The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-24
4 WoFd,For Capitalist
By DE. FRANK CRANE
EFT us say few kind words for the poor

Y FIT us say a few kind words for the poor capitalist. Poor, because absence of his
 fellowmen's esteem, love, and confidence can make a man poor as well as absence of money.
 First, it is hard for us to be just to the money man, because his flesh is pink, his stomach is full and his pajamas are of pale silk. We have still the fool notion that no man can be a prophet or benefacter to the race unless he is half-starVed and improvi- dent we have been trained for some 5000 years in this belief.
 But can we not see that, just as 1t is not the poor mans fault but it is society's fault that he is poor, So it is society's fault-the fault of vast economic laws over which no one man has control-that the rich man is over- rich? Mir J. P. Morgan is as much the vic tim of circumstances as is the tramp who slepes sitting on park bench with news paper over his knees:
 I hesitate to say it, but MT. Morgan is of more use to the world than the tramp is. Capital has /done quite as much for this country as labor. Labor has pioneered, felled forests, removed Indians, and peopled deserts, but it would have taken America 500 years to attain the prosperity it now has if capital had not stepped in and built rail- roads. -ssst.x +a,t4
 The bankers, even if they do live in fine houses with stone dogs in the yard and fare so sumptuously that they usually have indi- gestion, have done quite as much for the body polite as the steamfitters and plasterers.
 Suppose, even, that you are a Socialist or Bellamyite, or some other sort of futurist. What is the gist of all the modern dreams of ultimate democracy? It is that by and by the People shall own and administer their own business, shall one day do their own pork packing and milk delivery, just as now they man4ge the postoffice~and the public school.
 To bring this Utopia to pass there are some who write, speechify, and agitate ,5there are Henry. Georges, Charles Edward Russells, and Victor Bergers. To them, full credit.
 But there is another class who are proba- bly doing more to democratize wealth. than these. mean that class that is rapidly con centrating the business of the country with huge units-that is,, the trust makelS.
 The greatest clog to eventual democracy in business is the silly partisan government, in- tent upon "dissoIving' the trusts. The true democrat does not want them dissolved; ke wants them increased.
 The immense rapidity of growth in busi- ness in the United States has been due to the free operation of the Jaw of cooperation, which is better than competition for produc- ing wealth a thousand to one. For our world kposition we are not indebted to our laborers so much as to our capitalists.
 Of course, they have paid themselves well during the process; they have automobiles and two suits of Sunday clothes; but that makes little matter. A man can only eat about so much, drink so much, smoke so much, and live 50 long. speak from thorough knowledge, workingman can get as much fun out of life as q man who has hundred times more money than he needs.
 Really, it is the capitalist who is the offi- ciaI of destiny. Every man with million dollars ceases to be a private citizen, despite himself A tremendous load of civil respon- sibility is on him, from which he cannot escape And, to do them justice, the over lords of America have done more for the welfare of the common people than they have any other set of overlords in history The millionaire manufacturers. the trust makers, and the controllers of wealth units are the chief enemies of competition. For this let us honor them. For there can be no perfect rule of democracy without co-opera- tion, and no reign of cooperation until we cease competition.
 The best thing Mir. Rockefeller has ever done is the thing we upbraid him forhis destruction of competition; the worst thing he does, the most injurious to democracy, is the thing we praise him for-This charities.