ABSTRACT
In 1900 capitalism was capitalism indeed. Businesses were run by their owners, the people who had put up or had acquired the capital with which to finance them. The corporation, for instance, was not an invention of God’s. It was largely as a result of the discovery of tricks that could be played with corporations, and particularly with their capital stock, that the wealth produced in a tremendous spate at the turn of the century flowed in large proportion into a few well-placed hands. There was also, during the epidemic of holding-company consolidation, another species of businessman who shot into new prominence: the promoter. When John Pierpont Morgan reorganized a railroad company he called the tune from then on, or else listened to the tune and intervened if he did not like the sound of it. When he put his resources behind a company, he expected to stay with it; this, he felt, was how a gentleman behaved.
