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diff --git a/29276-h/29276-h.htm b/29276-h/29276-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdf41c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/29276-h/29276-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1154 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title> +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Morals In Trade And Commerce, +by Frank B. Anderson. +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +/* Body Attributes */ + +body { + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%; +} + +/* Paragraphs */ +p { + text-indent: 1em; + text-align: justify; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + line-height: 1.25em; +} + +/* Headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} + +/* Title page font sizes */ +.t1 { + line-height: 1.5em; + font-size: 150%; +} + +.t2 { + line-height: 1.5em; + font-size: 125%; +} + +.t3 { + line-height: 1.5em; + font-size: 100%; +} + +.t4 { + line-height: 1.5em; + font-size: 90%; +} + +.t5 { + line-height: 1.5em; + font-size: 80%; +} + +/* Chapter decoration */ + +hr { + width: 2em; + margin-top: -1em; + color: silver; +} + +/* Vertical Spacing */ + + .vskip { + padding-top: 6em; + } + +/* Page Numbers */ + .noshow { /* For no-CSS fallback */ + display: none; + } + + .pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 5%; + font-size: 90%; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: normal; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; + width: 1.5em; + color: silver; + border-right: solid silver 1px; + border-bottom: solid silver 1px; + padding: 0.1em; + line-height: 1.5em; + } + +/* Transcriber's Note */ + + .tnote { + border: dashed 1px; + padding: 1em; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-right: 0%; + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: 0%; + } + + .tnote p { + text-indent: 0em; + margin-left: 2em; + margin-top: .5em; + font-size: 90%; + } + + .tnote h3 { + text-indent: 0em; + margin-left: 0em; + text-align: left; + font-size: 100%; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: bold; + } + +</style> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Morals in Trade and Commerce, by Frank B. Anderson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Morals in Trade and Commerce + +Author: Frank B. Anderson + +Release Date: June 30, 2009 [EBook #29276] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORALS IN TRADE AND COMMERCE *** + + + + +Produced by adhere and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from +images generously made available by The Internet +Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<!--TITLE PAGE--> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; max-width: 40em;"> +<h1>MORALS IN TRADE AND COMMERCE</h1> + +<div class="t3">A LECTURE BY</div> +<div class="t1">FRANK B. ANDERSON</div> + +<div class="t5">President of</div> +<div class="t2">The Bank of California</div> +<div class="t5">National Association</div> +<div class="vskip"></div> + +<div class="t4">DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF</div> +<div class="t1">THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA</div> +<div class="t2">BERKELEY</div> +<div class="t2">February 15th, 1911</div> +<div class="vskip"></div> + +<div class="t2">Under the “Barbara Weinstock” Foundation</div> +</div> + +<!--MAIN MATTER--> +<div style="margin: auto; max-width: 40em;"> +<div> +<!-- Page 3 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>3<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +</div> + + +<h1>MORALS IN TRADE AND COMMERCE</h1> + +<hr /> + +<p>The most beautiful thing about youth is its power and eagerness to +make ideals, and he is unfortunate who goes out into the world without +some picture of services to be rendered, or of a goal to be +attained. There are very few of us who, at some time or another, have +not cherished these ideals, perhaps secretly and half ashamed as +though to us alone had come an inspiration of a career that should +touch the pulses of the world and leave it better than we found +it. And in the making of youthful ideals we have changed very little +with the passage of the centuries. The character of the ideals has +changed with changing needs, but not we ourselves. Our young men still +see visions; they still fill the future with conflict and with +struggle and prospectively live out their lives with the crown of +achievement in the distance. It is well that it should be so. The +ideals of our youth are the motive-power of our lives, and even those +of us who have lived far into the eras of disappointment would not +willingly wipe from our memories even the most extravagant day dreams +from which we drew energy and hope and fortitude and +self-reliance.</p> + +<p>If ideals have such a power over our lives, if they energize and +direct our first entry into the world of affairs—as +unquestionably they do—they must be counted among the real +forces of the day and as such they are as much a matter for our +scrutiny and control as educational development or physical +perfection. Not, perhaps, in the same way, for our ideals belong to +that private domain wherein we rightly resent either dictation or +authority from the outside. But we can apply both dictation and +authority for ourselves. With a firm determination to be upon the +right side of the great issues of the day, to uphold honor and justice +in public affairs, to uproot the tares and to sow the wheat in the +domain of national business, we can apply our whole mental strength to +a proper determination of those issues, to a correct distribution of +<!