share of the resulting profits. No
general rule can be laid down for such cases; and they will not come up
for serious consideration until the more fundamental question of the
railroads has been agitated to the point of compelling some kind of a
definite settlement.

This sketch of a constructive national policy in relation to
corporations need not be carried any further. Its purpose has been to
convert to the service of a national democratic economic system the
industrial organization which has gradually been built up in this
country; and to make this conversion, if possible, without impairing the
efficiency of the system, and without injuring individuals in any
unnecessary way. The attempt will be criticised, of course, as
absolutely destructive of American economic efficiency and as wickedly
unjust to individuals; and there will be, from the point of view of the
critics, some truth in the criticism. No such reorganization of our
industrial methods could be effected without a prolonged period of
agitation, which would undoubtedly injure the prosperity and unsettle
the standing of the victims of the agitation; and no matter what the
results of the agitation, there must be individual loss and suffering.
But there is a distinction to be made between industrial efficiency and
business prosperity. Americans have hitherto identified prosperity with
a furious economic activity, and an ever-increasing economic
product--regardless of genuine economy of production and any proper
distribution of the fruits. Unquestionably, the proposed reorganization
of American industrial methods would for a while make many individual
Americans less prosperous. But it does not follow that the efficiency of
the national economic organization need be compromised, because its
fruits are differently distributed and are temporarily less abundant.
It is impossible to judge at present how far that efficiency depends
upon the chance, which Americans have enjoyed, of appropriating far more
money than they have earned, and far more than they can spend except
either by squandering it or giving it away. But in any event the
dangerous lack of national economic balance involved by the existing
distribution of wealth must be redressed. This object is so essential
that its attainment is worth the inevitable attendant risks. In seeking
to bring it about, no clear-sighted democratic economist would expect to
"have it both ways." Even a very gradual displacement