 4:07:56
  railroad employees. Their position there advantages their earnings, and in the pension system
• 4:08:03
  which the leading railroads of this country feel themselves obligated to establish. That those
• 4:08:11
  who labor year after year at stated salaries and have no prospect of making great
• 4:08:18
  gains, should at least have this consolation in view that in their old age
• 4:08:24
  they will be able to live in comfortable independence, not as a matter of
• 4:08:30
  charity, but by virtue of their own exertions and what they are entitled to
• 4:08:35
  as a bonus for faithful service rendered. I know of nothing which lifts and
• 4:08:41
  improves the service of a great line and adds so much to its safety as
• 4:08:48
  a staff which can rest in the knowledge that, after they have grown old
• 4:08:52
  in the service, their old age is made comfortable through the system of pensions
• 4:08:58
  before lawng no line will rank as in the front rank which has not this
• 4:09:03
  invaluable I might almost say necessary element in securing a staff of trustworthy, intelligent,
• 4:09:13
  and loyal men, filled with esprit de corps for the company they serve.
• 4:09:18
  In the buildings now being provided at transfer stations, in the reading rooms
• 4:09:24
  and libraries, and in some cases, especially on the Santa Fe route,
• 4:09:28
  I learned billiard tables and other means of harmless and needful entertainment are provided,
• 4:09:37
  last, but not least, in such buildings and societies which draw men together
• 4:09:43
  for their good. In all these improvements, and in many other ways,
• 4:09:48
  we have evidence that employers are recognizing their duties to the employed more clearly than
• 4:09:54
  in the past. The railroad man is to be congratulated also upon this fact
• 4:10:01
  that wherever improving agencies have been established, the men have endeavored to show their
• 4:10:07
  appreciation by using them to the fullest extent. Railway companies can make no better
• 4:10:13
  use of money than in establishing additional institutions of this kind and enlarging those which
• 4:10:22
  already exist and are crowded. It will be that company which does most for
• 4:10:28
  its men in the direction indicated, which will do best for its shareholders.
• 4:10:33
  And on the other hand, it will be upon that line the workingman will
• 4:10:37
  feel most at home, and in which they will take the greatest pride,
• 4:10:43
  and for which they will be most willing to incur the exhausting labor and danger
• 4:10:48
  incident to the railroad man's calling, thus giving another proof that their interest and
• 4:10:56
  the interest of those whose capital is invested are not antagonistic, but mutual.
• 4:11:03
  It is a great delusion to say that labor and capital are foes. They
• 4:11:07
  must be allies, or neither succeeds. I have before used the simile of
• 4:11:15
  likening capital, business, ability, and labor to the legs of a three
• 4:11:20
  legged stool. The stool will not stand up without the support of all these
• 4:11:26
  three legs. And to dispute as to which of these three is most important
• 4:11:31
  is useless. It can never be determined, and if determined, it would
• 4:11:35
  be of little consequence, since the great fact remains that they are all absolutely
• 4:11:43
  necessary for such success as we see on the great transportation lines of our country.
• 4:11:50
  The men of the railroad world are to be congratulated on occupying the proud
• 4:11:56
  position, as I believe, of the most temperate body of employees in the
• 4:12:01
  world. They are an example to the workingman in other branches of the outspreading
• 4:12:07
  tree of labor, and their influence cannot fail to prove of incalculable benefit.
• 4:12:15
  No rule that a man can adopt will bring greater reward than this to abstain
• 4:12:22
  from the use of alcohol as a beverage. A drinking man has no place
• 4:12:26
  in the railway system. Indeed, he should have no place anywhere. The
• 4:12:33
  satisfactory relations which exist upon the whole between the railroads and their men should be
• 4:12:39
  gratifying to them both. It is always sure to be created and to exist
• 4:12:46
  where the officers are intelligent and sympathetic and feel themselves part of the one organization
• 4:12:54
  which manages the line, comprising all employees from the track laylaborer, to the
• 4:13:01
  locomotive engineer, and up through all grades to the president himself. Everyone NYC
• 4:13:09
  or a PRR or a C B and Q or a dln W man.
• 4:13:16
  There is no room for antagonism upon a railroad between employer and employee, for
• 4:13:22
  the president and superintendent do not own the property any more than the employees do.
• 4:13:30
  Therefore, all are, as just said, members of the same corps.
• 4:13:35
  All are equally the servants of the company. The official therefore recognizes in
• 4:13:41
  the train man, the roadman, or the engineer employees like himself, to
• 4:13:46
  whom he must naturally feel the glow of comradeship, while they cannot but regard
• 4:13:54
  the officials as their fellow members, and feel that in all matters of compensation
• 4:14:00
  or discipline, what their fellow members in office prescribe has not for its end
• 4:14:05
  their own self aggrandizement, but the successful operation of the line. There is
• 4:14:13
  another feature of cheering import The road to promotion is clear and direct. All
• 4:14:20
  can certify to that, For I doubt not many of those now in authority
• 4:14:26
  began in subordinate positions and have won their way by merit, not by favor.
• 4:14:33
  Every man in the railway industrial army, as Napoleon said of his army,
• 4:14:39
  carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack. Upon railroaders their rest grave responsibilities
• 4:14:46
  they have in their keeping the lives of the public. I need not say
• 4:14:52
  the traveling public, for with us all travel strict, sobriety, on ceasing,
• 4:14:58
  vigilance, stofe launch, courage, faithfulness to duty are demanded of them.
• 4:15:03
  And that these are characteristic of the force is testified at recurring intervals and
• 4:15:11
  by the position they have reached and occupy in the estimation of their grateful fellow
• 4:15:16
  citizens. End of Section ten. Section eleven, Wealth, Part one.
• 4:15:24
  When President Roosevelt sent his notable message to Congress seven years ago, calling attention
• 4:15:31
  to the unequal distribution of wealth and recommending high progressive taxes upon estates at the
• 4:15:37
  death of the owners, the writer sent him a copy of the Gospel of
• 4:15:39
  Wealth. The President wrote in reply that he was quote greatly struck with the
• 4:15:45
  fact that seventeen years ago you had it all end quote. This led the
• 4:15:50
  writer to proceed a step further and add another chapter, which appeared in nineteen
• 4:15:56
  oh six. In like manner, the writer held in a expressed advanced views
• 4:16:00
  upon labor and land before he could be ranked as one of the multi millionaires.
• 4:16:06
  He cannot therefore be regarded as only a recent convert to some of the
• 4:16:10
  doctrines which are now promulgated so freely. As time has only served to confirm
• 4:16:15
  the views then expressed, it is believed that readers will prefer to learn what
• 4:16:19
  was written before these questions had come so prominently to the front. The unequal
• 4:16:26
  distribution of wealth lies at the root of the present socialistic activity. This is
• 4:16:30
  no surprise to the writer. It was bound to force itself to the front,
• 4:16:36
  because, exhibiting extremes unknown before, it has become one of the crying
• 4:16:40
  evils of our day. In the world's progress, scientific discoverers and mechanical inventors
• 4:16:45
  appeared and adapted the forces and materials of nature to the uses of man,
• 4:16:51
  followed by the commercial and industrial age in which we live, in which wealth
• 4:16:56
  has been produced as if by magic, and fallen largely to the captains of
• 4:17:00
  industry, greatly to their own surprise, multimillionaires, a new genus have appeared,
• 4:17:07
  laden with fortunes of such magnitude as the past knew nothing of the extremes
• 4:17:12
  in the distribution of wealth have never been so great as they are today,
• 4:17:17
  although salaries and wages have never been so high. This has naturally attracted the
• 4:17:22
  attention of the wage earners and others not deluged by the golden showers, and
• 4:17:26
  the socialist budget appears as one of the remedies proposed. In the Gospel of
• 4:17:32
  Wealth eighteen eighty nine, the writer advocated graduated taxation upon estates at death of
• 4:17:37
  owners, saying, the growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates
• 4:17:42
  left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in
• 4:17:48
  public opinion. The state of Pennsylvania now takes, subject to some exceptions,
• 4:17:53
  one tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the
• 4:17:57
  British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death duties, and most significant
• 4:18:03
  of all, the new tax is to be graduated of all forms of taxation.
• 4:18:08
  This seems the wisest men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives,
• 4:18:14
  the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community from
• 4:18:18
  which it chiefly came, should be made to feel that the community in the
• 4:18:22
  form of the state cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing
• 4:18:27
  estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy
• 4:18:33
  life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction.
• 4:18:38
  Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's
• 4:18:42
  estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the
• 4:18:45
  state, and by all means, such taxes should be graduated, beginning at
• 4:18:51
  nothing upon moderate sums to dependence, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell,
• 4:18:57
  until of the millionaire's hoarde, as of Shylocks, at least the other half
• 4:19:02
  comes to the privy coffer of the state. This policy would work powerfully to
• 4:19:07
  induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life,
• 4:19:11
  which is the end that society should always have in view, as being by
• 4:19:15
  far the most fruitful for the people. Nor need it be feared that this
• 4:19:19
  policy would sap the root of enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate.
• 4:19:26
  For to the class whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and be talked
• 4:19:30
  about after death, it will be even more attractive, and indeed a somewhat
• 4:19:34
  nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.
• 4:19:41
  Long entertaining such views, there is nothing in the socialist budget, as presented
• 4:19:45
  by mister Snowden in the labor Ideal series, which does not commend itself to
• 4:19:51
  the writer. It will be noticed it proposes, as the Gospel of Wealth
• 4:19:55
  did nineteen years ago, that one half of the deceased millionaire's hold should go
• 4:20:00
  to the state when the estate exceeds five million dollars. Mister Snowden's protest against
• 4:20:07
  indirect taxation of commodities is also sound, because this favors the rich. One
• 4:20:12
  individual does not consume much more of these than another. While the ability of
• 4:20:18
  the rich to pay duties is infinitely greater than that of the masses. The
• 4:20:22
  American, British and German tariffs present a great contrast, much to the benefit
• 4:20:27
  of the masses of the American people. And this although America, like Germany,
• 4:20:32
  is protective and Britain is free trade, America taxes imports heavily. But
• 4:20:37
  these are the luxuries of the rich, which the masses do not consume.
• 4:20:42
  The American masses eat where drink smoke American products only the rich, where foreign
• 4:20:48
  silks, linens, fine cottons, broadcloths, et cetera, drink French wines,
• 4:20:53
  or smoke havana tobacco. It is by taxing the importation of these in
• 4:20:59
  similar articles that America raises revenue. Thus, in nineteen oh seven, two
• 4:21:03
  hundred and sixteen million dollars was collected upon such luxuries, all paid by the
• 4:21:08
  rich who alone use them. Tea, chocolate, and coffee are free,
• 4:21:14
  sugar formally free. A loan of all food products yields much revenue as a
• 4:21:19
  protective duty of two cents per pound exists upon it at present, intended to
• 4:21:23
  stimulate the growth of beats. Half a million tons of domestic sugar were produced
• 4:21:30
  in nineteen oh six, and production is rapidly increasing. Thus, the American
• 4:21:34
  workmen, if he neither smoke nor drink, practically escapes tariff duties, except
• 4:21:40
  upon sugar. In Britain, the workman pays not only upon sugar, but
• 4:21:45
  also upon imported tobacco, tea and coffee. The American excise tax upon tobacco
• 4:21:51
  is only six cents per pound, as compared with seventy five cents in Britain.
• 4:21:56
  Germany in nineteen oh five imported articles for consumption valued at five hundred and
• 4:22:02
  ninety five million dollars. To protect her agriculturists, she taxes all imported food
• 4:22:08
  products which are consumed by rich and poor alike. The German masses are here
• 4:22:14
  more heavily taxed than the British. The distribution of wealth and taxation in Britain,
• 4:22:18
  according to Molhall and later authorities, is estimated as follows see Westminster Review,
• 4:22:25
  February nineteen oh eight, page one seventy two. Six hundred eighty thousand
• 4:22:30
  persons in the rich class with a combined wealth of sixty billion dollars and one
• 4:22:37
  hundred and ninety million dollars in tax collected, five million, one hundred thousand
• 4:22:42
  persons in the middle class with a combined wealth of fifteen billion dollars and two
• 4:22:48
  hundred and ten million dollars in tax collected. Thirty eight million, two hundred
• 4:22:55
  and twenty thousand persons in the working class, with a combined wealth of five
• 4:22:59
  billion dollars and two hundred million dollars in tax collected. The total number of
• 4:23:04
  persons is forty four million, with a combined wealth of eighty billion dollars and
• 4:23:11
  six hundred million dollars in total tax collected. This result is obtained by a
• 4:23:15
  combination of imposts, which taken collectively, tax the different classes of the people
• 4:23:22
  on the average in proportion to their income or wages. But if an assessment
• 4:23:26
  were made as it should be, in proportion to accumulated wealth, the figures
• 4:23:32
  would appear as follows. Rich class with a combined wealth of sixty billion dollars
• 4:23:37
  and four hundred and fifty million dollars tax, middle class with a combined wealth
• 4:23:42
  of fifteen billion dollars and one hundred and twelve million, five hundred thousand dollars
• 4:23:48
  tax, Working class with a combined wealth of five billion dollars and thirty seven
• 4:23:55
  million, five hundred thousand dollars tax. The total wealth is eighty billion dollars
• 4:24:00
  with six hundred million dollars in total tax. From this, it would seem
• 4:24:06
  that the middle class are charged ninety seven million, five hundred thousand dollars above
• 4:24:11
  their proper share, and the working class pay one hundred and sixty two million,
• 4:24:15
  five hundred thousand dollars too much, while the rich contribute two hundred and
• 4:24:19
  sixty million dollars less than they should do in proportion to the wealth of their
• 4:24:25
  real and personal estate. In other words, about one and a half percent
• 4:24:30
  of the whole population own the bulk of the wealth, and the rest of
• 4:24:33
  the community pay the bulk of the taxes. The statement appears almost incredible,
• 4:24:38
  but the matter is of such importance as to be worthy of official inquiry.
• 4:24:44
  Those whose incomes are only sufficient to meet physical wants should not be subjected to
• 4:24:48
  taxation at all. Adam Smith's dictum, the subjects of every state ought to
• 4:24:53
  contribute to the support of government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective
• 4:24:59
  ability, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under
• 4:25:04
  the protection of state, should be the rule, especially since there is so
• 4:25:08
  much wealth concentrated in the richer classes beyond their most liberal needs. We speak,
• 4:25:15
  however, only of the physical needs of men. It should always be
• 4:25:18
  remembered by the working man that neither liquor nor tobacco can be considered as needs.
• 4:25:25
  The dire consequences resulting from the use of liquor would justify much higher taxation
• 4:25:30
  upon it in the interest of the workers themselves. The greatest single evil in
• 4:25:34
  Britain today is in temperance. Seven hundred and eighty five million dollars yearly is
• 4:25:41
  the drink bill. How much of this is paid by the working class is,
• 4:25:45
  we believe unknown, But even if it be only one half, here
• 4:25:49
  is three hundred and ninety two and a half millions worse than wasted by them.
• 4:25:56
  The liquor interests have now received title to their drinking place, when before
• 4:26:00
  they had only licenses from year to year A present made to them, as
• 4:26:04
  estimated by some, equal to fifteen hundred million dollars. When one asks himself
• 4:26:11
  what would most benefit the worker, there is no hesitation in the reply to
• 4:26:15
  avoid liquor and gambling. The working man who indulges in either is, to
• 4:26:22
  the extent he does so, the architect of his own poverty. Here is
• 4:26:26
  the issue of greatest moment to the working men. One cannot help those who
• 4:26:32
  do not help themselves. One man cannot push another up a ladder. The
• 4:26:37
  moment he realizes his grasp, the assisted one falls. It is only possible
• 4:26:41
  to really help those who cooperate with the helper. It is not the submerged,
• 4:26:47
  but the swimming tenth that can be steadily and rapidly improved by the aid
• 4:26:52
  of their fellows. The former should be the special care of the state and
• 4:26:56
  should be isolated. Viewing socialism upon its financial side, as shown in mister
• 4:27:02
  Snowden's budget, its demands are just. A heavy progressive tax upon wealth at
• 4:27:07
  death of owner is not only desirable, it is strictly just. So is
• 4:27:12
  it just to exempt from taxation the minimum amount necessary to supply the physical wants
• 4:27:18
  of men and their families, just as a minimum is exempt from income tax
• 4:27:22
  in Britain, and the modest homestead is from foreclosure under mortgage in America.
• 4:27:29
  There is, however, nothing specially socialistic in this. It is sound Adam
• 4:27:33
  smith doctrine that all should pay taxes only in proportion to their ability to do
• 4:27:38
  so, and revolutionary socialism is successfully to be combated only by properly conceding the
• 4:27:47
  just claims of moderate men. Wealth is undoubtedly a great factor in civilized life,
• 4:27:52
  a very great factor, indeed, since civilization itself rests upon it as
• 4:27:56
  its foundation. In his Essay upon the Gospel of Wealth in the nineteenth century,
• 4:28:03
  mister Gladstone pronounced it to be the business of the world. When there
• 4:28:08
  was no wealth, there was no civilization. None was possible. All was
• 4:28:12
  necessarily savage or barbaric. As long as the first stage existed, and man
• 4:28:18
  consumed all that he captured, nothing permanent could be built. There being no
• 4:28:22
  reserve fund to draw upon. Man lived in the wilderness almost as he found
• 4:28:27
  it, sheltering himself in huts made of branches or in caves. During the
• 4:28:33
  second stage, faint traces of individualism began to appear. In the progress of
• 4:28:38
  the race, men displayed different aptitudes. One man could forge swords and make
• 4:28:44
  arrows better than another. One could capture more fish, another kilmore game.
• 4:28:48
  And finally it became profitable for these to apply themselves solely to their respective branches.
• 4:28:56
  Specialization began. The root of individualism. Then became exchange of products.
• 4:29:02
  But after a time barter ceased, and certain articles wampum, beads, skins,
• 4:29:07
  shells became money in which were invested. The savings of men then was
• 4:29:11
  slowly developed in due progress of time that beneficent Gospel as a man, so
• 4:29:17
  he reap reward according to service. Many things hitherto held in common became private
• 4:29:23
  property, and at last, out of the savings of men capital durable things
• 4:29:29
  were built and civilization downed. Even in our own time, not a ton
• 4:29:33
  nor a yard of anything can be produced, not a ship, nor railroad,
• 4:29:38
  not a house, school, university, nor church built without drawing upon
• 4:29:42
  stored up capital, which is wealth. At first, for a short period,
• 4:29:48
  all was the savings of manual labor. But very soon wealth came in
• 4:29:52
  much larger amounts due to individuals from various sources increased value of land, mineral,
• 4:30:00
  et cetera, and then of real estate, new inventions, et cetera.
• 4:30:04
  Thus wealth is not all the result of manual labor, though the first
• 4:30:08
  small surplus was the greatest growth of wealth from any one source in our times
• 4:30:15
  comes from the increased value of real estate upon which little or no labor is
• 4:30:19
  bestowed, the increase of population raising the values. According to McPherson, author
• 4:30:26
  of Carlisle and Adam Smith in the famous Scots series, we have to charge
• 4:30:30
  the greatest of economists, Adam Smith himself, with having made a slip to
• 4:30:36
  the effect that the wealth of a nation is the creation of labor, out
• 4:30:41
  of which sprang the other error that labor is the measure of the exchangeable value
• 4:30:48
  of commodities. Marx took up these mistaken ideas and justly decided that they led
• 4:30:53
  to the conclusion that capitalistic profit is simply the surplus value obtained from un paid
• 4:31:00
  labour. In extenuation of Smith's slip, it should be remembered that in his
• 4:31:04
  day our system of gigantic production in huge establishments had not begun, people generally
• 4:31:11
  labored in their own homes, and wealth accumulated slowly. All is changed in
• 4:31:18
  Marx's theory is abandoned by the leading socialists today, who reject his special contributions
• 4:31:23
  to pure economics. His theory of value meets with little support. But the
• 4:31:29
  great mass of socialistic workingmen have not yet reached this stage. Still, the
• 4:31:33
  error, having been wounded, must soon die among its worshipers. As error
• 4:31:38
  always does, it is easily demonstrated to be in error. For instance,
• 4:31:45
  the greatest increase of any single department in wealth arises from increased value of land.
• 4:31:51
  The ratable value of the city of London in eighteen seventy was two million,
• 4:31:56
  two hundred sixty six thousand, eight hundred and forty two pounds or eleven
• 4:32:00
  million, three hundred and thirty four thousand, two hundred and ten dollars,
• 4:32:06
  and is now five million, four hundred fifty one thousand, eight hundred and
• 4:32:11
  twenty pounds or twenty seven million, two hundred and fifty nine thousand, one
• 4:32:15
  hundred dollars. The corresponding figures for the whole metropolis are eighteen million, seven
• 4:32:22
  hundred and nineteen thousand, two hundred and thirty seven pounds or ninety three million,
• 4:32:27
  five hundred and ninety six thousand, one hundred and eighty five dollars and
• 4:32:33
  forty four million, three hundred and fifty one thousand pounds or two hundred and
• 4:32:37
  twenty one million, seven hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. The valuation of
• 4:32:44
  New York City has increased from four billion, seven hundred and fifty one million,
• 4:32:48
  five hundred thirty two thousand, eight hundred and twenty six dollars in nineteen
• 4:32:52
  oh three two six billion, two hundred and forty million, four hundred and
• 4:32:59
  eighty one one thousand, six hundred and two dollars in nineteen oh seven in
• 4:33:03
  the whole of the United States, as quoted elsewhere, the Census shows that
• 4:33:07
  from eighteen ninety to nineteen hundred, the value of real estate increased from thirty
• 4:33:12
  nine billion, five hundred and forty four million, five hundred forty four thousand,
• 4:33:18
  three hundred and thirty three dollars two fifty two billion, five hundred thirty
• 4:33:23
  seven million, six hundred twenty eight thousand, one hundred and sixty four dollars,
• 4:33:29
  an increase of twelve billion, nine hundred and ninety three million, eighty
• 4:33:34
  three thousand, eight hundred and thirty one dollars, three and a half times
• 4:33:38
  the national debt of Britain. It is clear that wealth mainly created by increase
• 4:33:44
  of population is not to be credited to labor. For little additional labor was
• 4:33:48
  expended. The labor of tilling the soil was compensated for by the crops,
• 4:33:53
  and did not add to the valuation. That value depends upon and is the
• 4:33:59
  result of labor can be exploded. Thus, the late Duke Sutherland, in
• 4:34:04
  his praiseworthy desire to improve conditions upon his vast highland estates by making the land
• 4:34:11
  support his people at home, expended for years the labor of many men and
• 4:34:15
  vast sums. In the effort. Few dollars of value were created. The
• 4:34:21
  effort failed. Chantry spends a year upon a statue and it brings five thousand
• 4:34:26
  dollars. Another man works twice as long and twice as hard, yet his
• 4:34:30
  statue is practically worthless. Both labored but purchasers wanted the one statue and did
• 4:34:37
  not want the other. Thus, the wants of the purchaser, and not
• 4:34:41
  the labor expended, fix his value. So with all forms of labor,
• 4:34:47
  if there be a demand i e. A purchaser for it at a certain
• 4:34:51
  price, For price is a potent factor, what labor produces has value.
• 4:34:56
  If not labor expended, is labor lost. The result is that labor is
• 4:35:02
  not employed upon articles not in demand. Thus labor neither creates nor fixes value.
• 4:35:07
  The law of supply and demand does so. The employer engaged in manufacturing
• 4:35:14
  is compelled to meet the wants of the people his customers. The interest of
• 4:35:18
  the employer and employee capital and labor in doing so are mutual, not antagonistic.
• 4:35:26
  Marx predicted that machinery would extend the hours of labor and depress wages so
• 4:35:30
  much that he foresaw the time when employers would get the labor of a whole
• 4:35:36
  family for what they had paid for the head alone. He denied that any
• 4:35:41
  share of increased profits could fall to the workers so long as capital had control
• 4:35:45
  of machinery. The reverse of all this has been the result. Hours of
• 4:35:51
  labor have been reduced, wages increased, and a great advance has been made
• 4:35:56
  in the position of wage earners under the new condition of production. The proofs
• 4:36:02
  of this gratifying result, especially during the past twenty years, are among the
• 4:36:06
  most welcome evidences. The optimistic well wisher of the working class receives that all
• 4:36:11
  goes well, though not quite so fast as we and other reformers most ardently
• 4:36:18
  wish. After making full allowance for differences in men, it still remains true
• 4:36:22
  that contrasts in their wealth are infinitely greater than those existing between them in their
• 4:36:27
  different qualities, abilities, education, and accept the supreme view their contributions to
• 4:36:34
  the world's work. It should be remembered always that wealth is not chiefly the
• 4:36:40
  product of the individual under present conditions, but largely the joint product of the
• 4:36:45
  community. Let us go to the root of the matter and inquire how fortunes
• 4:36:49
  are created, whence and how they arise. This the writer has recently attempted
• 4:36:56
  to do in the following manner. Imagine an honest heart, hard working farmer
• 4:37:00
  who finds himself able to give each of his two sons a farm. They
• 4:37:04
  have married admirable young women of the neighborhood of good kith and kin, friends
• 4:37:10
  from youth, no mistakes about their virtues. The sons find farms, one
• 4:37:15
  in the center of Manhattan Island, the other beyond the Haarlem. They cast
• 4:37:21
  lots for the farms as the fairest method, thus letting the fates decide neither
• 4:37:26
  has a preference. The Harlem farm falls to the elder, the Manhattan to
• 4:37:30
  the younger. Mark Now the problem of wealth, how it develops. A
• 4:37:36
  few hundred dollars buys the farms, and the loving brothers set out for themselves.
• 4:37:41
  They are respected by all loved by their intimates. To the extent of
• 4:37:45
  their means. They are liberal contributors to all good causes, and especially to
• 4:37:49
  the relief of neighbors who, through exceptional troubles, need friendly aid in counsel.
• 4:37:55
  They are equally industrious, cultivate their farms equally well, and in every
• 4:38:00
  respect are equally good citizens of the state. Their children grow up and are
• 4:38:04
  educated together. The growth of New York City northward soon makes the children of
• 4:38:10
  the younger millionaires, while those of the elder remain simple farmers in comfortable circumstances,
• 4:38:15
  but fortunate in this beyond their cousins still of the class, who have
• 4:38:21
  to perform some service to their fellows and thus earn a livelihood. Now,
• 4:38:26
  who or what made this difference in wealth? Not labor, not skill,
• 4:38:32
  no nor superior ability sagacity, nor enterprise, nor greater public service. The
• 4:38:38
  community created the millionaire's wealth. While he slept, it grew as fast as
• 4:38:44
  when he was awake. It would have arisen exactly as it did had he
• 4:38:48
  been on the Harlem and his brother been on the Manhattan farm. The younger
• 4:38:53
  farmer, now a greater property holder, dies and his children in due time
• 4:38:59
  pass each leaving millions. Since the farm has been part of the great city,
• 4:39:03
  and immense buildings upon it produce annual rents of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• 4:39:10
  When these children die, who have neither toiled nor spun, what canon
• 4:39:14
  of justice would be violated were the nation to step in and say that,
• 4:39:18
  since the aggregation of their fellow men called the community, created the descendants wealth,
• 4:39:25
  it is entitled to a large portion of it as they pass away.
• 4:39:30
  The community has refrained from exacting any part during their lives, the errors have
• 4:39:34
  been allowed to enjoy it all because although in their case the wealth was a
• 4:39:40
  purely communal growth, yet in other cases wealth often comes largely from individual effort
• 4:39:45
  and ability, and hence it is better for the community to allow such ability
• 4:39:51
  to remain in charge of fortune making, because more likely to succeed and in
• 4:39:56
  doing so develop our country's resources. Be unwise to interfere with the working bees.
• 4:40:03
  Better allow them to continue gathering honey during their lives. When they die,
• 4:40:07
  the nation should have a large portion of the honey remaining in the hives.
• 4:40:11
  It is immaterial at what date collection is made, so that it comes
• 4:40:15
  to the national treasury at last. That by far the greatest amount of wealth
• 4:40:21
  created in any branch comes from enhanced values of real property is especially true in
• 4:40:26
  a prosperous country increasing rapidly in population, like the United States. The Census
• 4:40:33
  shows that from eighteen ninety to nineteen hundred, the value of real estate increased
• 4:40:37
  from thirty nine billion, five hundred forty four million, five hundred and forty
• 4:40:42
  four thousand, three hundred and thirty three dollars to fifty two billion, five
• 4:40:48
  hundred thirty seven million, six hundred twenty eight thousand, one hundred and sixty
• 4:40:52
  four dollars, an increase of twelve billion, nine hundred and ninety three million,
• 4:41:00
  eighty three thousand, eight hundred thirty one dollars one billion, three hundred
• 4:41:06
  million dollars per year over three million, five hundred thousand dollars per day.
