812 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP 



is a menace to public weal, inasmuch as it removes the benefits of com- 

 petition and creates special privileges. Monopoly due to external 

 conditions is not like those extra gains coming to one as a result of 

 peculiar excellence and which are suitable rewards for social service. 

 The monopoly due to external conditions or to facts and forces 

 external to the individual tends, so far as we can judge from history, 

 to repress initiative and invention on the part of the individual. 

 Consequently, the extra gain from monopoly is a gain not for social 

 service but for social disservice. We have rewards either without 

 service or without adequate service. We have then a special privi- 

 lege which is hostile to the general interest and particularly to the 

 wage-earning classes. The problem then before us is a problem of 

 control of monopoly in such a way that we may remove the op- 

 pression of laborers and of others and retain equality of opportunity. 

 This control may be secured either through direct ownership and 

 management of the monopolistic industry or through regulation. 

 We find both methods resorted to. In the case of industries of a 

 routine character which can be carried on in accordance with certain 

 general principles, public ownership seems on the whole to secure 

 better results. It is in accordance with the principles of property to 

 give control, and when we have private ownership and public control 

 we are attempting to unite two antagonistic principles. This is an 

 industrial problem which carries with it a great many subordinate 

 problems. It is enough at this time and place to point out the nature 

 of the problem. 



Closely connected with the foregoing is a compact organization, 

 (a) of capital, (6) of labor, also revealed to us by a general survey 

 of industrial history and present economic industrial life. This 

 survey reveals to us, and in my mind demonstrates the futility of 

 efforts to suppress the large organization of capital and the large 

 organization of labor. The only right method can then be to guide 

 and direct both kinds of organizations in such a way that they may 

 subserve the public interest. 



What has been said in regard to industrial problems is general 

 in its nature and designed to be merely suggestive. It presents 

 specific problems of industrial society as problems produced by 

 industrial evolution and also as problems which are largely psychical 

 in their nature. The laws and institutions demanded are those 

 which are required to meet the needs of the various classes in the 

 community which are almost infinitely varied with respect to 

 acquisitions, achievements, and capacities. We present one side of 

 the problem when we say that we must create institutions to answer 

 the needs of the various classes in the community. We present a 

 different side of the problem when we say that we must attempt to 

 adjust all members of society by educational processes to their 