-- Page 4 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>4<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +praise and blame, to a careful adjustment of the means to the end and +to a precise appreciation of the facts. We can satisfy ourselves that +we have heard both sides and that enthusiasm has not deadened our ears +to all appeals but the most noisy. We can see to it that our attitude +is the judicial one and that our minds are so fixed upon the truth and +upon the whole truth that there is no room for prejudice or for +passion. All these things can be reared as a superstructure upon the +groundwork of lofty ideals, for just as there can be no progress +without ideals so there can come nothing but calamity from ideals that +are not guided by reflection and by knowledge.</p> + +<p>Never before has it been so hard to know the facts as it is to-day. +If we must give credit to the press for the diffusion of knowledge +so also must we recognize its equal power to diffuse prejudice and +bias. The newspaper and the magazine of to-day are vast and intricate +machines that supply the great majority of us with practically all the +data upon which we base our judgments. The public mind and the popular +press act and react upon one another, the press setting its sails to +catch every wind of public interest and the public upon its part +demanding to be supplied with all those departments of news to which +at the moment it is specially attracted. Commercialism and competition +have barred a large part of the press from its rightful office as leader +and molder of opinion and have reduced it to the position of a clamorous +applicant for public favor. The press, like everything else, is ruled +by majorities, and in order to live it must cater to the weaknesses of +popular majorities, it must reflect their prejudices, it must sustain +their ill-formed judgments, and it must so sift and winnow the news of +the day that the whims and the passions of the day shall be sustained. +There are some newspapers and magazines that are honorably willing to +represent only ripe thought and unbiased judgments, but they are not in +the majority.</p> + +<p>What verdict would the historian of the future pass upon the +civilization of to-day if he were restricted to the files of our +newspapers for his material. It must be confessed that we of to-day, +in the hurry and tension of modern life, are hardly in a better +position. Whatever we may suppose to be our attitude toward the +press, with whatever scorn we may regard its baser features, it has an +effect upon our minds far greater than we suppose. It +<!-- Page 5 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>5<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +is the steady drip of the water upon the stone that wears it away. It +is the steady presentation of one aspect of human life, and that the +lowest, that slowly jaundices our view and that produces either a rank +pessimism or else an indignation against evil so strong as to efface +judgment and to paralyze reason. Day after day we see human nature +presented in its worst aspects and only in its worst aspects. We see +fraud, cupidity, tyranny, and violence paraded before us as being +almost the only activities worth reporting. Dishonesty is offered to +us as the prevailing rule of life, and we are asked to believe that +the spirit of commercial oppression has allied itself with the +machinery of government for the oppression of a nation. It is a dreary +picture, a picture that, if faithfully drawn, would justify almost any +remedial measures within human power, a picture that by the skill of +its presentation arrests attention and almost compels belief.</p> + +<p>That we so seldom compare the picture with the original is one of +the anomalies of modern life. And yet the original is before us and +around us all the time, inviting us to notice that it is only the +exceptional that is reproduced with attractive skill and that it is +only the abnormal that is emphasized with adroit arrangements of line +and color. Day after day we read of the sensational divorce cases, +but there is not one line of the tens of thousands of happy marriages +upon which no cloud of discord ever falls. Day after day we read of +the scandals of municipal government, but how often do we remember the +great army of municipal officials who do their whole duty devotedly, +courageously, unselfishly? Day after day we hear of corporation +tyranny, corporation lawlessness, or corporation greed, but what +recognition do we give to corporations that obey the laws, whose +operations are above censure and who add immeasurably to the wealth of +the country and to the prosperity of every citizen in it? With this +constant presentation of depravity, this incessant harping upon the +one string of human dishonesty, what wonder that our visions should be +distorted or that we should exclude from our horizon almost everything +but the sinister features of modern life. What wonder that the young +men and women should look at the career before them through an +all-pervading fog of suspicion or that the days ahead +<!-- Page 6 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>6<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +of them should seem to be filled with the struggle against a universal +dishonesty.