apitalists, composed of
those who desire a partnership rather than warfare with the government,
will soon represent the larger part of the business world.

Mr. Lincoln Steffens reflects the views of many, however, when he denies
that the financial magnates are as yet guided by this "enlightened
selfishness," and says that they are only just becoming
"class-conscious," and it is true that they have not yet worked out any
elaborate policy of social reform or government ownership. None but the
most powerful are yet able, even in their minds, to make the necessary
sacrifices of the capitalism of the present for that of the future. The
majority (as he says) still "undermine the law" instead of more firmly
intrenching themselves in the government, and "corrupt the State"
instead of installing friendly reform administrations; they still
"employ little children, and so exhaust them that they are poor
producers when they grow up," instead of making them strong and healthy
and teaching them skill at their trades; they still "don't want all the
money they make, don't care for things they buy, and don't all
appreciate the power they possess and bestow." But all these are passing
characteristics. If it took less than twenty years to build up the
corporations until the present community of interests almost forms a
trust of trusts, how long, we may ask, will it take the new magnates to
learn to "appreciate" their power? How long will it take them to learn
to enter into partnership with the government instead of corrupting it
from without, and to see that, if they don't want to increase the wages
and buying power of the workers, "who, as consumers, are the market,"
the evident and easy alternative is to learn new ways of spending their
own surplus? The example of the Astors and the Vanderbilts on the one
hand, and Mr. Rockefeller's Benevolent Trust, on the other, show that
these ways are infinitely varied and easily learned. Will it take the
capitalists longer to learn to use the government for their purposes
rather than to abuse it?

It is neither necessary nor desirable, from the standpoint of an
enlightened capitalism, that the control of government should rest
entirely in the hands of "Big Business," or the "Interests." On the
contrary, it is to the interest of capital that all capitalists, and all
business interests of any permanence, should be given consideration, no
matter how small they may be. The smaller interests have often