392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PROFITS OF LEGITIMATE BUSINESS NOT TOO LARGE. 



By P. F. HALLOCK. 



IN The Popular Science Monthly for November Mr. J. B. Mann 

 discussed the question, " Are Business Profits too Large ? " 

 His article is a defense of those business methods which have 

 made the Vanderbilts, the Stewarts, and the Goulds. It is our 

 purpose to briefly examine the statements from which he draws 

 his conclusion. 



That labor is at a great disadvantage is admitted, but Mr. Mann 

 says, " It is a disadvantage imposed by Nature, and so need not be 

 discussed." If this were true, there would be greater need of dis- 

 cussion, but fortunately it is not. Nature provides bountifully 

 for all — there is a surplus of everything, and no one is required 

 to be a drudge ; but, by following the " gospel of greed," a few 

 have taken possession of the wealth produced by the many, and 

 amid an abundance half our people are fighting for a bare living. 

 The ability to legally take from the masses justifies the taking, 

 in the opinion of Mr. Mann. This is the new version of that 

 barbarous rule of conduct, " Might makes right." A commercial 

 pirate is worse than the one who robs by force, for the former is 

 protected in his robbery. No man, by honest methods, can make 

 millions in a few years. Such a one must, in some way, accumu- 

 late without rendering an equivalent. There is no principle of 

 economics clearer than this. 



To show that the workingmen get their full share of what they 

 produce, Mr. Mann states that " there is no business of recog- 

 nized legitimacy that pays labor only a third. . . . There is no 

 business that gives to capital and skill combined even ten dollars 

 . out of thirty." If these sentences mean anything, it is that labor 

 gets more than two thirds of production. This is not true of the 

 following industries : The manufacture of iron and steel, the min- 

 ing of coal, the manufacture of boots and shoes, the manufacture 

 of sewing machines, the petroleum industry as carried on by the 

 Standard Oil Company, the lumber business, the manufacture of 

 clothing, watches, matches, and salt, not to mention the number- 

 less notions that are consumed in every household. The truth is 

 that the actual labor cost of almost every staple is a small frac- 

 tion of its selling price. 



Mr. Mann says that only one in ten has a competency by his 

 own exertions, and that one because he was energetic, faithful, 

 competent, and thoroughly systematic from the start. Before the 

 era of paternalism this was the rule, now it is almost an excep- 

 tion. There are at least a hundred men in the city of Pittsburg 

 who have been more industrious, more economical, and who are 



