Such victims exist, of course, in large numbers, and they will come to exist in still larger number hereafter; but hitherto, at least, the characteristic vice of the American system has not been the bondage imposed upon its victims.

Much more insidious has been the bondage imposed upon the conquerors and their camp-followers.

A man's individuality is as much compromised by success under the conditions imposed by such a system as it is by failure.

His actual occupation may tend to make his individuality real and fruitful; but the quality of the work is determined by a merely acquisitive motive, and the man himself thereby usually debarred from obtaining any edifying personal independence or any peculiar personal distinction.

Different as American business men are one from another in temperament, circumstances, and habits, they have a way of becoming fundamentally very much alike.