The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-03-14

Christianity. Divisions are, we find, to
 costly, both in men, money and all. w
 do not command, because we are no
 united"
 But I wasn't invited to speak upor | these things. If had any fault to fint | with the invitation to speak here to- night it was because I was not giver 1 some specific subject to speak upon. Here the speaker announced that ht | would talk shop a little while, and SC | changed his subject. In his following | remarks he offered a remonstrance tt | the way in which the people at large speak and think of the shop-keeper Continuing, he said:
 To my mind, however, the shop-keepeI has really become the great merchant of the world When we think of Lord
 Salisbury, the president of France the Emperor of Germany and others, all of whom are reaching out for new possess sions, if we will only stop and pause we
 can easily see why. It is for commerce.
 And how of the great department store
 of the present day. Just think of the
 arguments that have been advanced
 against it. Shoes and dry goods should
 not be sold in the same store. That is
 the same as saying that literature and
 science should not be taught together here at Yale; they are both on the same plan. The great merchants of the world have not really created anything. Men with the wisdom to see the trend or things are not responsible for men who, although good and honest, are left on the sand when the tide has gone out, because they are not willing to join themselves to a forward movement, be- ing opposed to It. But the movement goes on just the same; it Is the law or nature and irresistible.
 I have for long while been fearful of trusts though that they were evil, and would crush out the single mer- chant. I now think them the opportu- nity of the individual, If man IS a man of strong individuality that will assert itself, the corporation will give splendid opportunities for the display of his many qualities. With the re- duction of the cost of merchandise consumption increases, with the in crease of consumption larger number of people are employed, while the more people employed from this cause the better they are paid, and if this is so, the whole moral part of the thing is evident. In the corporation in which am employed many of the men are in fine positions as far as their incomes are concerned, but more than this, they are situated so that they put their brains in the work, and with more op portunities for good work they obtain for themselves more money.
 The great trouble, though, with this progressive movement is that it is too fast. Very few retail merchants in the United States understand this move ment It has gained too fast, But another side of the situation. In every one of these big stores hydraulics and pneumatics remind me of the ingenuity of science, while they add a sort of dig nifty to the big establishment itself. All large concerns of this kind have men in different parts of the world Not an hour of the whole year but men from our place are crossing the Atlantic on journey to foreign countries, where they gather the stuffs which our customers want to buy. And when one stops to think of this he cannot but think of the way in which the trades are filling up. Men who are willing to begin now as we first began fifty or sixty years ago will find the retail bus mess all right. Begin. believing that there are no royal roads to success that the only way is by good, hard work. An educated man to begin with this idea impressed upon him and start in in the business in which I am en- gagged would become a power in l."