American enterprise

“ Manufacturing in Corporations and Associations.—Back of all organization and legislation lies a real [307] national unity, through which the nation exercises indirectly an economic function. In spite of a popular jealousy of big business in the last decade, there is a pride in the ability of American business men to create a profitable world commerce, and middle-class people in well-to-do circumstances subscribe to the purchase of stocks and bonds in trusted corporations. Without this general interest and participation such a rapid extension of industrial enterprise could not have taken place. ”

“ The Nation grew as our free enterprise system became the mainspring of American progress by encouraging entrepreneurs to compete in meeting the demand for new products and methods of production. Competition enabled us to develop our human resources more effectively and enrich our society. ”

“ By the end of the century the American frontier had disappeared. The wild, primitive life so long associated with America was gone. The unity of the nation was established.
In the field of business enterprise, progress was most marked. The industrial system, which had risen and flourished before the Civil War, grew into immense proportions and the industrial area was extended from the Northeast into all parts of the country. Small business concerns were transformed into huge corporations. Individual plants were merged under the management of gigantic trusts. ”

“ The corporation, as a means of organizing and directing business enterprise is a product of the last hundred years. A century ago the business of the United States was carried on by individuals, partnerships, and a few joint stock companies. At the time of the last Census, more than four-fifths of the manufactured products were turned out under corporate direction; most of the important mining enterprises were corporate, and the railroads, public utilities, banks and insurance companies were virtually all under the corporate form of organization. ”

“ The early American enterprisers—the pioneers—began a single-handed struggle with nature. Necessity forced them to coöperate. They established a new industry. The factory brought them together. They organized their system of industrial direction and control. The corporation united them. They turned on one another in mortal combat, and the frightfulness of their losses forced them to join hands.
The business men of the late nineteenth century had been nurtured upon the idea of competition. "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindermost" summed up their philosophy. ”

“ I am still convinced that the American people, since 1932, continue to insist on two requisites of private enterprise, and the relationship of government to it. The first is a complete honesty at the top in looking after the use of other people's money, and in apportioning and paying individual and corporate taxes according to ability to pay. The second is sincere respect for the need of all people who are at the bottom, all people at the bottom who need to get work—and through work to get a really fair share of the good things of life, and a chance to save and rise. ”

“ Recently a careful study was made of the concentration of business in the United States. It showed that our economic life was dominated by some six hundred odd corporations who controlled two-thirds of American industry. ”

“ And corporations, manufacturing and other, responded loyally for the most part. A few, a very few, put profit above patriotism and haggled over prices and percentages, but the great mass of American business men showed by their actions that they regarded themselves as soldiers of the United States and put their resources and their organizations without question at the service of the Government. ”

“ This then was the American tradition, that private enterprise manages better all that to which it IS equal. Anarchism declares that private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, is equal to all the undertakings of society. ”

“ Large corporations, which can afford the best machinery; which control abundant capital, and which can plan with scrupulous economy all the details of producing and selling an important product or service, are actually able to reduce the cost of production to a minimum; and in the cases of certain American corporations such results have actually been achieved. The new organization of American industry has created an economic mechanism which is capable of being wonderfully and indefinitely serviceable to the American people. ”

“ In so far, indeed, as the constructive industrial leader is actuated merely by the motive of amassing more millions than can be of any possible use to himself or his children—in so far as such is the case, the inducement to American industrial organization on a national scale would be impaired. ”

“ It not only brought Young America to the front in speculation, commerce and general business, but it imparted an impetus of genuine enterprise to every department of trade and industry, from the good effects of which the country has never since receded. ”

“ These acts of good corporate citizenship are good for employees, but many, many thousands of American businesses have proved they're good for business, too. Our changing economy puts a real premium on skill, ingenuity, creativity, and loyalty of the work force. The quality and productivity of America's workers are our greatest source of economic strength. ”

“ We ought long ago to have sent the best eyes of the Government out into the world to see where the opportunities and openings of American commerce and American genius were to be found—men who were not sent out as the commercial agents of any particular set of business men in the United States, but who were eyes for the whole business community. ”

“ The men and women who own and operate our Nation's 25 million small businesses have made, and continue to make, an indispensable contribution to America's economic strength and success. These entrepreneurs possess many of the characteristics that have always defined the American spirit: a fierce independence, an extraordinary work ethic, and an uncompromising commitment to building a better life. ”

“ The spirit of enterprise, which characterizes the commercial part of America, has left no occasion of displaying itself unimproved. It is not at all probable that this unbridled spirit would pay much respect to those regulations of trade, by which particular States might endeavor to secure exclusive benefits to their own citizens. ”

“ The corporation employing thousands of men and supplying millions of people with some necessary service or commodity may reduce the cost of production only for its own profit. The state may use its great authority chiefly for the benefit of special interests. ”

“ The vision of industrial supremacy has come to the giants who lead American industry and finance. But it can never be realized unless the laborers are here to do the work,—the skilled laborers, the common laborers, the willing laborers, the well-paid laborers. The present forces, organized however cunningly, are not large enough to do what America wants; but there is another group of laborers, 12,000,000 strong, the natural heirs, by every logic of justice, to the fruits of America's industrial advance. ”

