building has been due to this altruistic spirit, and how much to
selfishness and the lust for power and possession.





VI

THE ETHICS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONSHIP

We have seen that all empires have been built up by a series of
successful aggressions, and that claim-jumping still characterizes the
relations of the nations. Nevertheless, there has been some progress in
applying to groups and nations the moral principles we recognize as
binding upon individuals. Consider again our internal life: it was
twenty years ago that we coined and used so widely the phrase "soulless
corporations" for our great combinations of capital in industry. To-day
that phrase is rarely heard. One sees it seldom even in the pages of
surviving "muck-raking" magazines. Why has a phrase, used so widely in
the past, all but disappeared? Again the answer is illuminating: there
has been tremendous growth in twenty years, on the part of our great
corporations, in treating their employees as human beings and not merely
as cog-wheels in a productive machine. When the greatest corporation in
the United States voluntarily raises the wages of all its employees in
the country ten per cent., five several times, within a few months, as
the Steel trust has recently done, something has happened. It may be
said, "they did it because it was good business": twenty years ago they
would not have recognized that it was good business. It may be said,
"they did it to avoid strikes": twenty years ago they would have