The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-04-15
COUNCIL OF BUSINESS MEN
IMPORTANT MEETING OF CHAMBER
 OF COMMERCE.


 of Chamber Tellingly Told-Favorabie
 Action as to South American Visitors
 MT. w. A, Green Tells of the Purpose of
 the visit-Other Business
 The chamber of commerce at it's meeting last evening voted to extend the time of the committee appointed some time ago for the purpose of seeing about having the delegation of South American business men visit this city to May i, and to give the committee power to act.
 The tone of the meeting seemed very favorable to having the visitors come, and on Chairman Adler's statement that the committee needed more time the above motion was voted without opposition.
 Other important features of the meet ing were President Fords annual ad- dress, an able and interesting paper, published in full below, and an interest ing talk by MT. w. A. Greene, of the Philadelphia Museum on matters of importance to the business men and manufacturers of the country.
 The committees appointed by Presi- dent Ford for the ensuing year are in most instances the same as for last year. The list of committees being long, the chamber voted to accept them without reading. The changes will be announced later.
 President Timothy Dwight of Yale, Professor George G. Brush, director of the Sheffield Scientific school; Profes- sor Francis Wayland, dean of the law school, and Professor Herbert Smith, dean of the medical school, were elect ed honorary members of the chamber James Bishop, John Seaman, George B. Burton and Fred R. Downs were elected active members.
 It was voted to print the presidents annual address, together with the con stitution, bylaws, officers and members of the association, and also the names of all the former presidents, vice presi- dents, secretaries and treasurers of the chamber since it's organization. On suggestion of Secretary Gallagher it was voted to have the copies of the clIlIluetl dudItSoeS OI pltoldtlllS OL tAiC chamber, now in the possession of the secretary, bound in book form and cop ies to be distributed to the Historical society. the Yale and public libraries and to former presidents. Secretary Gallagher said that there were about fifty sets of these addresses in his pos session, and he thought it well that they should be preserved, as there was much demand for some of them. MT. w. A. Green, assistant director of the bureau of information of the Philadelphia Museum, was present at the request of some of the members, and was asked to tell more about the visit of the South American business men, which he did, giving also much valuable practical information as to the work of the Philadelphia Museum for 1 the advancement of the commercial in terests of the country.
 MT Green said The Philadelphia Museum collects and classifies facts of commercial importance from all parts of the world. A large part of its infor- nation it gets from consuls in the diff l ferent countries and all these facts are classified and indexed, the card being the system of indexing used. The in- | dex of the museum al present contains 100000 of these index cards and from 600 to 800 references to commercial facts of importance are daily added to
 this index.
 What an English consul thinks of im-
 portance for the English manufacturer | to know is equally important for the American manufacturer also to know, and such information as this we seek
 to give him. The whole object of the institution is to benefit American busi-
 ness and commerce.
 l The South American business men who will visit this country In May, rep
 resent forty leading chambers of com
 merce in all the South American coun- tries. They were invited here solely | for the purpose of attending a trade conference held by the Philadelphia
 Museum in Philadelphia, to which the various business organizations of the
 country, your own among the number, | have been invited to send delegates | The delegation Is not to be confound- ed with the pan-American congress. l lie HleInDelS OL IL dIe HOL
 but are all large merchants and repre- sent 40 per cent. of the business inter- ests of all South America.
 | The object of their visit is to have
 them meet the business men of this country, and help to form stronger
 commercial relations with the countries which they represent
 | It was not intended to have them at 1 tend anything but the conference, but as many cities were anxious to have
 them visit them, this trip to various
 cities was planned.
 If they visit this city you cannot, of
 course, expect that you will receive large orders from the delegates person.
 ally, but great advantage will come to l the country from the association and l knowledge of each other which this trip will facilitate.
 Cities visited will, of course, be put to
 some expense. Our board voted s20.-
 900 to defray their expenses in Philadel-
 phia and &he city council has recently
 voted s15,0OO more The whole number
 of delegates in Philadelphia will be be- | tween 800 and 600 The trip to other
 cities will be made in special Pullman
 car at an average daily expense of
 about S1,00O. In the east by a special arrangement the daily expense will be