Nothing needs closer attention, nothing deserves to be treated with more courage, caution and sanity, than the relations of the State to corporate wealth, and indeed to vast individual wealth. For almost every gain there is a penalty, and the great strides in the industrial upbuilding of the country, which have on the whole been attended with marked benefit, have also been attended by no little evil. Great fortunes are usually made under very complex conditions both of effort and of surrounding, and the mere fact of the complexity makes it difficult to deal with the new conditions thus created. The contrast offered in a highly specialized industrial community between the very rich and the very poor is exceedingly distressing, and while under normal conditions the acquirement of wealth by an individual is necessarily of great incidental benefit to the community as a whole, yet this is by no means always the case. In our great cities there is plainly in evidence much wealth contrasted with much poverty, and some of the wealth has been acquired, or is used, in a manner for which there is no moral justification.
A profound political and social thinker has recently written: “Wealth which is expended in multiplying and elaborating real comforts, or even in pleasures which produce enjoyment at all proportionate to their cost, will never excite serious indignation. It is the colossal waste of the means of human happiness in the most selfish and most vulgar forms of social advertisement and competition that gives a force to passions which menace the whole future of our civilization.” But in continuance this writer points out that the only effectual check lies in the law of public opinion. Any attempt to interfere by statute in moral questions of this kind, by fettering the freedom of individual action, would be injurious to a degree far greater than is the evil aimed at. Probably the large majority of the fortunes that now exist in this country have been amassed, not by injuring mankind, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits on the community—whatever the conscious purpose of those amassing them may have been. The occasional wrongs committed or injuries endured are on the whole far outweighed by the mass of good which has resulted. The true questions to be asked are: Has any given individual been injured by the acquisition of wealth by any man? Were the rights of that individual, if they have been violated, insufficiently protected by law? If so, these rights, and all similar rights, ought to be guaranteed by additional legislation. The point to be aimed at is the protection of the individual against wrong, not the attempt to limit and hamper the acquisition and output of wealth.
It is almost equally dangerous either to blink evils and refuse to acknowledge their existence or to strike at them in a spirit of ignorant revenge, thereby doing far more harm than is remedied. The need can be met only by careful study of conditions, and by action which, while taken boldly and without hesitation, is neither heedless nor reckless. It is well to remember on the one hand that the adoption of what is reasonable in the demands of reformers is the surest way to prevent the adoption of what is unreasonable; and on the other hand that many of the worst and most dangerous laws which have been put upon the statute books have been put there by zealous reformers with excellent intentions.
This problem has a hundred phases. The relation of the capitalist and the wage-worker makes one; the proper attitude of the State toward extreme poverty another; the proper attitude of the State toward the questions of the ownership and running of so-called “public utilities,” a third. But among all these phases, the one which at this time has the greatest prominence is the question of what are commonly termed “trusts,” meaning by the name those vast combinations of capital, usually flourishing by virtue of some monopolistic element, which have become so startlingly common a feature in the industrial revolution which has progressed so rapidly during recent years.
Every new feature of this industrial revolution produces hardship because in its later stages it has been literally a revolution instead of an evolution. The new inventions and discoveries and the new methods of taking advantage of the business facilities afforded by the extraordinary development of our material civilization have caused the changes to proceed with such marvelous rapidity, that at each stage some body of workers finds itself unable to accommodate itself to the new conditions with sufficient speed to escape hardship. In the end the accommodation of the class takes place; at times too late for the well-being of many individuals. The change which would be unaccompanied by hardship if it came slowly, may be fraught with severe suffering if it comes too fast, even when it is in the end beneficial. Occasionally, moreover, the change is positively deleterious, and very often, even when it is on the whole beneficial, it has features which are the reverse. In some cases, while recognizing the evil, it is impossible with our present knowledge to discover any remedy. In others, a remedy can be applied, but as yet only at a cost that would make it worse than the trouble itself. In yet others it is possible, by acting with wisdom, coolness and fearlessness, to apply a remedy which will wholly or in great part remove the evil while leaving the good behind. We do not wish to discourage enterprise. We do not desire to destroy corporations; we do desire to put them fully at the service of the State and the people.
