preferred
to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter
excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large
department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired
and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl
who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a
little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character
of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments
in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor
is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child
labor movements."

[177] For detailed particulars see that part of this work comprising
"Great Fortunes from Public Franchises."

[178] The acts here summarized are narrated specifically in Part III,
"Great Fortunes from Railroads."

CHAPTER X

FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE

But if only to give at the outset a translucent example of Field's
method's in the management of industrial corporations, it is well to
advert here to the operations of one of his many properties--the Pullman
Company, otherwise called the "Palace Car Trust." This is a necessary
part of the exposition in order to bring out more of the methods by
which Field was enabled to fling together his vast fortune.

The artificial creation of the law called the corporation was so devised
that it was comparatively easy for the men who controlled it to evade
personal, moral, and often legal, responsibility for their acts.
Governed as the corporation was by a body of directors, those acts
became collective and not individual; if one of the directors were
assailed he could plausibly take refuge in the claim that he was merely
one of a number of controllers; that he could not be held specifically
responsible. Thus the culpability was shifted, until it rested on the
corporation, which was a bloodless thing, not a person.

FIELD'S PULLMAN WORKS.

In the case of the Pullman Co., however, much of the moral
responsibility could be directly placed upon Field, inasmuch as he,
although under cover, was virtually the dictator of that corporation.
According to the inventory of the executors of his will, he owned 8,000
shares of Pullman stock, valued at $800,000. It was asserted (in 1901)
that Field was the largest owner of Pullman stock. "In the popular
mind," wrote a puffer, probably inspired by Field himself, "