</p> + +<p>It is from such illusions as this that we must free our ideals if +we would do effective work for the world and for ourselves. There are +real enemies enough without erecting imaginary windmills to tilt +against. Frauds, depravities, tragedies surely await us, now as ever, +but we shall be doubly armed against them if we look upon them as the +exceptions and not the rule and if we draw strength from the great +background of human virtue and honesty. And there is such a +background, unchanging, resistent, resolute, even though the limelight +of publicity be persistently directed upon the few sinister figures on +the front of the stage. We cannot afford to lose our faith in human +nature, we cannot afford to shut out the greater and the best part of +life or to gaze so persistently upon the abnormal that we can no +longer see the normal and the ordinary. Let us cultivate our sense of +ethical values and of ethical perspective rather than to crouch behind +a shrub until it looks like a forest.</p> + +<p>We are indebted to our commercialized newspapers and magazines for +our distorted views of human life and for the cynicism that it is the +momentary fashion to affect, but that is always disfiguring to the +mind that harbors it. Certainly we can get no such views and no such +cynicism from our own experience or from personal knowledge of the men +and women who surround us. Honesty is a more familiar sight than +dishonesty. All the common and familiar processes of our daily life +are based upon an expectation of honesty, and if you will stop to +consider for a moment you will see that those processes could not go +on without that expectation. And how seldom is it falsified. Sometimes +of course there comes the jar of disappointment, but the fact that +there is a jar shows that it is the exception and not the +rule. However much we may talk of guarantees and safeguards and +securities, however much we may talk of a business method or instinct +that takes nothing for granted, it remains a self-evident fact that we +must take human honesty for granted, that we must assume that the man +with whom we do business intends to do it rightly and honorably, that +he is actuated by a settled principle of fair conduct that will work +automatically, and that without this +<!-- Page 7 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>7<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +automatically working standard of behavior all our guarantees and +safeguards and securities would really have very little value. It is +the universal expectation of fair dealing that makes business possible +and, in fact, it is this universal expectation of good behavior that +makes its breach sufficiently novel to be reported in the +newspapers. If fraud and chicanery and violence were the order of the +day, they would have no value as news. After twenty-nine years of +dealing with human nature in a business where it is seen at its +extremes—at its best and at its worst—I believe that the +great majority of men and women in business are honest and I am +certain that if this were not so, it would be impossible to carry on +business. Take the statistics of the credit insurance business, a +business that may be said to be based upon an assumption of human +honesty; examine the statistics of the losses made in business and you +will find that these are but a small fraction of the total amount +involved and even this small proportion is chiefly due to errors of +judgment or to causes in which dishonesty plays no part. Ask any +banker how much he relies upon human honesty as an indispensable +background to the ordinary precautions and safeguards of his business. +Ask him what is his attitude toward a client whom he detects in a lie +or in sharp practice, and he will tell you that he has no use for such +a man. He would rather be without his business and free from all +contact with those whose natural and innate sense of honesty is +lacking. Go wherever you like, and you will find the same expectation, +the same assumption of honesty. You will find that no business can be +carried on without it. Whatever high and honorable ideals you may have +formed you need have no apprehension that they will be scorned in the +business world or that you will have to put them away to win +success. It is in the business world that they will be valued, and +even the mental equipment that you are now seeking will be less +important to you, a lesser guarantee of success than your sense of +honor and truth and probity. When you reach the business +world—and many of you perhaps will go into the great +corporations that are now ceaselessly paraded before you as wolves and +as public enemies—you will find there the same kind of human +nature that you find here in college, the same estimation of probity +and of fair dealing. If +<!-- Page 8 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>8<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +you do mean or underhand things, you will find that they are branded +in the same way there as here. You will find that manliness and +integrity are the rule and not the exception, and I will venture upon +the prediction that when the time comes for you to look back upon your +career you will see that there has been a steady improvement all along +the line, just as those who are already able to look backward find +that there has been an improvement since their own college days. But +that will rest with yourselves, for the future is in your own +hands. It is for you, gentlemen, to see that moral and ethical +progress is unbroken.