2
To the vanquished and the victims, the official portraiture was, of
course, unrecognizable. For while those who exemplified progress did
not often pause to inquire whether they had arrived according to the
route laid down by the economists, or by some other just as
creditable, the unsuccessful people did inquire. "No one," says
William James, [Footnote: _The Letters of William James,_ Vol. I,
p.65] "sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of
detail extends." The captains of industry saw in the great trusts
monuments of (their) success; their defeated competitors saw the
monuments of (their) failure. So the captains expounded the economies
and virtues of big business, asked to be let alone, said they were the
agents of prosperity, and the developers of trade. The vanquished
insisted upon the wastes and brutalities of the trusts, and called
loudly upon the Department of Justice to free business from
conspiracies. In the same situation one side saw progress, economy,
and a splendid development; the other, reaction, extravagance, and a
restraint of trade. Volumes of statistics, anecdotes about the real
truth and the inside truth, the deeper and the larger truth, were
published to prove both sides of the argument.
For when a system of stereotypes is well fixed, our attention is
called to those facts which support it, and diverted from those which
contradict.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131