ELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS

IN ECONOMICS

EDITED BY

WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

SELECTIONS AND DOCUMENTS

IN ECONOMICS

SELECTED READINGS IN ECONOMICS

By Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D., Professor of

Economics, Harvard University
SELECTED READINGS IN PUBLIC

FINANCE (Second Edition)
By Charles J. Bullock, Ph. D., Professor of

Economics, Harvard University
ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED

STATES. 1765–1860
By Guy Stevens Callender, late Professor of

Political Economy, Yale University
SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS

By Thomas N. Carver, Ph. D., Professor of

Political Economy, Harvard University
TRADE UNIONISM AND LABOR

PROBLEMS (Second Series)
By John R. Commons, Professor of Political

Economy, University of Wisconsin
SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL

POLICY
By James Ford, Ph. D., Associate Professor

of Social Ethics, Harvard University RAILWAY PROBLEMS (Revised Edition)

By William Z. Ripley, Ph. D., Professor of

Political Economy, Harvard University
TRUSTS, POOLS AND CORPORATIONS

(Revised Edition)
By William Z. Ripley, Ph.D., Professor of

Political Economy, Harvard University SELECTED READINGS IN INTERNA

TIONAL TRADE AND TARIFF
PROBLEMS
By Frank W. Taussig, Henry Lee Professor

of Economics, Harvard University READINGS IN SOCIAL PROBLEMS

By Albert Benedict Wolfe, Professor of Economics, University of Texas

CORPORATIONS

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, Ph.D. NATHANIEL ROPES PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1916, BY

WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

324.4

The Atheneum Press GINN AND COMPANY PROPRIETORS · BOSTON.U.S.A.

PREFACE

was

IN
N THE preface to the first edition of this collection of re-

prints in 1905 the distinction between its purpose and that of such predecessors as Dunbar's "Laws Relating to Currency, Finance and Banking” and Rand's

” and Rand's "Economic History pointed out. This volume, according to its announcement, was intended for use especially as a textbook rather than for handy reference or as a collection of original documents. Similarly, it is hoped, this present enlarged edition is in no sense a rival, but rather complementary to such recent volumes as Stevens' Industrial Combinations and Trusts" (1913) and Gerstenberg's " Materials of Corporation Finance" (1915). Each of these may greatly enrich instruction by affording a convenient store of well-chosen illustrative material. But this volume is intended to accomplish something more. It is a deliberate attempt to apply the case system, so successfully evolved in the Harvard Law School, to the study of economics. A systematic textbook, supplemented by lectures, is expected to provide the background so essential to a complete understanding of each selected case. But, this being done, most of these chapters purport to deal with a single, definite, typical phase of the general subject of industrial combination.

The primary motive is to further the interests of sound economic teaching, with especial reference to the study of concrete problems of great public and private interest. A difficulty in the substitution of present-day social and economic studies for the good old-fashioned, linguistic ones, or for the modern sciences,

a difficulty especially peculiar to descriptive economics as differentiated from economic theory, — has always been to secure data sufficiently concrete, definite and convenient to form a basis for analysis, discussion and criticism. The lecture system has its