Especially is this true of the wrongs connected with modern industry.
As Professor Ross puts it, [Footnote: Sin and Society, p. 97.] "the
master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making"; and
so our "moral pace-setters," who are, for the most part, confining
their attacks to the time-worn and familiar sins, "do not get into
the big fight at all." The root of the trouble is that great power
over the lives and happiness of others has been acquired by a small
class of irresponsible men, many of whom fail to recognize their
privileged position as a public trust and care only for enriching
themselves. As we noted in chapter in, the complexification of our
industrial life is making possible a whole new range of what must be
branded as crimes; endless opportunities have been opened up of
money-making at the cost of others' suffering. Often that suffering,
or loss, is so remote from the path of the greedy business man that
he does not see himself, and others fail to see him, as the predatory
money-grabber that he is. The many who have been ruined by unscrupulous
competitors are often embittered, the repressed capitalism; but the
public as a whole has not been aroused to rebuke this "newer
unrighteousness." We must proceed to note its commonest contemporary
forms. In our present organization of industry, what are the duties
of businessmen:
I. To the public?
(1) The first duty of businessmen is to supply honest goods, in honest
measure.
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