In a recent public address the president of a great American railway sounded an encouraging note. “We railway men,” he said, “have been in a practical school, having taken a thorough course in working economics. We have learned that a railway can thrive only as a result of the prosperity of the community it serves, and that the best policy, from the viewpoint of permanent railway interests, is one of co-operative helpfulness.”[55] The New York Stock Exchange has learned the same lesson, in a similar school. As an institution it realizes that if it is to grow in prosperity the public must grow, and that as the public is attracted to investment and speculation by the soundness of the institution through which it deals so it requires and must receive full information and an assurance of fair play. “Co-operative helpfulness” is the only way. Members of the Exchange who become discouraged now and then must bear this in mind. In the face of every harassing annoyance they must never cease their work of keeping their house in order, and of inviting that portion of the public that is open-minded to lend a hand. Their labors resemble the task of Sisyphus; like him they must cultivate the spirit of “everlasting hope,” and when unworthy assailants seek to prejudice the popular mind, they must stand forth, give blow for blow, and never say die. Pessimists may blind their eyes to the manifold evidences of material progress on every hand, but just as the workshop, the farm, the school, the hospital, and the bank, each supplies proof of continuing improvement, so also in its sphere of usefulness does the Stock Exchange. Within a few years, for example, it has rid itself of the unlisted department, and this may very properly be mentioned as a distinct progression. Under the old system a limited number of industrial corporations were permitted to obtain a market on the Exchange for their securities, although they furnished but few figures to the Listing Committee in return. This was a practice wholly at variance with the duty of the Exchange to protect the investor, since it practically assures him that corporations admitted to the Exchange have demonstrated their worth to the authorities. That character and countenance should be given to the so-called “unlisted department” was a mistake, and it has been abolished.