</p> + +<p>Now let me say a word about the corporations of which we hear so +much in the newspapers and magazines and that are so persistently +represented as enemies of the community and as vampires that are +sucking the life-blood of the nation. I think there may be plenty of +room here for clarification of our views, and, indeed, we should all +be better for it if we could give more precision to our thinking and +free ourselves from the imputations that have been allowed to cluster +around certain terms. You may be sure that I am under no inclination +to defend criminality or wrong-doing or to deny their existence +wherever they are actually to be found. There are criminal +corporations just as there are criminal doctors, and lawyers, and +clergymen. Wherever men are gathered together there you will find a +certain number who are disposed to seek their personal advantage in +reprehensible ways, but because some doctors and some lawyers and some +clergymen are criminals we do not attach an imputation to their +respective professions. We are content to say that there are black +sheep in every flock and so pass on. But the newspapers and the +magazines have seen fit to concentrate their attention upon the +criminal or the illegal acts of certain individuals who belong to +corporations and to explain those acts in a manner which often leads +their readers to assume that the acts are an essential part of +corporation business. As a result, the very word +“corporation” has taken on a sinister meaning, and we are +asked to look upon the corporations very much as the Rhine peasants +used to look upon the robber barons who were accustomed to swoop down +upon them and carry off their flocks. A corporation is absolutely +nothing more than a partnership of individuals who prefer to do +business under certain +<!-- Page 9 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>9<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +regulations imposed by the government. There is no difference between +the corporate and the individual ways of doing business except a piece +of stamped paper issued by the Secretary of State. The corporation is +made up of individuals who have just the same ideas of honor as you +have yourselves, who have just as much integrity, just as great a love +of fair play. A man does not change his nature just because he turns +his business into a corporation any more than he changes his nature +because he moves from one street to another or from the first floor to +the second. A corporation then is a combination of men that has been +formed under the sanction of law to carry out certain projects that it +would be difficult or even impossible to carry out in any other +way. The men forming those corporations are just such men as we meet +in daily life, no better and no worse, and therefore with all those +normal inclinations toward honesty that we are conscious of possessing +ourselves and that we are in the habit of finding in others. The fact +that these men have formed themselves into a corporation is no more +significant of evil than a combination or a partnership among doctors +or laborers. It is a part of the spirit of the age, an age that is +called upon to do great things, to develop vast natural resources, to +feed and clothe great centers of population, and to undertake a +hundred other enterprises too large for the strength of the +individual. I should like you to think over the real meaning of this +term “corporation” in order that you may understand that it has no +sinister significance whatever, that it is nothing more than a +partnership that has registered itself under certain legal conditions +for purposes that are laudable and honest. If you will do this, you +will understand at once how senseless is the outcry against +corporations as such and how absurd it is that any stigma of +dishonesty should be placed upon a particular form of doing business +that is exactly like other forms of doing business, with the addition +of a legal registration. As I have already said, there are some +corporations that break laws, or rather certain individuals who are +parts of corporations and who break laws, just as there is a certain +small proportion of law-breakers in every section of every +community. But that fact carries with it no reflection upon +corporations as such, and when our sensational publications and +politicians use the word “corporation” +<!-- Page 10 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>10<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +as though it were an alternative term for brigand or pirate they are +simply assuming a public ignorance that may exist outside, but that +certainly ought not to be found within a university. They are taking +advantage of a nearly universal disposition to believe one's self +injured and are appealing not only to ignorance, but to a low form of +cupidity and of mob greed. They would have no success in their +crusade against corporations as such if there were any general +understanding of the meaning of terms or if it were generally +recognized that there are thousands of corporations in this State, and +thousands in every State against whom no whisper of wrong-doing has +ever been raised and who are doing a useful work, of which every +individual among us is a beneficiary, directly or indirectly. Now it +is not only in our definitions that we need to be precise and to think +clearly. We have already seen the need of a better discrimination +between the very few corporations that are accused of breaking the +laws and the vastly greater number that we never hear of at all and +that do their business as quietly and honestly as the baker or the +butcher. If lawbreaking is to be found in the business of some +corporations, it is incumbent upon us to determine just in what way +the law is being broken, why it is being broken, what sort of law it +is that is being broken, and how much moral turpitude or public wrong +is involved. All these factors would be determined by a judge upon the +bench before passing sentence upon the meanest malefactor, and yet we +find that the public is constantly urged by the newspapers to pass +sentences of ruin and confiscation upon corporations as a whole, with +their tens of thousands of innocent stockholders, without any kind of +inquiry and under the influence of uninformed passion.