• 4:41:11
  The obvious creator of this wealth is not the individual, but the community.
• 4:41:15
  As we see in the case of the two brother farmers. Property may pass
• 4:41:19
  through many proprietors, each paying more for it than its predecessor. But whether
• 4:41:25
  each succeeding owner sells to his successor at a profit depends almost solely upon whether
• 4:41:33
  the surrounding population increases. Let population remain stationary, and so does values of
• 4:41:38
  property. Let it decline and values fall even more rapidly. In other words,
• 4:41:45
  increase population the community increases the wealth in each successive generation. Decrease of
• 4:41:52
  population reduces it. And this law holds in the whole of that vast and
• 4:41:56
  greatest field of wealth real estate. In no other field is the making of
• 4:42:02
  wealth so greatly dependent upon the community, so little upon the owner, who
• 4:42:07
  may wholly neglect it without injury. Therefore, no other form of wealth should
• 4:42:11
  contribute to the nation so generously. Let us now trace the acquisition of wealth
• 4:42:18
  by the active business man, who has some personal part, and often not
• 4:42:22
  a small one, in creating it. Imagine five brothers, sons of another
• 4:42:26
  hard working farmer. The first settles in New York City, the second in
• 4:42:32
  Pittsburgh, the third in Chicago, and the fourth in Montana. The first
• 4:42:37
  sees that railroads in every direction are essential to the coming metropolis, devotes himself
• 4:42:42
  to this field, and obtains large interests therein. As the population of the
• 4:42:48
  country increases and that of New York City bounds ahead into the millions, these
• 4:42:53
  lines of transport, laden with traffic, justify increasing bonded debt. Having figures
• 4:43:00
  under his eye, he sees that the shares of these railways are sure to
• 4:43:03
  become dividend paying, that even already there are surplus earnings beyond the bonded interest,
• 4:43:11
  which, if not needed for pressing extensions, could be paid in dividends
• 4:43:15
  and make the stock par He strains his credit, borrows great sums, buys
• 4:43:21
  the shares when prices are low and floating upon a tidal wave of swelling prosperity
• 4:43:26
  caused by the increased traffic of rapidly increasing communities. He soon becomes a multimillionaire,
• 4:43:33
  and at his death his children are all left millionaires. In the consolidation
• 4:43:40
  of the various short lines into one great whole, there was margin for a
• 4:43:44
  stupendous increase of capital, and in other collateral fields there lay numerous opportunities for
• 4:43:49
  profitable exploitation. All, however, depended upon an expanding population for increased values.
• 4:43:57
  Now, while the found under of the family must be credited with remarkable
• 4:44:03
  ability and with having done the state some service in his day and generation,
• 4:44:07
  it cannot be denied that the chief creators of his wealth were the increasing communities
• 4:44:14
  along the railroads, which gave the traffic that lifted those lines into dividend payers
• 4:44:19
  upon a capital far beyond their actual cost in the work and its profits.
• 4:44:25
  The nation was an essential partner and is equally entitled with the individual to share
• 4:44:30
  in the dividends. The second Sun is so fortunate as to settle in Pittsburgh
• 4:44:37
  when it had been just discovered that some of the coal fields of which it
• 4:44:40
  is the center produced a coking coal admirably adapted for iron ore smelting. Another
• 4:44:47
  vain, easily mined proved a splendid steam coal small iron mills soon sprang up.
• 4:44:53
  Everything indicated that here, indeed was the future iron city, where steel
• 4:45:00
  could be produced more cheaply than any other location in the world. Naturally,
• 4:45:04
  his attention was turned in this direction. He wooed the genius of the place.
• 4:45:10
  This was not anything extraordinarily clever. It was in the air. He
• 4:45:15
  is entitled to credit for having abiding faith in the future of his country and
• 4:45:18
  of steel, and for risking with his young companions not only all he had,
• 4:45:23
  which was little or nothing, but all they could induce timid bankers to
• 4:45:29
  lend them. From time to time, he and his partners built mills and
• 4:45:33
  furnaces, and finally owned a large concern making millions yearly. This son and
• 4:45:37
  his partners looked ahead. They visited other lands and noted conditions, and finally
• 4:45:44
  concluded that a large supply of raw materials was the key to permanent prosperity.
• 4:45:48
  Accordingly, they bought or least many mines of iron ore, many thousands of
• 4:45:55
  acres of coal and of limestone, and also of natural gas territory, and
• 4:46:00
  at last had, for many long years a full supply of all minerals required
• 4:46:06
  to produce iron and steel. This was sound policy, but it did not
• 4:46:11
  require genius, only intelligent study, foresight, and good judgment to see that
• 4:46:17
  they did not produce these minerals. They saw them lying around open for sale
• 4:46:22
  at prices that are now deemed only nominal. Much of the wealth of the
• 4:46:26
  concern came from these minerals, which were once the public property of the community,
• 4:46:32
  and were easily secured by this fortunate son and his partners upon trifling royalties.
• 4:46:37
  Their venture was made profitable by the demand for their products iron and steel
• 4:46:42
  from expanding population engaged in settling a new continent. Without new populous communities far
• 4:46:48
  and near, no millionairedom was possible for them. The increasing population was always
• 4:46:55
  the important factor in their success. Why should the nation be denied participation in
• 4:47:00
  the results when the gatherers ceased to gather and a division has to be made.
• 4:47:07
  The third son was attracted to Chicago and quite naturally became an employee in
• 4:47:11
  a meat packing concern in which he soon made himself indispensable. A small interest
• 4:47:18
  in the business was finally won by him, and he rose in due time
• 4:47:22
  to millionairedom, just as the population of the country swelled. If Chicago today,
• 4:47:27
  and our country generally had only the population of early days, there could
• 4:47:33
  have been no great fortune for the third Sun here. As before, it
• 4:47:37
  was the magnitude of the business, based solely upon the wants of the population,
• 4:47:44
  that swelled the yearly profits and produced prodigious fortunes. The fourth son,
• 4:47:48
  attracted by the stories of Hecula and Calumet and other rich minds which far surpassed
• 4:47:56
  the wealth of Ormus or of End, settled in Montana and was lucky.
• 4:48:00
  After some years of rude experience, his ventures gave him the coveted millionairedom.
• 4:48:07
  The amount of copper and silver required by the teeming population of the country and
• 4:48:11
  other lands kept prices high, and hence his enormous profits mined from the land
• 4:48:18
  for which only a trifle was paid to the general government not so long ago.
• 4:48:23
  He did not create his wealth, He only dug it out of the
• 4:48:26
  mind, as the demands of the people gave value to the previously worthless stones.
• 4:48:33
  Here especially, we cannot but feel that the people who created the value
• 4:48:37
  should share the dividends when these must pass into other hands. The fifth son
• 4:48:44
  had a melancholy career. He settled in New York, city, while young
• 4:48:48
  and unfortunately, began his labors in a stockbroker's office, where he soon became
• 4:48:53
  absorbed in the fluctuations of the exchange, while his fond mother proudly announced to
• 4:49:00
  all she met that he was in business. From this the step was easy
• 4:49:06
  to taking chances. With his small earnings. His gambling adventures proved successful.
• 4:49:11
  It was an era of rising values, and he soon acquired wealth without increasing
• 4:49:15
  values, For speculation is the parasite of business, feeding upon values, creating
• 4:49:22
  none. A few years in the feverish life of the gamester told upon him
• 4:49:27
  he was led into a scheme to corner a certain stock, and as was
• 4:49:33
  to have been expected, he found that men who will conspire to entrap others
• 4:49:37
  will not hesitate to deceive their partners upon occasion, if sure it will pay
• 4:49:44
  and is safe from exposure. He ended his life by his own hand.
• 4:49:49
  His end serves to keep his brothers resolute in the resolve never to gamble.
• 4:49:55
  The speculator seldom leaves a millionaire's fortune unless he breaks down or passes away when
• 4:50:00
  his ventures are momentarily successful. In such a case, his ill gotten gold
• 4:50:07
  should be levied upon by the state at the highest rate of all, even
• 4:50:11
  beyond that imposed upon real estate values. Wealth is often, we may say,
• 4:50:15
  generally accumulated in such manner as benefits the nation. In the process,
• 4:50:22
  here it demoralizes the getter as well as the people, and lowers the standard
• 4:50:26
  of ethics. It is taken without returning any valid consideration, and ranks with
• 4:50:33
  Gambler's games. End of section eleven of Section twelve Wealth, Part two.
• 4:50:41
  There is one class of millionaires whose wealth, in very much greater degree than
• 4:50:47
  others, may be credited to themselves inventors Graham Bell of the telephone, Edison
• 4:50:53
  of numerous inventions, Westinghouse of the air brake, and others who originated or
• 4:50:59
  first applied processes hitherto unused, and were sufficiently alive to their pecuniary interests to
• 4:51:06
  hold large shares in the companies formed to develop and introduce them to the public.
• 4:51:11
  Their wealth had its origin in their own inventive brains. All honored to
• 4:51:18
  the inventor. He stands upon a higher platform than the others. It may
• 4:51:22
  be said that, in greater or lesser degree, our leading manufacturers, railroad
• 4:51:27
  builders, department store projectors, meat packers, and other specialists in one line
• 4:51:33
  or another had to adopt new methods, and with few, if any exceptions,
• 4:51:38
  there can be traced in their careers some special form of ability upon which
• 4:51:44
  their success depended, thus distinguishing them from the mass of competitors. No doubt
• 4:51:51
  this is correct. Yet the inventions or processes used were the work of others,
• 4:51:56
  so that all they did was to introduce new methods of management or to
• 4:52:00
  recognize and utilize opportunities. This the inventor class have also done if they have
• 4:52:07
  become millionaires. But in addition they have invented the new processes, so that
• 4:52:12
  these deserve to reap beyond the other class, yet only in degree, because
• 4:52:18
  both classes alike depend upon increasing population the masses who require or consume the article
• 4:52:26
  produced, so that even the inventor's wealth is in great part dependent upon the
• 4:52:30
  community which uses his productions. It is difficult to understand why, at the
• 4:52:37
  death of its possessor, great wealth gathered or created in any of these or
• 4:52:41
  in other forms should not be shared by the community, which has been the
• 4:52:47
  most potent cause or partner of all in its creation. We have seen that
• 4:52:52
  enormous fortunes are dependent upon the community. Without great and increasing population, there
• 4:52:59
  could be no going great wealth. Where wealth accrues honorably, the people are
• 4:53:03
  always silent partners. It is not denied that the great administrator, whether as
• 4:53:10
  railroad builder, steamship owner, manufacturer, merchant, or banker, is an
• 4:53:15
  exceptional man, or that millions honestly made in any useful occupation give evidence of
• 4:53:21
  ability, foresight, and assiduity above the common, and prove the man who
• 4:53:26
  has made them a very valuable member of society. In no wise, therefore,
• 4:53:33
  should such men be unduly hampered or restricted as long as they are spared.
• 4:53:38
  After all, they can absorb comparatively little, and generally speaking, the
• 4:53:44
  money making man, in contrast to his errors, who generally become members of
• 4:53:48
  the smart or fast set, is abstemonious, retiring, and little of a
• 4:53:53
  spendthrift. The millionaire himself is probably the least expensive bee in then industrial hive.
• 4:54:00
  Taking into account the amount of honey he gathers and what he consumes.
• 4:54:06
  Practically every thousand of his money is at work for the development of the country
• 4:54:11
  and earning interest, much of it paying labor in the interests of the community.
• 4:54:17
  Therefore, he should not be disturbed while gathering honey, provided it be
• 4:54:21
  destined largely for the general hive under a just system of taxation. When he
• 4:54:26
  passes away, those who have not had opportunity to study the operation of wealth
• 4:54:32
  in the world are naturally led astray. They see its possessors in their palaces,
• 4:54:38
  surrounded with every luxury, their gorgeous carriages in the park. They read
• 4:54:42
  of their extravagant balls, of riotous living and inordinate expenditure, and worse than
• 4:54:49
  this, of gambling at cards and upon horses. Horse racing in Britain,
• 4:54:55
  unfortunately, is still under the highest patronage, sites naturally hard to bear by
• 4:55:00
  those suffering for the necessities of life. The writer has no desire to minimize
• 4:55:06
  this sad contrast, nor to say one word in its defense. It is
• 4:55:10
  one of the saddest and most indefensible of all contrasts presented in life. But
• 4:55:17
  when we proceed to trace the work of wealth as a whole, it is
• 4:55:21
  soon found that even these extravagances absorbed but a small fraction of it. The
• 4:55:26
  millionaire's funds are all at work. Only a small sum lies in bank.
• 4:55:32
  Subject to check our railways and steamships, mills and furnaces, industrial structures,
• 4:55:38
  and much of the needed working capital to keep these in operation are the results
• 4:55:44
  of invested wealth. The millionaire with two or the new multimillionaire with twenty millions
• 4:55:51
  sterling keep only trifling sums lying idle. All else they put to work,
• 4:55:56
  much of it employing labor. They cannot escape this unless they turn misers and
• 4:56:03
  keep the gold to gloat over, which no rich man does, whom the
• 4:56:06
  writer knows or has heard of. On the contrary, the millionaire, as
• 4:56:11
  a rule is both mindful and shrewd, more apt than those of smaller fortune
• 4:56:17
  to invest his capital carefully. Besides, he is usually a man of simple
• 4:56:22
  tastes and adverse to display. Whatever impressions the workers may receive of the wealthier
• 4:56:27
  classes, the fact is indisputable that their surplus money, minus a small fraction,
• 4:56:33
  must augment the wage fund, and in some line or other benefit those
• 4:56:40
  who labor. Even their extravagances must, in their course, contribute to the
• 4:56:45
  business of many people struggling to obtain a competence, and hence to employment of
• 4:56:52
  labor. Little can be spent by the rich without drawing upon the labor of
• 4:56:56
  others, which must be paid for. All that millionaires can get out of
• 4:57:02
  life is superior food, raiment, and shelter. Only a small, a
• 4:57:07
  very small percentage of all his millions can be absolutely wasted. When the socialist
• 4:57:14
  therefore speaks of all wealth going back to the state, he proclaims no great
• 4:57:18
  change in its mission. The state sole owner would use it, just as
• 4:57:23
  the owners now use all but a fraction of it that is invested in some
• 4:57:29
  of the multiform ways leading to the reward of labor. It is simply a
• 4:57:34
  question whether state, as against individual control of wealth would prove more productive,
• 4:57:41
  which, judging from experience of state and individual management so far as yet tested,
• 4:57:47
  may gravely be doubted. It could not make much difference to the workers
• 4:57:52
  whether the title to wealth rested in the state or in individuals. If the
• 4:57:56
  state decided, as individuals do now, to recompense labor according to value as
• 4:58:03
  determined by demand the fairest standard, all would remain very much as now.
• 4:58:10
  One would still get five talents, one ten, and I few would get
• 4:58:14
  very many talents, and individualism would reign. The bridge has yet to be
• 4:58:18
  found that spans the gulf between equal and unequal compensation for varied service. Yet
• 4:58:26
  until this be found, we believe it to be non existent and impossible to
• 4:58:30
  devise. There can be no communism, nor indeed any milder form of socialism
• 4:58:36
  to which serious objection need be made by earnest improvers of present conditions. Since
• 4:58:41
  the absorption of private property and equal compensation, the two pillars of revolutionary socialism
• 4:58:49
  are inevitably relegated to the distant future until a practicable mode of obtaining and managing
• 4:58:56
  them be found. We hear far too much these days upon the subject of
• 4:59:02
  wealth as the main object of life. Only by the manual, working man
• 4:59:06
  and poorer classes is money regarded as the great idol of our age, before
• 4:59:11
  which all fall prostrate, and this simply because it is their one pressing want.
• 4:59:17
  In its acquisition their life work, true wealth is displacing hereditary rank,
• 4:59:22
  which until our own day held foremost position in Britain. Now the poor average
• 4:59:29
  hereditary peer seeks its alliance and remains of little consequence unless successful, because compelled
• 4:59:37
  to maintain an ostentatious style of living, which without fortune is impossible, he
• 4:59:44
  bargains for an heiress, because his position depends not upon his merits, but
• 4:59:48
  upon her wealth. This applies only to the small United Kingdom, For among
• 4:59:53
  our English speaking race. Elsewhere throughout the world hereditary rank is unknown. It
• 5:00:00
  is a survival of the past, which raises a smile, for it is
• 5:00:03
  amusing to watch titled personages assuming positions in state or society solely because some one
• 5:00:11
  who preceded them one precedence. Let this be noted by the workers. None
• 5:00:17
  of the professions regard great wealth as the chief prize. Its acquisition is not
• 5:00:22
  their aim. Consider the physician. When a man selects that noble career,
• 5:00:27
  knowing all its trials, and consecrates himself to the amelioration of human suffering,
• 5:00:33
  he knows well fortune is not there to be found. He has a much
• 5:00:37
  higher prize than wealth in view. Consider the minister, who feels that he
• 5:00:42
  has a message to deliver to his fellows, and answering embraces the call.
• 5:00:48
  Wealth does not allure him. So with the lawyer, wealth is not in
• 5:00:53
  his mind as the reward of his labors. The chief justices of the supreme
• 5:00:57
  courts are above pecuniary gain. The inventor, the architect, the engineer,
• 5:01:03
  and the scientist all have nobler rewards before them than riches. Only a modest
• 5:01:10
  competence is the reasonable expectation of all these classes, the great teachers of their
• 5:01:15
  fellows, the presidents and the professors of our seats of learning, and the
• 5:01:21
  teachers of our common schools, What thought have they of bowing before the vulgar
• 5:01:26
  idol of wealth? Our poets, authors, statesmen, the very highest types
• 5:01:30
  of humanity are above the allurements of money making. These know of higher satisfactions
• 5:01:37
  and nobler lives than those of the mere millionaire. Having their nobler missions,
• 5:01:41
  they have no time to waste accumulating dross. All these men are quite right
• 5:01:47
  for beyond a competence for old age, which need not be great, and
• 5:01:52
  may be very small, wealth lessons rather than increases human happiness. Millionaires who
• 5:01:59
  laugh are the deplorable. Family quarrels, which so often afflict the rich,
• 5:02:03
  generally have their rise in sordid differences about money. The most miserable of men
• 5:02:10
  as old age approaches are those who have made money making their god like flies
• 5:02:15
  bound to the wheel, these unfortunates fondly believe that they were really driving it,
• 5:02:21
  only to find, when tired in craving rest, that it is impossible
• 5:02:25
  for them to get off, and they are lost. Plenty to retire upon,
• 5:02:30
  but nothing to retire too, and so they end up as they began,
• 5:02:34
  driving to add to their useless hordes, passing into nothingness, leaving their
• 5:02:40
  money behind for heirs to quarrel over only because they cannot take it with them,
• 5:02:45
  a melancholy end much less enviable than that of their poorer fellows. Wealth
• 5:02:51
  confers no fame, although it may buy titles where such prevail, Nor are
• 5:02:56
  the memories of millionaires as a class fondly cherished. It is a low and
• 5:03:03
  vulgar ambition to a mass money, which should always be the slave, never
• 5:03:07
  the master of man. There is one fundamental difference between rank and wealth.
• 5:03:12
  There can be no hereditary aristocracy of wealth where it is left free. As
• 5:03:18
  a rule, it passes in three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in
• 5:03:23
  all English speaking lands except the United Kingdom, where the law of primogeniture and
• 5:03:30
  legal settlements guard a hereditary class and defeat the operation of the natural law.
• 5:03:36
  In free lands, the children of millionaires and their children may be safely trusted
• 5:03:41
  to fulfill the law. To keep a fortune is scarcely less difficult than to
• 5:03:45
  acquire it. Wealth is dispersive where unbuttressed by special laws designed to keep it
• 5:03:52
  in certain channels, all of which laws should be promptly repealed. Wealth in
• 5:03:59
  America, the land of greatest fortunes, never yet has passed beyond the third
• 5:04:03
  generation. It seldom gets. So far, we have a few, a
• 5:04:07
  very few families of the third generation, now spending the fortunes made by their
• 5:04:12
  grandfathers. The two or three greatest fortunes of their day are now being freely
• 5:04:18
  distributed among the children and grandchildren, and will be reduced to moderate sums for
• 5:04:22
  each. When the present children reach maturity as certain as fate, many of
• 5:04:27
  their descendants will be found toiling, as their able ancestors did in their shirt
• 5:04:33
  sleeves. We may safely trust those who have not made the money to prove
• 5:04:37
  adepts in squandering it. Great fortunes are few. The aggregate wealth embraced in
• 5:04:44
  these is small compared with the amount in very moderate fortunes. The former attract
• 5:04:49
  attention far beyond their importance. Gigantic fortunes, in the nature of things,
• 5:04:56
  must be fewer and harder to build up in the future than the past.
• 5:05:00
  Most great enterprises are now in corporate form. The writer knows of but one
• 5:05:06
  man now in active business who is likely to have an exceptionally large estate,
• 5:05:11
  and the foundation of that was laid more than half a century ago by the
• 5:05:15
  purchase of timberlands, which have increased enormously in value. We can safely trust
• 5:05:22
  to the free play of natural forces under progressive taxation, if not thwarted by
• 5:05:26
  legislation, as in Britain, to prevent danger or injury to the state arising
• 5:05:32
  from hereditary wealth. The equal distribution of wealth is one of the loudest cries
• 5:05:37
  of the socialist. Let us suppose that a philanthropist, which generally means a
• 5:05:42
  man with more money than sense, resolved to act upon that idea and distribute
• 5:05:48
  his fortune among the poor of London or New York, went to them one
• 5:05:52
  morning and announced his purpose. He is soon surrounded and begins the distribution each
• 5:05:59
  man or woman, and gets pro rata, say, five pounds sterling,
• 5:06:03
  until many thousands are given away, the crown still constantly increasing. He returns
• 5:06:08
  at night to witness the result, and shudders at the vision that presents itself.
• 5:06:15
  Are these indeed men and women? Or are they degraded wretches in human
• 5:06:18
  form? Is it not evident to all that the first and indispensable work of
• 5:06:25
  the socialist is the elevation of humanity to that standard of conduct which would ensure
• 5:06:30
  the wise and sober use of benefactions. We would all agree that when this
• 5:06:36
  necessary elevation was reached, the discussion of further steps to relieve distress would be
• 5:06:41
  in order. Meanwhile, the foolish distributor would have done more injury to his
• 5:06:45
  fellows in one day than he could probably do good all the rest of his
• 5:06:51
  life. Down on your knees and crawl for pardon are the words one would
• 5:06:56
  undoubtedly apply to such a philanthropist. Imagine every man, woman and child in
• 5:07:00
  Britain receiving two hundred and fifty pounds sterling or one thousand, two hundred and
• 5:07:07
  fifty dollars, which is one's proportion of the national wealth. If equally divided,
• 5:07:12
  what would be the result Saturnalia for a time, then rich and poor,
• 5:07:18
  as before, slowly emerging, the last state worse than the first.
• 5:07:22
  It is self evident that there is at present no foundation upon which wealth can
• 5:07:27
  be equally distributed. The soil has not been prepared, seeds sewn upon it
• 5:07:33
  would be choked by thistles. Meanwhile, our immediate duty is to distribute surplus
• 5:07:38
  wealth to the best of our abilities in such forms as we believe best calculated
• 5:07:44
  to improve existing conditions, and to secure its more equitable distribution hereafter by heavy
• 5:07:51
  progressive death duties, and by assessing the people in proportion to their ability to
• 5:07:56
  support the government. This policy President Roosevelt is strongly advocating in America. It
• 5:08:03
  is much more urgently needed in Britain. Socialists generally write of wealth as if
• 5:08:08
  possessed by the few, but the fact must never be lost sight of that
• 5:08:14
  the laboring classes in the aggregate are great capitalists. The savings banks of New
• 5:08:18
  York State alone in nineteen oh six held one billion, three hundred and thirty
• 5:08:23
  five million dollars owned by two million, six hundred and thirty seven thousand,
• 5:08:27
  two hundred and thirty five depositors average deposits of five hundred and six dollars and
• 5:08:33
  twenty five cents. This is all the savings of the workers, for businessmen
• 5:08:38
  and capitalists use their money to better advantage. These banks are strictly confined by
• 5:08:45
  charter to investments in first class securities, are carefully managed and possessed. The
• 5:08:49
  confidence of the people. In the United States the deposits in savings banks amounted
• 5:08:56
  to the grand total of three billion, four hundred and eighty two million dollars.
• 5:09:00
  But this is no measure in the total savings of the working people,
• 5:09:06
  because in America, especially in the Western States, opportunities for more profitable investment
• 5:09:11
  of savings are numerous, and the rapid increase of values in real estate leads
• 5:09:17
  workmen to prefer investing in homes. When we consider the vast sums invested by
• 5:09:22
  the workers in homes, insurance, cooperative and friendly societies, and in other
• 5:09:26
  ways, and add these to the foregoing, the problem which the socialist writes
• 5:09:32
  about so glibly of transferring all wealth to the state begins to assume its true
• 5:09:37
  proportions. We quote from the Service of Friendly Societies by Alexander Cargill. Quote
• 5:09:45
  yere is as brief a summary as possible of the position of the registered societies
• 5:09:51
  throughout the country, I mean in Great Britain and Ireland, as at the
• 5:09:56
  date of the last public return, namely thirty first December nineteen oh two.
• 5:10:00
  First of all, we have the friendly Societies, pure and simple, including
• 5:10:06
  all their branches, collecting societies, benevolent societies, working Men's clubs, medical,
• 5:10:11
  et cetera. And it will interest you to know that the number of
• 5:10:15
  Friendly Society members on the date mentioned was thirteen million, three hundred forty four
• 5:10:21
  thousand, four hundred and ninety four, their funds at the same date being
• 5:10:26
  forty four million, eight hundred forty eight thousand, five hundred and seventy five
• 5:10:30
  pounds. Next there are the cooperative societies for industries and trades businesses and land
• 5:10:37
  societies. The membership of these was two million, fifty four, eight hundred
• 5:10:44
  and thirty five and their funds forty three million, three hundred and twenty eight
• 5:10:49
  thousand, seventy eight pounds. Then we have the trade unions which have a
• 5:10:56
  membership of one million, six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred and twelve
• 5:11:00
  and funds amounting to five million, sixteen thousand, four hundred and eight pounds.
• 5:11:07
  Workmen's compensation Schemes with a membership of one hundred and twenty two thousand,
• 5:11:12
  four hundred and forty one and funds of one hundred seventy two thousand, four
• 5:11:18
  hundred and eight pounds. Friends of Labor Societies with a membership of thirty two
• 5:11:23
  thousand, six hundred and eighty four and funds of two hundred fifty four thousand,
• 5:11:29
  four hundred twenty six pounds coming to the building societies, of which there
• 5:11:34
  are two kinds, the incorporated and the unincorporated. Together they have a total
• 5:11:41
  membership of five hundred ninety five thousand, four hundred and fifty one with funds
• 5:11:47
  amounting to sixty three million, nine hundred and seven thousand, eighty seven pounds.
