ARE BUSINESS PROFITS TOO LARGE? 103 



the account his better service and management, and lower com- 

 missions. They were more content with two dawdlers and in- 

 efficients, than with one brisk, energetic, and go-ahead fellow, 

 who served them in better fashion. 



It is found, after a term of years, that the one efficient man 

 has saved a handsome property, and has money to lend to others 

 to increase business, and that somehow his portion of taxes 

 and public burdens is very large, and a material help to town 

 expenses, while it is certain that the two men he displaced do 

 not lend any money or pay any taxes of consequence, and prob- 

 ably never would had they retained the business which he took 

 from them. The inefficients would have allowed matters to run 

 along in a careless fashion, and they would have consumed their 

 commissions in living expenses, so that nothing would have 

 been added to the general stock ; but the new and vigorous man 

 having come in, the community, instead of having two poor per- 

 sons who can pay no taxes for highways and schools, has a capi- 

 talist who does pay, and who also has money to lend to men who 

 need. The common people in these days decry the richest man 

 in town, and think him a detriment, a sort of incubus or dead 

 weight which the people are compelled to carry, whose money 

 has been made out of them by craft, and they imagine that had 

 the laws of right and justice prevailed, their burden would not 

 have existed. They do not for a moment dream that his capital 

 would never have existed had the old dawdlers kept on to the 

 end. 



Nevertheless, they do believe in capacity, and they vote for the 

 competent man for Governor, and town clerk, and assessor, and 

 when they want a farm-hand or market-man they employ the 

 best for the money, and only grumble after the service has been 

 performed. They know that the best help is the cheapest all the 

 time, save at the moment when they look at the aggregate re- 

 ward in the lump. They know that a good hand is more profit- 

 able than two half hands, because the board of one can be saved. 

 Now, the men who manufacture or engage in trade are the ser- 

 vants of the people as certainly as the Governor of the State or the 

 county clerk. They combine materials and exchange goods for 

 others simply because the others find it for their advantage to 

 have them do it. I do not buy at the store because the merchant 

 compels me, but because it is not profitable for me to keep store 

 myself. By getting the manufacturer to take my wool and turn 

 it into cloth I get more cloth. I create the manufacturer by ask- 

 ing him to help me to get the most cloth. In early times the 

 shoemaker went from house to house with his lasts, leather, and 

 patterns tied up in a sack and slung over his shoulder, and made 

 and mended in the family kitchens. That kind of shoemaker 



