Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. And publicity has already played an important part in the struggle against the Money Trust. The Pujo Committee has, in the disclosure of the facts concerning financial concentration, made a most important contribution toward attainment of the New Freedom. The battlefield has been surveyed and charted. The hostile forces have been located, counted and appraised. That was a necessary first step—and a long one—towards relief. The provisions in the Committee’s bill concerning the incorporation of stock exchanges and the statement to be made in connection with the listing of securities would doubtless have a beneficent effect. But there should be a further call upon publicity for service. That potent force must, in the impending struggle, be utilized in many ways as a continuous remedial measure.
WEALTH
Combination and control of other people’s money and of other people’s businesses. These are the main factors in the development of the Money Trust. But the wealth of the investment banker is also a factor. And with the extraordinary growth of his wealth in recent years, the relative importance of wealth as a factor in financial concentration has grown steadily. It was wealth which enabled Mr. Morgan, in 1910, to pay $3,000,000 for $51,000 par value of the stock of the Equitable Life Insurance Society. His direct income from this investment was limited by law to less than one-eighth of one per cent. a year; but it gave legal control of $504,000,000, of assets. It was wealth which enabled the