</p> + +<p>There is no department of ethics more disputed than the meaning of +abstract right and wrong, and as I am not talking either on philosophy +or ethics I will ask you to accept just such commonsense definitions +as can be applied to the business world and that may be usefully +employed as a working basis. Commercial morality and honesty are +determined by each community for itself in the light of its own +special needs and point of evolution. To-day we hold many things to be +wrong that were done by our forefathers with clear consciences, and on +the other hand we now +<!-- Page 11 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>11<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +believe that many things are right that were held by our forefathers +to be wrong. There was a time when slavery did not offend the most +delicate conscience, and if we go still further back, we shall reach a +time when theft was almost the only crime recognized and when +wholesale murder was a virtue. Every age had its own standards, and it +would be absurd to argue that an act was wrong if it received the +sanction of the whole community. It was the communal conscience that +determined all problems of right or wrong, and it is still the +communal conscience that gives us our definitions of morality and +honesty. Here, in my opinion, is where a great part of our trouble +arises. The communal conscience has changed, and some things regarded +right and proper twenty years ago are frowned upon to-day. But +business methods tend to become rigid and inelastic, and a sudden +evolution of the public conscience leaves them in the rear. Then comes +a sudden recognition of the disparity, and laws are passed to prevent +the practices that formerly went unchallenged. Usually these laws are +passed in a hurry and by politicians who have no clear grasp of the +problem. As a result the laws are ineffective. That is to say, +business, clinging conservatively to its familiar ways, finds a plan +to continue those ways in spite of the laws passed to prevent them and +then public opinion, finding no relief, is angered,—not at the +breaking of a law, but because the law itself was ill-designed and +ineffective. In other words, public opinion has failed in its effort +to force the individual to set aside his own interests for what public +opinion considers to be the interests of the community. Public opinion +in this country is not a steady and persisting force, as it is in some +older communities. It moves spasmodically and after long periods of +quiescence and usually under some stress of excitement, which prevents +deliberation and therefore effectiveness. Law being more unwieldy than +conditions, naturally lags behind them, and what we have to recognize +is a change in conditions and in laws and not an outbreak of +lawlessness. Another evil result from the impetuous way in which we +make laws is that they are not enforced because they are not in +harmony with the views of the community. The statute books of every +State are encumbered with laws passed in moments of hysteria and never +put into operation, or else allowed to lapse +<!-- Page 12 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>12<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +after a few months of confusion. Every newspaper in California, for +example, breaks the law every day when it prints a news item without +appending the name of the writer, and probably we are all of us +breaking laws of which we never heard. This sort of thing brings a law +into contempt and robs it of the sacredness that should attach to +it. The Sherman anti-trust law, for example, would bring the whole +business of the country to a standstill if it were strictly enforced, +and I believe it is not good to bring large and innocent sections of +the community within the scope of a criminal law simply for the +purpose of reaching a minute proportion whose methods are flagrantly +bad. If the Sherman anti-trust law were enforced, it would have to be +repealed at once, and I think honest traders have a right to complain +of a law that makes them technical criminals and is enforced only +against notorious wrongdoers. The law should be so framed as to reach +only wrongdoers and to leave honest traders outside of even its +technical scope.</p> + +<p>President Roosevelt was emphatic in his declaration that he +intended to enforce the Sherman anti-trust act, and during the four +years beginning with 1902 his administration was active in that +direction.