Whereby Mr. Brandeis tells a truth, but one of the most dangerous type which consists in suppressing, or ignoring, the other half of the truth. Efficiency is not an inseparable accompaniment of increasing size. The illustrations of these facts are too numerous to need mention. Nor is that the fact of importance. The matter of importance is whether that efficiency that human progress demands can be reached without size.
Progress demands large production of wealth.
The volume of wealth is the measure of the possibilities for progress. The measure of efficiency is the volume of wealth produced with least waste, and with the least amount of toil possible. It is not. Physically, the perfection of electricity, for instance, may diminish the size necessary for a machine to do its work. The elephantine steam engine may be, and is being, supplanted by the relatively diminutive motor.