Mr. Mellen's state of mind is that which ought to prevail among all the managers of corporations which enjoy public franchises and perform functions fundamental to the welfare of the community. There will at times be prejudice and passion on the part of the public, and unfair demands will be made. We shall not see the attainment of ideal conditions in the management or the public relations of any great business corporations in our day. But the time has come when any intelligent and capable young man who chooses to enter the service of a railroad or of some other great corporation may rightly feel that he becomes part of a system whose operation is vital to the public welfare. He may further feel that there is room in such a calling for all his intelligence and for the exercise and growth of all the best sentiments of his moral nature. In the vast mechanism of modern business the constructive imagination may find its full play; and the desire to be of service to one's fellow men in a spirit reasonably disinterested may find opportunity to satisfy itself every day. Under these circumstances there is no reason why railway administration should not take on the same ethical standards as belong rightly to governmental administration, to educational administration, or to the best professional life. The same thing is clearly true when one considers nowadays the delicate and important functions of the world of banking and finance. The old-fashioned money-changer and the usurer of earlier periods were regarded as the very antithesis of men engaged in honorable mercantile life, and especially of those who possess a social spirit and the desire to be useful members of the community. But in these days the banks are not merely private money-making institutions, but have public functions that admittedly affect the whole social organism, from the government itself down to the humblest laborer. They must concern themselves about the soundness and the sufficiency of the monetary circulation; they must protect the credit and foster the welfare of honest merchants and manufacturers; they must cooperate in critical times to help one another, and thus to sustain the public and private credit and avert commercial disaster; they must at all hazards protect the savings of the poor. Thus the banks, like the railroads and many other corporate enterprises, are quasi-public affairs, in the conduct of which the public obligation grows ever clearer and stronger.