</p> + +<p>In 1906 he stated: “Combinations of capital, like +combinations of labor, are a necessary element in our present +industrial system. It is not possible completely to prevent them; and, +if it were possible, such complete prevention would do damage to the +body politic. It is unfortunate that our present laws should forbid +all combinations, instead of sharply discriminating between those +combinations which do good and those combinations which do evil.</p> + +<p>It is a public evil to have on the statute-books a law incapable of +full enforcement, because both judges and juries realize that its full +enforcement would destroy the business of the country; for the result +is to make decent men violators of the law against their will and to +put a premium on the behavior of the willful wrongdoers. Such a +result, in turn, tends to throw the decent man and willful wrongdoer +into close association, and in the end to drag down the former to the +latter's level; for the man who becomes a law-breaker in one way +unhappily tends to lose all respect for law and to be willing to break +it in many ways. The +<!-- Page 13 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>13<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +law as construed by the Supreme Court is such that the business of the +country cannot be conducted without breaking it.”</p> + +<p>But let it be admitted that there are cases where abuses exist and +where methods of doing business that were harmless enough and even +necessary enough a few years ago are now working hardship upon the +public as a result of changed conditions. These abuses should be +corrected; there is no question about that, and they will be corrected +either by violent methods that will leave behind them a heritage of +bitter resentments and wrongs or by the way of a real statesmanship +that will recognize only facts and that will do justice by methods +that are themselves just. For a long time to come it must be the +greatest of all problems confronting the statesmanship of our day, a +problem that must try our patience and our capacity for +self-government. Do not imagine that America stands alone on this +perilous path of reform. All the countries of civilization stand in +the same place. All are confronted with the same conflict between new +ideals and old methods, between the spirit of to-day and the mechanism +of yesterday. The problems of other countries arise from their own +peculiar conditions just as our problems arise from our conditions, +but their essence, their purport, is the same. And do not imagine that +there is any one solution that can be applied or that there is any +virtue in the sovereign cure-alls that are clamorously urged upon us +by demagogues and by reformers who are eager to reform everything and +everybody but themselves. There is no such panacea. It is to be found +neither in municipalization, nor nationalization, nor confiscation, +nor any of the nostrums advocated so wearisomely by sensation +mongers. There is indeed no hope for us except by laborious study of +conditions and by an infinitely cautious advance from point to point, +so that there may be no injustice, no concessions to prejudice, no +incitements of class feeling, no embittering of relations that should +be cordial as between citizens of the same republic, whose differences +are infinitely small as compared with the well-being of a great +nation. Of all the dangers that threaten the path of the reformer that +of injustice is the greatest. It is better even that abuses should +continue for a time longer than that they should be corrected by +injustice and by the infliction of hardships upon those who are wholly +innocent. +<!-- Page 14 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>14<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +Two wrongs can never make a right, and wherever we find a so-called +reform that is based upon injustice be assured that we are only +substituting one evil for another and that our latter end shall be +worse than the first. It would be impossible for one now to indicate +the direction in which reforms should lie, and there is of course +nothing human to which reform is impossible. But it is perhaps +suitable that I should indicate some of the ways that can end in +nothing but calamity, however alluringly and speciously they may be +advocated. For example, there is neither good sense nor honesty in +penalizing a corporation because some of its officials have done +wrong. Wherever wrong has been done, the guilt is with some individual +and not with the corporation as a whole. Find out who that individual +is and let him answer to the law, but do not visit his misdeeds upon +innocent stockholders who have had nothing whatever to do with the +offense, who knew nothing of its commission and could have done +nothing to prevent it if they had known. Remember, that a penalty +inflicted upon a corporation is actually inflicted not upon guilty +persons but upon innocent investors.</p> + +<p>Let me give an illustration of the so-called “reforms” +that are recklessly urged upon us to-day and that are to be found in +operation here and there throughout the country. I refer to the matter +of street franchises. Now it may be true, it probably is true, that in +many cases these franchises have become of great value and that they +ought not to be granted without adequate return. But would it not be +just to remember that when these franchises were originally granted +they provided a service that was absolutely essential to the growth of +the community and that those who obtained the franchises faced a +serious risk to their capital and practically threw in their lot with +the prospective welfare of the city? It is hard to realize how serious +that risk sometimes was and how problematical were the returns. The +shareholders in these street traction corporations are spread over the +population and every class of the population is represented in +them. They invested their money in good faith at a time when no +question had ever been raised as to the propriety of these franchises +and at a time when these franchises were considered to be for the +public good and indubitably were for the public good. And +<!