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THE GREEN BAG
the interest of the rest of us that they shall continue their strenuous labors, so far as they are innocent, and, if their sole worship is money, that they shall not be deprived of even that motive. If the discoverer or inventor or business administrator or capi talist by his faculties bring practically to the masses of men wealth they have never before enjoyed, it is no net loss to them, but rather a great gain, that he appropriates to himself ten or twenty or fifty per cent of the increase which but for him they would not have had, and leave to the community only the remainder. By so much, at any rate, the community is better off than if, through lack of money motive or otherwise, he had abstained from such creative labor. A man with such genius may be selfish and his ideals of life odious; but if he exercise his genius he cannot, under modern condi tions, prevent its benefitting others. The capitalists who, without public aid and with infinite courage, tunnel mountains and bridge rivers, or who bring order, harmony, and vastly increased productivity out of economic chaos or inefficiency, they who, in the early stages of their enterprises, may sink their own fortunes and those of others, and who finally give to the public some thing of very great value, will, if their enter prises be sound, be justly and wisely and, I believe, cheerfully accorded great profits. I do not believe it to be necessary or prudent for them to conceal from the public the exact truth of their profits. Such conceal ments are often most futile; ofttimes they lead the public to believe absurd and im possible things, and, as the result of such belief, to be aroused to folly or fury against corporate investments. I believe, indeed, that the day of secrecy as a prime condition of business life has passed. Three generations ago the typical merchant was he who bought in cheap markets of which others were ignorant and sold in dear markets of which others were likewise ignorant. To-day almost every
source of supply is known the world over; prices in all quarters are quoted every morning in every town and city the world over. The jealousy of the merchant lest some one else should know his business, the jealousy of the mechanic lest some one else should learn his handicraft, all these repre sent the narrow and, we may truly say, the less profitable view of the business. The manufacturer to-day comes nearer to the consumer. The successful man is he who can create value with the least investment of money and labor or who can first learn what is valuable and introduce it to the world. Those who are competent to these great functions of modern industry need not call secrecy to aid them in their competition with the incompetent. There are excep tions to this rule, but they are few. The competent man need not fear — the true in terests of civilization require — truth and the greatest possible publicity in every business and especially in every business conducted under franchises given by public authority. May I, in closing, return to the note with which I began? I mean the duty of lawyers in their public relations. Every lawyer, by virtue of his very profession, holds a rela tion to public affairs over and above his relations as a mere citizen. The men of our calling are, as men of many other pro fessions and trades are not, bound to pro mote a sound framework of laws and jurisprudence for our civilization. The enor mous share which corporate organization now has in modern industry, its enormous influence upon every phase of modern life, necessarily impose upon lawyers who advise or guide corporations, a special and weighty and most honorable duty. If the men of our profession make it clear to the American people that, in their public relations, they are concerned to enforce truth and publicity upon corporations and upon all who derive from our laws any sort of franchise or right, we may, I think, count
