Of intellectual unfitness the chance is perhaps not great. The intense competition of the modern business world makes sure that any man, to maintain his position, must have at least some of the qualities of mind which it exacts. But of moral unfitness the danger is all the greater, because some of the present conditions of business competition directly tend to foster it. A German economist has said that the so-called survival of the fittest in modern industry is really a double survival, side by side, of the most talented on the one hand and the most unscrupulous on the other. The truth of this is already apparent in railroad business. A Vanderbilt on the Central meets a Fisk on the Erie. In spite of his superior power and resources he is virtually beaten in the contest--beaten, as was said at the time, because he could not afford to go so close to the door of State's prison as his rival. The manager of a large railroad system has under his control a great deal of property besides his own--the property of railroad investors which has been placed in his charge. Two lines of action are open to him. He may make money _for_ the investors, and thereby secure the respect of the community; or he may make money _out_ of the investors, and thereby get rich enough to defy public opinion. The former course has the advantage of honesty, the latter of rapidity. It is a disgrace to the community that the latter way is made so easy, and so readily condoned. A man has only to give to charitable objects a little of the money obtained by violations of trust, and a large part of the world will extol him as a public benefactor. Nay, more; it seems as if some of our financial operators really mistook the _vox populi_ for the _vox Dei_, and believed that a hundred thousand dollars given to a theological seminary meant absolution for the past and plenary indulgence for the future. It is charged that one financier, when he undertook any large transaction which was more than usually questionable, made a covenant that if the Lord prospered him in his undertaking he would divide the proceeds on favorable terms. But--as Wamba said of the outlaws and "the fashion of their trade with Heaven"--"when they have struck an even balance, Heaven help them with whom they next open the account!"