for cooking and
heating.

The people found they wanted to use four times as much gas.

The Boston Gas Company smiled sweetly.

Boston smiled sweetly.

Not many months had passed and two things had happened in Boston.

The Boston Gas Company, with precisely the same directors in it, had
made over the directors into new men, and all the people in Boston (all
who used gas) apparently had been made over into new people.

What had happened was Brandeis--a man with an American temperament.

Mr. Brandeis had defended his company from the people by going the
people's way and helping them until they helped him.

Mr. Brandeis gave gas a soul in Boston.

Before a gas corporation has a soul, it would be American for a
government to treat it in one way. After it has one it would be American
to treat it in another. There are two complete sets of conduct,
principles, and visions in dealing with a corporation before and after
its having a soul.

Preserving the females of the species and killing males as a method of
discrimination has been applied to all animals except human beings. This
is suggestive of a method of discrimination in dealing with
corporations. A corporation that has a soul and that is the most likely
to keep reproducing souls in others should be treated in one way, and a
corporation that has not should be treated in another.

There are two assumptions underneath everybody's thought, underneath
every action of our government: Which is the American assumption?

People are going to be bad if they can.

People are going to be good if they can.

Men who want to arrange laws and adjust life on the assumption that
business men will be bad if they can, it seems to some of us, are
inefficient and unscientific. It seems to us that they are off on the
main and controlling facts in American human nature. It is not true that
American business men will be bad if they can. They will be good if they
can.

This is my assertion. I cannot prove it.

What we seem to need next in this country in order to be clear-headed
and to go ahead, is to prove it. We want a competent census of human
nature.

Lacking a census of human nature, the next best thing we can do is to
watch the men who seem to know the most about human nature.

We put ourselves in their hands.

These men seem to believe, judging from their actions, that there is
really nothing that suits our temperament better in America than being
good. If we can mana