The machinery of modern business is so vast and complicated that great caution must be exercised in introducing radical changes for fear the unforeseen effects may take the shape of widespread disaster. Moreover, much that is complained about is not really the abuse so much as the inevitable development of our modern industrial life. We have moved far away from the old simple days when each community transacted almost all its work for itself and relied upon outsiders for but a fraction of the necessaries, and for not a very large portion even of the luxuries, of life. Very many of the anti-trust laws which have made their appearance on the statute books of recent years have been almost or absolutely ineffective because they have blinked the all-important fact that much of what they thought to do away with was incidental to modern industrial conditions, and could not be eliminated unless we were willing to turn back the wheels of modern progress by also eliminating the forces which had brought about these industrial conditions. Not only trusts, but the immense importance of machinery, the congestion of city life, the capacity to make large fortunes by speculative enterprises, and many other features of modern existence could be thoroughly changed by doing away with steam and electricity; but the most ardent denouncer of trusts would hesitate to advocate so drastic a remedy. What remains for us to do, as practical men, is to look the conditions squarely in the face and not to permit the emotional side of the question, which has its proper place, to blind us to the fact that there are other sides. We must set about finding out what the real abuses are, with their causes, and to what extent remedies can be applied.
That abuses exist, and that they are of a very grave character, it is worse than idle to deny. Just so long as in the business world unscrupulous cunning is allowed the free rein which, thanks to the growth of humanity during the past centuries, we now deny to unscrupulous physical force, then just so long there will be a field for the best effort of every honest social and civic reformer who is capable of feeling an impulse of generous indignation and who is far-sighted enough to appreciate where the real danger to the country lies. The effects are bad enough when the unscrupulous individual works by himself. They are much worse when he works in conjunction with his fellows through a giant corporation or trust. Law is largely crystallized custom, largely a mass of remedies which have been slowly evolved to meet the wrongs with which humanity has become thoroughly familiar. In a simple society only simple forms of wrong can be committed. There is neither the ability nor the opportunity to inflict others. A primitive people provides for the punishment of theft, assault and murder, because the conditions of the existing society allow the development of thieves and murderers and the commission of deeds of violence; but it does not provide for the punishment of forgery because there is nothing to forge, and therefore, no forgers. The gradual growth of humanitarian sentiment, often unconscious or but semi-conscious, combined with other causes, step by step emancipated the serf from bodily subjection to his over-lord; he was then protected in his freedom by statute; but when he became a factory hand the conditions were new and there were no laws which prevented the use of unguarded machinery in the factories, or the abuses of child labor, forced upon the conscientious employers by the unscrupulous until legislation put them on an equality. When new evils appear there is always at first difficulty in finding the proper remedy; and as the evils grow more complex, the remedies become increasingly difficult of application. There is no use whatever in seeking to apply a remedy blindly; yet this is just what has been done in reference to trusts.
Much of the legislation not only proposed but enacted against trusts is not one whit more intelligent than the mediæval bull against the comet, and has not been one particle more effective. Yet there can and must be courageous and effective remedial legislation.
To say that the present system of haphazard license and lack of supervision and regulation, is the best possible, is absurd. The men who endeavor to prevent the remedying of real abuses, not only show callous disregard for the suffering of others, but also weaken those who are anxious to prevent the adoption of indiscriminate would-be remedies which would subvert our whole industrial fabric. The chicanery and the dishonest, even though not technically illegal, methods through which some great fortunes have been made, are scandals to our civilization. The man who by swindling or wrongdoing acquires great wealth for himself at the expense of his fellow, stands as low morally as any predatory mediæval nobleman and is a more dangerous member of society. Any law, and any method of construing the law which will enable the community to punish him, either by taking away his wealth or by imprisonment, should be welcomed. Of course, such laws are even more needed in dealing with great corporations or trusts than with individuals. They are needed quite as much for the sake of honest corporations as for the sake of the public. The corporation that manages its affairs honestly has a right to demand protection against the dishonest corporation. We do not wish to put any burden on honest corporations. Neither do we wish to put an unnecessary burden of responsibility on enterprising men for acts which are immaterial; they should be relieved from such burdens, but held to a rigid financial accountability for acts that mislead the upright investor or stockholder, or defraud the public.
The first essential is knowledge of the facts, publicity. Much can be done at once by amendment of the corporation laws so as to provide for such publicity as will not work injustice as between business rivals.