The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-27
BIC BUSINESS IS
INEVITABLE IN THE
NATIONS GROWTH
Uncle Sam Must Now Think
"Continentally" and Not
"Parochially"
IDEAS OF LEADERS
ABOUT TENDENCIES
Interesting Testimony Very Recently
Brought Up in Investigation of
the United States Steel
Corporation Case
ny HOLLAND


ernment's suit against the United States
Steel corporation. This testimony, how
ever, has been overlooked, probably be-
cause the public interest is now centered
upon the banking and currency bill which
the Senate is considering and also upon
the difficulties which our government is
dealing with in the Mexican situation.
A day or two ago Benjamin K. Miles of
Cleveland a business man of prominence
and very high standing in Ohio, who is
president of the Browning Engineering &
company of Cleveland. testified that in
his opinion the advent of the United
States Steel corporation was 'godsend
to the small consumers of steel products .
He explained that too, by saying that
the corporation had established steady
prices and had overcome safe of war
wherein every fellow tomahawked the
other. Mr.. Miles intimated that 1t was
the magnitude of the corporation and its
possession of great resources that en-
abled it to compass these desirable
achievements.
A day or two before Mr. Miles thus
testified, Frank A. yanderlp, president
of the greatest of American banks. de-
Tended in a speech before the Economic
club of this city the organization of great
financial institutions, asserting that they
were essential to the material prosperity
of the United States. He intimated that
they were the result of the magnitude OF
the business development In the United
States. They followed rather than Gre
ated big business. Various business or
ganzations have recently heard from
1nen of prominence defenses of what is
called ''big business The defenses are
III line with the aphorism correctly at
tributed to the late Thomas Bracltett
Reed, who when speaker of the House
of Representatives in Washington de-
Tended enormous appropriations approxi-
mating a billion dollars by saying that
the United States Is a billion-dollar ma
ton."
One of the speakers recently before the
National Association of Manufacturers IN
New York stated that people we
must quit thinking parochially and must
think and act continentally. We have be-
come a big nation and it is necessary for
US to have apparatus of magnitude If the
prosperity of the entire country is to he
maintained. There has been almost un-
conscious recognition of this through the
establishment of very great railroad sys-
tens, through the development of banks
whose capital and resources approximate
the seventy y-milion- dollar resources pos
sessed by the bank of which Mr.. Wander
lip is president. and it Is necessary that
we have lumber operations on a very
great scale. very large insurance eons-
panies and manufacturing industries Gre
ated upon what would formerly have
heen regarded as colossal or impossible
scale
What Big Business Means
men who are of great experience, are
persuaded that the very magnitude of our
business undertakings and our stupenl-
Gus industrial and agricultural activities
are creating impulses which will newt
ably sooner or later oyerwhelm political
demogogie socialistie. or anarchistc in
fuences which seem to be growing The
magnitude of our business undertakings
will make 1t possible for new indus
tries to adjust their interests to the new
tariff law. The very great capital which
come of the larger cotton manufacturers
represent is making ii easier to readjust
OUR cotton industry to the new tariff than
would be the case We're this industry IL
vided up among a larger number of rel
etively small producers of cotton goods.
Some figures have been complied recent
ly telling in concrete way of the mag
nifloent proportions of the big business
wrich the United States as whole now
represents. The population in itself fur
nishes one chapter in this story. 1t
increased in 100 years from 100000. APP
proximately.s to approximately 100000
There is no record since modern civiliza-
ton began to write history which COM
pares with this prodigous growth
As recently as the year 1861. the time
when the civil war began. there were
only amout 10000 manufa curing plants
) In the United States representing S1,000-
100000 of capital, 125O,OOo employers. about
400.000.000 in wages whereas 45 years
later manufacturing itself had become
'big business in the best meaning of the
. term, for there were In 1905 approximately
635, 900 manufacturing plants representing
$14,00000o,0o0 of capital and approximately
100000 employees, who received nearly $4,-
O00,0o0O00 of wages. AT the outbreak of
the civil war We thought we deserved
recognition a great n 1nufacturing ma
ton because the money value that year
of manufactured commodities was a lit
tie under 80, 900 100000. But 40 years later
the money value of these commodities
was nearly $1,000. 900 900. The prophetic
figure of the late David A. Wells justified
him In reporting in 1862, that nothwith-
standing the civil war the United States
was sure to develop such resources in
few years as would make it conspicuous
II not paramount, among the nations of
the world.
Then again, bD years ago the wage
earners of the United States who were
saving some of their wages We're about
10000 and they saved S43,000000 which
they had placed In safekeepng savings
banks. The census reports that in 1909
there were nearly 100000 savings bank
depostors. who had placed for safekeep-
ing In the banks a little under. S4O00,-
00OO00
The farmers of the United States have
been doing ''big business and upon a
colossal scale. The census reports that
the aggregate value of farm properties in
the United States in 1910 was a little
under SIS, ,000, 100000, or more than &c.,
100000 900 in excess of the value of the
farm property / years earlier. Or, in
other words farmers have been doing
such big business as enabled farm prop
erty to increase In money value at the
rate of 81, 900, ,0OO,0 eco a year In each one of
the 10 years of the first decade of this
country big business" made possible
the expectation last year of manufac-
tured commodities approximately of the
money value of si,250,o0o.
An Overwhelming Impulse
Men who are familiar with thesS won-
derful statistics and who themselves
have taken some part In the development
Of .big business are convinced that big
business itself will make it impossible
that there be any serious or prolonged
Impairment of American industry, Amsr
ican commerce, American banking y
4 Au,orjcor railroad activities These me,