t stand the acid test of
self-interest for a moment. I am generous where it is worth my
while--that is all; but, like everybody else in my class, I have no
generosity so far as my social and business life is concerned. I am
willing to inconvenience myself somewhat in my intimate relations with
my family or friends, because they are really a part of _me_--and,
anyway, not to do so would result, one way or another, in even greater
inconvenience to me.

Once outside my own house, however, I am out for myself and nobody else,
however much I may protest that I have all the civic virtues and deceive
the public into thinking I have. What would become of me if I did not
look out for my own interests in the same way my associates look out
for theirs? I should be lost in the shuffle. The Christian virtues may
be proclaimed from every pulpit and the Banner of the Cross fly from
every housetop; but in business it is the law of evolution and not the
Sermon on the Mount that controls.

The rules of the big game are the same as those of the Roman
amphitheater. There is not even a pretense that the same code of morals
can obtain among corporations and nations as among private individuals.
Then why blame the individuals? It is just a question of dog eat dog. We
are all after the bone.

No corporation would shorten the working day except by reason of
self-interest or legal compulsion. No business man would attack an abuse
that would take money out of his own pocket. And no one of us, except
out of revenge or pique, would publicly criticize or condemn a man
influential enough to do us harm. The political Saint George usually
hopes to jump from the back of the dead dragon of municipal corruption
into the governor's chair.

We have two standards of conduct--the ostensible and the actual. The
first is a convention--largely literary. It is essentially merely a
matter of manners--to lubricate the wheels of life. The genuine sphere
of its influence extends only to those with whom we have actual contact;
so that a breach of it would be embarrassing to us. Within this
qualified circle we do business as "Christians & Company, Limited."
Outside this circle we make a bluff at idealistic standards, but are
guided only by the dictates of self-interest, judged almost entirely by
pecuniary tests.

I admit, however, that, though I usually act from selfish motives, I
would prefer to act generously if I could do so without financial loss.
That is ab