• 5:11:52
  Lastly, we have the total certified trustee in post Office, Peoples and
• 5:11:57
  Railway Savings banks. These have no fewer than ten million, eight hundred thirty
• 5:12:04
  seven thousand, one hundred and eighty six depositors, and their funds amount to
• 5:12:10
  two hundred twenty two million, six hundred seventy seven thousand, nine hundred and
• 5:12:15
  forty one pounds. Totaling all these figures together we reach an aggregate membership of
• 5:12:22
  nearly twenty nine million, with combined funds amounting to four hundred million pounds Sterling
• 5:12:29
  end quote from the Service of Friendly Societies by Alexander Cargill. We give a
• 5:12:34
  few figures from the United States Statistical Abstract of nineteen oh six showing deposits in
• 5:12:41
  postal and other savings banks in various countries in nineteen oh five. In Britain
• 5:12:47
  there were nine hundred and ninety seven million dollars in deposits, eleven million,
• 5:12:52
  six hundred ninety four thousand depositors with an average of eighty five dollars. Mark
• 5:13:00
  there were two hundred and five million, seven hundred and twenty three thousand dollars
• 5:13:06
  in deposits, one million, two hundred ninety one thousand depositors an average of
• 5:13:11
  one hundred and fifty nine dollars. In Germany there were two billion, six
• 5:13:18
  hundred and thirty nine million, five hundred and ninety thousand dollars in deposits,
• 5:13:23
  sixteen million, six hundred and thirteen thousand depositors with an average of one hundred
• 5:13:30
  and fifty nine dollars. In France there were eight hundred and ninety million dollars
• 5:13:37
  in deposits, eleven million, seven hundred and sixty eight thousand depositors with an
• 5:13:42
  average of seventy five dollars. The aggregate of all countries which make returns is
• 5:13:48
  ninety one million, two hundred and seventy three thousand depositors, with eleven billion,
• 5:13:55
  eight hundred and one thousand, two hundred and twenty nine thousand, five
• 5:13:57
  hundred and nine dollars. These enormous sums are laid up where neither moth nor
• 5:14:03
  rust can corrupt, nor thieves break through and steel. Their only danger lies
• 5:14:08
  in the socialistic aim to remove them from present owners and transfer them to the
• 5:14:14
  state, thus making the depositors money the property of all. To return the
• 5:14:18
  deposits to the rightful owners or allow interest upon them would create a large capitalistic
• 5:14:25
  class apart from the general socialistic community, which would involve class distinctions as before
• 5:14:30
  fatal to the socialistic idea. The British Islands, with their eleven and one
• 5:14:37
  half millions of depositors in a population of say forty five millions, have an
• 5:14:41
  average of a fraction of more than one depositor in every family, allowing five
• 5:14:47
  to each. Serious trouble might be expected if the socialists cease to confine himself
• 5:14:52
  to writing about placing all wealth in the hands of the state and begin to
• 5:14:57
  act. Fortunately of this, there is no danger. One of the chief
• 5:15:03
  objections to present day socialism is that while it lends itself to endless talk,
• 5:15:07
  it is yet doomed to inaction as a system until and unless human nature itself
• 5:15:14
  is changed. In the countless ages to come earnest, and good men touched
• 5:15:18
  to fine issues should not occupy themselves grasping at distant shadows, while the substance
• 5:15:25
  improvement of the present lies at their feet, ready for treatment. There are
• 5:15:29
  three classes of men. The first are born in poverty, and probably have
• 5:15:33
  to see the harrowing sight of father and mother, sister and brother suffering from
• 5:15:38
  want. As a holy duty, they resolve to drive the wolf from the
• 5:15:42
  door and make fortunes. Young men with such experiences go into the world resolved
• 5:15:49
  to win. They must win, and the business life furnishes their best chance
• 5:15:55
  of victory in our time their foot. Once upon the latter it was comparatively
• 5:16:00
  easy climbing, even in Britain until recent times, for it was the center
• 5:16:04
  of material development in the early part of last century. In America, it
• 5:16:10
  has long been and still is, much easier to accumulate wealth than elsewhere.
• 5:16:15
  The Republic is soon to dwarf all other civilized countries in wealth and population.
• 5:16:21
  It is the land of millionaires, and the new genus of multimillionaire has just
• 5:16:26
  made its appearance there. Notwithstanding this, what has been said of the professional
• 5:16:32
  classes is eminently true. Of those of the republic its best men and women
• 5:16:37
  have little in common with the makers and possessors of vast fortunes as a class.
• 5:16:42
  Not that those born in poverty should not aspire to hire positions enabling them
• 5:16:48
  to influence others more potently for good, Not that they should not gather gear
• 5:16:52
  by every while that's justified by honor. For it is as a rule,
• 5:16:57
  only after man has provided for an self and family that he can be of
• 5:17:02
  much lasting good to others. He must surely recognize this to be his first
• 5:17:07
  duty. But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those
• 5:17:12
  of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than
• 5:17:17
  an infidel. A few, a very few, exceptional men and women appear
• 5:17:22
  at intervals in the world who seemingly need to take little thought of themselves or
• 5:17:26
  those depended upon them. Their fellows are captivated with their devotion to the general
• 5:17:33
  weeel and provide for them. But such characters are rare, and as a
• 5:17:37
  rule it is necessary for all to take care of themselves as the first duty.
• 5:17:42
  The never to be forgotten truth is that huge fortunes, so far as
• 5:17:48
  their owners are concerned, are as useless as star and garter are to their
• 5:17:52
  possessors, and not so ornamental. And this truth above all, that these
• 5:17:59
  fortunes cannot give their owners more out of life worth having than is secured by
• 5:18:03
  a competence so modest that men beginning as workers can, with health ability and
• 5:18:11
  sobriety, win for old age. We have prominent instances of this among the
• 5:18:15
  working men members of parliament scattered throughout Britain, America, Canada and Australasia.
• 5:18:22
  John Burn's cabinet minister, one of the most remarkable working men, the late
• 5:18:27
  Sir Randall Kremer, Thomas Burt, and others stand at the head. Several
• 5:18:33
  have reached the highest office upon Earth, the presidency of the majority of the
• 5:18:38
  English speaking people. This is only what we have right to expect, for
• 5:18:45
  not a few of the greatest geniuses have been manual workers. In new countries,
• 5:18:49
  millions of men who began as manual workers have achieved moderate components. Almost
• 5:18:56
  without exception. The millionaires of today have made their millions. It goes without
• 5:19:00
  saying that they had to be very economical at first, and neither drank,
• 5:19:06
  smoke nor gambled. One when asked how he made his first thousand replied,
• 5:19:12
  that's very simple, I didn't spend it. The second class of men court
• 5:19:18
  fame, not so mercenary, but vainer than the first. Their sole desire,
• 5:19:22
  as expressed by Hotspur quote, methinks it were an easy task to pluck
• 5:19:27
  bright honor from yon pale faced moon, or at a bound to dive into
• 5:19:33
  the vasty deep and drag up drowned honor by the locks. So I might,
• 5:19:37
  without co rival, wear all her dignities. And so the vain peacocks
• 5:19:44
  struts across the stage. The third class appears, murmuring, I go forth
• 5:19:48
  among men, armored in a pure intent. Great work is to be done,
• 5:19:53
  And whether I stand or crownless fall, it matters not. So God's
• 5:19:59
  work be done. For I have learned to prize the lightning deed, nor
• 5:20:03
  heed the thunder following after which men call fame end quote. To this class
• 5:20:11
  may belong every honest, earnest, sober, brotherly working man who plays well
• 5:20:17
  the part assigned to him. It is a truth that should be pondered over
• 5:20:21
  by all, that for failure in life as a rule, the fault is
• 5:20:25
  not in our stars, but in ourselves. We must all learn the great
• 5:20:30
  truth that only competence is desirable almost necessary, wealth non essential, and when
• 5:20:36
  it does come, it is only a sacred trust to be administered for the
• 5:20:41
  general good. When this lesson is truly learnt, the thirst for wealth will
• 5:20:45
  lessen, and it will cease to be the object of keen pursuit by men
• 5:20:49
  in general, which it never has been with professional classes. People will soon
• 5:20:55
  see that it does not bring happiness to its possessors, and is generally injurious
• 5:21:00
  to their children. The wise man engaged in business will seek only a moderate
• 5:21:06
  competence, and then devote himself to public affairs, laboring for the good of
• 5:21:11
  others, especially in his own community. The writer has had occasion to visit
• 5:21:15
  many cities and meet the civic authorities, mayors and members of council. Deeply
• 5:21:22
  impressed he has been with their characters and abilities, and especially with the large
• 5:21:26
  number who have risen from the ranks of the poor to eminence. Not seldom
• 5:21:32
  the mayor has done so. Much of their time is devoted to the careful
• 5:21:36
  management of municipal affairs. Although few have ceased to pursue their regular occupations.
• 5:21:42
  They are happy in leading useful, worthy lives, conscious that they labor no
• 5:21:48
  longer solely for themselves, but for their less fortunate fellows. It is cheering
• 5:21:52
  to find that working men can and do rise so often to high positions and
• 5:21:59
  perform great public service in their maturer years. Useful and happy lives these men
• 5:22:04
  lead, striving in their later years to improve the conditions of life for their
• 5:22:10
  neighbors, thus making one little spot of earth just a little bit better than
• 5:22:14
  they found it. That spot, in many cases, the dearest spot on
• 5:22:18
  earth to them, the spot where they were born, for useful service to
• 5:22:22
  others, for personal happiness and sweetest satisfaction, for all that makes life desirable,
• 5:22:30
  and Hallow's departure at last. Millionaires as a class have good cause to
• 5:22:36
  envy the town counselors, mayors, provosts, and councilmen. Should hesitate long
• 5:22:42
  before desiring exchange of positions. Even with multimillionaires. There is nothing inherently valuable
• 5:22:48
  in mere money worth striving for, unless it is to be administered as a
• 5:22:53
  sacred trust for the good of others. Otherwise, the moderate competence suffices to
• 5:23:00
  give honored old age the crown. End of Section twelve, Section thirteen labor,
• 5:23:07
  the upward march of labor. The progress of man from the earliest day
• 5:23:14
  up to the present has been one steady march upward, now and then in
• 5:23:18
  diverse regions, seemingly checked, receding for the moment, only to be swept
• 5:23:23
  onward again like the waves of the advancing tide. If it were still thought
• 5:23:29
  that the unknown had made man perfect, but with an instinct for his own
• 5:23:33
  degradation which ensured his foe, a call to return to the past would not
• 5:23:37
  have been astonishing. But when we, in our enlightened age, know that
• 5:23:41
  man is an outgrowth from lower orders of life, and has implanted within him
• 5:23:47
  the instinct which compels him to turn his face to the sun and slowly move
• 5:23:52
  upward toward that which is better, rejecting in his progress after test all that
• 5:23:56
  injures our debases. The call upon us by our socialistic friends to exchange the
• 5:24:03
  individualistic, civilized present which we have reached after many hundreds of thousands of years
• 5:24:07
  of progress, for the system of communism of the savage past, is indeed
• 5:24:14
  startling. There is no phase of human existence upon which we look today which
• 5:24:18
  does not show encouraging improvement over the past. This progress made in obedience to
• 5:24:25
  the very nature of man, created to ascend in intelligence, tastes, and
• 5:24:30
  conduct, has made all the difference between the savage and the civilized being.
• 5:24:36
  Let us never forget that under present conditions the world has grown and is growing
• 5:24:40
  better, and we steadily approach nearer the ideal. Never was there so much
• 5:24:45
  of the spirit of brotherhood among men, never so much kindness, never so
• 5:24:51
  much help extended by men and especially by women, to their less fortunate fellows.
• 5:24:56
  The writer scarcely knows a family intimately of which one or more members are
• 5:25:02
  not earnestly engaged spending their time and means in doing good, thus giving not
• 5:25:07
  only their wealth but themselves to make brighter and better the lives of the less
• 5:25:11
  fortunate. There are many of his acquaintances treading the path that leads to making
• 5:25:17
  earth a heaven. Less solicitous about heaven our home than hitherto, but more
• 5:25:22
  about making home our heaven here in this life. Many, indeed in our
• 5:25:26
  day, will merit the epitaph. If there's another world, he lives in
• 5:25:30
  bliss. If there be none, he made the best of this. It
• 5:25:36
  is not therefore to the savage past that we should look for guidance The part
• 5:25:41
  of wisdom is to hold fast to that which has proven itself good, and
• 5:25:45
  to keep on, as we have been doing, marching upward. The race
• 5:25:49
  is not led by the multitude, but by the few exceptional natures. Just
• 5:25:53
  as all orders of vegetation have been and are improved by the exceptional plants,
• 5:26:00
  from the sour crab to the apple of today, from the love apple in
• 5:26:03
  America of the past generation to our succulent tomato, exceptional plants arose, and
• 5:26:10
  from these came others. So in the animal kingdom, from the wolf came
• 5:26:15
  the collie dog, from a five toed rude progenitor the horse, all breeders
• 5:26:21
  perpetuate the best. Now in this progress, the laborer has not failed to
• 5:26:26
  share with the employer. If we contrast what he is with what he was,
• 5:26:30
  the difference is great. He was once a slave, then a serf,
• 5:26:34
  who did manual labor. Up to a century ago, he was still
• 5:26:37
  of baleen and was sold with the mine. That is, he could not
• 5:26:41
  leave it without the consent of the proprietor. Till recent times, he was
• 5:26:47
  not paid in cash. Now he is a freeman and sells the labor.
• 5:26:52
  The mine owner buys both equally independent. In dunferm Lean, some time ago,
• 5:26:57
  the writer visited the cottage for which prizes are given, with the secretary
• 5:27:03
  of the Horticultural Society, who is a working coal miner and a credit to
• 5:27:07
  labor. He remarked that the masters and miners were that day conferring upon the
• 5:27:14
  wage question. Only a hundred years ago, the writer replied, your forefathers
• 5:27:19
  would have been transferred with the mines in case of sale. Now masters and
• 5:27:25
  men meet to day as equals, buyers and sellers. What would be thought
• 5:27:30
  if the masters proposed a return to the old conditions with a twinkle in the
• 5:27:34
  eye never to be forgotten? Came the words, aye, there would be
• 5:27:38
  two at that bargain. I am thinking, with their trade unions, cash
• 5:27:44
  payments, masters of themselves and their labor. It is clear that workingmen have
• 5:27:48
  shared in the general advance. The wand of progress has not passed them by
• 5:27:52
  untouched. Nor are we without evidence that the march of their improvement is not
• 5:27:59
  to stop, following the same course with labour as with wealth. The writer
• 5:28:04
  will make free use of what he has said in years gone by, rather
• 5:28:08
  than give his views in new form, since they remain today substantially as they
• 5:28:12
  were then expressed from an employer's view of the Labour Question, Forum, April
• 5:28:19
  eighteen eighty six. The influence of trades unions upon the relations between the employer
• 5:28:26
  and employed have been much discussed. Some establishments in America have refused to recognize
• 5:28:33
  the right of the men to form themselves into these unions, although I am
• 5:28:37
  not aware that any concern in England would dare to take this position. This
• 5:28:41
  policy, however, may be regarded as only a temporary phase of the situation.
• 5:28:48
  The right of the workingmen to combine and to form trades unions is no
• 5:28:52
  less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into associations and conferences with
• 5:28:56
  his fellows, and it must be sooner are later conceded. Indeed, it
• 5:29:02
  gives one but a poor opinion of the American workman if he permits himself to
• 5:29:07
  be deprived of the right which his fellow in England has conquered for himself.
• 5:29:11
  Long since, my experience has been that trades unions, upon the whole,
• 5:29:17
  are beneficial both to labor and to capital. They certainly educate the workingmen and
• 5:29:22
  give them a truer conception of the relations of capital and labour than they could
• 5:29:27
  otherwise form. The ablest and best workmen eventually come to the front in these
• 5:29:33
  organizations, and it may be laid down as a rule that the more intelligent
• 5:29:38
  the workmen, the fewer the contests with employers. It is not the intelligent
• 5:29:44
  workman who knows that labour, without his brother capital, is helpless, but
• 5:29:48
  the blatant, ignorant man, who regards capital as the natural enemy of labour,
• 5:29:53
  who does so much to embitter the relations between employer and employed. And
• 5:29:57
  the power of this ignorant demagogue arises chiefly from the lack of proper organization among
• 5:30:03
  the men through which their real voice can be expressed. This voice will always
• 5:30:11
  be found in favor of the judicious and intelligent representative. Of course, as
• 5:30:15
  men become intelligent, more deference must be paid to them personally, and to
• 5:30:21
  their rights, and even to their opinions and prejudices, and upon the whole
• 5:30:26
  a greater share of profits must be paid in the day of prosperity to the
• 5:30:30
  intelligent than to the ignorant workmen. He cannot be imposed upon so readily.
• 5:30:37
  On the other hand, he will be found much readier to accept reduced compensation
• 5:30:41
  when business is depressed, and it is better in the long run for capital
• 5:30:45
  to be served by the highest intelligence and to be made well aware of the
• 5:30:49
  fact that it is dealing with men who know what is due to them,
• 5:30:53
  both as to treatment and compensation. I therefore recognize in trades unions, or
• 5:31:00
  better still, in organizations of the men of each establishment, who select representatives
• 5:31:06
  to speak for them, a means not of further embittering the relations between employer
• 5:31:11
  and employed, but of improving them. It is astonishing how small a sacrifice
• 5:31:17
  upon the part of the employer will sometimes greatly benefit the men. I remember
• 5:31:22
  that at one of our meetings with the committee, it was incidentally remarked by
• 5:31:26
  one speaker that the necessity of obtaining credit at the stores in the neighborhood was
• 5:31:32
  a grave tax upon the men. An ordinary workman, he said, could
• 5:31:37
  not afford to maintain himself and family for a month, and as he only
• 5:31:41
  received his pay monthly, he was compelled to obtain credit and to pay exorbitantly
• 5:31:47
  for everything, whereas if he had the cash, he could buy in Pittsburgh
• 5:31:52
  at twenty five percent less. Well, I said, why cannot we overcome
• 5:31:56
  that by paying every two weeks. The reply was, we did not like
• 5:32:02
  to ask it because we have always understood that it would cause much trouble.
• 5:32:07
  But if you can do that, it will be worth an advance of five
• 5:32:10
  percent in our wages. We have paid semi monthly since. To avoid the
• 5:32:17
  excessive prices of the small stores, I suggested a co operative society, which
• 5:32:22
  was promptly formed, the first in the region. Another speaker happened to say
• 5:32:26
  that although they were in the midst of coal, the price charged for small
• 5:32:30
  lots delivered at their houses was a certain sum per bushel. The price named
• 5:32:37
  was double what our best coal was costing us. How easy for us to
• 5:32:41
  deliver to our men such coal as they required and charged them cost. This
• 5:32:45
  was done without a cent lost to us, but with much gain to the
• 5:32:49
  men. Several other points similar to these have arisen, by which their labors
• 5:32:55
  might be lightened or products increased, and others suggesting changes in mission machinery or
• 5:33:00
  facilities, which, but for the conferences referred to, would have been unthought
• 5:33:04
  of by the employer and probably never asked for by the men. For these
• 5:33:10
  and other reasons, I attribute the greatest importance to an organization of the men,
• 5:33:15
  through whose duly elected representatives the managers may be kept informed from time to
• 5:33:19
  time of their grievances and suggestions. No matter how able the manager, the
• 5:33:25
  clever workmen can often show him how beneficial changes can be made in the special
• 5:33:30
  branch in which that workman labors. Unless the relations between manager and workmen are
• 5:33:37
  not only amicable but friendly, the owners miss much. Nor is any man
• 5:33:42
  a first class manager who has not the confidence and respect, and even the
• 5:33:47
  admiration of his workmen. No man is a true gentleman who does not inspire
• 5:33:52
  the affection and devotion of his servants. Whatever the future may have in store
• 5:33:59
  for labor, the evolutionist, who sees nothing but certain and steady progress for
• 5:34:03
  the race, will never attempt to set bounds to its triumphs, even to
• 5:34:07
  its final form of complete and universal industrial cooperation, which I hope is some
• 5:34:12
  day to be reached. The following extract is from an address delivered on opening
• 5:34:18
  the library presented to the workmen of Homestead, eighteen ninety eight. A partnership
• 5:34:26
  of three is required in the industrial world when an enterprise is planned. The
• 5:34:32
  first of these, not in importance, but in time, is capital Without
• 5:34:37
  it, nothing costly can be built. From it comes the first breath of
• 5:34:41
  life into matter previously inert, the structures reared by outside workmen, equipped and
• 5:34:48
  ready to begin in any line of industrial activity. The second partner comes into
• 5:34:53
  operation, that is business ability. Capital has done its part. It has
• 5:35:00
  provided all the instruments of production. But unless it can command the services of
• 5:35:03
  able men to manage the business, all that capital has done crumbles into ruin.
• 5:35:10
  Then comes the third partner in the works, last in order of time,
• 5:35:14
  but not least, skilled labor. If it fail to perform its part,
• 5:35:19
  nothing can be accomplished. Capital and business ability brought into play without it
• 5:35:25
  are dead. The wheels cannot revolve unless skilled labors starts them. Now,
• 5:35:32
  volumes can be written as to which of the three partners is first, second,
• 5:35:36
  or third in importance, and the subject will remain just as it was
• 5:35:40
  before. Political economists, speculative philosophers, and preachers have been giving their views
• 5:35:45
  on the subject for hundreds of years, but the answer has not yet been
• 5:35:49
  found, nor can it ever be, because each of the three is all
• 5:35:53
  important, and everyone is equally essential to the other two Labor, capital,
• 5:36:00
  and ability, or a three legged stool. There is no first, second,
• 5:36:04
  or last. There is no precedence. They are equal members of the
• 5:36:08
  great triple alliance which moves the industrial world. We have seen the position which
• 5:36:15
  labor has reached in our day. Employee and employer meet upon equal terms.
• 5:36:21
  It was the writer's province to confer with labor for twenty six years, and
• 5:36:25
  the more he knew of the workingman, the higher they rose in his estimation
• 5:36:30
  and regard. Sometimes, but not often, the worker may be misled by
• 5:36:34
  extreme men, But as a rule, a majority can always be depended upon
• 5:36:40
  to be fair and reasonable. The following are extracts from an article this writer
• 5:36:45
  published in The Forum April and August eighteen eighty six. Quote. A strike
• 5:36:52
  or a lockout is in itself a ridiculous affair, Whether a failure or a
• 5:36:56
  success, it gives no direct proof of its justice or injustice. In this
• 5:37:02
  it resembles war between two nations. It is simply a question of strength and
• 5:37:07
  endurance between the contestants. The gauge or battle of the duel is not more
• 5:37:11
  senseless as a means of establishing what is just and fair than an industrial strike
• 5:37:17
  or a lockout. It would be folly to conclude that we have reached any
• 5:37:21
  permanent adjustment between capital and labor until strikes and lockouts are as much things of
• 5:37:26
  the past as the gage of battle or the duel have become in the most
• 5:37:30
  advanced communities. Among the expedients suggested for their better reconciliation, the first place
• 5:37:38
  must be assigned to the idea of co operation, or the plan by which
• 5:37:42
  the workers are to become part owners in enterprises and share their fortunes. There
• 5:37:48
  is no doubt that if this could be effected, it would have the same
• 5:37:52
  beneficial effect upon the workmen which the ownership of land has upon the man who
• 5:37:56
  has hitherto tilled the land for another. The sense of ownership would make of
• 5:38:00
  him more of a man as regards himself, and hence more of a citizen
• 5:38:06
  as regards the commonwealth. While public sentiment has rightly and unmistakably condemned violence,
• 5:38:14
  even in the form for which there is the most excuse, I would have
• 5:38:17
  the public give due consideration to the terrible temptation to which the workingman on a
• 5:38:22
  strike is sometimes subjected to expect that one dependent upon his daily wage for the
• 5:38:29
  necessaries of life will stand by peaceably and see a new man employed in his
• 5:38:33
  stead is to expect much. This poor man may have a wife and children
• 5:38:38
  dependent upon his laborer. Whether medicine for a sick child, or even nourishing
• 5:38:44
  food for a delicate wife is procurable, depends upon his steady employment. In
• 5:38:51
  all but a very few departments of labor, it is unnecessary, and I
• 5:38:55
  think improper, to subject a man to such an ordeal. In the case
• 5:39:00
  of railways and a few other employments, it is of course essential for the
• 5:39:03
  public wants that no interruption occur, and in such case substitutes must be employed.
• 5:39:11
  But the employer of labor will find it much more to his interest,
• 5:39:14
  wherever possible, to allow his works to remain idle and await the results of
• 5:39:18
  a dispute, than to employ the class of men that can be induced to
• 5:39:22
  take the place of other men who have stopped work. Neither the best men
• 5:39:26
  as men nor the best men as workers are thus to be obtained. There
• 5:39:32
  is an unwritten law among the best workmen, thou shalt not take thy neighbor's
• 5:39:37
  job. No wise employer will lightly lose his old employees. Length of service
• 5:39:42
  counts for much in many ways. Calling upon strange men should be the last
• 5:39:48
  resort. This writer never attempted to run works with new men. In his
• 5:39:53
  opinion, strikes generally arise not so much owing to disputes about wages as to
• 5:39:59
  the lack of knowledge of the one party by the other. The employer does
• 5:40:03
  not know the men and the point of view and their troubles, and the
• 5:40:07
  men do not know their employer and his troubles. Neither does the employer know
• 5:40:11
  the virtues of the working man, nor the working man the good qualities of
• 5:40:15
  the employer. Each looks only at one side of the problem. Lack of
• 5:40:21
  proper recognition of the workers by the employers as fellow men causes most of the
• 5:40:26
  labor disputes. In domestic service, where the two classes employer and employed do
• 5:40:33
  get to know each other as men and women, there are few quarrels,
• 5:40:37
  simply because each finds the other possessed of many endearing traits. Few are the
• 5:40:41
  families in which are not found valued servants living in their old age as members
• 5:40:47
  of the household or pensioned and living nearby in their cottages often visited. The
• 5:40:53
  final relation between capital and labor labor and capital partners. While we have said
• 5:41:00
  that labour has shared in the progress of the race. Considering from whence it
• 5:41:04
  started to the position it now occupies, it cannot be claimed that conditions are
• 5:41:10
  satisfactory as they exist. In the future, labour is to rise still higher.
• 5:41:15
  The joint stock form opens the door to the participation of labor as shareholders
• 5:41:22
  in every branch of business. In this, the writer believes, lies the
• 5:41:26
  final and enduring solution of the labour question. The Carnegie Steel Company made a
• 5:41:32
  beginning by making from time to time forty odd young partners. Only one was
• 5:41:37
  related to the original partners, but all were selected on their approved merits.
• 5:41:41
  After long service, none contributed a penny. Their notes were accepted, payable
• 5:41:48
  only out of the profits of the business. Great care was taken to admit
• 5:41:52
  workers of the mechanical department, which had hitherto been neglected by employers. The
• 5:41:57
  first time of superind tendant of one of the works was made a partner attracted
• 5:42:02
  attention. But as we kept on admitting men who had risen from their ranks
• 5:42:07
  as mechanics, we founded more and more advantageous. The superintendents now sat in
• 5:42:12
  conference at the board with the managers in the office. From this policy sprang
• 5:42:18
  the custom of bonuses awarded yearly to men in subordinate positions who had done exceptional
• 5:42:23
  work. This class naturally felt that they were on the upward road to admission
• 5:42:29
  as partners, their feet upon the ladder. The problem presented by the combination
• 5:42:34
  of many steel works into the one United States Steel Corporation was not altogether anew
• 5:42:41
  For individual and corporate management have coexisted since joint stock companies were formed. The
• 5:42:47
  former had undoubtedly great advantages over the ladder. Able men managing their own works
• 5:42:52
  in competition with large bodies of shareholders employing salaried managers were certain to distance their
• 5:43:00
  corporate competition, and did so. Nothing can stand against the direct management of
• 5:43:06
  owners. The United States Steel Corporation realized this, and as a substitute,
• 5:43:11
  resolved to adopt the policy of interesting its officers and employees in its shares.
• 5:43:18
  Some plan of profit sharing was soon seen to present the best, and indeed
• 5:43:22
  the only substitute for individual management. This idea the Writer highly approved in his
• 5:43:29
  presidential address to the Iron and Steel Institute in London in nineteen o three,
• 5:43:33
  but ventured to point out one serious defect. The investments in the shares of
• 5:43:38
  the company proposed to the men were to be at the risk of the purchasers.
• 5:43:44
  We added that this seems a feature We may, however, expect the
• 5:43:48
  corporation to change as experience is gained. Every employee a shareholder would prevent most
• 5:43:55
  of the disputes between capital and the labor, and this chiefly because of the
• 5:43:59
  feeling of mutis virtuality, which would be created now alas generally lacking to effect
• 5:44:04
  this, every corporation could well afford to sell shares to its saving workmen,
• 5:44:10
  giving preference in payment at cost as a first charge in case of disaster,
• 5:44:15
  just as present laws provide first for the mechanics lean and for homestead exemption.
• 5:44:22
  This is due to the workingmen, who necessarily buys the shares without knowledge,
• 5:44:26
  and he is asked to buy them not solely for his own advantage, but
• 5:44:30
  for the benefit of the company as well, the advantage of both. This
• 5:44:34
  view, as expressed by the writer in the address referred to, we rejoice
• 5:44:38
  to say, has been adopted by the Steel Corporation, and its last offer
• 5:44:42
  of shares guarantees the men against loss. The managerial department has given bonuses every
• 5:44:49
  year upon the profits of the concern. All This was hailed by the writer
• 5:44:53
  with intense delight, as in his day dreams he had often meditated upon the
• 5:44:57
  plan of employees becoming joint owners with himself and partners. Perhaps he may be
• 5:45:04
  permitted to quote from the address referred to May nineteen o three, London quote.
