THE CALL OF THE LAND 



But you would be so far forth a promoter 

 if you did but one of these things. Lesseps 

 was a promoter in putting through the Suez 

 Canal, although the certainty of huge profit 

 from such a canal was no new thought of 

 his, but the commonplace observation of 

 6,000 generations. On the other hand, 

 though the promoter need not be and usu- 

 ally is not an inventor in the technical sense, 

 like Eli Whitney or Tesla, his most impor- 

 tant office often lies in the discovery of 

 opportunity rather than in the directing of 

 financial attention to the opportunity. That 

 steel would supplant wood and iron in a 

 million uses, and do this permanently; that 

 coal oil must be the common people's illu- 

 minant for years and years in every civil- 

 ized country; that judicious combination, 

 taking the place of competition, immensely 

 cheapens production; and that price control 

 in a commodity was possible without dom- 

 inating the entire output, were "promotory" 

 insights of the first order. 



Having ascertained how new money can 

 probably be made and having created and 



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