15 
The Stock Exchange and Corporate Development.—In 
the distribution of corporate securities among American in- 
vestors during the past century the New York Stock Ex- 
change has played and is today playing a necessary part. 
Exactly how the constant market for securities maintained by 
the Exchange operates today to assist corporations in obtaining 
funds and the public to obtain the best investments at the fairest 
prices, will be related in subsequent chapters. It is sufficient 
at present to point out that the Stock Exchange has been a 
vital factor in helping our railroad corporations to secure the 
funds which made it possible for them to span our great con- 
tinent with their myriad tunnels and bridges and their thou- 
sands of miles of steel-shod roadways. 
Still more recently our gigantic industrial enterprises 
have been enabled through the assistance of the Stock Ex- 
change to build those vast mills and factories which the whole 
world trend of modern production has necessitated. Without 
the creation of these huge companies and the safeguarding of 
their stockholders through the daily operations of the New 
York Stock Exchange, the marvelously swift development of 
American transportation and industry would have been quite 
impossible. 
THE EVOLUTION OF SECURITIES 
Growth of the “Trusts.”—Ever since our Civil War, 
powerful economic factors have caused our corporations to 
become larger and larger. A similar tendency has more 
recently been seen in Great Britain and Germany, particularly 
since the Armistice. The advent of these so-called “trusts” 
has occasioned a considerable readjustment in business methods, 
and at times they have been attacked as a menace to democratic 
government. Yet experience has shown us that the mere big- 
ness of a corporation does not as such constitute any offense 
to the public, nor any inherent danger to its welfare. The truth 
of the matter is that resistless economic forces have necessitated 
5 See Chanters IT and IV.