• 5:45:11
  I cannot speak too highly of this experiment, nor give the steel company
• 5:45:15
  too much credit for making it. Since it is declared to be in the
• 5:45:18
  experimental stage and subject to future improvement, as all new schemes should be,
• 5:45:25
  its able and progressive author, mister George W. Perkins, is to be
• 5:45:30
  heartily congratulated. Thus we see, gentlemen, that the world moves on,
• 5:45:34
  step by step toward better conditions. Just as the mechanical world has changed and
• 5:45:40
  improved, so the world of labor has advanced from the slavery of the laborer
• 5:45:45
  to the day of his absolute independence, and now to this day, when
• 5:45:48
  he begins to take his proper place as the capitalist partner of his employer.
• 5:45:56
  We may look forward with hope to the day when it shall be the rule
• 5:46:00
  for the workmen to be partner with capital. The man of affairs giving his
• 5:46:03
  business experience, the workman in the mill his mechanical skill to the company,
• 5:46:08
  both owners of the shares, and so far equally interested in the success of
• 5:46:12
  their joint efforts, each indispensable and without whose cooperation success would be impossible.
• 5:46:19
  It is a splendid vista along which we are permitted to gaze. Perhaps I
• 5:46:26
  may be considered much too sanguine in this forecast, which no doubt will take
• 5:46:30
  time to realize. But as the result of my experience, I am convinced
• 5:46:34
  that the huge combination, and even the moderate corporation, has no chance in
• 5:46:41
  competition with the partnership, which embraces the principal officials and has adopted the system
• 5:46:45
  of payment by bonus or reward throughout its works. The latter may be relied
• 5:46:52
  upon as a rule to earn handsome dividends in times of depression, during which
• 5:46:56
  the former, conducted upon the old plan, will incur actual loss and perhaps
• 5:47:02
  land in financial embarrassment. In speaking of corporations, we must not forget,
• 5:47:07
  however, that there are many which are corporations in name only, their management
• 5:47:11
  being the life work of few owners. These rank with partnerships, having all
• 5:47:17
  the advantages of this form. The true corporation is that whose shares are upon
• 5:47:22
  the stock exchange, and whose real owners change constantly and are often unknown even
• 5:47:29
  to the president and directors, while to the workmen they are mere abstructions.
• 5:47:33
  It is impossible to infuse through their ranks the sentiment of personal regard and loyalty
• 5:47:40
  in all its wonderful power. The step taken by the United States Steel Corporation
• 5:47:45
  is therefore no surprise to me, for I have long believed that such corporations
• 5:47:48
  would be compelled to adopt the best attainable substitute for the personal factor of the
• 5:47:55
  older system, or suffer in the sagacious policy of the United States State Steel
• 5:48:00
  Corporation. I see proof of that opinion, Nor can I suggest a better
• 5:48:04
  form than that it has adopted. Always, provided the workingman shareholder be secured
• 5:48:11
  against loss in the percentage allotted by the plan to reward exceptional officials, we
• 5:48:17
  have for the huge corporation perhaps the best substitute attainable for the magic of partnership,
• 5:48:23
  which nothing, however, can approach. The reward of department officials may
• 5:48:27
  readily be secured under this provision. In the bonus granted yearly upon shares held
• 5:48:33
  by the employees. We have proof of regard for them which cannot but tell,
• 5:48:38
  and the distribution of shares in the concern among them gives an advantage which
• 5:48:42
  so far no partnership even has enjoyed. The latter will no doubt adopt the
• 5:48:48
  plan or find some equivalent. For the workingmen, owning shares in absolute security
• 5:48:53
  will prove much more valuable than one without such interest, and many incidentally as
• 5:49:00
  advantages will accrue to the company possessed of numerous shareholding employees, who may someday
• 5:49:04
  see their representatives welcomed to the board of directors. This would prove most conducive
• 5:49:11
  to harmony, knowledge of each other on the part of owners and workmen being
• 5:49:15
  the best preventive of dissatisfaction if the investment of the workers savings be made secure.
• 5:49:22
  The rapid extension of the plan seems certain and can be hailed with unalloyed
• 5:49:27
  satisfaction, But in its present form it is obviously incapable of general application,
• 5:49:33
  since the officials of few corporations could or would incur the responsibility of inducing their
• 5:49:40
  workmen to invest in their shares as a security, and few corporations could or
• 5:49:45
  should inspire the needed confidence of labour that these are to enjoy an unbroken career
• 5:49:51
  of prosperity, for such has not been the history of manufacturing concerns generally,
• 5:49:56
  especially in our field, to which we may well apply the wealth known lines
• 5:50:00
  of hoodebras a me what perils do environ the man that meddles with cold iron.
• 5:50:10
  The idea of making workmen shareholders and dividing a percentage of the profits among
• 5:50:15
  those rendering exceptional service will probably encounter the opposition of the extremists on both sides,
• 5:50:22
  the violent revolutionist of capitalistic conditions and the narrow grasping employer whose creed is
• 5:50:27
  to purchase his labor as he does his materials, paying the price agreed upon,
• 5:50:33
  and ending there. But this opposition will, we believe, amount too
• 5:50:37
  little. It will even speak well for the new idea scouted by the extremists
• 5:50:42
  and commended by the mass of men who are on neither dangerous edge, but
• 5:50:48
  in the middle, where usually lies wisdom. Meanwhile, here is the germ
• 5:50:52
  of a promising plan offered as a solution for one of the pressing problems of
• 5:50:56
  our age, which may prove capable of development. Let us receive study and
• 5:51:03
  discuss it with open mind that the problem will be solved, and that the
• 5:51:07
  two factors are some day to live in friendly cooperation. Let no one doubt
• 5:51:12
  human society bears a charmed life. It is immortal, and was born with
• 5:51:18
  the inherent power or instinct, as a law of its being, to solve
• 5:51:22
  all problems finally in the best form. And among these none more surely than
• 5:51:27
  that vexed question of our day, the relations between these Siamese twins, which
• 5:51:33
  must mutually prosper or mutually decay. Employer and employed, capital and laborer.
• 5:51:42
  Two and a half million dollars worth of additional stock was offered by the steel
• 5:51:47
  company to workmen this year nineteen o eight, and all taken, And twenty
• 5:51:52
  five thousand more of the employees applied for shares, many for one share only,
• 5:51:57
  and these are to be provided head so that nearly one hundred thousand workmen
• 5:52:02
  of this company are soon to be shareholders, i e. Part owners,
• 5:52:07
  having a right to vote with their fellow proprietors and sharing in the profits.
• 5:52:12
  These workers have their feet upon the latter and are bound to rise. They
• 5:52:17
  are very likely to save and invest more and more. This is the answer
• 5:52:22
  reached by evolution under present conditions to pessimists and revolutionists, which our socialist friends
• 5:52:29
  should ponder well. The strict political economists of our day may look askance at
• 5:52:33
  the idea of a minimum wage and a guarantee for the workmen against loss upon
• 5:52:40
  their shares in companies in which they hold a minority interest. But whatever final
• 5:52:45
  form the merger of labor and capital may assume in the distant future, these
• 5:52:49
  features seem to be essential under present conditions. If taxation should be born only
• 5:52:56
  according to ability to pay, it is not wholly unreasonable that the workmen should
• 5:53:02
  not be subject to loss. For having only a minimum wage he has no
• 5:53:06
  ability to incur loss. The exemption of a stated sum from income tax in
• 5:53:11
  Britain and in America the exemption of the small homestead are examples of this principle.
• 5:53:19
  Should the workmen hold the majority of shares and really manage the business,
• 5:53:25
  exemption from sharing loss should cease. This is only a beginning. The Philing
• 5:53:30
  Stores of Boston, a shareholding company employing seven to nine hundred men, has
• 5:53:36
  gone farthest of all in the direction of making its employees joint owners. The
• 5:53:41
  capital stock is held only by employees and is returned to the corporation at its
• 5:53:47
  value. Should the employee leave the service, every share of stock belongs to
• 5:53:52
  someone working in the stores. The most important advance is that all questions are
• 5:53:59
  submitted to our BRA, not only complaints or disputes, but wages, scope
• 5:54:03
  of work, and tenure of employment. More than four hundred cases of arbitration
• 5:54:08
  have arisen, and the result is that both managers and employees have been satisfied
• 5:54:15
  that this is the true plan. When an employee is discharged, he has
• 5:54:18
  the right to appeal to an arbitration board composed of fellow employees of different grades.
• 5:54:26
  All wage disputes have been satisfactorily settled. There is a profit sharing department,
• 5:54:32
  having nothing to do with wages, which has been able to distribute varying
• 5:54:36
  amounts each year. There is also a welfare Committee of the shareholders, which
• 5:54:41
  manages a clubhouse and maintains lunch and recreation rooms. The Insurance Committee furnishes five
• 5:54:48
  classes of assurance at cost. Two thirds of the workers are insured. The
• 5:54:53
  bank pays five percent upon deposits of employees, which are guaranteed by the corporate.
• 5:55:00
  The Publication Committee issues a monthly paper many features of a social and educational
• 5:55:07
  nature are enjoyed by the employees throughout the year, and an atmosphere has been
• 5:55:11
  produced of great value to the business and to the members. It may be
• 5:55:17
  added that the Phioline stores are not excelled, if equalled, in making profits.
• 5:55:23
  Their goods are turned over ten times some years, six or seven times
• 5:55:27
  being the average, and the stores are among the foremost and best known in
• 5:55:32
  Boston. No doubt, the brothers Phioline are remarkable men and recognized leaders in
• 5:55:38
  this work, but we may expect their example to impress others, particularly since
• 5:55:44
  their profit sharing and stock owning plans have been vindicated by unusual success from every
• 5:55:49
  point of view, particularly in improving the relations between employers and employees. We
• 5:55:56
  are just at the beginning of profit sharing and the reign of working men proprietors,
• 5:56:03
  which many indications point to as the next step forward in the march of
• 5:56:07
  wage paid labor to the higher stage of profit sharing joint partnership. Workers with
• 5:56:14
  the hand and workers with the head paid from profits. No dragging of the
• 5:56:18
  latter down, but the raising of the former up. We never see a
• 5:56:23
  fishing fleet sail without hailing it as the finest illustration of the perfect relationship.
• 5:56:30
  Which is one day to prevail between capital and labor. Generally, every man
• 5:56:36
  in the ship, from the capitol down is a partner, paid by sharing
• 5:56:40
  in the profits of the catch according to the value of his labor. Even
• 5:56:45
  the lowest paid, probably a young hand not yet an able bodied seaman,
• 5:56:51
  could be a partner in the business here in the field capable of immediate and
• 5:56:56
  wide extension, provided employers agreed to fix the minimum wage sufficient to maintain economically
• 5:57:02
  the worker's household, and to this it is believed every fair minded employer would
• 5:57:07
  gladly agree. So far, we have a list of one hundred and eighty
• 5:57:11
  nine manufacturing concerns in the United States which have welfare departments, sales of stock
• 5:57:18
  to workmen, or other modes of adding to their wages, or forms recognizing
• 5:57:23
  the community of interest between employers and employed. Gilman, in his book on
• 5:57:30
  profit Sharing, published in eighteen ninety nine, gave the following numbers of profit
• 5:57:36
  sharing firms in the different countries of Europe. France one hundred and twenty,
• 5:57:41
  Britain ninety four, Germany forty seven, Switzerland fourteen, Italy eight, Holland
• 5:57:49
  seven, Belgium six, Austria, Hungary five it will soon be the exception
• 5:57:57
  for employers upon a great scale to ignore this feature. Eighteen of the principal
• 5:58:03
  railroad companies in America have established systems of pensions for their employees as extra recompense
• 5:58:11
  the cost born exclusively by the corporations. The pension feature, like profit sharing,
• 5:58:18
  is making great headway and promises soon to be universal. So marches Labour
• 5:58:25
  up the heights to equality, with the millionaire as his partner in business.
• 5:58:30
  This ends my quotation from the Presidential address to the Iron and Steel Institute in
• 5:58:37
  nineteen o three. It will be seen that the writer's views are not of
• 5:58:42
  yesterday. He has had considerable experience with the labor problem and thought much over
• 5:58:48
  it. Whether the communist's ideal is to be finally reached upon earth after man
• 5:58:53
  is so changed that self interest, which is now the mainspring of human action,
• 5:58:59
  will give place to heavenly neighbor interest cannot be known. The future has
• 5:59:04
  not been revealed. He who says yes and he who says no are equally
• 5:59:10
  fool hardy. Neither knows. Therefore, neither should presume to consider much less
• 5:59:15
  to legislate in their day for a future. They can know nothing of endowed
• 5:59:21
  as man is with the instinct for improvement. Fortunately, no limit to his
• 5:59:26
  march toward perfection can be set. But what perfection is to be we know
• 5:59:30
  not. The writer, however, believes one point to be clear. That
• 5:59:36
  is that the next step toward improved labor conditions is through the stage of shareholding
• 5:59:41
  in the industrial world, the workmen becoming joint owner in the profits of his
• 5:59:45
  labor. Payment to slaves and serfs by providing shelter and food and clothing for
• 5:59:52
  them, than by orders upon the stores for articles, up to payment by
• 5:59:56
  cash to independent workmen. Today, each a great step forward. Have all
• 6:00:03
  been tried, and now the coming day dawns when payment is to be made
• 6:00:07
  wholly or in part by profit sharing, the workmen having the status of the
• 6:00:12
  share owning official and a voice in management as joint owner, he will be
• 6:00:18
  guaranteed a minimum wage when finally paid by profits, entirely to keep his mind
• 6:00:23
  easy and free for his work, the proper support of himself and of his
• 6:00:27
  family being thus insured. It may be mentioned that the investments of workmen partners
• 6:00:36
  in the United States Steel Corporation have been very profitable to both the men and
• 6:00:40
  the company. To the sober minded workmen, We say again, hold fast
• 6:00:45
  to that which has proved itself good. Keep marching upon the path of decided
• 6:00:49
  and continuous progress, a progress which can be proved by simply glancing backward to
• 6:00:56
  conditions under which labour started when work is the part of slaves, and contrasting
• 6:01:02
  these with its present independent position. We have traced the progress of labor upward
• 6:01:07
  under present conditions, from slavery to partnership with capital. What the working man
• 6:01:15
  has to consider, and consider well, is whether this be not the most
• 6:01:18
  advantageous path for him to continue to tread. So far as it has been
• 6:01:22
  tried, it has proved a decided success, and it can easily be continued,
• 6:01:27
  since it is proving mutually beneficial to capital and labor. One of the
• 6:01:33
  greatest advantages the writer thinks will be found in drawing men and managers into closer
• 6:01:38
  intercourse, so that they become friends and learned each other's virtues, For that
• 6:01:45
  both have virtues. None knows better than the writer, who has seen both
• 6:01:48
  sides of the shield as employee and employer. We only hate those we do
• 6:01:55
  not know, says the French proverb. There is much truth in this in
• 6:02:00
  vast establishments, it is very difficult, almost impossible, for workmen and employers
• 6:02:06
  to know each other. But when the managers and workmen are joint owners and
• 6:02:11
  both paid wages, as even the president of the company is, we shall
• 6:02:15
  see greater intercourse between them. In the case of disputes. It is certain
• 6:02:21
  that the workmen partners have a status nothing else can give. They can attend
• 6:02:26
  all shareholders meetings and have a voice there if desired. Entrance into the partnership
• 6:02:32
  class means increased power to workmen. On the other hand, knowledge of the
• 6:02:37
  company's affairs, its troubles and disappointments, which come at intervals to the most
• 6:02:41
  successful concerns, will teach the workmen much that he did not know before.
• 6:02:48
  Co partnership tends to bring a realizing sense of the truth to both labor and
• 6:02:52
  capital that their interests, roadly considered, are mutual, and as far as
• 6:02:57
  the latter is concerned, it may finally, in some cases be all furnished
• 6:03:03
  by those engaged in the works, which is the ideal that should be held
• 6:03:07
  in view the workmen, both capitalist and worker, employee and employer. This,
• 6:03:14
  however, is not for our time. We are only pioneers, whose
• 6:03:18
  duty is to start the movement, leaving to our successors its full and free
• 6:03:22
  development. As human society advances. The first company so owned will mark a
• 6:03:27
  new era in the relations of labor and capital. We may not have to
• 6:03:32
  wait long for this experiment, since it is in line with recent developments.
• 6:03:37
  The writer has no desire to embark again in business, but nothing would appeal
• 6:03:41
  to him so strongly as this ideal. He should like to address the body
• 6:03:45
  of workmen, many thousands in number, as all fellow partners. He addresses
• 6:03:52
  forty odd at dinner once every year, by that endearing term partners of his
• 6:03:56
  youth and dear friends of his old age. Only two ever put a dollar
• 6:04:00
  in the business. All the others, many of them workingmen, earned their
• 6:04:06
  shares by a brilliant service. Most of them are dollar millionaires, all are
• 6:04:11
  rich. Thus, is labor soon to attain its deserved place and recompense,
• 6:04:18
  and workmen and capitalists to become one the wage system, except a minimum being
• 6:04:23
  displaced by division of profits. The foregoing was written before the following by John
• 6:04:30
  Stuart Mill attracted the writer's attention. The form of association, however, which
• 6:04:37
  if mankind continued to improve must be expected in the end to predominate is not
• 6:04:41
  that which can exist between a capitalist as chief and work people without a voice
• 6:04:48
  in the management, but the association of the laborers themselves on terms of equality,
• 6:04:52
  collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working
• 6:04:57
  under managers elect and removable by themselves. Footnote. This quote is from John
• 6:05:04
  Stuart Mills's Political Economy. It is most encouraging that so great an authority,
• 6:05:11
  as Mill, foresaw that the ideal condition of the future lay not in state
• 6:05:18
  owned factories and minds, uniform wages to workmen, and the abolition of private
• 6:05:22
  capital, as socialists urge, but in uniting the workmen and the capitalist in
• 6:05:27
  one and the same person. The writer is convinced that this is to be
• 6:05:32
  the highly satisfactory and final solution. The first step in advance has already come
• 6:05:38
  in the natural progress of evolution, no revolution necessary, and it is earnestly
• 6:05:44
  pressed upon the attention of the intelligent workingmen and as leaders, some of whom
• 6:05:48
  seem to have been misled into devoting themselves to the advocacy of a system admittedly
• 6:05:55
  unsuited to our day, which requires an organic change in the sad relations of
• 6:06:00
  society, and indeed involves a complete revolution in the nature of man, the
• 6:06:06
  task of a thousand years. The experiment of labor and capital union workmen capitalists
• 6:06:14
  has exceeded so far all expectations. Even the convinced socialist might therefore hail it
• 6:06:21
  as at least a step in the right direction, making labour's position better than
• 6:06:26
  before, saying to himself, let the future bring what it may. A
• 6:06:30
  bird in the hand is often worth more than a whole flock in the bush.
• 6:06:33
  Our socialistic remedy is for the future. Let us not forget this in
• 6:06:37
  our dealings with the present. Such seems to the writer the part of wisdom.
• 6:06:45
  End of Section thirteen, Section fourteen Wages. The two schools of socialism,
• 6:06:52
  evolutionary and revolutionary, differ upon the crucial question of wages, although it
• 6:07:00
  is fundamental and must be settled one way or the other, for until it
• 6:07:06
  is what socialism really means cannot be known. If wages are not to be
• 6:07:11
  equal, all classes cannot be merged and kept uniform. The basis of socialism
• 6:07:19
  we quote from several socialistic sources. Quote socialism forbids the future use of property
• 6:07:26
  as private means of production or private source of income, and thus necessarily puts
• 6:07:34
  an end to inequalities of income unquote quote. Socialism is that mode of social
• 6:07:42
  life which, based upon the recognition of the natural brotherhood and unity of mankind,
• 6:07:49
  would have land and capital owned by the community collectively and operated co operatively
• 6:07:56
  for the equal good of all. Quote. Our aim one at all,
• 6:08:03
  is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership and control of the means of
• 6:08:10
  transport, the means of manufacture, the mines, and the land. Thus
• 6:08:15
  we look to put an end forever to the wage system, to sweep away
• 6:08:21
  all distinctions of class, and eventually to establish national and international communism on a
• 6:08:29
  sound basis. Quote. The land, being the storehouse of the necessaries of
• 6:08:36
  life, should be declared and treated as public property. The capital necessary for
• 6:08:41
  industrial operations should be owned and used collectively. Work and wealth resulting therefrom should
• 6:08:49
  be equitably distributed over the population. Quote controversy unquote, writes Missus Annie Besson
• 6:09:00
  will probably arise as to the division. Shall all the shares be equal,
• 6:09:06
  or shall the workers receive in proportion to the supposed dignity or indignity of their
• 6:09:12
  work inequality, however, would be odious. The impossibility of estimating the separate
• 6:09:19
  value of each man's labor with any really valid result, the friction which would
• 6:09:26
  arise, the jealousies which would be provoked, the inevitable discontent, favoritism and
• 6:09:33
  jobbery that would prevail. All these things will drive the communal Council into the
• 6:09:40
  right path equal remuneration of all workers. Quote. Socialism we believe to be
• 6:09:48
  the next step in the evolution of that form of state which will give the
• 6:09:52
  individual the fullest and freest room for expansion and development. State socialism, with
• 6:10:00
  all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit, will prepare the way for
• 6:10:07
  free communism, in which the rule not merely the law of the state,
• 6:10:12
  but the rule of life, will be from each according to his ability,
• 6:10:18
  to each according to his needs unquote. Notwithstanding the foregoing mister Hardy ventures to
• 6:10:26
  averir in another place that quote. The socialist state therefore will have good reason
• 6:10:33
  to honor the inventor, and will have a direct interest in rewarding him as
• 6:10:38
  a public benefactor. If already honored, one wonders what form further reward could
• 6:10:48
  take without differentiating him from others upon the other side. We quote from mister
• 6:10:55
  Jowitt's booklet in the labor Ideal series The Socialist and the City, Pages seventeen
• 6:11:02
  eighteen nineteen. This deliverance is so vitally important that we give it at length.
• 6:11:10
  At present, all the larger corporations are trying to monopolize for their own
• 6:11:15
  service a number of experts insufficient to go round. The result is that some
• 6:11:22
  of them are paying first class salaries for second or third class men. There
• 6:11:30
  will be no need for this when cities cease to compete with each other,
• 6:11:34
  and one may naturally expect that socialist cities would abolish this least vestige of competition
• 6:11:42
  still remaining between different municipal corporations. The associated corporations will be able to pay
• 6:11:52
  sufficiently large salaries, and each individual corporation requiring a specialist's assis, instance,
• 6:12:00
  might pay consultation fees into a common pool. Joint action in this direction will
• 6:12:07
  tend to steady the movements of experts and officials, and for the rest it
• 6:12:14
  should be looked upon as a discreditable proceeding on the part of a man holding,
• 6:12:18
  say, a responsible post as engineer, surveyor architect, or other similar
• 6:12:25
  profession to transfer his services after committing the community to some large scheme involving great
• 6:12:33
  outlay, until the work is sufficiently near completion for the responsibility to be properly
• 6:12:41
  placed in case of failure. It is no part of the socialist plan to
• 6:12:47
  run municipal concerns under the control of the managerial leavings of private enterprise. For
• 6:12:55
  that way disaster lies. Here we have a revelation. Nothing new is to
• 6:13:03
  be obtained by mister Jowitt's brand of socialism, except that socialistic cities are to
• 6:13:10
  combine, which they do not do under present conditions, and agree not to
• 6:13:17
  offer a higher reward for labor, thus robbing other cities of their valuable men.
• 6:13:23
  No competition for labor, valuable men are to be compelled to remain where
• 6:13:29
  they are no chance of escape. What do our friends of labor think of
• 6:13:34
  this ability? As today will look for and receive high rewards, and cities,
• 6:13:42
  through their governors will condescend to combine to thwart service, receiving the reward
• 6:13:49
  which, under the free play of forces it would command in the necessary basis
• 6:13:56
  of society. Contemporary Review, U June nineteen o eight, page six,
• 6:14:02
  sixty four mister Sidney Webb, who tells us he is a socialist, writes
• 6:14:07
  as follows quote. The most democratic government of the ensuing century, based as
• 6:14:15
  it must necessarily be, on the very idea of providing for each of the
• 6:14:22
  series of minorities of which the world is made up, is as likely to
• 6:14:27
  provide for one minority as for another, for its poets, as for its
• 6:14:33
  apprentices, for its scientists, as for its soldiers, for its artists,
• 6:14:40
  as for its artificials, And with the advance of actual knowledge in the administration,
• 6:14:47
  is even more likely to know how they can be fostered and really well
• 6:14:52
  provided for than the irresponsible plutocratic patron ever did Another eminent authority, mister H.
• 6:15:03
  G. Wells, in his recent book, differs from both sides quoted.
• 6:15:08
  The state is not to take over all branches of industrial production, but
• 6:15:15
  only half. He declares, A little moody, or little short of a
• 6:15:22
  moody, of the business of such a country as England must always be in
• 6:15:27
  the hands of men who are the masters of their own enterprises, and are
• 6:15:33
  not the salaried officials of any larger organization whatsoever. Labor is not to be
• 6:15:41
  paid equal wages or according to its needs. Socialism does not propose to abolish
• 6:15:48
  competition, as many hasty and foolish antagonists declare. If the reader has gone
• 6:15:56
  through what has preceded this, he will know that this is not so.
• 6:16:02
  Socialism trusts to competition for the service and improvement of the world, and in
• 6:16:07
  order that competition between man and man may have free play. Socialism seeks to
• 6:16:15
  abolish one particular form of competition, the competition to get and hold property,
• 6:16:22
  even to marry property that degrades our present world. But it would leave men
• 6:16:30
  free to compete for fame, for service, for salaries, for position and
• 6:16:37
  authority, for leisure, for love and honor. Socialism must either establish equality
• 6:16:45
  of wages, for thus only can it maintain uniformity of living, or retain
• 6:16:52
  the present system of inequality of wages involving variety of living. If the former
• 6:17:00
  were adopted, human life would be changed, with results unknown. No wonder
• 6:17:06
  mister Hardy relegates the consideration of that question to the future, for he is
• 6:17:12
  undoubtedly right in saying man is not today prepared for such a change. Those
• 6:17:19
  whose services command more than the common laborer would not agree. Such is human
• 6:17:26
  nature as it stands today, and the idea of uniform income may be dismissed
• 6:17:33
  until the nature of man changes. On the other hand, if different wages
• 6:17:40
  be paid according to service rendered, socialism becomes impossible. As mister Spargo says,
• 6:17:48
  there must be approximate equality of income. Otherwise class formations must take place,
• 6:17:56
  and the old problems incidental to economic innoques quality reappear. Here is a
• 6:18:03
  step which socialism must overleap or else fall down. Mister Ramsay MacDonald m P.
• 6:18:11
  Is a philosophic socialist who writes well, he tells us quote, if
• 6:18:18
  the socialist state is ever to come, it is not by a sudden change
• 6:18:22
  in economic and personal relationships, but by a steady readjustment of existing relationships,
• 6:18:32
  until the organic structure has been completely altered. Never were truer words written.
• 6:18:41
  Would that all socialists apprehended that they are fatal to the realization of the socialistic
• 6:18:48
  state, with its uniform incomes and abolition of private property, not only during
• 6:18:56
  our time, but until or unless, quote, the organic structure be completely
• 6:19:03
  altered. Man's progress in the past has been steady, and he has traveled
• 6:19:11
  upward from savagery. But long is the road, and devious the way to
• 6:19:17
  complete change of the organic structure of the economic and personal relationships of human society.
• 6:19:26
  Yet this must be reached before socialism as a system can be introduced.
