aft than
the destiny of the Republican Party. The power that workingmen generate
when they unite--the demands they will make and the tactics they will
pursue--how they are educating themselves and the nation--these are
genuine issues which bear upon the future. So with the policies of
business men. Whether financiers are to be sullen and stupid like
Archbold, defiant like Morgan, or well-intentioned like Perkins is a
question that enters deeply into the industrial issues. The whole
business problem takes on a new complexion if the representatives of
capital are to be men with the temper of Louis Brandeis or William C.
Redfield. For when business careers are made professional, new motives
enter into the situation; it will make a world of difference if the
leadership of industry is in the hands of men interested in production as
a creative art instead of as a brute exploitation. The economic conflicts
are at once raised to a plane of research, experiment and honest
deliberation. For on the level of hate and mean-seeking no solution is
possible. That subtle fact,--the change of business motives, the
demonstration that industry can be conducted as medicine is,--may
civilize the whole class conflict.

Obviously statecraft is concerned with such a change, extra-political
though it is. And wherever the politician through his prestige or the
government through its universities can stimulate a revolution in
business motives, it should do so. That is genuinely constructive work,
and will do more to a humane solution of the class struggle than all the
jails and state constabularies that ever betrayed the barbarism of the
Twentieth Century. It is no wonder that business is such a sordid affair.
We have done our best to exclude from it every passionate interest that
is capable of lighting up activity with eagerness and joy.
"Unbusinesslike" we have called the devotion of craftsmen and scientists.
We have actually pretended that the work of extracting a living from
nature could be done most successfully by short-sighted money-makers
encouraged by their money-spending wives. We are learning better to-day.
We are beginning to know that this nation for all its boasts has not
touched the real possibilities of business success, that nature and good
luck have done most of our work, that our achievements come in spite of
our ignorance. And so no man can gauge the civilizing possibilities of a
new set of motives in business. That it will add