310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Functions, the performance of which particularly depends 

 upon the skill and application of individuals and have little con- 

 nection with concrete production, will likely to a considerable 

 extent remain exempt from combination, although attorneys and 

 physicians whose pursuits depend almost exclusively upon sep- 

 arate individual ability and application have allied themselves in 

 associations through which to an extent fees are regulated and 

 the experience of individuals is brought to the benefit of all. A 

 striking example of the centralization tendency is presented by 

 the action of the banks in many of the larger cities during the 

 recent financial distress. To the clearing house, which is prima- 

 rily but a combination of banks for mutual benefit, which inures 

 also to the benefit of the public, were assigned securities belong- 

 ing to each of the banks holding membership therein, to be held 

 by the clearing house as the basis for the issue of clearing-house 

 certificates which were designed for the benefit both of the banks 

 and of the community served by them. As the property of the 

 different banks was placed in the hands of a committee clothed 

 with executive authority, this action displayed a principal char- 

 acteristic of the trust formation. 



Consideration of the effect of industrial organizations upon 

 the individual lives of their members leads to analogy drawn from 

 the relation borne by the individuals thereof to the other great 

 organizations that have attended the progress of humanity. As 

 the true soldiers were content to find their reward and glory in the 

 valorous service of the militant organizations to which they be- 

 longed, as the sincere ministers attained the highest personal good 

 by the abandonment of self in the striving to uphold the precerpts 

 of their creeds, so it may be that the members of a great industrial 

 army, imbued with the feeling that their well-directed energies 

 contribute in the greatest possible degree to the welfare of the 

 nation, to all that is meant by the attainment of the highest civi- 

 lization, will find happiness in their work that is only equaled 

 by the happiness found in their homes, and will be content with 

 the personal credit and personal reward that may follow the exer- 

 cise of their ability in a field where an increasingly juster percep- 

 tion of each man's capacity will give the opportunity for its fullest 

 utilization, and where there is increasing recognition of the fact 

 that it is to the efforts of all the workers in a particular field that 

 results are due, that the credi^j in proportion to his usefulness 

 belongs to the private as well as to the general. The manager of 

 a great railway gives the best of his mental and physical energy 

 to the conduct of its affairs, with the consciousness that he is 

 thereby contributing to the welfare not only of the corporation 

 and its employees but of the community which it serves ; likewise 

 with the president of a bank or the head of a great industrial or- 



