Thomas F. Ryan Contends that Opportunity
to Win Wealth is Necessary
to Stimulate Initiative.
Are the fortunes of to-day too vast? Does the getting of great wealth by
individuals necessarily involve injustice to others? If it does, is it
possible to prevent men from making much money without at the same time
destroying the energy and initiative which spring up in the presence of
opportunity?
These are familiar questions. Thomas F. Ryan has tried to answer them from
the viewpoint of a successful financier, saying, in an article contributed
to the _Independent_:
Fortunes which sometimes look excessive may be the result of
rendering great services to the community. If a man by
intense mental application or natural aptitude can introduce
important economies into railroad management, he is worthy
of a large salary. The salary would not in any case absorb
the entire saving made to the stockholders of the railroad
and to the public by the reforms introduced.
In some cases this claim of the inventor is compensated by
the royalties paid under the patent law; and there are many
services rendered in the matter of organization which are
not patentable, but afford as striking benefits as patents.
Among these, for instance, may be suggested the reduction in
the cost of the manufacture of steel by Mr. Carnegie and
those associated with him in the upbuilding of the
industries now combined in the Steel Corporation.
From such services have come many of our great fortunes. If
their possessors receive what amounts to a commission on the
services they rendered, it is only a small part of the
benefit they have conferred on the community.
Take away the opportunity for winning either money or
distinction by rendering such services, and few men, as
human nature is constituted, would render them.
It is right that competition between men should be brought
within constantly narrower and narrower rules of justice.
This is possible without taking away the initiative which
makes men do things, and seems to me the direction in which,
in spite of obstacles, humanity is tending.
Closely related to these arguments is the opinion of the New York _Evening
Post_:
We do not believe that there is so formidable a jealousy and
hatred of wealth, in itself, as is frequently alleged to
exist, and to be growing. The sting lies in wealth unjustly
acquired. It is ill-gotten gain, flaunting itself, that is
the great breeder of socialism.