• 6:19:33
  Strange that such men as we have quoted fit for leaders of their fellows in
• 6:19:37
  assaults upon the numerous evils of our day, should waste their powers upon a
• 6:19:45
  system which they admit cannot be adopted until organic changes take place in the structure
• 6:19:52
  of human society. We have before us the work of our own day and
• 6:20:00
  generation, and only this can we push forward during our lives. To this,
• 6:20:07
  it is our duty to devote ourselves, leaving the work of the distant
• 6:20:11
  future to our successors. Rare are the men capable of dealing wisely with the
• 6:20:18
  needs of their own time. Even with these their success is often not surprisingly
• 6:20:26
  brilliant. We have not been blessed with men capable of legislating properly for generations
• 6:20:33
  to come. They do not and cannot exist. Meanwhile, in view of
• 6:20:40
  the conflicting views expressed, we shall surely be excused for asking the socialists for
• 6:20:47
  an authoritative answer to the question whether socialism involves equal wages or whether the present
• 6:20:55
  individualistic mode of payment according to service renders is to be retained or mister Wells's
• 6:21:03
  half and half system to be adopted. The most devoted disciple of socialism must
• 6:21:11
  realize that this constitutes one of the two vital differences between the individualistic and socialistic
• 6:21:19
  systems, the other being the right of private property. That it is fundamental
• 6:21:26
  and lies at the root of the whole matter. No equal wages, no
• 6:21:33
  socialism possible equal wages, no individualism possible half equal and half unequal wages,
• 6:21:42
  endless confusion. We leave the revolutionary, the evolutionary, and the half and
• 6:21:49
  half socialists to study the problem and decide. Until it is solved, socialism
• 6:21:56
  remains a mere babble of words, words signifying nothing. For this is not
• 6:22:03
  a mere incident. In its progress, it stands at the threshold and demands
• 6:22:10
  settlement. End of Section fourteen. Section fifteen thrift. The socialistic system,
• 6:22:18
  as we shall see, does not harmonize with our present home and family relations,
• 6:22:23
  which many of us treasure for their holy and ennobling influence upon human life
• 6:22:30
  as the most precious of all institutions. We find that it also attacks or
• 6:22:34
  belittles one of the virtues, which, as we believe, lies at the
• 6:22:38
  root of the progress of our race that of thrift. Most men and women
• 6:22:45
  are born to poverty. Comparatively, few are provided for and free to spend
• 6:22:51
  lives of ease. The vast majority must work to live fortunately for himself.
• 6:22:56
  In all probability, Keir Hardy is no exception. If he had been one
• 6:23:02
  of the few born to competence, he might never have attained eminence through service
• 6:23:07
  to his fellows. In his Booklet in the Labor Ideal Series, page thirty
• 6:23:11
  eight, after writing that the Sermon on the Mount is fully of the spirit
• 6:23:15
  of pure socialism, he continues quote nay, in its lofty contempt for thrift
• 6:23:22
  and forethought, it goes far in advance of anything ever put forward by any
• 6:23:26
  communist, ancient or modern. End quote. Thrift cannot commend itself to the
• 6:23:33
  true socialist, who forbids private capital. But the story of the talent hidden
• 6:23:38
  in the ground inculcates the duty of man not only to guard his capital,
• 6:23:44
  but to increase it. And we are told that quote he that provides not
• 6:23:48
  for those of his own house hath denied the faith and is worse than an
• 6:23:53
  infidel. End quote. Proper provision certainly requires a reserve un for contingencies.
• 6:24:00
  If we were to divide the vast army of workers of mature age into two
• 6:24:06
  classes, the savers and the spendthrifts, we should practically separate the credible from
• 6:24:11
  the discredible, the exemplary from the pitiable, the progressive from the backsliders,
• 6:24:18
  the sober from the intemperate. A visit to their respective homes would confirm this
• 6:24:25
  classification. The thrifty would be found not only the best workmen and foremost in
• 6:24:30
  the shop, but the best citizens, and the best husbands and fathers,
• 6:24:36
  the leaders and exemplars of their fellows. Many are those who have risen from
• 6:24:41
  the ranks of manual labor and achieved reputation for useful work performed for the community,
• 6:24:47
  and have been held in general esteem as model citizens. Much good have
• 6:24:52
  they accomplished for their fellows. That they were thrifty thoughtful men goes without saying
• 6:24:59
  they could not other wise have risen. If the workmen depositors in savings banks,
• 6:25:03
  members of friendly and of building societies, cooperative stores, and similar organizations
• 6:25:10
  were to march in procession preceded by the workmen who are not spectators, would
• 6:25:15
  take heart again after their depression from saying the first. If the workmen who
• 6:25:19
  owned their homes were to march, and to be followed by those who do
• 6:25:23
  not, the contrast and appearance would be striking. Apply to the masses of
• 6:25:30
  men any of the tests that indicate success or failure in life, progress or
• 6:25:34
  stagnation, valuable or worthless citizenship, and none will more clearly than that of
• 6:25:41
  thrift separate the well behaved, respected, and useful from the unsatisfactory members of
• 6:25:48
  society. The writer lived in his early years among workmen, and his later
• 6:25:52
  years as an employer of labor, and it is incomprehensible to him how any
• 6:25:57
  informed man, having at heart the elevation of manual laboring men, could fail
• 6:26:03
  to place upon the habit of thrift the highest value, second only to that
• 6:26:08
  of temperance, without which no honorable career is possible. For against intemperance,
• 6:26:15
  no combination of good qualities can prevail. Temperance and thrift are virtues which act
• 6:26:21
  and react upon each other, strengthening both, and are seldom found apart.
• 6:26:27
  The pure elevating happy home with wife and children is the product of both.
• 6:26:33
  When some part of the weekly earnings is not saved, all is not as
• 6:26:40
  well with that home as could be wished. End of Section fifteen. Section
• 6:26:47
  number sixteen the land. The land features prominently in political and social questions only
• 6:26:53
  in the British Islands. It has settled itself in all other regions occupied by
• 6:26:59
  the English speaking It is not a burning question in America, Canada, Australia
• 6:27:03
  or New Zealand, nor in most European countries, where the land is mainly
• 6:27:07
  divided in small portions among the people. In the United States, in nineteen
• 6:27:12
  hundred there were five million, seven hundred thirty nine thousand, six hundred fifty
• 6:27:17
  seven farms and ten million, three hundred eighty one thousand, seven hundred and
• 6:27:21
  sixty five adults engaged in agricultural pursuits. The farms averaged one hundred forty six
• 6:27:26
  acres. The rapid increase of these may be seen from the fact that in
• 6:27:30
  eighteen fifty there were only one and a half million, in eighteen eighty only
• 6:27:34
  four million farms. So the good work has gone on an average increase of
• 6:27:38
  eighty five thousand additional farms per year for the past fifty years, and the
• 6:27:42
  end is not yet. As a rule, farms are cultivated by the owners
• 6:27:47
  if happy homes be the crown of civilization. We have here the scripture fulfilled.
• 6:27:51
  Millions of men sit under their own vine and fig tree, with none
• 6:27:55
  to make afraid. Land is free for sale or purchase, and is lightly
• 6:27:57
  taxed. Where it is taxed at all, the world may be ransacked in
• 6:28:00
  vain for equally large numbers of men, women and children residing under such favorable
• 6:28:06
  conditions. Home sweet Home, is the spot round which center their fondest hopes,
• 6:28:11
  their dearest wishes, and their greatest happiness. The few who rent for
• 6:28:15
  the time have the desire and reasonable hope of soon owning their homes, the
• 6:28:18
  wisest purchase that can be made. Similar conditions prevail in Canada, Australia,
• 6:28:23
  and New Zealand. France has five and a half million peasant proprietors. Germany
• 6:28:29
  has over six million, average holding thirty acres. It is only in the
• 6:28:33
  United Kingdom that the land question is acute. The present conditions of land holding
• 6:28:37
  in the countries named prove to the people of the old Land what can be
• 6:28:41
  done. But the favored people of the four new countries named had a clean
• 6:28:44
  slate to begin with, nothing to obliterate. They do not, therefore,
• 6:28:48
  teach the needed lesson to the motherland, which Denmark does. That wonderful little
• 6:28:52
  country not long ago was in the hands of a few owners who rented it
• 6:28:56
  in portions to farmers whose position was that of farmers in the United Kingdom today.
• 6:29:00
  But it is now very different. They are now on the same plane
• 6:29:03
  as farm owners in America and other English speaking nations. The land that seventy
• 6:29:08
  odd years ago was in the hands of the few is now owned by no
• 6:29:11
  less than eighty six thousand people, and as to seventy five thousand of the
• 6:29:15
  holdings, the law prevents their being merged to form larger farms or estates.
• 6:29:21
  The area of the country is less than ten million acres and the population two
• 6:29:25
  and a half millions. Denmark's exports of butter, eggs, cheese, bacon,
• 6:29:30
  beef and pork to Great Britain alone in nineteen o four amounted to more
• 6:29:34
  than fifteen million sterling, a startling statement. One wonders what British farmers are
• 6:29:40
  doing. No revolution was necessary to produce the change, no government ownership.
• 6:29:45
  It was all quietly done, one step after another. The country was divided
• 6:29:49
  into farms of a certain size and a progressive land tax levied. For one
• 6:29:53
  man cultivating one farm, the tax was small. If he had another,
• 6:29:56
  the tax was much greater upon the second, and so on until additions became
• 6:30:02
  prohibitive, the object being to favor the owning of farms by those who cultivated
• 6:30:06
  them. The produce of the land is now three times as great under the
• 6:30:10
  former system of large proprietors still existing. In the United Kingdom, the magic
• 6:30:15
  said to be an ownership was really found there by following the example of Denmark,
• 6:30:19
  which involves neither dangerous experiments nor violent disturbance. The land of the United
• 6:30:25
  Kingdom can be owned and worked by the owners thereof each man with a reasonable
• 6:30:29
  acreage, and thus many happy and endearing homes established. This is well,
• 6:30:33
  but it is not all or even the best result. Denmark's policy has created
• 6:30:38
  an independent, prosperous, happy and contented people instead of one great mammoth landowner.
• 6:30:45
  The state, as socialists propose Britain, should have hundreds of thousands of
• 6:30:49
  small owners, necessarily developing into men of a much higher type than mere tenants
• 6:30:55
  or employees. Can ever become the magic of ownership works wonders not only upon
• 6:31:00
  the soil, but upon the happy working owner thereof the type of men developed
• 6:31:04
  in America upon farms they owned. Taken all in all is not to be
• 6:31:08
  equalled. As far as the writer has known large classes of men, the
• 6:31:12
  same qualities characterized the land owning workers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
• 6:31:18
  Denmark. Land in these countries is everywhere free as other property is. The
• 6:31:22
  laws of primogeniture and settlements exist only in Britain. No English speaking people elsewhere
• 6:31:29
  would tolerate them. We have a striking instance of land development going forward in
• 6:31:33
  America at present. Forty odd years ago there were four million slaves owned by
• 6:31:37
  other people. They owned nothing and could own nothing. They could not even
• 6:31:42
  own themselves. They had neither rights nor responsibilities. They were bought and sold
• 6:31:48
  in nineteen hundred. Under present conditions, these former slaves owned as landlords one
• 6:31:53
  hundred and seventy three thousand, three hundred and fifty two farms. They leased
• 6:31:57
  and cultivated as farmers seven hundred and sixty two thousand farms. They have church
• 6:32:03
  property valued at more than twenty five million dollars. Great additions have been made
• 6:32:07
  to their lands since nineteen hundred. Here we have a race who in eighteen
• 6:32:12
  sixty two could own nothing, not even themselves now owning and cultivating the soil
• 6:32:18
  in small portions, no rent to pay. They could neither read nor write,
• 6:32:22
  And now the percentage of illiteracy has fallen from eighty three point five in
• 6:32:26
  eighteen seventy to forty seven point four in nineteen hundred. When such progress can
• 6:32:32
  be made under free trade in land, surely we should be careful about revolutionizing
• 6:32:37
  conditions which produce such precious fruit. The extent of land owned and cultivated by
• 6:32:41
  these people in small areas furnishes the greatest contrasts to that of the United Kingdom,
• 6:32:48
  that between small landlords cultivating their own land and men who pay a rental
• 6:32:52
  to territorial magnates whose lands they cultivate. The more than eleven millions of working
• 6:32:57
  people and their children settled upon the land in America as agriculturalists are the backbone
• 6:33:03
  of the republic. Intelligent, fair, kindly, sober, and law abiding.
• 6:33:08
  One who knows them would hesitate long to disturb conditions which gave the state
• 6:33:12
  such model citizens. To transfer the land, now cultivated and mainly owned by
• 6:33:18
  these people into the hands of the state and degrade the present working owners into
• 6:33:22
  menials working for and paid by state agents is unthinkable. Our socialistic friends would
• 6:33:27
  require larger armies to coerce them than have ever yet assembled, and they would
• 6:33:32
  fail. For men fighting in defense of their homes in which many of them
• 6:33:36
  and most of their children were born would have their coral just no offer on
• 6:33:41
  the part of the state to ensure their continued residents undisturbed would be entertained.
• 6:33:45
  They would never agree to come under any restriction of their right to do as
• 6:33:48
  they pleased with their own homes. It is the same with Canadians and Australasians.
• 6:33:53
  In every English speaking land other than Britain, estates are generally divided about
• 6:33:59
  equally among the children, but the farm usually goes to the member most qualified
• 6:34:03
  to work it, the other members taking other parts of the estate or mortgages
• 6:34:07
  upon the farm. The proposed exclusive taxation of land proposed by Henry George was
• 6:34:14
  denounced by the people of Canada and America as keenly as would be a proposition
• 6:34:18
  to make America a monarchy or Canada a colony minus self government. In both
• 6:34:22
  lands, the agriculturalists rule that the most eloquent socialists endeavor to convince these owners
• 6:34:29
  of the soil, true landlord farmers, that they are not part and the
• 6:34:33
  best part of the most highly developed and most desirable society known to man,
• 6:34:37
  and he will have a rude awakening. No socialism for them. Much is
• 6:34:41
  to be said against the British landlord's system. It has little to commend it.
• 6:34:45
  It is a survival of the past. But let not socialists imagine that
• 6:34:48
  the recourse to state ownership is the proper substitute. Let them follow the example
• 6:34:53
  of Denmark, and, by the creation of farmer landlords, each with one
• 6:34:57
  farm, give to Britain one of the the greatest blessings, a land owning
• 6:35:02
  and land tilling people instead of a few land owning squires who neither toil nor
• 6:35:07
  spin. Here lies before Britain a task easy of accomplishment. It is no
• 6:35:11
  experiment, neither is it revolutionary. Our own race in other lands, and
• 6:35:15
  the people of Denmark have proved the value of small farms owned and cultivated by
• 6:35:19
  owners. One reads with wonder that the cultivated land of the United Kingdom,
• 6:35:25
  including parks and permanent pastures, but not mountain or waste, amounted in eighteen
• 6:35:30
  eighty to forty seven million five hundred fifteen thousand, seven hundred and forty seven
• 6:35:36
  acres. The total acreage is seventy seven million, six hundred thirty five thousand,
• 6:35:41
  three hundred and one acres. By the Doomsday Book of eighteen seventy five,
• 6:35:45
  it appeared that one fourth of the total acreage excluding plots under one acre,
• 6:35:51
  is held by one thousand, two hundred owners at an average for each
• 6:35:55
  of sixteen thousand, two hundred acres, another fourth by six thousand, two
• 6:36:00
  hundred persons at an average of three thousand, one hundred and fifty acres.
• 6:36:03
  Another fourth is held by fifty thousand, seven hundred and seventy persons, averaging
• 6:36:07
  three hundred and eighty acres each, and the remaining fourth by two hundred sixty
• 6:36:12
  one thousand, eight hundred and thirty persons averaging seventy acres each. Peers in
• 6:36:18
  number about six hundred hold rather more than one fifth of all the land in
• 6:36:22
  the kingdom. Thus, one half of the whole country is in the hands
• 6:36:26
  of only seven thousand, four hundred individuals. The other half is divided among
• 6:36:30
  three hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred individuals. In Scotland, the contrast
• 6:36:36
  is even greater twelve persons in eighteen seventy six held more than a quarter of
• 6:36:41
  Scotland, seventy held half. Nine tenths of Scotland was held by fewer than
• 6:36:45
  seventeen hundred persons. As upon the vital question of equal or unequal wages,
• 6:36:52
  the Socialists are divided. They are also upon the equally important question of the
• 6:36:56
  confiscation of or payment for the land, which, according to their theory,
• 6:37:00
  the nations should acquire. Mister Sidney Webb testified before the Royal Commission on Labor
• 6:37:07
  in eighteen ninety two. Question supposing it the rate had to go so far
• 6:37:11
  as to amount to twenty shillings on the pound, what then, answer?
• 6:37:15
  That is a consummation I should view without any alarm. Whatsoever question the municipality
• 6:37:22
  would then have rated the owners out of existence? Would it not? Answer?
• 6:37:26
  That is so? The President of the Scottish Land Restoration Union testified before
• 6:37:32
  the Royal Commission on Local Taxation April fourteenth, eighteen ninety eight. Question what
• 6:37:37
  is to be the next step? Answer? Increase the tax upon the value
• 6:37:41
  of the ground. Question until you take it all? Answer, until you
• 6:37:47
  take twenty shillings in the pound daily Ferguson before the same Royal Commission testified.
• 6:37:52
  I hold that nothing short of twenty shillings in the pound will be a complete
• 6:37:56
  settlement of the question. Mister Josephigh in The Crux of the Land Question,
• 6:38:02
  page sixteen, says every land nationalizer should assist this taxation reform in order to
• 6:38:07
  facilitate the state acquisition of the land upon the most favorable terms possible. Mister
• 6:38:14
  Blatchford in Merry England, page sixty says, Now, if a man has
• 6:38:18
  a right to nothing but that which he himself has made, no man can
• 6:38:22
  have a right to the land, for no man made it. My only
• 6:38:26
  hope is that compensation be kept as low as possible. Mister Jowett m P.
• 6:38:30
  Says that socialists recognize the expediency in all and the justice in some cases,
• 6:38:37
  of paying for land rather than confiscating it. The truth is that the
• 6:38:41
  socialistic leaders have not hesitated to propose the most sweeping changes amounting to a revolution
• 6:38:47
  of existing conditions, without having first considered how these were to be accomplished.
• 6:38:52
  They differ upon equal and unequal wages, a fundamental question, and upon payment
• 6:38:57
  for or confiscation of the land. Purchase or robbery another fundamental question. These
• 6:39:03
  two questions determined what socialism is or is not. They are the pillars of
• 6:39:07
  the socialistic edifice, and not yet agreed upon. Upon one point, however,
• 6:39:12
  there is unanimity. The land must, in one way or another be
• 6:39:17
  nationalized. All agree to this. Lord Wolverhampton has recently flashed light upon this
• 6:39:22
  subject of payment for or confiscation of the land by telling a story of Gladstone.
• 6:39:27
  The world's foremost citizen. Being asked about socialism, replied that it had
• 6:39:32
  to meet this query. Did it propose to buy the land or take it?
• 6:39:37
  If the first it was folly, if the second it was robbery.
• 6:39:41
  Let us assume for the present that the demand for confiscation made by the radical
• 6:39:45
  section of the Socialist Party will be rejected by the moderates. The query then
• 6:39:49
  arises, how is the land to be paid for? The great bulk of
• 6:39:53
  it has been acquired under law as it then existed, and as it exists
• 6:39:57
  to day, or one by force in bygone ages, as a whole is
• 6:40:03
  now in the possession of innocent purchasers. It has been paid for now.
• 6:40:07
  If there be one tenet of honest dealing firmly rooted in the conscience of civilized
• 6:40:11
  men. It is that the title to such purchase is valid. The possessor
• 6:40:15
  must be paid a fair price for what the law has declared to be his.
• 6:40:18
  He can be robbed of his property, of course, But an advance
• 6:40:22
  toward heaven upon earth founded upon robbery would infallibly be a step in the other
• 6:40:26
  direction, backwards, not forwards, downward not upward. Civilized man has advanced
• 6:40:33
  already under present conditions beyond the idea of robbery. Its advocacy would shock him,
• 6:40:37
  and the entire socialistic movement would be discarded as not only visionary but confiscatory,
• 6:40:44
  a proposal to rob the neighbor. If it be clear that the property
• 6:40:48
  must be bought, it is equally clear that honesty compels the state to pay
• 6:40:51
  a fair value for it. As the state alone could be the purchaser,
• 6:40:55
  it must deal fairly in forcing compulsory acquisition. To whom will payment go?
• 6:41:00
  To? Whom can it go except the owners of the property taken. Ah,
• 6:41:03
  there's the rub. What becomes of the socialist state in that event?
• 6:41:07
  Where is the equality upon which the state is to be founded impossible? Because
• 6:41:11
  the rich and the poor we would still have with us, and the present
• 6:41:15
  division into classes be revived. For it is wealth, not birth in our
• 6:41:19
  day which creates class distinctions. The claims of birth in our race only survive
• 6:41:25
  in the United Kingdom. They would be laughed at elsewhere if presented. It
• 6:41:29
  is not only the land that the state has to purchase. The mills and
• 6:41:32
  furnaces, the ship yards, the railways. All means of production and distribution
• 6:41:37
  must also be acquired and paid for. To say that all productive property could
• 6:41:41
  be rented and paid for out of the profits does not affect the question.
• 6:41:45
  The rents would go to the owners, and they would remain rich. What
• 6:41:48
  just power could compel them to leave their present homes and modes of life,
• 6:41:52
  surrender their rents to the state, and become socialists. The payment made for
• 6:41:56
  their property would become a mockery if they were not allowed to spend what was
• 6:42:00
  their own. Yet, unless the payment made to the owners with one hand
• 6:42:03
  be promptly taken away by the other, no socialism would be possible. For
• 6:42:07
  it must be based not upon the capital of the few, but upon wealth
• 6:42:11
  in common, owned not by the individual, but by the state. Besides
• 6:42:15
  this, as before quoted in the case of unequal wages, the ideal to
• 6:42:19
  be aimed at ultimately must be approximate equality of income. Otherwise class formations must
• 6:42:26
  take place, and the old problems incidental to economic inequality reappear. Should the
• 6:42:30
  socialist be driven from the idea of taking the land from private owners without paying
• 6:42:36
  for it, how is payment to be made? The cash could not be
• 6:42:40
  raised. Evidently there is but one mode. The state must issue consoles sixteen
• 6:42:45
  or more hundred millions sterling for land and farm improvements, for mines, machinery,
• 6:42:49
  et cetera, say half as much more or altogether three times the amount
• 6:42:55
  of the national debt. What price could consoles, already much below par reach
• 6:43:00
  under such an issue. Let the enthusiastic socialist ask the banker and learn what
• 6:43:03
  would ensue. What receiver of consuls would feel safe holding the bond of a
• 6:43:07
  government that forced compulsory sale and snatched from him his home, the dearest spot
• 6:43:12
  on earth to him and his Who would wish to live under such a government
• 6:43:15
  or in such a land. Few, indeed, of those most desirable to
• 6:43:19
  retain Canada and America would be too attractive, and the despoiled would follow the
• 6:43:25
  pilgrims their forefathers, who left their old home and settled in the new,
• 6:43:30
  where men had rights and liberties then denied at home, and private property was
• 6:43:33
  inviolate. After settling the land problem through purchase with freedom to spend proceeds as
• 6:43:38
  former owners desire, or through confiscation under compulsion of uniformity of living, there
• 6:43:45
  is another step, as mentioned, which socialism must overleap or else fall down.
• 6:43:49
  Until officials, superintendents, foremen, and skilled mechanics are willing to accept
• 6:43:55
  the recompense earned by the sweepers of the factories, there can be no success
• 6:43:59
  for socialism, for upon this foundation it is compelled to stand. The moment
• 6:44:03
  equality of payment is dropped and a commission is formed to found and enforce inequality
• 6:44:08
  of payment, the phantom vanishes. We are back again to our present system
• 6:44:12
  with all its inequalities. Unequal income means unequal outgo, hence inequalities, or,
• 6:44:18
  as we individualists would put it, healthful variety needed for the improvement of
• 6:44:23
  man in his march upward toward perfection. The cry of the socialist of today
• 6:44:29
  in Britain should not be against private ownership of land, but against there being
• 6:44:33
  so few private owners to distribute the land by abolishing primogeniture and settlements and through
• 6:44:38
  progressive taxation, is surely the next practical step. Being so palpably the remedy
• 6:44:45
  for the present unsatisfactory condition of the problem, it would seem that the needed
• 6:44:48
  legislation could not be long denied when the interests of the masses of the people
• 6:44:53
  require change in land tenure. The few owners can justly be required to forego
• 6:44:59
  their preference or submit to increased taxation if they decide to enjoy privileges injurious to
• 6:45:04
  the community as a whole. In all other English speaking countries, the people
• 6:45:08
  work the land. In Britain, the landlords work the people. The writer
• 6:45:12
  cannot but believe that if once the United Kingdom had its people settled upon the
• 6:45:17
  land as owners and cultivators, as other parts of the Empire and America have,
• 6:45:22
  its nationalization would never be thought of. End of Section thirteen the Land.
• 6:45:29
  Section seventeen. Individualism versus socialism. The alacrity displayed by socialists in pasting
• 6:45:38
  their labels upon the products of individualism is surprising in view of the fact that
• 6:45:44
  many of the measures claimed as socialistic have long been in operation in English speaking
• 6:45:49
  Lands. Mister Snowdon, for instance, gives what he claims to be the
• 6:45:53
  socialist's ideas of taxation. One, both local and national taxation should aim primarily
• 6:46:03
  at securing for the communal benefit all unearned or social increment of wealth. Two,
• 6:46:11
  taxation should aim deliberately at preventing the retention of large incomes and great fortunes
• 6:46:17
  in private hands, recognizing that the few cannot be rich without making the many
• 6:46:22
  poor. Three taxation should be in proportion to ability to pay and to protection
• 6:46:30
  and benefit conferred by the state. Four. No taxation should be imposed which
• 6:46:36
  encroaches upon the individual's means to satisfy his physical needs. He is quite entitled
• 6:46:42
  to Number one. No one but a socialist would dream of taxing with a
• 6:46:48
  view of securing all unearned or social increment of wealth for communism. As to
• 6:46:53
  number two, graduated taxation in Britain is an attempt to equalize the press is
• 6:47:00
  unfair distribution of wealth, and is already at work in the death duties and
• 6:47:04
  in the difference in the income tax between earned and unearned wealth, both the
• 6:47:10
  work of individualism. The strong and repeated recommendations of this policy by President Roosevelt
• 6:47:18
  are soon to bear fruit in the United States. He and his trusted advisors
• 6:47:22
  are individualistic to the core. The non taxation of imported food by Britain under
• 6:47:30
  individualism, as far as it has gone, is in accordance therewith number four
• 6:47:37
  is another application of Adam Smith's doctrine. Until physical needs of individual and family
• 6:47:42
  are provided for, there is no ability to pay taxes. Thus three of
• 6:47:48
  these ideas are the product of individualism and should bear its hallmark, not the
• 6:47:53
  socialist label. Mister Jarrett pastes the socialistic label upon the proper rating of site
• 6:48:02
  values, as if this did not prevail under individualism throughout our English speaking race
• 6:48:08
  except in the old home. Mister MacDonald, regarded as the most philosophical of
• 6:48:15
  current socialistic writers, while indulging in dreams of a far distant future, naturally
• 6:48:22
  restricts action in our day to practical measures. There is only to be a
• 6:48:27
  steady readjustment of existing relations under the organic structure has been completely changed. He
• 6:48:37
  lays down as ripe for action the seven points in the Independent Labor Party program,
• 6:48:42
  which he says is far and away the most representative socialist body in Britain,
• 6:48:48
  thus stamping the socialistic label upon all these points. First, in these
• 6:48:55
  comes an eight hour day. One naturally inquires a under what system the hours
• 6:49:00
  of labour have been reduced from twelve and more to ten hours or less.
• 6:49:07
  Long before socialism attracted the public, the reduction of the excessive hours of labor
• 6:49:11
  was the care of progressive men. Under the present individualistic system in all English
• 6:49:18
  speaking countries, whether these can be wisely reduced still further is under consideration.
• 6:49:26
  To put the socialistic label upon the policy of shortening the hours of labor is
• 6:49:30
  as flat burglary as ever was committed. Second comes a workable unemployed act mark
• 6:49:38
  the adjective. The attention of the English Parliament was given last year to this
• 6:49:42
  very question. It is a difficult task to meet without doing more injury than
• 6:49:48
  good. When or if a workable act is produced, parties will then take
• 6:49:55
  their positions. Third, old age pensions. Mister MacDonald, is here a
• 6:50:00
  day behind the fair. These have been established in Britain before this appears in
• 6:50:06
  print. Both political parties, being favorable socialism, will have little right to
• 6:50:11
  label old age pensions as its product. On the contrary, it is the
• 6:50:18
  product of the best elements of both political non socialistic parties. Number four is
• 6:50:25
  the abolition of indirect taxation and the gradual transference of all public burdens to unearned
• 6:50:32
  incomes. Here we must read the bracketed words in the light of mister MacDonald's
• 6:50:37
  philosophy. This is a consummation which cannot be reached until the organic structure has
• 6:50:44
  been completely changed. As far as the doctrine of lessening indirect taxation is concerned,
• 6:50:51
  it has been in practice since the repeal of the Corn Laws gave free
• 6:50:55
  food for the people. It is a wise policy. In America, there
• 6:51:00
  are no duties of moment, except such as bear upon the rich who alone
• 6:51:04
  use imported articles, a protective tax recently imposed upon sugar to test the ability
• 6:51:11
  of the country to produce its own supply being the only exception. Number five
• 6:51:17
  is a series of land acts aimed at the ultimate nationalization of the land.
