53 8 Presidential Addresses 



twentieth, with very serious social problems. The 

 old laws, and the old customs which had almost the 

 binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to 

 regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth. 

 Since the industrial changes which have so enor- 

 mously increased the productive power of mankind, 

 they are no longer sufficient. 



The growth of cities has gone on beyond compari- 

 son faster than the growth of the country, and the 

 upbuilding of the great industrial centres has meant 

 a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of 

 wealth, but in the number of very large individual, 

 and especially of very large corporate, fortunes. The 

 creation of these great corporate fortunes has not 

 been due to the tariff nor to any other governmental 

 action, but to natural causes in the business world, 

 operating in other countries as they operate in our 

 own. 



The process has aroused much antagonism, a great 

 part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not 

 true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have 

 grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has 

 the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the 

 small trader, been so well off as in this country and 

 at the present time. There have been abuses con- 

 nected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it re- 

 mains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate 

 business can be accumulated by the person specially 

 benefited only on condition of conferring immense 

 incidental benefits upon others. Successful enter- 

 prise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can 



