 in your day, although not comparable with ours. No doubt you have visited
these great mills in your time, covering acres of ground, employing thousands of
hands, and combining under one roof, under one control, the hundred distinct
processes between, say, the cotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes. You
have admired the vast economy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the
perfect interworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand. No doubt you
have reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in that factory
would accomplish if they were scattered, each man working independently. Would
you think it an exaggeration to say that the utmost product of those workers,
working thus apart, however amicable their relations might be, was increased not
merely by a percentage, but many fold, when their efforts were organized under
one control? Well now, Mr. West, the organization of the industry of the nation
under a single control, so that all its processes interlock, has multiplied the
total product over the utmost that could be done under the former system, even
leaving out of account the four great wastes mentioned, in the same proportion
that the product of those mill-workers was increased by coöperation. The
effectiveness of the working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed
leadership of private capital, even if the leaders were not mutual enemies, as
compared with that which it attains under a single head, may be likened to the
military efficiency of a mob, or a horde of barbarians with a thousand petty
chiefs, as compared with that of a disciplined army under one general - such a
fighting machine, for example, as the German army in the time of von Moltke.«
    »After what you have told me,« I said, »I do not so much wonder that the
nation is richer now than then, but that you are not all Croesuses.«
    »Well,« replied Dr. Leete, »we are pretty well off. The rate at which we
live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of ostentation, which in your
day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort, finds no place, of
course, in a society of people absolutely equal in resources, and our ambition
stops at the surroundings which minister to the enjoyment of life. We might,
indeed, have much larger incomes, individually, if we chose so to use the
surplus of our product, but we prefer to expend it upon public works and
pleasures in which all share, upon public halls and buildings, art galleries,
bridges,