• 6:51:22
  See note to number four as the words bracketed. Britain needs a series of
• 6:51:27
  land acts to bring her where all other English speaking land stand. None have
• 6:51:33
  primogeniture or settlements, all rate sites at market prices. Land is everywhere free
• 6:51:41
  except in Britain, and this has long been the case. Under individualism.
• 6:51:45
  Socialism has no right to the label of free land, except as applicable to
• 6:51:49
  Britain, and even here a large number of non socialists have long urged the
• 6:51:56
  policy. Six nationalization of railways and mines. As far as railways are concerned,
• 6:52:03
  individualism has preceded socialism in this department. Many countries own their railways.
• 6:52:11
  India under British control does, as do some of the colonies. So do
• 6:52:17
  Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, et cetera. Mines are precarious properties
• 6:52:25
  and should be leased upon royalties when owned by the state. In some cases
• 6:52:29
  this is already done. Seventh, democratic political reforms. This is so indefinite
• 6:52:36
  that nothing can be said upon the subject. The reforms are in supposition so
• 6:52:41
  far and must be judged upon their merits when announced from time to time.
• 6:52:47
  In all English speaking lands under individualism, democratic reforms have long been the order
• 6:52:52
  of the day, never more so than now. Mister Hardy claims there is
• 6:52:57
  perfect agreement among socialists on two leading points, the first being hostility to militarism
• 6:53:06
  in all its forms and to war as a method of settling disputes between nations
• 6:53:11
  such of US as have inherited this doctrine under individualism and proclaimed it all our
• 6:53:19
  lives. Rejoice that any body of men agree with us. But we of
• 6:53:23
  the peace and arbitration societies in every English speaking land, who have upheld the
• 6:53:30
  doctrine respectfully protest against the socialist use of a label to which the individualistic men
• 6:53:37
  of peace have prior claim. Opposition to war and support of arbitration have developed
• 6:53:45
  under present conditions, and grow stronger with leaps and bounds these days, and
• 6:53:49
  are soon to triumph. One great victory is seen in Chile and Argentina ceasing
• 6:53:56
  to wage war and agreeing to settle disputed by liner andries peacefully. They did
• 6:54:02
  so, and both conquered. There now stands upon the highest peak of their
• 6:54:06
  boundary line a statue of Christ as Prince of Peace. Cast from their discarded
• 6:54:11
  cannon. The pedestal bears this inscription. Sooner shall these mountains crumble to dust
• 6:54:19
  than Chileans and Argentines shall break the peace which at the foot of Christ the
• 6:54:25
  Redeemer they have sworn to maintain. Socialism has no place in these lands.
• 6:54:33
  Scarcely a week passes without one or more treaties of arbitration between nations being entered
• 6:54:38
  into all the nations assembled last year for the first time at the Hague Peace
• 6:54:45
  Conference and voted for obligatory arbitration, only eight dissenting, and these declaring they
• 6:54:52
  would make separate treaties with selected nations. Some such have already been made,
• 6:54:59
  and others on now under consideration. All this progress in the path of peace
• 6:55:04
  among nations has been made under our present system, and socialism as such has
• 6:55:11
  no exclusive right to place its label upon the triumphs of peaceful arbitration. Members
• 6:55:18
  of all parties have cooperated in this The most pressing duty of our day the
• 6:55:22
  banishment from the civilized world of the crime of crimes, the killing of men
• 6:55:29
  by men in battle like wild beasts, as a mode of settling international disputes.
• 6:55:34
  As we see, there is much that evolutionary socialists advocate and claim to
• 6:55:41
  be socialistic, which we progressives have long welcomed. The municipalization of certain public
• 6:55:48
  utilities is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, but this has already been
• 6:55:52
  done in our present system, before socialism was much talked about. It has
• 6:55:57
  been proved that cities can advantageously own, in some cases, operate, and
• 6:56:03
  in other cases lease for periods their public utilities. Water, gas and electric
• 6:56:10
  works, street railways, et cetera. And that they can purchase and improve
• 6:56:15
  land to advantage in certain districts, and could do much more in that line.
• 6:56:19
  In Britain, where the laws like those of America and other English speaking
• 6:56:25
  nations, we have perhaps one of the best examples of this beneficent policy in
• 6:56:30
  the City of New York. Now containing more than four millions of people.
• 6:56:36
  It never parted with its riparian rights and owns these around the island, giving
• 6:56:41
  it more than twenty miles of water front. Some years ago it began building
• 6:56:47
  docks, issuing bonds, therefore with a sinking fund for their redemption. The
• 6:56:52
  rentals obtained for the docks meet the interest and sinking fund and leave a profit
• 6:56:57
  so great that it is estimated the city will possess the gigantic property free of
• 6:57:03
  cost before the bonds mature. The city is contracting for rapid transit subways,
• 6:57:11
  the building and operating contractors agreeing to pay the interest and sinking fund and hand
• 6:57:17
  over the subways to the city free of cost at the end of fifty years.
• 6:57:22
  No franchises will hereafter be bestowed by New York City, except for stated
• 6:57:27
  periods It is becoming the general policy of cities in America to avoid giving perpetual
• 6:57:33
  leases. Municipalization, to this extent is steadily winning its way. The water
• 6:57:41
  supplies, another instance, the foresight of New York has secured at comparatively small
• 6:57:48
  cost, because taken in time, one hundred gallons per head daily for eight
• 6:57:52
  millions of people. The city owns all this supply, furnishing a great contrast.
• 6:58:00
  London it also secured years ago, at small cost, seven thousand acres
• 6:58:06
  of land admirably adapted for city parks, which are now being rapidly utilized as
• 6:58:11
  population spreads around them. The cooperative movement wholesale and retail, in which manufacturing
• 6:58:19
  begins to make its appearance, is another development upon which the socialistic label is
• 6:58:25
  often put. But cooperation was adopted many years ago. The members thus get
• 6:58:30
  control to some extent in one branch of the means of production and distribution.
• 6:58:37
  In this field there is desirable progress. But we note in all that has
• 6:58:42
  been done so far in this direction the parting of the ways between individualism and
• 6:58:48
  socialism. The latter has as its aim a state in which every man renders
• 6:58:55
  service according to his ability and receives according to his need. The needs of
• 6:59:00
  men in the main are common. Among a hundred men thrown upon an island,
• 6:59:06
  there would be found little difference. All could be alike. This would
• 6:59:11
  be pure socialism. But in working municipal tramways, gas and water works,
• 6:59:18
  and in the management of cooperative societies, the compensation paid has no reference to
• 6:59:22
  common needs. It is paid according to the value of service rendered. The
• 6:59:27
  essence of individualism. The superintendent of the factory, the merchant in charge of
• 6:59:33
  the cooperative store, the employees down through the whole list are paid exactly upon
• 6:59:40
  the same basis as in all private agencies of production. There is not a
• 6:59:45
  trace of socialism here. In this vast field of progress, all remains individualistic.
• 6:59:52
  Socialism versus individualism is the race between the hair and the tortoise over again
• 7:00:00
  individualism. The tortoise has found and kept the path upon which it has made,
• 7:00:04
  and is making steady progress upward. Never has the tortoise had to stop
• 7:00:11
  long in its ascent, but always carefully putting out its limbs. Intuitively,
• 7:00:17
  the steadily moving creature finds and treads the way onward and upward, moving neither
• 7:00:22
  to the right nor left, until certain it is right, and then steadily
• 7:00:26
  pushing forward. The hair has not yet made a start. It remains just
• 7:00:32
  where it was years ago, frisking around a circle. It knows where it
• 7:00:37
  wishes to end, tells us that clearly, but not how, when or
• 7:00:41
  where it is to begin. One point it has settled. However, it
• 7:00:45
  will not tread the tortoise path of individualism, nor any path but that which
• 7:00:51
  our prehistoric ancestors trod many thousands of years ago, and which their progeny abandoned
• 7:00:56
  after years of trial and failure. The frisky hare to day insists upon opening
• 7:01:03
  up again this abandoned path, and keeps scratching the earth and raising a dust
• 7:01:07
  as if it were preparing to start. But there is no saying whether it
• 7:01:12
  will do so in our generation. Meanwhile, the tortoise, as we see,
• 7:01:18
  continues unceasingly upward that which is better than that which has been, and
• 7:01:23
  that which is to come better than that which is. Lovers of progress cannot
• 7:01:30
  but hail its assent as leading to the light. Foolish, indeed, would
• 7:01:34
  labor be to retard the advance until the hair has given some evidence of ability,
• 7:01:41
  at least to start, and demonstrate by experiment that it can overtake and
• 7:01:45
  distance its rival. President Lincoln, when asked where General Sherman was going with
• 7:01:52
  his army in the march through Georgia, replied, I know where he went
• 7:01:56
  in, but I don't believe the general himself knows where he is going to
• 7:02:00
  come out. Socialism is in that position. Let the socialists produce one enterprise
• 7:02:07
  managed upon socialistic principles as proclaimed, to put an end forever to the wage
• 7:02:15
  system, to sweep away all distinctions of class, the complete emancipation of labor
• 7:02:22
  from the domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the establishment of social and economic
• 7:02:27
  equality between the sexes. So far as experiments with these doctrines have been attempted,
• 7:02:34
  as Hepworth Dixon informs us, they have failed, there have been some
• 7:02:40
  attempts to live together by small parties of mature age seeking a retreat from active
• 7:02:45
  life. These ventures lay in the eddies, out of the Russian current of
• 7:02:49
  human existence, their members striving to content themselves with the present. While the
• 7:02:56
  part which actimen have to play on Earth is that of improving conditions in every
• 7:03:00
  direction, making new discoveries, inventing new machines and processes, and extending the
• 7:03:07
  boundaries of knowledge. This is man's life work on earth, one of development
• 7:03:12
  toward the more perfect day, nothing yet finished, but all growing better through
• 7:03:18
  his strenuous exertions. Rest and be thankful is for another existence. Until socialists
• 7:03:26
  can point to successful communities based upon their principles, fulfilling this mission of progress,
• 7:03:33
  the socialistic question is not within range of consideration. All is mere speculation,
• 7:03:40
  vain imaginings of a supposed heaven upon earth, as illusory as other dreams.
• 7:03:47
  All that is desirable and even possible as man exists today, is being
• 7:03:52
  accomplished too slowly, We agree, much too slowly, but in no small
• 7:03:56
  measure realize from generation to generation under the present system, which always has been,
• 7:04:03
  and is being now and always must be steadily modified and improved as man
• 7:04:10
  correspondingly advances and is himself modified and improved. But not otherwise, Man and
• 7:04:18
  his conditions must march abreast, acting and reacting upon each other that improvement may
• 7:04:23
  be evolved. This is the law of his being. In considering the wisdom
• 7:04:30
  of change from our present individualistic to the proposed socialistic system, our first inquiry
• 7:04:37
  should be how has the former resulted? Has the human race marched backward and
• 7:04:41
  deteriorated, or has it advanced and improved. If the former, we should
• 7:04:48
  welcome a promising change and give it a trial, tentatively upon a moderate scale.
• 7:04:53
  If the latter, common sense prompts us to refuse to make any revolutionary
• 7:04:59
  change, and to continue in the path upon which we have marched and are
• 7:05:03
  still marching, steadily upward, always pushing hard, that the pace may be
• 7:05:08
  hastened. We find that from the dawn of history until now, man,
• 7:05:14
  overcoming temporary interruptions, has steadily developed, making great progress in every field.
• 7:05:21
  Contrast his condition at various periods in the past with the present, and we
• 7:05:26
  have one unbroken record of improvement morally, intellectually, and physically. Infant mortality
• 7:05:33
  is very much less, The death rate has fallen, the average of life
• 7:05:38
  has lengthened. Pestilences which swept away our progenitors are to day unknown. Many
• 7:05:45
  diseases, once uncontrollable on our conquered. The homes of the people have improved,
• 7:05:52
  and the poor are our taken care of. The food and clothing of
• 7:05:56
  the people are better hours of labor, less wages, much higher, Free
• 7:06:03
  education leaves no child in ignorance, illiteracy is almost unknown. Carlile only ventured
• 7:06:11
  to imagine a future when every considerable town would have a collection of books.
• 7:06:17
  Now they have free public libraries. Even the prisons have been improved, sentences
• 7:06:22
  for crime have been lightened. Man has become more law abiding and better behaved.
• 7:06:29
  There is less intemperance, and crime is less frequent. In every domain,
• 7:06:34
  the comforts of life have been increased, its miseries mitigated. The masses
• 7:06:41
  of the people are better housed, better fed, better clothed, better educated,
• 7:06:47
  and better paid than ever before, and the sums in the savings banks
• 7:06:51
  were never so great. In the field of labour, man has risen from
• 7:06:56
  serfdom and controls his labour as an equal with his employer. And in our
• 7:07:00
  own day is beginning to rise from workmen to partner labor unions, cooperative stores,
• 7:07:08
  friendly societies, and pension funds have all been developed. In all English
• 7:07:15
  speaking lands, the rule of the people prevails. Only in Britain is hereditary
• 7:07:21
  privilege allowed to exist and obstruct their rule. Every public office is open to
• 7:07:26
  ability. Power is now in the hands of the masses wherever the English language
• 7:07:33
  is spoken. Never have the masses made such rapid and substantial progress as in
• 7:07:37
  recent years, and never were there within their reach in Britain so many far
• 7:07:44
  reaching improvements in the laws, which, when adopted, will insure to the
• 7:07:48
  masses the advantages already possessed by their own race. In other English speaking lands,
• 7:07:55
  the various sections of progressive men have only to unite in the US effort
• 7:08:00
  to free the old home from all in its laws that keep it in contrast
• 7:08:04
  to Canada, Australia and America as governments of the people, for the people,
• 7:08:11
  and by the people. It is under such encouraging conditions that the socialist
• 7:08:15
  appears and distracts the masses, insisting upon discarding the system under which this triumphal
• 7:08:22
  march has been made, the only system in all the world's long history under
• 7:08:26
  which man has greatly advanced that the organic structure can be completely altered in our
• 7:08:33
  day, even if desired, is impossible that the alternative socialistic scheme proposed can
• 7:08:40
  be established, is equally so because it first requires a change in human nature,
• 7:08:45
  a change quite as great as that involved in the evolution of the man
• 7:08:49
  ape into the savage, of the savage into civilized man. It is not
• 7:08:55
  the success of the presto change campaigned. Therefore, that is to be feared,
• 7:09:00
  nor even the attempt to establish the socialistic state, because neither is possible
• 7:09:06
  as long as human nature remains what it is. Mister Ramsay MacDonald's warning before
• 7:09:11
  quoted, we hope will sink deep into the minds of the earnest, sympathetic,
• 7:09:17
  able men who justly enjoy the confidence of the masses, and are numbered
• 7:09:22
  among their leaders, but who at the present juncture are devoting their time and
• 7:09:26
  attention to the socialistic system, which cannot be established except by a steady readjustment
• 7:09:33
  of existing relations until the organic structure has been completely altered. To effect this
• 7:09:41
  change would be the work of centuries. The socialists should reflect it was under
• 7:09:45
  a mutable law decreed that there should be evolved out of the burning mass of
• 7:09:51
  matter, the fair earth, with all its charms, out of the beast,
• 7:09:56
  the higher organism, man with godlike powers, and that man should not
• 7:10:00
  eat the bread of idleness, but labor from morn till night in the noble
• 7:10:06
  task of making one small spot on earth, one small circle of his fellows,
• 7:10:11
  just a little better than he found it. A high mission, none
• 7:10:15
  too great, none too small, to lose the privilege or to neglect the
• 7:10:19
  duty. Man does the latter at his peril, be he cottager or king.
• 7:10:26
  So long as man on earth can aid, in the smallest degree the
• 7:10:30
  progress of his race, he should rejoice how much fame or fortune he acquires,
• 7:10:36
  or how little matters, not, so long as he contributes, by
• 7:10:38
  his labor and example to the general good. This is the true end,
• 7:10:45
  and should be the aim of life. Why should any man desirous of benefiting
• 7:10:49
  his fellows neglect the work of his own time, which it is his duty
• 7:10:55
  to perform, and waste his abilities upon purely speculative ideas, which it may
• 7:11:00
  or may not become the duty of future generations of men to adopt. Our
• 7:11:06
  duty of to day is with to day's problems. We have nothing to do
• 7:11:11
  with those of the distant future. It is sad, indeed, to see
• 7:11:14
  able and good men who could aid in improving the present expending their talents upon
• 7:11:19
  a new system for a distant future of which they can know nothing. It
• 7:11:25
  is in this world that all our duties lie, and only our own generation
• 7:11:29
  can we know how to serve upon it. Our thoughts and efforts should therefore
• 7:11:33
  be concentrated it is a serious waste of time to concern ourselves with any system
• 7:11:40
  which we know cannot be introduced until the organic relations of human society are altered
• 7:11:47
  upon the men of to day. Only. The work of to day devolves
• 7:11:52
  not Heaven our home our motto, so much as home our heaven. Franklin
• 7:11:59
  was right when he proclaimed that the highest worship of God is service to man.
• 7:12:04
  Power to render service to the unknown is not given us except by serving
• 7:12:10
  those of His creatures here with us in our own day and generation. The
• 7:12:15
  man is not born who can legislate wisely for a future which has not been
• 7:12:19
  revealed to him, and of which therefore he can know. Nothing sufficient unto
• 7:12:26
  our own day are the evils thereof these we should endeavor to abolish or mitigate,
• 7:12:32
  leaving the future to our successes. End of Section seventeen. Section eighteen.
• 7:12:40
  Variety versus uniformity, Variety versus uniformity. The socialist needs to revolutionize human
• 7:12:48
  nature before he can even test his theories. For nature abhors a vacuum,
• 7:12:53
  not more than she does uniformity. No two blades of grass are alike,
• 7:12:59
  and the higher we go in creation, the greater the variations. No two
• 7:13:03
  fishes. No two animals are alike. Hebre tells us he was able to
• 7:13:07
  distinguish the individual ants in the hill, so different was one from another.
• 7:13:11
  When humanity is considered, no two children but display wide differences, the more
• 7:13:17
  intelligent being the more individualistic. No two families are alike, and were all
• 7:13:22
  placed under similar conditions, houses and grounds alike, incomes equal. Next day,
• 7:13:27
  differences would begin to appear and increase as time went on. The children
• 7:13:33
  of able, prudent parents would be differentiated from those whose parents were less able.
• 7:13:38
  No laws of the state could prevent this uniformity to day would inevitably become
• 7:13:45
  variation tomorrow. Before socialism can introduce uniformity of living, men must be born
• 7:13:51
  duplicates of each other. Yet in none of nature's productions is diversity so great.
• 7:13:56
  Because man is the highest and most complex of all, we can no
• 7:14:00
  more make men equally comfortable through equal incomes than we can make them equal in
• 7:14:06
  fortune by distributing the wealth of the country among them. One week after such
• 7:14:11
  distribution, there would be thousands penniless in begging their bread, their last state
• 7:14:15
  worse than the first. Because revolutionary socialism requires a change in human nature,
• 7:14:22
  it calls for scant attention. It is impossible to introduce, much less to
• 7:14:26
  maintain the socialistic state until human nature becomes totally different from what it is now.
• 7:14:33
  When the socialist has affected this change, but not before, is the
• 7:14:37
  abandonment of the present system worthy of the slightest attention. It is not in
• 7:14:41
  order as long as men differ from each other, no two alike, but
• 7:14:45
  all equally determined to live each his own life in his own way, this
• 7:14:49
  being his nature. This is the law of progress of his race, as
• 7:14:55
  it is of plant and animal life. By selection and cultivation of the exceptional
• 7:15:00
  animal or plant that showing the greatest variation from the ordinary type, breeders and
• 7:15:06
  cultivators developed the higher orders of life. Thus has come man from the brute.
• 7:15:11
  The race has been allowed to develop in freedom. Hence, while still
• 7:15:15
  savage, the stronger physically was the foremost, and later, under civilization the
• 7:15:21
  strongest mentally have become the leaders from whom have arisen the select few, whose
• 7:15:26
  names stand out in history as the exceptional members of our race, whose labors
• 7:15:30
  and example in all the higher domains of human effort have slowly lifted the race
• 7:15:34
  to its present position. Infinitely higher than it was only a few hundreds of
• 7:15:38
  years ago. Not uniformity, but infinite diversity ensured this progress, and as
• 7:15:47
  far as we can see, it is through diversity alone that the race can
• 7:15:49
  continue its upward march. The exceptional man in every department must be permitted and
• 7:15:56
  encouraged to develop his unusual powers, tastes, and ambitions in accordance with the
• 7:16:00
  laws which prevail in everything that lives or grows. The survival of the fittest
• 7:16:04
  means that the exceptional plants, animals, or men which have the needed variations
• 7:16:10
  from the common standard are the fructifying forces that leaven the whole. Among these
• 7:16:15
  are the great teachers and lawgivers, the poets and statesmen, physicians and historians,
• 7:16:21
  the inventors and discoverers, who lead the mass of more uniform pattern onward
• 7:16:26
  and upward. The contrast between Shakespeare and the ordinary specimen of humanity is as
• 7:16:30
  great as that between the average civilized man and the barbarian. A few pages
• 7:16:37
  of this book would hold the names of the truly exceptional men who have distinctly
• 7:16:41
  moved the human race forward since history began. Many indeed have contributed there too,
• 7:16:47
  and in the widest sense. No individual can live a good, useful
• 7:16:51
  life without contributing his might to the general wheel. But those who have achieved
• 7:16:55
  a decided advance in any one of the innumerable paths of human effort have been
• 7:16:59
  few in number, although they built upon the work of many predecessors. Burbank
• 7:17:03
  grows hundreds of thousands of plants, sometimes millions, before the exceptional variation appears,
• 7:17:08
  from which a new variety can be developed capable of producing superior fruit.
• 7:17:14
  So with man, who must be left in perfect freedom, as long as
• 7:17:18
  he infringes not upon the freedom of others, nor injures the state, free
• 7:17:22
  to choose his career and live his own life in his own way, the
• 7:17:26
  rule being perfect freedom, limitation of that always exceptional, and only exercised when
• 7:17:32
  overpowering reasons arise, rendering interference necessary to protect the freedom of others and thus
• 7:17:37
  prevent greater evils to the body politic. Under present conditions which give to all
• 7:17:42
  men liberty to carve out their careers, a wool carter hears and obeys the
• 7:17:47
  imperious call from on high, and gives to man the masterpieces of literature,
• 7:17:52
  a precious legacy. According to lull worth more than all the ancient classics.
• 7:17:56
  A poor plowman, he who of all men and nestles closest to the bosom
• 7:18:00
  of humanity, sees the lovely vision that comes to him in his awed clay
• 7:18:04
  bigan, and under her guidance he proclaims the royalty of man, exalts honest
• 7:18:10
  poverty, strikes down the cruel theology of his day, and hails unfortunate mouse
• 7:18:15
  as his poor earth born companion and fellow mortal to him, all life being
• 7:18:19
  kin. A young man ordered to manage a farm, rebels and follows his
• 7:18:25
  destiny, and in one word gravitation reveals to the world the law that pervades
• 7:18:30
  the universe. To two English lads, both remarkable for originality and hard to
• 7:18:34
  place, whilstill groping the revelation came, each found his destiny, and from
• 7:18:41
  their seclusion, after years of labour, they proclaimed the word which brought order
• 7:18:45
  out of chaos. Evolution, and man, no longer the supposed degraded creature,
• 7:18:51
  fallen from his high estate, stands forth today in his majesty, the
• 7:18:56
  monarch of all created things, endowed with sublime aspiration for continual assent, no
• 7:19:02
  limit to his future elevation short of perfection. Four hundred years ago, a
• 7:19:07
  Scottish boy soon left, an orphan in poverty, the spirit moving within him
• 7:19:11
  at maturity, lived to publish the first germ of democracy in Britain, proclaiming
• 7:19:17
  that all power resided in the people, and kings were only to be supported
• 7:19:21
  as long as they wrought their people's good. Forty years later came one of
• 7:19:26
  his pupils, soon also left, an orphan, who heard the call of
• 7:19:30
  destiny as a disciple of his predecessor. When asked by King James if it
• 7:19:34
  were not an offense against God to oppose the lords anointed, he replied,
• 7:19:40
  man, you are only the lord's silly vassal. And largely to these two
• 7:19:44
  pioneers of democracy supported seventy years later in England by him of the organ voice,
• 7:19:49
  a poor scrivener our race O's constitutional government, the son of a French
• 7:19:56
  tanner, finds his mission and consecrates his life to it. The most horrible
• 7:20:00
  of all diseases, hitherto incurable, is conquered, the death rate reduced to
• 7:20:04
  one percent. Surgical practice is revolutionized. Later, he rescues the silk industry
• 7:20:11
  from an epidemic of fatal character. A working warfinger in Genoa, fired by
• 7:20:17
  the gods, sees in imagination what lies over the seas and reveals the new
• 7:20:22
  world. A poor student, getting access at last to a small telescope,
• 7:20:27
  follows the stars and revolutionizes human conceptions of the planetary system. A German physician,
• 7:20:34
  giving gratuitous service to the poor and perforating the walls of his humble dwelling
• 7:20:38
  that he might note the stars in their passage, keeping for many years the
• 7:20:42
  momentous secret in his bosom, lest the stake were his destiny, at last
• 7:20:47
  reveals to the world the Copernican theory. A boy, having learned dentistry and
• 7:20:53
  in its practice, seeing the agonies of his patients, hears the call to
• 7:20:57
  his mission. Discover the antidote in ether, and henceforth, in sweet unconscious
• 7:21:03
  sleep, pain finds its conqueror. A German printer apprentice noted for devotion to
• 7:21:10
  his work and studying the means of improvements, finds the answer in movable types,
• 7:21:15
  which through the printed page make knowledge universal. A Scottish mechanic making odds
• 7:21:21
  and ends for a livelihood, is fascinated by Black's discovery of the latent heat
• 7:21:26
  in steam. His life thereafter is concentrated upon the problem of its utilization,
• 7:21:30
  and the steam engine appears. A working engineer extends its dominion over the sea,
• 7:21:36
  a miner stretches it over the land, and the world shrinks into a
• 7:21:38
  neighborhood. A printer's lad in Philadelphia, visited by the Geni when commercing with
• 7:21:45
  the skies, draws electricity from heaven, and the world today is in constant
• 7:21:49
  instantaneous communication. A youth in our day hears the imperious call, and most
• 7:21:55
  mysterious of all, we have wireless communication across the Atlantic. An apprentice to
• 7:22:00
  a surgeon, appalled that the ravages of an infectious disease, hears the spirit
• 7:22:06
  summons to be up and doing, and a wasting plague is conquered. An
• 7:22:10
  American telegraph messenger boy, carried by the gods into the mysterious realm, produces
• 7:22:15
  duplex telegraphy, gives to the world improved electric lighting, the phonograph, and
• 7:22:21
  other wonders, and is still diving into the unknown. Another scot still busy
• 7:22:26
  with the gods, produces the telephone. Another Scottish mechanic discovers coal gas and
• 7:22:32
  uses it for the first time to light his humble home. An English iron
• 7:22:37
  master invents plans for the use of pit coal instead of charcoal for smelting ironstone.
• 7:22:42
  A Scottish lad who left school at fourteen invents the hot blast, and
• 7:22:48
  these two Britons revolutionized the manufacture of iron. A German, after years of
• 7:22:53
  effort, finally invents a new process of steel making cheapening that indispensable article.
• 7:23:00
  A Scottish workman adds the one lacking ingredient. Another German follows with another process,
• 7:23:06
  and steel becomes the indispensable slave of progress. Three englishmen, a handloom
• 7:23:12
  weaver, a reed maker, and an apprentice, through their inventions, the
• 7:23:17
  fly shuttle, the spinning jenny, and the spinning frame give the world modern
• 7:23:22
  weaving. Of all manufacturing industries, the greatest employer of labour, A poor
• 7:23:27
  young American employed upon the Mississippi in a trading barge, sees for the first
• 7:23:33
  time men and women bought and sold upon the auction block, and is stirred
• 7:23:37
  by the divine messenger. Leaving the scene, he vows, if ever I
• 7:23:41
  get a chance to strike that accursed system, I shall hit it hard.
