Finance and financiers have had no mean share in creating organizations and institutions in this country which are models of efficiency and which men from all quarters of the globe come here to study and to admire. It is the critics of finance and business who--to mention but a few instances--have given to the army aeroplanes that are grossly defective, to the navy submarines that are in constant trouble, who have passed laws which have driven our ships off the seas in the world's trade, and other laws which have mainly brought it about that in the year 1915 less railroad mileage has been constructed in the United States than within any one year since the Civil War. Just as Congress, by a series of laws, has imposed burdens and costs upon ships operating under the American flag which made it impossible for capital to invest in American ships for use in the world's trade and earn a fair return in normal times, so the Federal and State Legislatures, during the past ten years, have imposed upon the railroads all kinds of exactions, restrictions and increasing costs which have had the result of arresting progress, and which threaten, after the cessation of the present period of abnormal earnings, to seriously lame that vastly important industry. Congress has done little to indicate that it recognizes the urgency and bigness and significance of the momentous situation which confronts the country. Nor does it seem inclined to pay serious heed to the views of business--and by that I do not mean the views of business "magnates," but the consensus of opinion of business men in general. Nor does past experience encourage us to believe that it will pay such heed unless impelled by the instinct of self-preservation. Amongst the powers for which our friends of both political parties have a wholesome respect, one of the most potent is organization. Let business then become militant, not to secure special privileges--it does not want any and does not need any--but to secure due regard for its views and its rights and its conceptions as to what measures will serve the best interests of the country, and what measures will harm and jeopardize such interests. Without wishing to hold up the labor unions as offering a model for the spirit which should actuate us or the methods we should follow--because their class-consciousness and the resulting conduct are sometimes extreme and often shortsighted, I would urge upon business men to cultivate and demonstrate but a little of that cohesion and discipline and subordination of self in the furtherance of the common cause, that readiness to back up their spokesmen, that loyalty to their calling and to one another which working men practice and demonstrate daily, and which have secured for their representatives the respect and fear of political parties.