THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF TRUSTS 133 



hopeless all competition with a single consolidated company. 

 Will successive generations of bureau chiefs or heads of 

 departments in long established corporations be able to con- 

 tinue the race of masterful leaders, which freedom in origi- 

 nating and organizing independent industries has given us in 

 the present age? 



This leads to another consideration. In an industry 

 organized upon a national scale, under the control of a sin- 

 gle company, there must arise an "irrepressible conflict" 

 between that central responsibility necessary for intelligent, 

 unified management and that individual freedom and energy 

 requisite for the healthful life of the separate members. 

 For centralized control, elaborate and costly administrative 

 apparatus is absolutely essential; and this mechanism of 

 superintendence soon becomes fixed and bureaucratic in its 

 methods, so that it bears heavily upon the individual parts. 

 President Hadley has said recently that, as trusts gain in 

 age and experience, good private business will become so 

 similar to good public business that it will make little differ- 

 ence whether an enterprise is carried on by the public or by 

 individuals. In one respect, at least, his argument is well 

 founded. Governmental enterprises usually suffer, at least 

 when conducted upon an extensive scale, from the lack of that 

 stimulus which only competition can give and from the 

 growth of fixed bureaucratic methods of control. A private 

 monopoly that engrosses an entire branch of industry must 

 develop inevitably, in the course of time, the very charac- 

 teristics that impair the efficiency of a public undertaking. 

 Both will exhibit the tendency to unprogressive management 

 which comes from the absence of competition and the weight 

 of centralized administrative machinery. 



When all the arguments are sifted, and the balance of 

 advantage or disadvantage is determined, there is reason 

 for thinking that the losses due to monopoly will more than 

 offset occasional slight gains in the work of manufacture 

 and the more substantial savings in placing products upon 

 the market. This conclusion is strengthened by the showing 

 which most of the trusts have made in the payment of divi- 

 dends upon their securities. As is well known, the preferred 



