12 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The trust system of industry, working as it does wholly on the com- 

 petitive method, is tending constantly to elevate the moral tone of its 

 employees. As long as the trust asks of them only the question, "Are 

 you efficient ? " it is putting a premium on everything that tends to 

 increase ability. The things that are constantly tending to increase 

 ability are honesty and good habits. The man whose habits and char- 

 acter are such as to make him in any way less capable is very soon 

 dismissed. The employee of the great corporations must be sparing in 

 his use of liquors, if he uses them at all. He must not carouse nights. 

 He must come to his work with a rested body and a clear brain. The 

 great railroads have found that they cannot afford to keep intemperate 

 men in their employ. They have issued orders to their agents to employ 

 only temperate men. 



The psychological effect of great industries upon national development 

 should not be underestimated. A people among whom are carried on 

 industries like those conducted by the Standard Oil Company, the 

 American Sugar Refining Company, and the United States Steel Cor- 

 poration will not be thinking of small things. Such a people has passed 

 the stage of industrial evolution when traders thought only of selling 

 in the local markets. 



The American people are accustomed to think of great things in 

 industry. The conduct of great businesses has added a certain stimulus 

 to their intellectual operations. This is one of the distinctively American 

 traits that place our people in a different class from those of European 

 countries. So common to us is the idea of magnitude in business that 

 as great an enterprise as the construction of the Panama Canal is regarded 

 as a matter of course and undertaken with comparatively little discussion. 



This characteristic of our people has greatly increased since the 

 close of the Civil War. That war was a great influence in educating 

 the American people to the knowledge of their own powers. War 

 always awakens the nation which wages it to a realization of its capacity 

 for great enterprises. It is not strange that this should be the case. 

 When a nation is able to organize, discipline and maintain for a number 

 of years an army of several hundred thousand men, a great deal of 

 executive ability will be brought to light. When the war is over, these 



