For the sake of analysis it is convenient now to separate and again not to separate the influences of business proper from the influences of dishonesty, but in real life they are one thing. Dishonesty is a mere result of excessive devotion to money-making. The general and somewhat indefinite body of rules which are considered “honest” change from time to time. I call a thing dishonest when it offends my instinct. The next man may call it honest. The question is settled by society at large. “What can a man do and remain in his club?” That gives the practical standards of a community. The devotion of the individual to his bank account gives the reason why the financier and his agent, the boss, could always find councilmen, legislators, judges, lawyers, to be their jackals, or to put the equation with the other end first, it is the reason why the legislators could always combine to blackmail the capitalist: this political corruption is a mere spur and offshoot of our business corruption. We know more about it, because politics cannot be carried on wholly in the dark. Business can. The main facts are known. Companies organize subsidiary companies to which they vote the money of the larger company--cheating their stockholders. The railroad men get up small roads and sell them to the great roads which they control--cheating their stockholders. The purchasing agents of many great enterprises cheat the companies as a matter of course, not by a recognized system of commissions--like French cooks--but by stealth. So in trade, you cannot sell goods to the retailers, unless you corrupt the proper person. It is all politics. All our politics is business and our business is politics. There is something you want to do, and the “practical man” is the man who knows the ropes, knows who is the proper person to be “seen.” The slang word gives a picture of the times--to “see” a man means to bribe him. But let no one think that dishonesty or anything else begins at the top. These big business men were once little business men. To cut rates, to have a different price for each customer, to substitute one article for another, are the prevailing policies of the seller. To give uncollectible notes, to claim rebates, to make assignments and compromises, to use one shift or another in order to get possession of goods and pay less than the contract price, are the prevailing aims of the buyer. * * * * * It is unquestionably possible for an incorruptible man to succeed in business. But his scruples are an embarrassment. Not everybody wants such a man. He insists on reducing every reckoning to pounds sterling, while the rest of the world is figuring in maravedis. He must make up in ability what he lacks in moral obliquity. He will no doubt find his nook in time. Honesty is the greatest luxury in the world, and the American looks with awe on the man who can afford it, or insists upon having it. It is right that he should pay for it.