ing, where resources are strained to the utmost all the time,
the judgment, courage, and perseverance required to organize new
enterprizes and carry them to success are sometimes heroic. Persons who
possess the necessary qualifications obtain great rewards. They ought
to do so. It is foolish to rail at them. Then, again, the ability to
organize and conduct industrial, commercial, or financial enterprises
is rare; the great captains of industry are as rare as great generals.
The great weakness of all co-operative enterprises is in the matter of
supervision. Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are
not hard to find; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine
men what to do are very rare. They are paid in proportion to the supply
and demand of them.

If Mr. A.T. Stewart made a great fortune by collecting and bringing
dry-goods to the people of the United States, he did so because he
understood how to do that thing better than any other man of his
generation. He proved it, because he carried the business through
commercial crises and war, and kept increasing its dimensions. If, when
he died, he left no competent successor, the business must break up,
and pass into new organization in the hands of other men. Some have
said that Mr. Stewart made his fortune out of those who worked for him
or with him. But would those persons have been able to come together,
organize themselves, and earn what they did earn without him? Not at
all. They would have been comparatively helpless. He and they together
formed a great system of factories, stores, transportation, under his
guidance and judgment. It was for the benefit of all; but he
contributed to it what no one else was able to contribute--the one
guiding mind which made the whole thing possible. In no sense whatever
does a man who accumulates a fortune by legitimate industry exploit his
employes, or make his capital "out of" anybody else. The wealth which
he wins would not be but for him.

The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be
regretted. On the contrary, it is a necessary condition of many forms
of social advance. If we should set a limit to the accumulation of
wealth, we should say to our most valuable producers, "We do not want
you to do us the services which you best understand how to perform,
beyond a certain point." It would be like killing off our generals in
war. A great deal is said, in the cant of a certain school about
"ethi