of
business situations. Our fathers were pioneers, and the pioneer has
neither the time, the capital, the information, the social insight, nor
the need to build policies for a distant future. The pioneer must
support himself from the land; he must get quick results, and he must
get them with the material at hand.

Every one of our great industries--steel, oil, textiles, packing,
milling, and the rest--has its early story colored with pioneer
romance. The same romantic atmosphere gave a setting of lights and
shadows to merchandising and finance and most of all to transportation.
Whether we view these nineteenth-century activities from the standpoint
of private business or of public policy, they bear the same testimony
to the pioneer attitude of mind.

Considering our business life in its national aspects, our two greatest
enterprises in the nineteenth century were the settlement of the
continent and the building-up of a national industry. In both these
enterprises we gave the pioneer spirit wide range. With respect to the
latter, industrial policy before 1900 was summed up in three items:
protective tariff, free immigration, and essential immunity from legal
restraints. This is not the place to justify or condemn a policy of
_laissez-faire_, or to strike a balance of truth and error in the
intricate arguments for protection and free trade; nor need we here
trace the industrial or social results of immigration. We need only
point out that the policy in general outline illustrates the attitude
of the pioneer. The thing desired was obvious; obvious instruments were
at hand--immediate means used for immediate ends. From his viewpoint,
the question of best means or of ultimate ends did not need to be
considered.

In building our railways and settling our lands the pioneer spirit
operated still more directly, and in this connection it has produced at
the same time its best and its worst results. The problem of
transportation and settlement was not hard to analyze; its solution
seemed to present no occasion for difficult scientific study or for a
long look into the future. The nation had lands, it wanted settlers, it
wanted railroads. If half the land in a given strip of territory were
offered at a price which would attract settlers, the settlers would
insure business for a railroad. The other half of the land, turned over
to a railroad company, would give a basis for raising capital to build
the line. With a railroad in op