308 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
civil liberty, held the predominant place in American po- 
litical life. With the advent of modern trade and indus- 
trial conditions, however, all this changed. Political issues, 
instead of centering around the abstractions of political 
science and constitutional law, became problems of applied 
economics. Practically all the political questions of the 
present era are business and industrial questions. The 
Government has, therefore, been forced to take action 
toward industry both by legislation and by administration, 
and has become closely bound up with the determination of 
principles or policies relative to industry, trade, and finance. 
Such action has been helpful in the past, when intelli- 
gently formulated and applied, and will be of the greatest 
assistance to industry in the future. It is for this reason 
that far-seeing industrial leaders are urging the necessity 
of securing the friendly cooperation of the Government 
toward industry to assist in coordinating and stabilizing in 
a constructive way the forces which have been developed 
in the new industrial revolution. These leaders in the 
manufacturing and mining industries have apparently been 
most favorably impressed with the experience of the trans- 
portation industry in its relation to the Government. They 
obviously feel the need of the same form of helpful and 
constructive relation with the Government which the rail- 
roads have had through the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion, and the banks through the Federal Reserve Board, 
and their attitude is undoubtedly sound. Such govern- 
mental regulation is essential to the proper expansion, co- 
ordination, and stabilization of our industrial system, or, 
in other words, a necessary condition to the permanent 
prosperity of the country as a whole.