• 7:23:47
  He concentrates himself to his holy mission and banishes the last vestige of slavery from
• 7:23:52
  the civilized world. Pages more could be filled with such instances of beneficent leadership
• 7:23:57
  developed under individuals. Seldom, if ever, to the palace or stately home
• 7:24:03
  of wealth, comes to the messenger of the gods to call men to such
• 7:24:07
  honor as follows supreme service to the race. Rank has no place wealth Rob's
• 7:24:14
  life of the heroic element, the sublime consecration, the self sacrifice of ease
• 7:24:18
  needed for the study, development of our powers, and the performance of the
• 7:24:22
  highest service. Let workmen. Note how many of the exceptionals indicated in the
• 7:24:27
  preceding pages who have carried the race forward were workers with their hands. Shakespeare,
• 7:24:33
  Gutenberg, Columbus, k Morton, Edison, Watt, Murdoch, Jenner,
• 7:24:44
  Siemens, Bell, Hargreaves, Nielsen, Bessemer, Arkwright, Stephenson,
• 7:24:52
  Lincoln, Muschett, Franklin, Symington, Burns. All these began as manual
• 7:25:03
  workers. There is not one rich nor titled leader in the whole list.
• 7:25:07
  All were compelled to earn their bread. Most of them, however, but
• 7:25:12
  not all, in due time abandoned labor of the hands, a salutary development,
• 7:25:18
  and one which every working man should aspire to. Honorable and necessary as
• 7:25:22
  manual labor is let as gladly greet productive labor of the mind, as of
• 7:25:27
  a higher order, as the spirit is above the flesh. Although it must
• 7:25:32
  never be forgotten that in the skilled labor of our day, a union of
• 7:25:34
  both brain and muscle is imperatively needed. The trained first class mechanic now works
• 7:25:41
  as much with his brain as with his hands, and if in charge of
• 7:25:45
  machinery, much more. The dingy room, the close laboratory, the crowded
• 7:25:51
  workshop, and the home of honors poverty contain the exceptionals capable of carrying forward
• 7:25:56
  the mission of the race upon earth, which is in each succeeding generation,
• 7:26:00
  to make this life a little higher and better. In our day, it
• 7:26:04
  is very far from true that labor creates all wealth, and still further from
• 7:26:08
  the truth that labor fixes values. But it is very close to the truth
• 7:26:14
  that so far the young man reared in poverty, who must work that he
• 7:26:17
  may eat, has developed the qualities upon the exercise of which the progress of
• 7:26:21
  our race depends. Little has been contributed in the past by either the rich
• 7:26:26
  or the titled to the world's advancement, and little can be expected in the
• 7:26:30
  future. These classes lack the spur of necessity, and being well placed,
• 7:26:34
  naturally rest contented. So would the poor were positions reversed. This is human
• 7:26:41
  nature as it exists in our day. The exceptional rich man or youth who
• 7:26:45
  scorns delights and lives laborious days, there are a few such, deserves double
• 7:26:49
  honor. Under our present individualistic system, which breeds and develops the needed leaders.
• 7:26:56
  There is no state official to interpose, no communism, no uniformity,
• 7:27:02
  no commission to consider respective claims of the exceptionals and decide upon their destinies.
• 7:27:07
  All are left in perfect freedom and in the possession of glorious liberty of choice,
• 7:27:12
  free by the sole act of their own unloaded will to obey the divine
• 7:27:17
  call which consecrates each to his great mission. One point is clear. Nothing
• 7:27:23
  should be done that would tend to reduce diversity of talents in our race,
• 7:27:27
  and everything should be done to increase it, if possible, For it is
• 7:27:30
  through variation the progress of the race has been achieved and is to come,
• 7:27:34
  and progress is the chief end of existence. This is what we are here
• 7:27:40
  for, as is proven by the fact that progress from the lower to the
• 7:27:42
  higher has prevailed from the time this earth cooled and life began to appear.
• 7:27:48
  This is our godlike mission that every individual in his day and generation push on
• 7:27:52
  this march upward, so that each succeeding generation may be better than the preceding.
• 7:27:59
  Not one of them us can feel his duty done unless he can say,
• 7:28:02
  as he approaches his end that because he has lived, some fellow creature,
• 7:28:06
  or some little spot of earth or something upon it has been made just
• 7:28:10
  a little better. Nor is this beyond the reach of the humblest. For
• 7:28:14
  all can at least render to others that best portion of a good man's life,
• 7:28:19
  his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. End
• 7:28:26
  of Section eighteen, Section nineteen Family relations. Family relations. The most serious
• 7:28:33
  objection to socialism one hesitates to name, but this cannot well be avoided.
• 7:28:38
  We gladly believe that most of the so called socialists of our English speaking race
• 7:28:42
  would repudiate it. And yet it is clear that the system would naturally tend
• 7:28:47
  to produce, at least in some degree the effects feared. We refer to
• 7:28:52
  the foremost of civilization's triumphs, the creation of the happy home, the product
• 7:28:56
  of man and woman hoily married, with the blessings of children coming to them
• 7:29:00
  to give us here a taste of heaven on earth, of all that evolution
• 7:29:04
  has given man during the long slow march of ages from savagery till now.
• 7:29:10
  This is the crown. Take this away, and to millions who possess it
• 7:29:15
  the best of the race. Life becomes undesirable. The Holy of holies is
• 7:29:19
  the pure and happy home. We have been treating of wealth, land,
• 7:29:25
  labor. Changes regarding these are unimportant compared with threatened changes in our family relations.
• 7:29:32
  That way degradation lies. Here rests the most precious root of all that
• 7:29:37
  elevates, refines, and improves human nature. The writer would gladly have omitted
• 7:29:42
  reference to this feature of socialism, but he felt it could not be ignored.
• 7:29:48
  One looks in vain through the booklets so far published for a repudiation of
• 7:29:52
  the sentiments of socialistic leaders both past and present, who admit that family relations
• 7:29:56
  must be greatly changed under socialism. The writer confesses it was with surprise that
• 7:30:03
  he found several modern and well known writers going so far in the direction of
• 7:30:07
  accepting the doctrine that socialism compelled this change. The first exponent of modern socialism,
• 7:30:14
  Fourier, is responsible for this taint, although even Owen quarreled with accepted
• 7:30:18
  views of marriage, so that it is not a recent development. It appears
• 7:30:22
  advisable that the best known writers among acknowledged socialists, especially those of our own
• 7:30:27
  race, occupying imminent positions, should give this feature prompt attention, and we
• 7:30:33
  trust public repudiation. We quote from the Case against Socialism, pages three hundred
• 7:30:40
  seventy four to three hundred ninety eight. We have the admission of the leading
• 7:30:45
  English socialist historian of socialism, in no less a work than the Encyclopedia Britannica,
• 7:30:51
  that in the Mark school, which in socialism is by far the most
• 7:30:55
  important. In this as in other countries, there is a tendency to denounce
• 7:31:00
  the legally binding contract in marriage. The connection, however, bases itself upon
• 7:31:06
  this. As treated by Lamotine in his celebrated history of the French Revolution of
• 7:31:11
  eighteen forty eight, communism of goods leads as a necessary consequence to communism of
• 7:31:17
  wives, children and parents, and to the brutalization of the species. Other
• 7:31:22
  historians have arrived at a like conclusion. Not only this but socialist leaders have
• 7:31:29
  themselves admitted all that Lamotine here asserts, save only his last conclusion. Jager,
• 7:31:34
  in his social Lismus, observes that the possession of land and soil in
• 7:31:38
  common, if it arises out of materialism, leads also to community of wives
• 7:31:44
  as being another expression of materialistic communism. In his essay Treating of Socialism and
• 7:31:51
  Sex, Professor Karl Pearson, said to be one of the most distinguished of
• 7:31:55
  socialist writers in this country, writes with the centuries as the last trace of
• 7:32:00
  the patriarchate vanish as woman obtains rights as an individual when a new form of
• 7:32:06
  possession is coming into existence? Is it rational to suppose that history will break
• 7:32:11
  its hitherto invariable law, and that a new sex relationship will not replace the
• 7:32:15
  old. In a later passage, Professor Pearson throws further light upon the nature
• 7:32:21
  of this new sex relationship. In his essay, he informs us that woman
• 7:32:26
  will be the physical and mental equal of man in any sex partnership they may
• 7:32:30
  agree to enter upon. For such woman, I hold that the sex relationship,
• 7:32:36
  both as to form and substance, ought to be a pure question of
• 7:32:38
  taste, a simple matter of agreement between the man and her, in which
• 7:32:42
  neither society nor the state would have any need or right to interfere. This
• 7:32:48
  latter conclusion, Professor Pearson proceeds to modify. In the case where the sex
• 7:32:52
  relationship does result in children, then so Professor Pearson emphatically declares, the state
• 7:33:00
  will have a right to interfere, and apparently, in the writer's opinion,
• 7:33:03
  will be forced to interfere. One of the greatest of French socialist writers,
• 7:33:08
  M. Gabriel de Ville, in advocating the suppression of marriage under socialism and
• 7:33:14
  the substitution of free love, summarizes the principal reasons which account for the inherent
• 7:33:18
  antipathy to the continuance of marriage on the part of socialism, saying marriage is
• 7:33:25
  a regulation of property, a business contract before being a union of persons,
• 7:33:30
  and its utility grows out of the economic structure of a society, which is
• 7:33:33
  based upon individual appropriation. By giving guarantees to the legitimate children and insuring to
• 7:33:41
  them the paternal capital, it perpetuates the domination of the caste, which monopolizes
• 7:33:45
  the productive forces. When property is transformed, and only after that transformation,
• 7:33:51
  marriage will lose its reason for existence. Bebel the great international socialist leader,
• 7:33:57
  in his Woman and Socialism, translated into English under the title of Woman,
• 7:34:02
  Her Past, Present and Future, expresses much of the same views as de
• 7:34:07
  Ville in the following passage. The bourgeois marriage is a consequence of bourgeois property.
• 7:34:15
  This marriage, standing as it does in the most intimate connection to property
• 7:34:18
  and the right of inheritance, demands the legitimate children as heirs. It is
• 7:34:22
  entered into for the purpose of obtaining them, and the pressure exercised by society
• 7:34:27
  has enabled the ruling classes to enforce it in the case of those who have
• 7:34:32
  nothing to bequeath. But as in the new community there would be nothing to
• 7:34:36
  bequeath, compulsory marriage becomes unnecessary from the standpoint as well as from all others.
• 7:34:44
  The existing of monogamic relation right too of the foremost leaders of English socialism,
• 7:34:48
  mister Belfort, Bax and mister h. Quolt's concerning marriage is simply the
• 7:34:55
  outcome of the institution of private or individual property. When private property ceases to
• 7:35:00
  be the fulcrum around which the relations between the sexes turn, any attempt at
• 7:35:04
  coercion, moral or material must necessarily become repugnant to the moral sense of the
• 7:35:11
  community. Lecky says it is perfectly true that marriage and the family form the
• 7:35:17
  tap root out of which the whole system of hereditary property grows, and that
• 7:35:21
  it would be utterly impossible permanently to extirpate heredity unless family stability and family affection
• 7:35:26
  were annihilated. Mister Hepworth Dixon, who has devoted special study to the actual
• 7:35:33
  working of communistic societies, observes that the fact remained, and in time it
• 7:35:38
  became known that Fourier's system could not be reconciled any more than Owen's system could
• 7:35:44
  be reconciled with the partition of mankind into those special groups called families, in
• 7:35:48
  which people live together, a life devised by nature under the close relation of
• 7:35:52
  husband and wife, of parent and child. The very first conception of a
• 7:35:57
  socialistic state is such a relation of the sexes, again, writes mister Hepworth
• 7:36:02
  Dixon, as shall prevent men and women from falling into selfish family groups.
• 7:36:07
  Family life is eternally at war with social life. When you have a private
• 7:36:11
  household, you must have personal property to feed it. Hence a community of
• 7:36:15
  goods. The first idea of a social state has been found in every case
• 7:36:19
  to imply a community of children and to promote a community of wives. That
• 7:36:25
  you cannot have socialism without introducing communism is the teaching of all experience, whether
• 7:36:30
  the trials have been made on a large scale or on a small scale,
• 7:36:33
  in the old world or in the new. The late mister William Morris,
• 7:36:38
  in company with mister Belford Bex has written in denunciation of the present sham morality,
• 7:36:45
  the aim of which is the perpetuation of individual property in wealth, in
• 7:36:48
  workmen, in wife, in child. Later, the same authors tell us,
• 7:36:53
  on the advent of social economic freedom, that children would cease to exist.
• 7:36:59
  Thus, they state a new development of the family would take place on
• 7:37:03
  the basis not of a predetermined lifelong business arrangement to be formally and nominally held
• 7:37:07
  to irrespective of circumstances, but on mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable
• 7:37:15
  at the will of either party. There would be no vestige of reprobation weighing
• 7:37:18
  on the dissolution of one tie and the forming of another. Missus Snowden,
• 7:37:23
  in her recently published book The Woman Socialist, informs her readers it is more
• 7:37:29
  than probable that the ordinary church marriage service will be abolished, but it ought
• 7:37:33
  to be abolished. Under socialism, the marriage service will probably be a simple
• 7:37:38
  declaration on the part of the contracting parties before the civil representatives of the state,
• 7:37:45
  to much the same effect, writes Professor Carl Pearson. Such then seems
• 7:37:51
  to me the socialistic solution of the sex problem, complete freedom in the sex
• 7:37:55
  relationship, left to the judgment and taste of an economically equal, physically trained,
• 7:38:00
  an intellectually developed race of men and women. State interference if necessary in
• 7:38:04
  the matter of child bearing in order to preserve intersexual independence on the one hand,
• 7:38:10
  and the limit of efficient population on the other. The socialistic movement,
• 7:38:15
  with its new morality and the movement for sex equality, writes Professor Pearson in
• 7:38:19
  an earlier passage, must surely and rapidly undermine our current marriage customs and marriage
• 7:38:25
  law. Mister H. M. Hindman predicts under socialism the complete change in
• 7:38:30
  all family relations, which must issue in a widely extended communism. M.
• 7:38:37
  Jules Ged, one of the leaders of international Socialism Rights. The family was
• 7:38:41
  useful and indispensable in the past, but is now only an odious form of
• 7:38:45
  property. It must be either transformed or abolished. There are other quotations in
• 7:38:51
  the book named which we refrain from quoting. In judging socialism, we are
• 7:38:56
  forced to consider this aspect of the question and see what where it leads us.
• 7:39:00
  The opinions expressed, we trust, are not accepted by many socialists of
• 7:39:04
  our own race. What concerns us is whether the result of the socialistic system
• 7:39:10
  tends to change or destroy marriage and present family life as it exists today.
• 7:39:15
  Socialism, with its equal conditions of life and equal incomes, must tend to
• 7:39:19
  evolve the common assembling room, the aggregation of members in one common building,
• 7:39:25
  and all the features of the barracks. Missus besant pictures these conditions, public
• 7:39:30
  meal rooms, large dwellings which are to replace old fashioned cottages, one great
• 7:39:34
  kitchen, one dining hall, and one pleasant tea garden. The result of
• 7:39:41
  all this must be to destroy the home as we know it, and tend
• 7:39:44
  to substitute the ideal of the socialist All people being brethren and members of one
• 7:39:48
  family and one home. Hereditary wealth and hereditary blood relationships abolished, father and
• 7:39:55
  son, wife and mother, sisters and brothers no more to each other than
• 7:39:59
  other members of the one great socialistic household. The ties of kindred, even
• 7:40:03
  of father and mother and children, must eventually sink into one common affection.
• 7:40:07
  For all all are to stand upon an equality of relationship one to the other
• 7:40:14
  under the sway of socialism. In respect of homes, property, food,
• 7:40:18
  dress, and all other things, even the children are to be taken care
• 7:40:22
  of by the state. But if any provide not for his own and especially
• 7:40:26
  for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is
• 7:40:30
  worse than an infidel, becomes obsolete. For the home of socialism is not
• 7:40:36
  to be individualistic, but communistic. It becomes the socialist's duty henceforth to provide
• 7:40:41
  for all as for his own, they being members of one great household and
• 7:40:45
  one family. Such is apparently the final aim of the extreme socialist. This
• 7:40:52
  would mean a second fall of man. Farewell to human happiness in its purest,
• 7:40:56
  most elevating, most entrancing form. Destroy our home life as it exists
• 7:41:02
  to day, and we may well lament that the wine of life is drawn
• 7:41:06
  and the mere lees is left this vault to brag of. Just as socialism
• 7:41:11
  goes back to the savage past and urges man to return to communism, so
• 7:41:17
  seemingly it contemplates the return of men and women to barbarism in their holiest relations.
• 7:41:22
  If we are compelled to accept literally some of the writers quoted in the
• 7:41:26
  case against Socialism as true exponents of the new system, the laws of Britain
• 7:41:32
  compared with those of America are less favorable to women in those of continental nations,
• 7:41:37
  still less so under American laws, she has proper standing, proving the
• 7:41:41
  estimation in which she is held by American men in all the relations of life.
• 7:41:48
  Socialism being a continental outgrowth, the references made to women by French and
• 7:41:52
  German socialistic writers, some of which we have ventured to quote, shock our
• 7:41:56
  sense of what is due to beings who, in their highest development are capable
• 7:42:00
  of reaching heights unattainable by men. It is earnestly to be hoped that the
• 7:42:07
  respected leaders of socialism will deal effectively with this phase of the question by repudiating
• 7:42:11
  the sentiments expressed. A pagan philosopher weighing the claims of Christ to rank among
• 7:42:18
  the great teachers, would probably give first place to what He did for the
• 7:42:22
  elevation of women. Civilized man, in his upward march, has not only
• 7:42:27
  outgrown he has reversed the Miltonic idea of Adam and Eve for contemplation, he
• 7:42:33
  and valor formed for softness, she and sweet attractive grace. He for God
• 7:42:40
  only, she for God in him. In the happiest and holiest homes of
• 7:42:45
  today, it is not the man who leads the wife upward, but the
• 7:42:48
  infinitely purer and more angelic wife, whom the husband reverently follows upon the heavenly
• 7:42:52
  path as the highest embodiment of all the virtues that have been revealed to him.
• 7:42:57
  He for God in her. Throughout the English speaking race as a rule,
• 7:43:03
  today it is the wife and mother who sanctifies the home. If all
• 7:43:07
  the dreams of the wildest socialist were realities purchasable at the cost of the present
• 7:43:11
  happy home of individualism with wife and children, the sacrifice were too great,
• 7:43:17
  The blow to our civilization would be fatal. End of Section nineteen, Section
• 7:43:23
  twenty, the long march upward. If man had been created perfect but with
• 7:43:30
  an instinct for his own degradation, and if he had fallen so low in
• 7:43:34
  the scale is to become unfit longer to live, then indeed his future might
• 7:43:40
  well be despaired of. But when we know that instead of this he has
• 7:43:45
  developed slowly from the lower orders of life, constantly ascending in the scale century
• 7:43:51
  after century, for many thousands, perhaps millions of years, moving steadily towards
• 7:43:56
  perfection. We can indulge in the confident expectation that there can be no retrogression.
• 7:44:03
  We behold him and exclaim, quote, what a piece of work is
• 7:44:07
  a man? How noble in reason, How infinite in faculty, in form
• 7:44:14
  and moving, How express and admirable in action? How like an angel in
• 7:44:19
  apprehension, How like a god end quote? Only through exceptional individuals the leaders
• 7:44:27
  man has been able to ascend. He is imitative, and what he sees
• 7:44:32
  another do, he attempts and generally succeeds in doing. It is the leaders
• 7:44:37
  who do the new things that count. And all these have been individualistic to
• 7:44:41
  a degree beyond ordinary men, and worked in perfect freedom. Each and everyone
• 7:44:48
  a character unlike anybody else, an original, gifted beyond others of his kind.
• 7:44:52
  Hence his leadership. Men are not created alike. On the contrary,
• 7:45:00
  there is infinite variety, not only in the powers bestowed, but also in
• 7:45:03
  their degree. For the fruits of men's lives depend as much upon the amount
• 7:45:08
  of the same powers shared with others, as upon different powers inherited. The
• 7:45:15
  earth was at first only a ball of fire thrown off from our sun,
• 7:45:18
  no life possible upon it till it cooled millions of years, probably elapsing before
• 7:45:25
  a green leaf could appear. Then, after vegucation arose, came a life
• 7:45:30
  from the ooze of the sea, and finally from the higher order of life,
• 7:45:33
  there was developed primitive man, of whom the Veda remains our nearest type,
• 7:45:40
  described as living in trees and crawling down to feed on what he can
• 7:45:44
  find, unable to walk upright until he gains more food. As summer advances,
• 7:45:49
  man lingered along in the savage state, and like other wild beasts,
• 7:45:53
  his chief occupation was war upon his kind, eating as well as killing his
• 7:45:59
  captives. Subsequently, he developed into the barbaric stage, not quite so much
• 7:46:04
  of the wild beast. He began building huts, sometimes cultivating the ground,
• 7:46:10
  always improving upon, never permanently falling so low as its predecessor. After unnumbered
• 7:46:18
  years of such storm and stress, we of today have become more civilized,
• 7:46:22
  more peaceable, the arts of peace, not those of war our occupation.
• 7:46:27
  We have reached the industrial age, with its problems. This we are called
• 7:46:33
  upon to study and discuss, never fearing that the power within us, which
• 7:46:37
  decrease unceasing improvement, will not enable us to continue to tread the upward path.
• 7:46:45
  We shall make mistakes as usual, But that human organism feels his way
• 7:46:48
  surely, though slowly, drawing back its tentacles whenever they touch deleterious soil,
• 7:46:56
  groping again until fertile ground is found, and then the next step forward is
• 7:47:00
  taken. Thus the organism never moves far until the right path is discovered.
• 7:47:07
  It is on the constant search for nutriment and discards all that is injurious.
• 7:47:12
  If it now and then swallows an indigestible mouthful, it promptly spews it out,
• 7:47:18
  hence its constant march onward and upward. It has never met a difficulty
• 7:47:22
  which it has not surmounted. It bears a charmed life. All this,
• 7:47:27
  Herbert Spencer has clearly revealed. It is a healthful sign. When there is
• 7:47:33
  unrest and dissatisfaction, and zealous even extreme advocates of change clamoring for better things
• 7:47:38
  in quicker march, divine discontent is the root of progress, and even our
• 7:47:45
  socialistic friends, with their revolutionary ideas stir the waters for good if we reason
• 7:47:52
  soberly together and test their proposed remedies before we forsake the path which has so
• 7:47:57
  far led our race upwards from the brute to civilized manhood by the nature of
• 7:48:03
  its being. The one rule which the human race can never persistently violate is
• 7:48:08
  that which proclaims quote hold fast to that which has proved itself good end quote.
• 7:48:15
  Complaint against our socialistic friends is not that they do not mean well.
• 7:48:21
  On the contrary, no class is moved by worthier impulses. Their hearts are
• 7:48:26
  in the right place, and one cannot but sometimes admire their aspirations. Thus
• 7:48:33
  here hardy rights quote. Surely it is reasonable to hope that a day will
• 7:48:37
  dawn in which a desire to serve, rather than to be served, shall
• 7:48:41
  be the spur which shall drive men onward to noble deeds. There is perfect
• 7:48:47
  agreement on two leading points of principle. Hostility to militarism in all its forms,
• 7:48:53
  and to war as the method of settling disputes between nations is the first.
• 7:49:00
  George Eliot says somewhere that she could imagine a coming day when the effort
• 7:49:06
  to assist a fellow being in trouble would be as involuntary as it now is
• 7:49:11
  to clutch one's stumbling and in danger falling to the ground. Such hopes and
• 7:49:15
  aspirations are not confined to socialists. They are held by hosts of good individualists.
• 7:49:22
  Let these be freely indulged under individualism, the races ever developing, the
• 7:49:29
  generous impulses altruism grows as time rolls on. Never with civilized man his brother's
• 7:49:36
  keeper to such an extent as in our day, Socialistic conditions are not required
• 7:49:41
  to produce healthy growth in this direction. Where we differ from the socialists is
• 7:49:47
  as to the advisibility of any violent change from individualism, which is guided and
• 7:49:53
  is still guiding, in the direction desired through the continual improvement of present conditions.
• 7:50:00
  We believe that the surest and best way to obtain more service from men
• 7:50:04
  to their less fortunate fellows is by continued evolution, as in the past,
• 7:50:11
  instead of by revolutionary socialism, which spends its time preaching such changes as are
• 7:50:17
  not within measurable distance of attainment, even if they were desirable in themselves.
• 7:50:22
  We feel that socialists neglect the immediate duty of their day and generation, and
• 7:50:27
  vainly attempt to provide for a distant and unknown future of the race, which
• 7:50:32
  alone can determine its own wants in its own day. Their revolutionary outbursts alarm
• 7:50:38
  the timid and conservative, and hence threatened to delay and perhaps to frustrate,
• 7:50:42
  for generation many desirable advances which the moderate wing of their own party ardently desire,
• 7:50:49
  Especially in Britain, the extreme socialists themselves are one of the obstacles to
• 7:50:56
  substantial progress today. On the other hand, the timid and conservative must not
• 7:51:00
  fail to remember that grave and unjust and equalities prevail in connection with the land,
• 7:51:07
  non taxation of site values, plural voting and unequal electoral districts in Britain,
• 7:51:14
  also in taxation not according to ability to pay, and unequal distribution of
• 7:51:18
  wealth common to all countries. And they also should remember that the surest and
• 7:51:22
  indeed the only way of ensuring a contended people is promptly to recognize and redress
• 7:51:29
  these and other evils. It would be futile to indulge the belief that the
• 7:51:33
  masses of Britain will much longer be content to see their fellows in Canada,
• 7:51:38
  Australia, New Zealand and America, enjoying free land without primogeniture or settlements and
• 7:51:45
  sites taxed at true values. Equality of voting power through equal electoral districts one
• 7:51:52
  man, one vote, payment of members, complete control over the liquor traffic,
• 7:51:56
  yearly licenses at high rates, and freely canre and local option rapidly.
• 7:52:02
  Spreading equality with her fellows across the seas must soon become the cry. And
• 7:52:07
  the sooner this is granted, the better that the steady march of evolutionary development,
• 7:52:14
  so fruitful in the past, so necessary for the future, may continue
• 7:52:18
  to hold peaceful sway in the land where freedom broadens slowly down. The pace
• 7:52:23
  of reform for some years has been much too slow as compared with progress and
• 7:52:29
  ideas. The day is coming when kindred institutions shall prevail in all the nations
• 7:52:34
  of our race, that which proved advantageous in one being promptly adopted by all
• 7:52:41
  the others. Thus shall be laid the foundations of a lasting and beneficent imperialism
• 7:52:47
  of race, whose influence in the councils of the world, always pleading for
• 7:52:51
  peaceful arbitration of disputes, will lead to the reign of peace and the brotherhood
• 7:52:56
  of man. One parting word to our wis meaning. But, as I
• 7:53:00
  believe, misled socialist friends to be born to honest poverty and compelled to labor
• 7:53:07
  and strive for a livelihood, and youth is the best of all schools for
• 7:53:12
  developing latent qualities, strengthening character, and making useful men. Hence from this
• 7:53:18
  school have come our leaders. It is well that man should go forth to
• 7:53:22
  his work in the morning and labor until the evening. Work is no punishment,
• 7:53:27
  it is a blessing. Steady work is also the best preservative of the
• 7:53:32
  virtues. No substitute for it has yet been found. Man has not been
• 7:53:37
  placed in this world to play and amuse himself. He's entrusted with a serious
• 7:53:41
  mission and has onerous duties to perform, not to a future generation but to
• 7:53:47
  his own. And he who fails to labor for the improvement of this,
• 7:53:51
  our own life of today, does not deserve another to advocate speculative schemes for
• 7:53:57
  a future of which we can know nothing is folly and worse for the revolutionary
• 7:54:03
  ideas so rashly preclaimed by the socialist alarm sober minded conservative men and drive them
• 7:54:10
  into the ranks of those who oppose the salutary reforms needed in our day,
• 7:54:15
  which could otherwise be easily won socialist, evolutionary, socialist, halfway socialist revolutionary.
• 7:54:23
  We are here to attend to the pressing wants of our own age,
• 7:54:27
  not to obstruct the steady, orderly march of progress by basing action upon the
• 7:54:33
  startling assumption than at a distant and unknown future. Individualism under which man is
• 7:54:38
  steadily advanced, is to be supplanted by communism. This is to lose the
• 7:54:44
  substance by grasping for the shadow, and waste our time like children chasing rainbows
• 7:54:49
  and crying for the moon. End of Section twenty Section twenty one. My
• 7:54:57
  experience with railway rates and rebates this subject carries one back to his early days.
