New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-09-25

fact. the chief and controlling power
in politics. Yet everywhere the hc-
ton has been preserved that business
and politics must be kept quite sep
arate. Thus the relation of business
TO the public authority in democratic
countries has been a labyrinth oil
hypocrisy. And this hypocrisy has
now come to its day Of judgment.
Now see what has como Of this.
Government has treated man as II
he were a disembodied creature,
whereas he is an economic animal, as
business has always known, with a
stomach to be thought Of and physi-
cal wants unlimited. Government
has thought it had nothing to do
but to sit under a tree at shutdown
to decide who has broken the mystic
and ceremonial law Of property,
whereas business has woven a net OF
economic interdependence that takes
in everybody and comprehends nine
tenths Of the ordinary interests OF
ell the people. Yet It has lived the
political life Of unenfranchised wom-
en-, minors and gypsies."
AS it is futile to go on trying To
reform business from without, by
laws, precepts or attitudes, the great
alternative is to adopt it morally, to
make of it an art, science and IN a
sense a religion. At this point is
che of the best paragraphs:
Religion is disease when 1t is
tasteless, lawless and careless OF
food and raiment. Refinement be-
comes insensibility when it is with
ont faith and when it refuses to con-
cern itself with the ordering Of cities
and with the earth struggle. Even
so, nothing is so impolitic as pure
notifies, or so uneconomical as mere
business.
That may seem romantic. All
vision is. But business is incompatl-
BILE with nothing save wrong notions
Of its relations. Its interests are
inseparable from those Of all society.
Everybody says this. Nobody has
ever really believed it The writer
becomes practical:
In the free cities OF the Middle
Ages the trades guilds and mer-
chants guilds were usually found IN
close correlation; but it is difficult
70 find in the United States q cham
her OF commerce that works In har-
mony with the local labor council or
acknowledges in any settled and or
eanic way a community Of interest
between the two. 1t is indeed loudly
nroclaimed that the interests OF la
Dor and capital are identical, but no
impressive efforts are made to prove
il in the only way that ii can be
proved by serious endeavor
on the part Of a chamber of COM
merce to raise the minimum standard
Of living. In every American city
the general economic interest OF the
municipality goes unchsmpioned-
save by the occasional and wistful
idealism of individuals. There is no
organization to stand up steadily for
the public. The industrial and COM
mercial plant of the community-its
ensemble of factories, stores and so
on-has no institutional guardian
ship. There is no social agency bent
upon making the most Of the mate
rial apparatus By which the life Of
the community is sustained. On the
contrary. that apparatus is subjected
to persistent, obstructive and ruin
GUS sabotage, by organized capital on
ono hand and by organized labor on
the other. Organized capital refuses
to take any direct interest In the
productive process by which the CON-
munity lives, and organized labor
makes the same refusal.
It is a heartening book. Its great
est service, perhaps, will be to give
business a theory Of itself. That il
has lacked, and has wanted patheti-
cally. You may chance some day to
lunch at the Bankers Club, on the
top floor of the Equitable Building,
the largest office building in the
world. In the smoking room you
will find several hundred men, after
lunch, sitting in groups Of two or
more at tables, and the conversation
will be all of the same texture. 1t
will be about moncy-how to make
money, more and more Here is
gathered together each day the finest
body of aggressive adventurous in
telligence yet evolved in the world,
an asset of the most powerful de-
mocracy on earth, and what it seeks
is profit Is that all? Is profit seek
ing the end of business? Second
thought forbid. 1T is not so. What
these men are seeking really is their
self-expression. Profit is the SYM
bol Of success. That is not the fault
Ct any individual. 1t is a reflection
rather than upon the whole of this