hibition will work much more than a mere negative good by
correcting the serious evils which have arisen because, for example, the
men who have been the directing spirits of the great investment banks
have usurped the place which belongs to independent industrial
management working in its own behoof. It will bring new men, new
energies, a new spirit of initiative, new blood, into the management of
our great business enterprises. It will open the field of industrial
development and origination to scores of men who have been obliged to
serve when their abilities entitled them to direct. It will immensely
hearten the young men coming on and will greatly enrich the business
activities of the whole country.

In the second place, business men as well as those who direct public
affairs now recognize, and recognize with painful clearness, the great
harm and injustice which has been done to many, if not all, of the great
railroad systems of the country by the way in which they have been
financed and their own distinctive interests subordinated to the
interests of the men who financed them and of other business enterprises
which those men wished to promote. The country is ready, therefore, to
accept, and accept with relief as well as approval, a law which will
confer upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to superintend
and regulate the financial operations by which the railroads are
henceforth to be supplied with the money they need for their proper
development to meet the rapidly growing requirements of the country for
increased and improved facilities of transportation. We cannot postpone
action in this matter without leaving the railroads exposed to many
serious handicaps and hazards; and the prosperity of the railroads and
the prosperity of the country are inseparably connected. Upon this
question those who are chiefly responsible for the actual management and
operation of the railroads have spoken very plainly and very earnestly,
with a purpose we ought to be quick to accept. It will be one step, and
a very important one, toward the necessary separation of the business of
production from the business of transportation.

The business of the country awaits also, has long awaited and has
suffered because it could not obtain, further and more explicit
legislative definition of the policy and meaning of the existing
antitrust law. Nothing hampers business like uncertainty. Nothing daunts
or discourages it like the ne