the largest interpretation of equity. It is defended simply as a lesser evil.
Again, there is no valid complaint against the man who sees that a railroad or a street-car line would supply a public need, and who makes himself rich from legitimate returns for building and operating. There is reason, however, for denying that we are acting like intelligent beings when we tolerate such betrayal of trust that the public is burdened with fabulous fictitious capitalization of the improvement; or when we make ourselves perpetually tributary to the unborn heirs of the original benefactor. The time will come when men will perceive that it is as monstrous for a father to bequeath to his son a controlling interest in a factory or a railroad, as it would now appear for a President of the United States to offer his daughter the city of New York as a dowry.
Once more, it is well for all that some men have genius to organize capital, and labor, and natural resources for manufacture on an enormous scale. It is a very stupid man who would begrudge to such organizers large rewards for their work. But men are beginning to see that the merits of the organizers of industry, as well as of the inferior laborers, are frequently credited to stockholders. The claims of stockholders to surplus values, after market rates of interest, and rent, and wages are paid, may possibly represent a presumed service to society which stockholders as such do not perform. There is no more reason, in the nature of things, why laborers should pay a bonus to stockholders for the privilege of making property productive, than there is for demanding that policemen shall pay those stockholders for the privilege of protecting the property from burglars.
In my very early years a military company evolved itself among the boys in the school which I attended. The biggest boys appointed themselves officers, and the smaller boys obeyed their orders. After a time it was announced that there would be a "camp" in the school yard the next Saturday afternoon, and each boy was told to bring from home as many potatoes as he
