Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/326

310 Functions, the performance of which particularly depends upon the skill and application of individuals and have little connection with concrete production, will likely to a considerable extent remain exempt from combination, although attorneys and physicians whose pursuits depend almost exclusively upon separate individual ability and application have allied themselves in associations through which to an extent fees are regulated and the experience of individuals is brought to the benefit of all. A striking example of the centralization tendency is presented by the action of the banks in many of the larger cities during the recent financial distress. To the clearing house, which is primarily but a combination of banks for mutual benefit, which inures also to the benefit of the public, were assigned securities belonging to each of the banks holding membership therein, to be held by the clearing house as the basis for the issue of clearing-house certificates which were designed for the benefit both of the banks and of the community served by them. As the property of the different banks was placed in the hands of a committee clothed with executive authority, this action displayed a principal characteristic of the trust formation.

Consideration of the effect of industrial organizations upon the individual lives of their members leads to analogy drawn from the relation borne by the individuals thereof to the other great organizations that have attended the progress of humanity. As the true soldiers were content to find their reward and glory in the valorous service of the militant organizations to which they belonged, as the sincere ministers attained the highest personal good by the abandonment of self in the striving to uphold the precepts of their creeds, so it may be that the members of a great industrial army, imbued with the feeling that their well-directed energies contribute in the greatest possible degree to the welfare of the nation, to all that is meant by the attainment of the highest civilization, will find happiness in their work that is only equaled by the happiness found in their homes, and will be content with the personal credit and personal reward that may follow the exercise of their ability in a field where an increasingly juster perception of each man's capacity will give the opportunity for its fullest utilization, and where there is increasing recognition of the fact that it is to the efforts of all the workers in a particular field that results are due, that the credit in proportion to his usefulness belongs to the private as well as to the general. The manager of a great railway gives the best of his mental and physical energy to the conduct of its affairs, with the consciousness that he is thereby contributing to the welfare not only of the corporation and its employees but of the community which it serves; likewise with the president of a bank or the head of a great industrial