“ Government wages turned over and over again to make consumer purchasing power and to sustain every merchant in the community. Businessmen with their businesses, small and large, had to be saved. Private enterprise is necessary to any Nation which seeks to maintain the democratic form of government. ”

“ And as we have seen, the intention of the industrial reformers is to introduce public management into the heart of the American industrial system; that is, into the operation of railroads and public service corporations, and in this way to bring about by incessant official interference that harmony between public and private interest which must be the object of a national economic system. ”

“ There is no foundation for the distinction which attributes to certain employments the peculiar appellation of American industry; and it is, in my judgment, extremely unwise to attempt such discriminations.
We are asked, What nations have ever attained eminent prosperity without encouraging manufactures? I may ask, What nation ever reached the like prosperity without promoting foreign trade? ”

“ One of America's great strengths is its private enterprise system. The personal and economic freedom enjoyed by our people turned our fledgling nation, in a few short years, into an economic dynamo that astounded the world. ”

“ The well-ordered society will encourage work. It will aim to develop enthusiasm, to stimulate activity. Nevertheless, in "practical America" a scheme of economic organization is being perfected under which the cream of life goes to the owners. ”

“ He had seen glowing accounts of the value of strong workers for the development of the country's enterprise, of the duty of Americans to open their national portal to the down-trodden of other lands, no matter how ignorant or poverty-stricken. ”

“ Only after we have mastered the principles upon which American industry is based, shall we be in a position to solve the problems which arise directly from the nature of our economic organization.
46. INDUSTRIAL REFORM.—Our industrial life is so clearly based upon certain fundamental institutions, such as private property, free contract, and free competition, that an industrial "system" is said to exist. Certain great evils, notably poverty, have accompanied the development of this system. ”

“ The employments of agriculture, commerce, and navigation are all branches of the same domestic industry; they all furnish employment for American capital and American labor. And when the question is, whether new duties shall be laid, for the purpose of giving further encouragement to particular manufactures, every reasonable man must ask himself, both whether the proposed new encouragement be necessary, and whether it can be given without injustice to other branches of industry. ”

“ American business, a generation ago, was highly competitive. Each business man's hand was raised against his neighbor and the downfall of one was a matter of rejoicing for all. The bitter experience of the nineties drove home some lessons; the struggles with labor brought some more; the efforts at government regulations had their effect ”

“ Business began to be national in the tying together into systems the little dislocated railroads that local enterprise had laid down and in the creation of a national securities market for the distribution of ownership in the new combinations. ”

“ Other industrial factors tended also to bring about a change in our national ideals. We were beginning to believe in the economic efficiency of trust organisation, and our industry, conducted on a larger scale, was being increasingly concentrated. ”

“ The instruments for the exercise of modern industrial power are the great corporations which, though created by the individual States, have grown far beyond the control of those States and transact their business throughout large sections of the Union. ”

“ Your recognition, that is, must depend upon conformity to another set of conditions, imposed in the interest of efficiency and individual economic independence. In this respect you will be treated precisely as large corporations are treated. ”

“ The world position which our country holds to-day is due to the wide vision of the statesmen who founded these United States and to the daring and indomitable persistence of the great industrial leaders, together with the myriads of men who with faith in their leadership have coöperated to rear the marvelous industrial structure of which our country is justly so proud. This result has been produced by the coöperation of the four factors in industry, labor, capital, management and the public, the last represented by the consumer and by organized government. ”

“ The American corporation problem will never be understood in its proper relations and full consequences until it is conceived as a sort of an advanced attack on the breastworks of our national economic system by this essential problem of the distribution of wealth. ”

“ Manufacturer: It looks so to me. That gold-standard fight taught me that you could trust the American people to make a wise decision, if you would only have a country store, schoolhouse, cornfield debate, in which every man in the country got into the game—preacher, lawyer, teacher, farmer, merchant, manufacturer, laboringman, townfolks and country folks, all alike.
Mr. Merchant: Nothing more true has been said since we have been talking about this question than that remark about the importance of a public discussion of this whole matter. ”

“ But they are the ones having large capital and power—the ones that can hire attorneys and maintain a lobby, and that have abundant “fat for frying” when important elections are at hand. Doesn’t “American Industries” sound well, if you only mouth it right, and roll it from the editorial pen and the platform often enough?
Q. How about the industries that are left out, or get merely nominal Protection?
A. The question is quite irrelevant. What more can they ask than to live in a “protected” country and be saved from Free Trade? ”

“ This view of the development challenge underlines in each and every case our basic economy policies, particularly those governing the role of private enterprise in the economy. There have been questions raised as to the role of private enterprise. ”

“ The rapid influx of our capital and enterprise into that country shows, by what has already been accomplished, the vast reciprocal advantages which must attend the progress of its internal development. ”

“ With the passing years, the railways, mills, mines, and other business concerns were transferred from individual owners to corporations. At the end of the nineteenth century, the whole face of American business was changed. Three-fourths of the output from industries came from factories under corporate management and only one-fourth from individual and partnership undertakings. ”