-- Page 15 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>15<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +I will ask you if it is honest to use all the machinery of the +government, all the artifices of the politician to depreciate the +value of those franchises, to threaten their holders with +confiscation, to hamper and harass them by all the ways that are open +to a democratically governed people? I say unhesitatingly that it is +dishonest to do these things, and I will go so far as to +say—believing as I do in the good faith of the great +majority—that most of those who noisily advocate such measures +would be ashamed to do so if they would but face the facts and +understand what it is that they are actually doing and the wrong that +they are inflicting upon innocent men and women. If mistakes have been +made in granting franchises, then take care to avoid such mistakes in +the future, but do not enter into a bargain that seemed advantageous +to yourselves and then repudiate it when you find that it is not so +advantageous as you thought. There is no way to reconcile such a thing +with common honesty, and it is in no way mitigated by the fact that it +is done by a community and by means of a vote rather than by an +individual and in the ordinary small affairs of life. We all know what +we should say of the man who acted in this way toward ourselves +personally, but in advocating some of the schemes that are now +recommended to us by sensational politicians, newspapers, and +magazines we are making ourselves responsible for a dishonesty far +greater than the evils that we are trying to remedy. Let us by all +means reform whatever needs to be reformed, but let us do it with +clean hands.</p> + +<p>Now, I think that I have said enough to justify my belief that +these great problems of our social life are not of a kind to be +settled off-hand by violent or radical legislation. They are not to be +settled by any one scheme or by any one plan. The only way to approach +them is by careful and conscientious thought, a minute examination of +the facts at first hand and a rigid determination to act toward +corporations and business interests in general in the same spirit of +unswerving honesty that you would wish to display to a comrade or to a +friend and that you would wish to be displayed toward yourselves. You +will find that honesty is the royal road to success in commercial +life, and it is also the royal road to all reform in our communal +life. Do not go out +<!-- Page 16 --> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"> +<span class="noshow">[Pg. </span>16<span class="noshow">]</span></a></span> +into the world with any expectation that you will be required to +surrender the ideals that you have formed in your youth, or that you +will be asked to choose between honor and success. Those ideals will +be the greatest capital with which you can be endowed. They will +attract to you everything that makes life desirable and without them +you can have neither self-respect nor the respect of others.</p> + +<p>And as a last word let me recommend you not to be carried away by +those gusts of prejudice and passion that sweep periodically through +the community. There is a contagion in these things that it is hard to +resist, and so much that to-day passes for thought is not thought at +all, but merely the automatic, unreflecting acceptance of wild +theories that are enunciated with so much force that they seem to be +almost axioms. Your study of history will show you that the world has +always been subject to these waves of emotion, that are sometimes +religious, sometimes political, and seem for the time to carry +everything before them. We are passing through such a period now, a +period of intense unrest, of revolt against conditions that we +ourselves made, against methods that we ourselves created and +sanctioned. I advise you to look askance upon every movement that in +the language of the day is called popular. Do not accept a theory or a +doctrine because it is popular, but on the other hand do not reject it +for that reason. Do not permit yourselves to be carried off your +intellectual feet by indignation or by protest. Demand of every +political theory that it stand and deliver its credentials, and before +you allow it to pass into the realm of your adoption, see to it that +you understand it in all its bearings and that you have traced its +results so far as is possible to your foresight; let the final test be +one of human justice and of honesty, and then with courage use your +power to aid in the formation of public opinion, remembering that +public opinion is after all the great controlling force.</p> + +</div> + + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Note.</h3> + +<p>The typographical error “resistent” has been +corrected. Variations of hyphenation from the original document have +been retained.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Morals in Trade and Commerce, by Frank B. 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