LABOR, INTELLIGENCE AND MONEY 99 



creasing the volume of business; by reducing the rate of 

 freight on a barrel of flour to the Atlantic from $3.00 to 45 

 cents; by reducing the price of steel from $100 per ton to $20; 

 by improving the quality and reducing the price of provisions 

 and of by-products, while paying a higher price to the farmer 

 for the animal; by reducing the price of oil from 30 cents to 

 10 cents; by reducing the price of cotton cloth from 20 cents 

 to 5 cents. They realized that in order to make their combi- 

 nations a grand success, they must increase consumption by 

 reducing prices. Thus they not only helped to develop a 

 great home trade, but enabled us to open the door of foreign 

 markets, which has resulted in the enormous trade balance 

 in our favor, on which American prosperity so largely depends. 

 The industrials to-day are owned by the many. While 

 economic evolution is centralizing production in large corpo- 

 rations, decentralization of ownership goes on simultaneously 

 through the rapid distribution of shares. There are many 

 hundred times more partners in manufacture, mining, and 

 railways than there were thirty years ago, and the number 

 is rapidly increasing. Women rarely had an opportunity of 

 obtaining an interest in business organizations, but now they 

 are large shareholders of corporations, and as such they have 

 the full right of suffrage. Under the old conditions of private 

 ownership, the control of many of our industrial enterprises 

 would have been inherited by one individual or family. 

 Now the control is subject to the rule of the majority. It is 

 seldom, and fortunately so, as preventing great aggrega- 

 tions of wealth in the hands of individuals or families, that 

 the heirs of the industrial giants have the capacity to succeed 

 to the direction of gigantic enterprises. Many inheritors of 

 great fortunes, enervated by ease and luxury, prefer a life 

 of indolence, or to chase the will-o'-the-wisps of society; others 

 prefer to devote their time to literature or art; others to enter 

 upon scientific pursuits. Under the old conditions they 

 would have inherited the control of industries, but under the 

 present conditions of industrial consolidations the majority 

 of the stockholders — for, generally speaking, the numerical 

 majority is also the majority in interest — elect as officers 

 aspiring young men who, through years of application to a 



