7 z8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion ; or, to express it in more common terms, from a time of disor- 

 derly and confused industrial action to one of harmonious orderly- 

 organization. The introduction of the new elements into the com- 

 mercial world changed, as it were, the polarities of our industries. 

 They are still adjusting themselves to the new basis, but the adjust- 

 ment has now a much more regular and orderly manner than at first. 

 Evidence of the steady progress toward harmonious organization is to 

 be found in the decreasing violence of railroad traffic wars ; in the 

 greater caution of the speculating and investing publics ; in the de- 

 velopment of pools to regulate traffic and production in all industries ; 

 and in the slow but steady advance toward satisfactory relations be- 

 tween labor and capital.* All these are parts of a process which we 

 may best call economic segregation, and, rightly conceived, they may 

 give us at least a general idea of the course of our economic evo- 

 lution. 



To attempt particular description of the operation of a given force 

 is hazardous, even in comparatively simple sciences. Much more so is 

 it in sociology. Still, we are forced to look forward as well as back- 

 ward, and must form some idea of the future operation of what we 

 see working about us every day. In this place, several agencies tend- 

 ing to the diffusion of wealth, or rather its segregation into the hands 

 of comparatively large bodies of men capable of handling it, may be 

 noted. First, and most important, perhaps, come corporations. No 

 one, so far as I am aware, has yet treated of them with any approach 

 to adequacy. Objects of general dislike, they exist rather by their own 

 inherent efficiency than because they are held in any proper estima- 

 tion. We have, indeed, but to look around us and notice the gigantic 

 increase in their number and power, and in the number interested in 

 or employed by them to see their vast import. A dispassionate view 

 of the subject will, in my opinion, convince a competent person that 

 the general economic function of a corporation is to perform steadily, 

 cheaply, and permanently, a service which an individual can only per- 

 form briefly, and with comparative inefficiency. Where corporations 

 can not do this, they are unable to exist ; and, in consequence of their 

 permanence, they are able to give lasting employment, and, there- 

 fore, more than any other mode of industrial organization, they are 

 apt to give the right man the right place ; as we may see in the his- 

 tory of most of our prominent railroad men.. And when this process 

 of segregation is complete, corporations will undoubtedly be made up 

 of those who actually perform their service. The immense saving 



* Recent strikes and riots are apt to blind us to the progress really made in this re- 

 spect. The question is hardly in order here ; but it may be pointed out (1) that strikes 

 are accompanied with less violence than formerly, as in 1877, for example ; (2) that 

 organized bodies like the Knights of Labor are more responsible to public opinion 

 than unorganized labor ; and (3) that great advances have been made in particular 

 cases. 



