The above was the subject of a joint session of the American Historical Association and the Business Historical Society which was to have been held at Columbus, Ohio, on the morning of December 30, 1942. Mr. John W. Higgins was to have presided at this meeting, an especially fitting arrangement because he is a business administrator as well as president of the Society. Several ten-minute addresses were planned to present different issues and varying points of view. Following these, the subject was to have been opened for discussion from the floor, to be continued at a luncheon session.

Let us not think that business men constitute the only class that evokes severe social questions. At different times the clergy, the warriors, the politicians, and the scholars have caused others to sit in judgment on their status and usefulness. Indeed, since these classes have come into existence as specialized contributors to civilization, there has been a swing to or away from one or another. The history of civilization is the history of their rise, mastery, and decline; their hard work and their sloth; their leadership and their loss of dynamic qualities. Indeed, one of the advantages of our evolutionary process is our chance to swing from one group to another for leadership or even control, according to whichever promises best results in action. Of course, this does not mean that the classes in question disappear or that they are not mutually dependent; it means simply that there is a constant shift in leadership, each class always contributing something whether in declining or increasing amount.

When I was asked to speak about the relation of the business man to public affairs, it occurred to me that the subject should be touched upon at some central part of American history. In the shaping of our institutions, no period is more important than the years 1775 to 1797. And few will discount the contributions which were then made by Washington. The stamp of his influence appears at every significant point.

Imagine for a moment that the present war should prove to be the Armageddon of our civilization. What would the Utopian Historical Society, meeting a thousand years hence, consider the chief contributions of our era, which has lasted now for nearly three milleniums? The Greeks, it would probably be decided, arrived at a perfection in sculpturing never before equaled, nor since surpassed. The Italians were consummate painters, German composers were greater than those of any other nation. The English were able to boast two, perhaps three or four, of the greatest poets the world had ever known. Americans developed the art of business administration to such a degree that it was viewed with wonder by the rest of the world.

The records of the Industrial Commission of 1898 and 1899 present an unusual cross section of the opinions of the men who were building, supplying, and managing America. Manufacturers, shippers, trade-association officers, government representatives, union leaders, labor and corporation lawyers, workers, and executives all gave extensive testimony before sections of the Commission. Often these men read into the record long statements of their general philosophy and specific beliefs, views which, considering their source, seem at least as important as the widely read utterances of novelists, preachers, professors, and journalists. Yet these opinions of men of action now lie buried in the forbidding format of government documents. Using such material the scholar may write a new history of American thought and development based on the evidence of the men who were doing the job rather than on that of the more literary bystanders. This brief article will discuss some of the social and business attitudes of railroad administration as revealed by the executives' own testimony before the Industrial Commission.

My approach to this question is based upon a conviction that every socially useful human being must be aware of his debt to generations past and present and therefore he must be filled with a constant sense of his obligation. To cast the business administrator then in the role of benefactor, when, from my point of view, to him more than to the member of any other one class of human society should be assigned the place of the beneficiary, is to put the emphasis upon the wrong thing. Obviously it is true that, in so far as the business administrator is part of the whole body of human society, he may be said to be part of the total creditor group as well as of the debtor. The problem becomes, then, one of relatives. Has he taken more than he has given ? I believe he has—not in every individual instance at all times, but as a general rule.

The above papers, purposely planned to stay close to concrete instance, in business history and to represent varying points of view, were intended to serve as taking-off points for further discussion. In lieu of that discussion, and without attempting to bring the papers to any definite conclusion, I am focusing what I have to say under five general headings. This is not to bring forth any deep philosophical questions, nor merely to repeat elementary principles of historical study; it is rather to suggest some questions or approaches drawn from the study of business history and stated or implied in the above papers that may be helpful in considering business as a part of the larger history of society.