Plutocracy Research Articles

Geology in partnership with American industry

TWENTY-FIVE years ago the college student was fairly certain in making his choice of a life-work between science and business. Then the dividing lines were fairly distinct between a life of quiet study in a search for truth and a life of strenuous activity in a struggle for wealth; now much of that distinction has been lost, for we find science and business working together and the scientist even earning a salary comparable with that once thought of only as the compensation of the merchant prince or the captain of industry. It is because of these changed conditions that I have followed the thought of Editor Rickard, of the lMining and Scientific Press, that the geologist “ has developed from the academic student of Lyell’s and Murchison’s time to a pioneer of commerce; he has been required to submit his work to the test of economic usefulness, and he has succeeded triumphantly; he has become a real partner to the engineer and to the capitalist, and they appreciate his comradeship.” With that thought in mind I will discuss with you the partnership of geology with industry. Science of all kinds has become more practical; whether we who chose science as a shrine at which to worship like it or not, science has become a centre of service. This utilitarian trend of science has logically brought it into close touch with industry, and the scientist can now claim partnership with the industrial executive. The linking of scientific research with industrial practice has in recent years found definite expression in the system of industrial fellowships. The latest administrative report of such an industrial experiment-station in your own State lists nearly fifty of these fellowships, and I was interested to note that nearly one-fourth of the subjects under investigation are connected with the utilization of mineral products. This is a very practical kind of partnership between science and industry, and the fact that industrial corpora-

History of Life Assurance in the United Kingdom

The state of the law in respect to Joint-Stock Companies, and associations for business purposes generally, remained in the same unsatisfactory condition which I have described in the previous section down to this time. Those great Insurance Associations, with millions of capital subscribed, in many cases, by the merchant princes of the land, for purposes admittedly the most beneficent, were simple partnerships, almost without legal recognition, except for purposes tending to their detriment or destruction. They could be attacked or pulled down by legal process readily enough; but they could only protect themselves against fraud, or recover their just debts by the most cumbersome of processes. What they had a right to expect, as institutions designed to aid largely in the accumulation of national wealth, was protection in carrying out their laudable designs; but of this they had not a vestige. Not only was every holder of stock in a proprietary company primarily and personally liable to his last shilling for the engagements of the partnership, but every policy-holder in a mutual society, being a member of, and therefore a partner in such society, was equally liable for all its engagements.

New York "Merchant-Princes" and Parvenues. 1854 [Poem

New York "Merchant-Princes" and Parvenues. 1854 [Poem