Almost all the capital accumulated within the United States is privately owned. Since the beginning of our industrial history the opportunities for accumulation have been left to individuals and the capital which industry has used has been provided by private owners. We have depended upon the personal motives of individuals to persuade them to refrain from the immediate consumption of some part of the product of industry which has come into their possession, and to lead them to put their savings at the further command of industry. The circumstances which have governed the course and direction of this accumulation, and the question of the amount of economic cost that it involved have been the subjects of much capable exposition and of very violent differences. Much accumulation has resulted from the fact that industrial or rent incomes have been at certain times distinct surpluses over the possible consumption of the individuals in receipt of them. Much has been prompted and maintained by the efforts of men to move ahead to success and power--that is by ambition and rivalry; much by the idea that pecuniary success is itself an achievement, a mark of ability and leadership. The ordinary hopes of the multitude of men, such as the desire for a secure existence for themselves and their family, and the wish to figure among their friends as an equal, have been the steadiest motives of all. Saving is not one of the most deeply implanted habits. It is a habit that is closely bound up with the qualities of personal ambition, calculation and the desire for responsibility. That is the reason why rich men are so seldom very likable. It is the reason also why those who are the most needy are at times least disposed to save when they have a chance. And if in the immediate future, the responsibility for accumulation is to be more widely diffused than at present, there will have to be a general cultivation of these qualities--qualities, indeed, most requisite for a complex, mechanical civilization like our own.