• 7:55:07
  It was in eighteen fifty six that my chief, Thomas A. Scott,
• 7:55:11
  superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was made General Superintendent,
• 7:55:18
  with headquarters at Altoona. I was his secretary and telegraph operator in Pittsburgh,
• 7:55:26
  and he took me with him. The duties of the superintendent of the
• 7:55:30
  line, then in its infancy, included the making of local freight rates.
• 7:55:37
  These I entered in the rate book, and naturally grew to take a share
• 7:55:41
  in their making. Our great aim in those days was to develop local traffic
• 7:55:48
  of through traffic. Little was expected, although President Thompson, the great railroad
• 7:55:55
  man of his day, had ventured to predict that a hundred carlowdes of through
• 7:56:00
  freight would in time pass Pittsburgh daily. This prophecy was often quoted to show
• 7:56:07
  the length to which that sanguine but far sighted official could go. Now every
• 7:56:14
  day thousands passed through the city in each direction. Local traffic, that is,
• 7:56:21
  traffic originating and ending upon the line, was then depended upon to yield
• 7:56:27
  revenue. One enterprising man would ride or call to say that he was thinking
• 7:56:33
  of opening a stone quarry on the line and shipping dressed stone to the towns
• 7:56:38
  and cities if he could get rates enabling him to do so. Because traffic
• 7:56:45
  paying much less than we might think fair was better than no traffic at all,
• 7:56:51
  we would hold out every inducement to pioneers, with the result that the
• 7:56:56
  quarry was opened. Another was willing to make the experiment of cutting bark and
• 7:57:02
  shipping it to tanneries, intending later, however, to erect a tannery in
• 7:57:07
  the forest. Here was attempting new enterprise, and rates were readily agreed upon.
• 7:57:15
  Another thought a peculiar quality of sand was suitable for glass making, and
• 7:57:19
  was willing to open the deposit and test it. He was promptly accorded a
• 7:57:25
  siding, which was usually necessary, and rates low enough to permit him to
• 7:57:30
  begin. The plot began to thicken when a second man came with a proposition
• 7:57:37
  to open another similar factory or quarry, which he could not do unless he
• 7:57:44
  received rates equal to those given to his predecessor. Although his railway hall might
• 7:57:51
  be longer if two factories were to be only a few miles apart, it
• 7:57:56
  was obvious that they had to receive the same rule rates, and so the
• 7:58:00
  question of special rates, starting very simply soon became a complicated one. Areas
• 7:58:08
  had to be established in which the rates were uniform. Although this involved the
• 7:58:15
  seeming injustice of charging more per ton per mile upon the traffic of one than
• 7:58:22
  of the other, this could not be avoided. At a later date,
• 7:58:26
  corporations were found desirous of establishing iron works and of opening coal mines, et
• 7:58:33
  cetera. From such small beginnings was built up the enormous local traffic of the
• 7:58:38
  Pennsylvania Railroad unequaled, it is believed by any other line in the world.
• 7:58:47
  All these rates, it will be understood, referred to traffic within the state
• 7:58:52
  of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia being the terminals of the line. On Philadelphia
• 7:59:00
  was the Camden and Amboy Railway. Beyond Pittsburgh the Fort Wayne in Chicago,
• 7:59:07
  separate organizations with which we had nothing to do during this period, through traffic
• 7:59:15
  occupied an entirely subordinate position. Rates for it were made in Philadelphia by a
• 7:59:22
  freight agent who then was an official of little importance compared with what he soon
• 7:59:29
  became. Upon the completion of the Erie, New York, Central, Baltimore,
• 7:59:34
  and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania systems. Between the Atlantic Seaboard and the
• 7:59:41
  Great West, a strong competition for through traffic once began. At first it
• 7:59:47
  was a scramble, and each road got what it could at the best rate
• 7:59:51
  it could, regardless of everything. The position was peculiar, and is so
• 7:59:56
  still and must long remain so. Eastbound tonnage from Chicago, Saint Louis,
• 8:00:03
  and other points in the West to the Atlantic Seaboard is far greater than that
• 8:00:08
  from the east to the west. Hence long trains of empty freight cars have
• 8:00:14
  to be hauled empty. It is evident why westward bound freight was eagerly sought
• 8:00:22
  by all lines. Each had its freight agents, all scrambling to secure the
• 8:00:26
  prize. What rates might be obtained for westbound freight was a secondary consideration,
• 8:00:34
  for any rate was clear gain, since cars must go west in any case,
• 8:00:41
  and might as well go loaded as empty. Hence, bitter wars broke
• 8:00:45
  out between the roads at intervals, and the four presidents would meet and make
• 8:00:51
  what was called a gentleman's agreement. These worthy presidents would give their word of
• 8:00:56
  honor that certain rates would be strictly adhered to, and gave orders to that
• 8:01:03
  effect. We may be sure in good faith to their subordinates, but it
• 8:01:08
  is a remarkable fact, notwithstanding that these gentlemen's agreements did not last long,
• 8:01:15
  but required renewal at short intervals. The rates agreed upon were too easily evaded.
• 8:01:23
  The assistant freight agent or one of his staff could promise certain favors to
• 8:01:29
  shippers upon other traffic while adhering strictly to the agreed upon charge. For that
• 8:01:36
  he was securing or could remit charges upon other freight not involved in the agreement.
• 8:01:44
  So gentlemen's agreements were made and remade. But meanwhile, freight from Pittsburgh
• 8:01:51
  was often sent by way of the Ohio River some five hundred miles to Cincinnati,
• 8:01:57
  transferred from boat to railroad car there, and transported back to Pittsburgh by
• 8:02:03
  rail, passing through its streets to the seaboard, for less than the fixed
• 8:02:11
  rate upon the same articles from Pittsburgh direct to the seaboard. It was the
• 8:02:18
  same with freight from the east to the west. Many a trainload of iron
• 8:02:22
  from the East has passed through the streets of Pittsburgh, paying less freight than
• 8:02:27
  was charged upon the same articles from Pittsburgh to the same points west. The
• 8:02:33
  Pennsylvania Railroad had a monopoly of the traffic, and much grievous wrong had we
• 8:02:41
  manufacturers in that state to suffer in consequence. We must not be understood as
• 8:02:48
  blaming the Pennsylvania officials severely. They did not raise our Pittsburgh rates, and
• 8:02:55
  these in themselves might be considered fair, but they lowered the rates to our
• 8:03:00
  competitors in their warfare with the trunk lines. This bore hard upon the manufacturers
• 8:03:07
  of Pennsylvania, and especially of Pittsburgh. It would have been a wiser and
• 8:03:14
  broader policy if the Pennsylvania Railroad had been bold enough to say, come what
• 8:03:19
  may, we will protect manufacturers upon our own lines. But it required more
• 8:03:26
  than the ordinary railroad official of that day to reach this height. A perfect
• 8:03:33
  system of rates over the various routes could not be reached without first passing for
• 8:03:38
  a season, through great irregularities and making many mistakes, order had to be
• 8:03:45
  hammered out of chaos. These were the days when the much talked of rebates
• 8:03:52
  had their origin. Gentlemen's agreement. Rates were charged, and the bills of
• 8:03:59
  lading were fair and square on the surface, but the understanding with the shipper
• 8:04:03
  was that rebates would be allowed and settled for at some future time. The
• 8:04:10
  keener members soon discovered that evidence might be called for by competing lines, and
• 8:04:17
  the question asked, have any rebates been paid on this shipment? The party
• 8:04:22
  concerned might be able to say that he had paid none, But had he
• 8:04:27
  been questioned a month or two afterward, perhaps, or asked if advantages in
• 8:04:33
  other directions had not been granted to the shipper, he could not have so
• 8:04:38
  stated truthfully. In short, every conceivable way of keeping the word of promise
• 8:04:45
  to the ear and breaking it to the hope was indulged in. At least
• 8:04:51
  we shippers over the Pennsylvania Road heard from its officials from time to time that
• 8:04:56
  the other lines were most un scrupulous competitors and solely blameable for the reigning disorder.
• 8:05:06
  The sentiment aroused in Pittsburgh because of these unequal rates became dangerous. The
• 8:05:12
  Pennsylvania Railroad was regarded as a monopoly strangling to local interests, and so it
• 8:05:18
  was. The manufacturers of Pittsburgh, never in a position to get rebates,
• 8:05:26
  were in fact being driven to the wall by the competition of manufacturers upon other
• 8:05:32
  lines, whose products passed their doors and were carried one thousand miles over the
• 8:05:38
  Pennsylvania system for less than they were compelled to pay for half the distance.
• 8:05:45
  Remonstrances were constantly made, but without avail, until the time came when the
• 8:05:51
  railway company had a dispute with its men, which gave occasion for an outburst
• 8:05:56
  of the smoldering bitterness Pittsburgh felt. Grave riots took place, and the spirit
• 8:06:03
  of hostilities shown by all classes to the great monopoly brought from Philadelphia my former
• 8:06:11
  chief than vice President to Pittsburgh. At a conference with the manufacturers, it
• 8:06:17
  was agreed by him that, no matter what the through rates fell to the
• 8:06:22
  local traffic on the lines from Pittsburgh would be carried to Chicago or Philadelphia and
• 8:06:29
  New York at a small difference less than the through rate between the seaboard and
• 8:06:34
  Chicago and other points. That is to say, Pittsburgh traffic would be charged
• 8:06:41
  only a shade less for half the distance than Philadelphia and Chicago through traffic paid
• 8:06:48
  for double the distance. Rates according to distance were denied. With this,
• 8:06:55
  the Pittsburgh manufacturers had to be content. Letters went along tolerably well until railway
• 8:07:03
  rates were again thoroughly demoralized by war between the trunk lines. Our Carnegie Steel
• 8:07:11
  Company, upon this occasion, had had what it thought the certainty of a
• 8:07:15
  contract of great value for material with the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, freight from
• 8:07:23
  Pittsburgh to Newport News being much less than from Chicago. The contract, however,
• 8:07:30
  went to Chicago, and upon investigation we found that the rate given to
• 8:07:36
  our Chicago competitor to Newport News was less than the Pennsylvania Railroad rate from Pittsburgh,
• 8:07:45
  the distance not one half so great. President Ingalls of the Chesapeake and
• 8:07:49
  Ohio, then beginning his brilliant career, had made the lower rate for his
• 8:07:56
  new line not yet embraced in the Gentleman's Agreement. We investigated and found several
• 8:08:03
  rates of a similar nature prevailing to other points, and having a list of
• 8:08:10
  these made, the writer carried it to President Roberts of the Pennsylvania Railroad with
• 8:08:15
  a request that he placed us upon his own line, on an equality with
• 8:08:22
  manufacturers on other lines. When the paper was presented to him, showing the
• 8:08:27
  overcharges we labored under, he pushed it aside, saying, I have enough
• 8:08:33
  business of my own to attend to don't wish to have anything to do with
• 8:08:37
  yours. Andy, I said, all right, mister Roberts, when you
• 8:08:42
  wish to see me again, you will ask an interview. Good morning.
• 8:08:48
  The situation had become intolerable, and we looked about for the best means of
• 8:08:53
  protecting ourselves. A railroad line of our own from Pittsburgh to the Lake would
• 8:09:00
  be an invaluable acquisition, rendering us independent of any monopoly and enabling us to
• 8:09:07
  transport all our ironstone traffic from the Lakes to Pittsburgh, and our coal and
• 8:09:15
  coke from Pittsburgh to the Lakes, also giving us connection with the other through
• 8:09:21
  lines. I purchased the harbor at Connyat and a few miles of railroad connected
• 8:09:26
  with it, and began extending the line to Pittsburgh. My partners had good
• 8:09:33
  reason to dread the consequences of the reckless challenge to the monster monopoly, and
• 8:09:38
  I could not blame them for it. Undoubtedly had the power to cripple our
• 8:09:44
  operations. An intimation to the Superintendent that the car supply for our works or
• 8:09:51
  the movement of our traffic need not receive undue attention, would be serious.
• 8:09:56
  Indeed, as a precaution, I took good care that the authorities in Philadelphia
• 8:10:03
  were advised of the policy I had determined to pursue. If there was the
• 8:10:08
  slightest interruption to our business, all our works would be stopped. I would
• 8:10:15
  visit each in succession and inform the workmen why they were idle, publish the
• 8:10:22
  monopoly rates, explain why Pittsburgh needed our new railroad, and ask them and
• 8:10:29
  all the workmen from other mills to stand with folded arms upon the streets over
• 8:10:34
  which the Pennsylvania trains passed for miles in peaceful protest and as an intimation that
• 8:10:42
  justice had better be done to Pittsburgh. No interference with our operations came.
• 8:10:49
  It was not long before I received a note from Vice President Thompson saying that
• 8:10:56
  President Roberts and himself would like an interview. I agreed to call as I
• 8:11:00
  passed through Philadelphia, and did so. I write this in the first person
• 8:11:07
  because my partners did not see their way to fight the Great Pennsylvania Railroad.
• 8:11:12
  But my Scotch blood was up and I was in to fight to the death,
• 8:11:18
  determined no longer to stand what we had been groaning under. It was
• 8:11:22
  indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a railroad monopoly in those
• 8:11:29
  early days. And yet this is to be said for the railroad. While
• 8:11:33
  its rates for competitive traffic were being reduced beyond reason by competition, the company
• 8:11:41
  needed all the more the high rates upon local traffic if these could be enforced.
• 8:11:48
  This was, no doubt taking a very narrow view, but railroading was
• 8:11:52
  then in its infancy, and public sentiment was not the force it has since
• 8:11:57
  become what I needed for the interview with my former railway associates were the secret
• 8:12:06
  rebate rates prevailing elsewhere. Our freight agent, mister McCaig, then a clever
• 8:12:11
  young man, obtained these and placed them in my hands. In a few
• 8:12:17
  days. He had left me with the word of Richelieu ringing in his ears
• 8:12:22
  from the hour I grasped that packet. Think your guardian star reins fortune on
• 8:12:29
  you. Some time after that he was, of course, admitted to partnership.
• 8:12:33
  That was the turning point in his career. Entering President Robert's room,
• 8:12:38
  I found him and my dear friend Frank Thompson, Vice President, sitting together.
• 8:12:45
  My reception was cordial. How are you Andy, How are you,
• 8:12:49
  mister Roberts, How are you Frank? Gentlemen, you asked me for an
• 8:12:55
  interview, and here is the culprit before you put me in the dock and
• 8:13:00
  question me as you wish. Frank said, this is just what we want
• 8:13:04
  to do. May I be examiner? Yes, I said, you are
• 8:13:10
  just the man. What are you fighting the Pennsylvania Railroad for? He asked,
• 8:13:15
  you were brought up in its service? We were boys together. Well,
• 8:13:18
  Frank, I knew you would ask me that question. And here is
• 8:13:22
  the answer. I handed him the packet of secret rates, and, begging
• 8:13:27
  to be excused for a few minutes, left the room, desirous of giving
• 8:13:32
  them an opportunity of looking it over together. Upon my return, they were
• 8:13:37
  still sitting with the packet lying before them. Frank raised his head and exclaimed,
• 8:13:44
  Andy, I feel like rip van Winkle. Frank, the Pennsylvania Railroad
• 8:13:48
  officials have slept just about as long. Well, tell us what you want.
• 8:13:55
  I don't want anything. I did not ask to see you. You
• 8:13:59
  asked to see me. Me. Don't talk that way. What do you
• 8:14:03
  want? We wish to make an arrangement satisfactory to you. We did not
• 8:14:07
  know these things were going on. We can hardly believe it, but we
• 8:14:11
  shall now find out. Tell us what you think we ought to do,
• 8:14:17
  I said, gentlemen, all we have ever asked was that the rates charged
• 8:14:22
  us shall be at all times as low as those which competitors on other lines
• 8:14:29
  are paying on the same articles for similar distances. We ask for nothing else.
• 8:14:34
  Other lines are carrying freight for our competitors cheaper than you are carrying it
• 8:14:41
  for us, and you take part of this freight at the cut rates.
• 8:14:45
  We cannot stand that we have never asked for lower rates than our competitors,
• 8:14:51
  but we shall never rest satisfied with less. If you will stop building that
• 8:14:56
  line from the lakes to your works, we will do what you ask was
• 8:15:00
  his response. Gentlemen, that cannot be. I have agreed to build that
• 8:15:07
  line, and certain parties have taken action in consequence of my promise. It
• 8:15:11
  has to be built. Repeated efforts were made to induce me to forego building,
• 8:15:18
  until finally I said to President Roberts, you have just given a rival
• 8:15:23
  concern about to build works on your line in Pittsburgh, an agreement to give
• 8:15:29
  them everything you give us. We make no complaint. But if I had
• 8:15:34
  come to you and asked you, mister Roberts, to withdraw that agreement,
• 8:15:40
  and you had told me you were pledged to give it, I should say
• 8:15:44
  no more. I should expect you to keep your word. If abandoning the
• 8:15:48
  new line is a condition of anything you will do for us, we must
• 8:15:53
  part. No more was said upon that subject. Then came the extent of
• 8:16:00
  the lake line we had decided to build from Pittsburgh to our coke ovens.
• 8:16:04
  They wished that stopped, and as I was not yet pledged to build it.
• 8:16:11
  I said that was a matter for negotiation. If they wished to carry
• 8:16:15
  our coke over their line from the ovens to our works at Pittsburgh at the
• 8:16:21
  same rate agreed upon with the new proposed line for that service, they could
• 8:16:26
  have the contract. This they gladly accepted. The result of the meeting was
• 8:16:32
  that I got all I asked for, and greatly obliged the Pennsylvania Railroad by
• 8:16:37
  allowing them to retain transportation of our own coke traffic from the coke fields to
• 8:16:44
  Pittsburgh. Everything was satisfactorily arranged, and we were all boys together again.
• 8:16:52
  I was the ally of the PRR, much to my delight. It was
• 8:16:57
  estimated that the agreements about one and a half millions of dollars per year,
• 8:17:03
  a large sum upon our business. Then Railway officials, free from restrictions,
• 8:17:10
  could make or unmake mining and manufacturing concerns in those days, and could do
• 8:17:15
  so still had we not at last a court of appeal and laws against obvious
• 8:17:22
  discriminations. The Interstate Commerce Commission is to become one of our greatest safeguards.
• 8:17:30
  I must not forget to mention that one part of the understanding was that so
• 8:17:36
  long as the Pennsylvania Railroad gave us the same rates our competitors paid for similar
• 8:17:42
  distances anywhere in the United States, we would not be parties to building any
• 8:17:48
  additional lines in the Pittsburgh District in competition with the Pennsylvania Railroad. And this
• 8:17:56
  agreement lasted until mister Cassat returned to I was in Europe when he changed the
• 8:18:03
  coke and other rates, not knowing their origin or the details of our agreement
• 8:18:08
  with his predecessors. All that we asked and obtained, as I have explained,
• 8:18:15
  was the same rates given by other lines to our competitors, and nothing
• 8:18:21
  lower than these. It was impossible, I am told, for the railroad
• 8:18:26
  company to do anything, however, but charged the regular rates on some of
• 8:18:30
  our shipments as made, and at the end of each month to compare these
• 8:18:37
  rates with any they had given to others, or which we could show their
• 8:18:41
  competitors had given to others for similar traffic. Therefore, the necessary deductions,
• 8:18:48
  if any, that had to be made to us, might be considered in
• 8:18:52
  one sense technically rebates upon the higher rates charged, although not such in any
• 8:19:00
  true sense. For the net result to us was that, according to the
• 8:19:06
  agreement. We got just the rates that the Pennsylvania Railroad officials were satisfied our
• 8:19:12
  competitors were paying in other districts over other lines. Thus we were given,
• 8:19:19
  as it were, the most favored nation clause nothing more. The new raid
• 8:19:26
  On Coke was in a different category. Here, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company elected
• 8:19:33
  to take the place of a threatened rival railroad and had to meet its terms.
• 8:19:40
  The Carnegie Steel Company only got what the new line was to give it.
• 8:19:45
  The efforts of Pittsburgh manufacturers to escape the thrall of the Great Monopoly were
• 8:19:51
  first the making of an independent line to the Lakes and connecting with the New
• 8:19:56
  York and Erie New York Central et CE, which was done but subsequently sold
• 8:20:03
  to the Vanderbilt interests, who offered three dollars for one invested. It proved
• 8:20:08
  to be a great mistake to sell, because it permitted the two railroad systems
• 8:20:15
  to confer and come to terms upon fixed rates and probably division of traffic.
• 8:20:21
  Thus ended Effort number one. Some time after, when war again broke out
• 8:20:27
  between the rival systems, the late William H. Vanderbilt asked me what I
• 8:20:33
  thought of the project of his able and enterprising son in law, mister Twombly,
• 8:20:40
  to extend the reading system to Pittsburgh through Pennsylvania. I thought so well
• 8:20:45
  of it that I said, if you will undertake it, I and my
• 8:20:49
  friends will go with you to the extent of five million dollars, a prodigious
• 8:20:55
  sum then at least to us. If you will, then I will put
• 8:21:00
  in five million dollars also, he replied. Thus the South Pennsylvania was organized
• 8:21:06
  and its construction begun. Here was a chance for the New York Central to
• 8:21:11
  grip and hold its antagonist by the throat. But the Pennsylvania interests, seeing
• 8:21:18
  what the movement involved, approached mister Vanderbilt while I was absent in Europe,
• 8:21:23
  and induced him to surrender. Exactly what advantage the New York Central System received
• 8:21:30
  I do not know, but it should have been great indeed, for this
• 8:21:34
  was probably the greatest mistake in its history. Mister Twombley had found the key
• 8:21:41
  to masterdom for the Vanderbilt interests, but it was foolishly thrown away. The
• 8:21:48
  work on the South Pennsylvania was stopped, and our investment returned. Thus ended
• 8:21:53
  Effort number two, my personal effort to build the Bessemer Railroad, to the
• 8:22:00
  Lakes. Came after these vain efforts of United Pittsburgh to emancipate herself. When
• 8:22:07
  mister Cassat ended the agreement entered into between his predecessor and myself, I was
• 8:22:14
  quite prepared to take up the challenge. We were once more free. An
• 8:22:18
  idea struck me. One morning. I called upon mister George Gould and said
• 8:22:23
  to him, years ago, soon after I had taken up residence in New
• 8:22:29
  York, your father reproached me in the Windsor Hotel and said he would buy
• 8:22:33
  the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad and divide profits equally with me if I would
• 8:22:41
  promise to devote myself to its management. It was a great compliment to be
• 8:22:47
  paid to one so young, But my heart was already in steel development,
• 8:22:52
  and I declined. This morning, I come to you and offer an opportunity
• 8:22:59
  to create and control a through line from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Extend
• 8:23:04
  your line to Pittsburgh, and we will give you a contract for one third
• 8:23:10
  of all our business, provided you agreed to give us the rates prevailing elsewhere
• 8:23:17
  and enjoyed by our competitors. I offered to build west to meet him,
• 8:23:22
  and also to join him in building east. Fortunately he agreed, and the
• 8:23:27
  result is that the Gould System today is in Pittsburgh enjoying that contract. We
• 8:23:33
  were just upon the eve of arranging to extend the line eastward, taking in
• 8:23:40
  our coke works and route, which would have been a hard blow to the
• 8:23:45
  Pennsylvania Railroad, since we controlled our own coke traffic. When mister Morgan asked
• 8:23:52
  mister Schwab if I wished to retire from business, if so he thought he
• 8:23:56
  could let me out, I replied in the affirmative, Having resolved early in
• 8:24:03
  life not to spend my old age struggling for more dollars. I had seen
• 8:24:08
  so many pitiable cases of men with fortunes to retire upon, but nothing to
• 8:24:15
  retire, too condemned to continue like flies held fast by the revolving wheel,
• 8:24:22
  to whom change means misery. Of course, we stopped all negotiations looking to
• 8:24:27
  eastern extension after this, and the result was my retirement from business. With
• 8:24:34
  mister Cassot's return to power as President of the Pennsylvania System, came needed reform,
• 8:24:41
  and it gives me pleasure to record the great service that companion of my
• 8:24:48
  youth did to the railroad. Interests of the country. In doing so,
• 8:24:52
  he broke the constitution of Pennsylvania, which prohibits any of its railroads from contry
• 8:25:00
  controlling competing lines by purchase or otherwise. He bought large interests in the Baltimore
• 8:25:06
  and Ohio and other competing lines. But when he did this, I do
• 8:25:11
  not believe he knew he was breaking the constitution, for in those days,
• 8:25:17
  railway officials thought little about the law because it rarely touched transportation operations. These
• 8:25:25
  investments have since been sold by the Pennsylvania Company. His influence upon competing lines
• 8:25:32
  became decisive. He enforced uniform rates honestly on the Pennsylvania system, and he
• 8:25:40
  gradually induced the other lines to adhere to them. Then was established what is
• 8:25:45
  called the quote community of interest unquote idea. In the interval, the government
• 8:25:52
  had taken up the subject of interstate commerce, which the states were and are
• 8:25:57
  clearly unable to cont Wise, laws were passed and a national commission appointed,
• 8:26:04
  And the evils of rebates are today already unknown. Under present laws, no
• 8:26:11
  corporation can afford to offer Neither can any person or company afford to receive rebates
• 8:26:19
  the risk of exposure and punishment being now fortunately far too great. Thus,
• 8:26:26
  the conditions described as prevailing in the past in railway transportation, than still in
• 8:26:33
  the formative stage, are rapidly being succeeded by a system finally to become as
• 8:26:40
  perfect as is possible for man to create and maintain. The President has performed
• 8:26:47
  a great service focusing the attention of the country upon certain crying evils, and
• 8:26:53
  the present position of the government is all that could be desired. The dead
• 8:26:59
  pass is to bury its past. It is rapidly doing so. It was
• 8:27:03
  the custom for different rates to prevail in the beginning of railroad development, when
• 8:27:10
  all was chaos, But our conditions are soon to be those which the old
• 8:27:15
  lands have been led by experience to establish. We are only following their example
• 8:27:22
  in supervising railway and other corporations strictly as we do national banks, leases,
• 8:27:30
  mergers, purchases of shares, control of other lines or corporations, The issue
• 8:27:36
  of bonds and stocks, and the rates of freight must all be reported,
• 8:27:41
  examined, and approved by the Tribunal, which is to become our industrial supreme
• 8:27:47
  court. We may rest assured that the Interstate Commission, progressing from year to
• 8:27:52
  year as it gains experience will sustain fare rates for the railroad companies, and
• 8:27:59
  Establis publish what is indispensable equality of rates throughout the whole country. The equality
• 8:28:07
  of the shipper will soon become an axiom, ranking with the equality of the
• 8:28:11
  citizen. One shipper's privilege over any railroad, every shipper's right. Different rates
• 8:28:19
  per ton or per mile may prevail in different sections or under different conditions,
• 8:28:26
  but these will be open to all. This will give to shareholders in corporations
• 8:28:32
  a degree of security hitherto unknown, enhance the value of their investments, and
• 8:28:38
  prove as beneficial for the corporations as for the shareholders and the country. Capital
• 8:28:45
  both domestic and foreign, will be attracted more than ever to this field.
• 8:28:52
  The creation of the Commission is the most important addition that has been made in
• 8:28:57
  our day to the mischie machinery of government. It should be proclaimed by the
• 8:29:03
  administration and leading statesmen of both parties, and kept clearly before the people that
• 8:29:11
  no radical action has either been taken or is contemplated. On the contrary,
• 8:29:18
  all that is desired is only what other nations already possess, and is in
• 8:29:23
  the truest sense conservative and preservative in the highest degree. The ease and rapidity
• 8:29:32
  with which the Commission was established, which has already abolished demoralizing rebates, and
• 8:29:37
  is rapidly giving to corporate investments the security they possess in other lands by bringing
• 8:29:45
  them under supervision, is a great triumph for our governmental system in all departments
• 8:29:52
  legislative, executive and judicial, and gives to all the assurance that no emergency
• 8:29:57
  can arise in our country which will not be promptly and successfully met. An
• 8:30:04
  intelligent, just and fair minded people at the base, cordially approving the salutary
• 8:30:11
  measures of their representatives, with the President a great reforming force at the head
• 8:30:18
  leading the way. End of Section twenty one. My experience with railway rates
• 8:30:25
  and rebates. End of the Empire of Business by Andrew Carnegie