ere the various branches of the military service more completely
dependent upon each other than are the various departments of modern
economic life. No man works alone. All are associated more or less
intimately with the activities of thousands and millions of their
fellows, until the failure of one is the failure of all, and the success
of one is the success of all.

Such a development could have only one possible result,--people who
worked together must live together. Scattered villages gave place to
industrial towns and cities. People were compelled to cooperate in their
lives as well as in their labor.

The theory under which the new industrial society began its operations
was "every man for himself." The development of the system has made
every man dependent upon his fellows. The principle demanded an extreme
individualism. The practice has created a vast network of
inter-relations, that leads the cotton spinner of Massachusetts to eat
the meat prepared by the packing-house operative in Omaha, while the
pottery of Trenton and the clothing of New York are sent to the Yukon in
exchange for fish and to the Golden Gate for fruit. Inside as well as
outside the nation, the world is united by the strong hands of economic
necessity. None can live to himself, alone. Each depends upon the labor
of myriads whom he has never seen and of whom he has never heard.
Whether we will or no, they are his brothers-in-labor--united in the
Atlas fellowship of those who carry the world upon their shoulders.

The theory of "every man for himself" failed. The practical exigencies
involved in subjugating a continent and wresting from nature the means
of livelihood made it necessary to introduce the opposite
principle,--"In Union there is strength; cooperation achieves all
things."

3. _The Struggle for Organization_

The technical difficulties involved in the mechanical production of
wealth compelled even the individualists to work together. The
requirements of industrial organization drove them in the same
direction.

The first great problem before the early Americans was the conquest of
nature. To this problem the machine was the answer. The second problem
was the building of an organization capable of handling the new
mechanism of production--an organization large enough, elastic enough,
stable enough and durable enough--to this problem the corporation was
the answer.

The machine produced the goods. The corporation directed th