Field's practices—and they were venal and unscrupulous to a great degree, as will be shown—he was an astute organizer. He understood how to manipulate and use other men, and how to centralize business, and cut out the waste and junket of mercantile operations. In the evolutionary scheme of business he played his important part and a very necessary part it was, for which he must be given full credit. His methods, base as they were, were in no respect different from those of the rest of the commercial world, as a whole. The only difference was that he was more conspicuous and more successful.
CENTERING ALL PROFITS IN HIMSELF.
At a time when all business was run on the chaotic and desultory lines characteristic of the purely competitive age, he had the foresight and shrewdness to perceive that the storekeeper who depended upon the jobber and the manufacturer for his goods was largely at the mercy of those elements. Even if he were not, there were two sets of profits between him and the making of the goods—the jobber's profits and the manufacturer's.
Years before this vital fact was impressed upon the minds of the floundering retailers, Field understood, and acted upon, it.