102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



did not the other ten boys do the same ? Obviously because there 

 was but one chance in ten of that kind, and the one got it, so the 

 others had to be content to serve in less profitable callings. 



The regiment has but one colonel, the company but one cap- 

 tain, the State but one Governor ; and any great business has limi- 

 tations to the number of bosses it can find use for. There must 

 be operatives as well as managers, and generally capacity finds 

 its way to the front, and incapacity goes to the rear, as a matter 

 of course, or according to the law of gravitation. 



When one finds an opening, and leaves the operative class 

 for the managing class, the value of his service shows for it- 

 self in some way that commands recognition. Thus, in the early 

 days of agriculture, farmers send their produce to market by a 

 man who makes a business of marketing for others. He can 

 handle the product of ten farms, say, and hence twenty farmers 

 give a living to two middle-men. After a time a man turns up 

 that is smart enough to sell the product of twenty farms, and ob- 

 tain better prices for the producers, by taking off a little from 

 the commissions, and soon he gets all the business, and his two 

 rivals are obliged to retire from the field. When they are out, 

 the profits which were divided between two are taken by one, less 

 the small discount that he made to the farmers to secure their 

 custom. Now, doing the work of two, he saves the time and the 

 expenses on the road of one, and so, while they just made a liv- 

 ing, he rapidly accumulates, and makes money faster than the 

 farmers who raise the produce which he only sells. In a few 

 years he is the richest man in town, and the farmers, looking only 

 at the result, are dissatisfied, and though he has done the selling 

 for them for less than they could possibly have done it them- 

 selves, and also for less than any other man had ever done it 

 for that community, they complain of him as an extortioner, or 

 robber of the poor men who have done all the hard work. To 

 state it mildly, he is a non-producer who has eaten up the farmers 

 of the town. 



And what has happened to the farmers has happened to 

 all others. The competent manufacturer has come in, and by 

 doing a much larger business has retired several incompetents to 

 the ranks ; the competent trader has done the same, the banker 

 has done it, the expressman has done it, and all others have 

 where there was a chance. From what has been said, it is ap- 

 parent that the cost of living to the middle-men is not the 

 prime factor in measuring the pay for their services. In the 

 first case named, the farmers were satisfied with paying the 

 larger commissions so long as the men earned only a living, they 

 taking the living as the proper measure, and then they wanted 

 to apply the same measure to the better man, and leave out of 



