No titles could be conferred upon them,
and their position brought with it no necessary public responsibilities.
Actually, however, they exercised in many cases more influence upon
American social and political economy than did the official leaders.
They were an intrusion, into the traditional economic political and
social system, for which no provision had been made. Their special
interests, and the necessities of their special tasks, made their manner
of life different from that of other American citizens, and their
peculiar opportunities enabled them to appropriate an unusually large
share of the fruits of American economic development. Thus they
seriously impaired the social and economic homogeneity, which the
pioneer believed to be the essential quality of fruitful Americanism.

II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUSINESS SPECIALIST

Before seeking to trace the consequences and the significance of this
specialized organization of American practical affairs, we must examine
its origin with some care. An exact and complete understanding thereof
will in itself afford an unmistakable hint of the way in which its
consequences are to be appraised, and wherever necessary, corrected. The
great and increasing influence of the new unofficial leaders has been
due not only to economic conditions and to individual initiative, but
to the nature of our political ideas and institutions. The traditional
American theory was that the individual should have a free hand. In so
far as he was subject to public regulation and control such control
should be exercised by local authorities, whereof the result would be a
happy combination of individual prosperity and public weal. But this
expectation, as we have seen, has proved to be erroneous. While it has,
indeed, resulted in individual prosperity, the individual who has reaped
most of the prosperity is not the average, but the special man; and
however the public may have benefited from the process, the benefit is
mixed with so many drawbacks that, even if it may not be wholly
condemned, it certainly cannot be wholly approved. The plain fact is
that the individual in freely and energetically pursuing his own private
purposes has not been the inevitable public benefactor assumed by the
traditional American interpretation of democracy. No doubt he has
incidentally accomplished, in the pursuit of his own aggrandizement,
certain manifest public benefits; but wherever public and private
advantages