The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-01

| Ing business man fS thinking about ways and means of stopping the little leaks through which escape so much or the profits of his business. The Lack awanna Railroad Is spending $1o,ooo.ooo
 in an effort to save only thirty minutes in its running time between New fork | and Buffalo. Yet 1t expects in the years to come to reap a million doliaars Tor every minute saved. Likewise. the
 man who cuts of the little corners or | the path of expense by the installation of money-saving, time-savfng, anu labor saving business machinery, does so in the hope of reducing the running | time to the goal of success. TO cut down expenses without detractlns any | thing from the business is the proo- | lem that Is before every man oi ahahs Someone has estimated that IT Tn all the correspondence of all the brancnes | of the Standard oil industry Just one unnecessary word were elimated rom | each letter, the saving would be eouiv- | alent to thousands of dollars year l This is a tip for MT. Rockefeller. ne | can find precedent for-it In the united States government. for that august iac- | tor does not scorn to squeeze all water | out of It's correspondence. Since the I edict has been isued that all govern ment correspondence shall be boiled down to the "essence" point. letter writing in the government depart ments has fallen of perhaps twenty 1 per cent. The resultant saving or time | runs up into the thousands of hours a | month. and as the government pays more for It's help. grade for grade, than any other employer, the saving or money Is not small.
 Your twentieth century business man l is not trying to grow rich at the ex- pense of his faithful help, for he has found that this is the surest way not to grow rich. Recently big employer of l salesman was asked If he intended to give up his annual complimentary ex- 1 cursion to his salesmen, in view or the I depression in business. Not on your 1 life" was his instant reply. ''The best way in the world to hurry prosperity l along is to keep my salesmen Tn good l spirits. Failure to write orders Is dis" l couraging enough, without their nav | ing to forego their usual pleasures. am going, not only to meet returning prosperity halfway, but I am going right down to the gate and extend 1t l the glad hand by keeping my saiesmen | in good spirits"
 This new order of things in the re- | lations between employer and employe | is strikingly illustrated by the action 1 of A big Chicago firm. It found that many of its employees were patroniz- | ing the loan sharks of the city, to whom they were paying from 100 per cent to 200 per cent for loans. So 1t created a fund for lending money on equitaoie terms to its employees. It finds that In this way 1t can help it's men along save them from cut-throat interest rates and at the same time have such a
 knowledge of their private lives as well enable the firm to know what degree of confidence to repose in each man. Is Is the little things that count in reckoning profits and losses or ousi- ness. If the average merchant were stingy with his wrapping twine he
 would soon have to close his doors for
 want of trade. Yet every postal cierk in the government service Is required to he as saving with twine as possipie' notwithstanding the fact that the t"ine the govern ment uses is Of sucn ouahty that any self-respecting mercnant would scorn It. If you saw Weli-to
 do friend of yours on the stIeSe old rags. you would think he had iost his mind Yet the great Pennsylvania Railroad, wealthiest of all the Woiiu railways gathers up such 1unh anu
 makes a sung fortune out or u eveLS wear. If you had little cupoy-hoie on your sidewalk where ,.tNr could place his chair without inter- ferinr in the slightest with your bus ;ness vou could not look your wife Tn tha face if YOU charged him TOT the nrjyiIeoe of placing his chair tnere' Vat the Pennsylvania Railroad charges the contractor -bootbiack who ioohs after the shoes of passengers on US ferry.boats in New York harpor' S1o'-
 900 a year for the privilege.
 Everywhere men are going atter these small things. The First National Bank of Chicago. with wealth enough to ransom a king. holds all or us iet-
 ters until the close of the business day,
 in order to save the stamps that di1ler- ent letters to single address mlgnt require. The day was when the con- servative national bank discouraged the opening of accounts of small depos- jtors. They reasoned that an account of a few hundred dollars was not large enough to pay It's way, the cost or keeping it being greater than its value to the bank. Then came the trust com pany and the penny savings bank with their striking illustrations of the tre- mendous pulling power Of small saw ings when united. and the national banks were awakened to the fact that they were losing valuable line Of bus- mess. So they are now courting the small depositor as ass'duously as are the savings banks or the trust com panies. They have found that the aver age balance of a number of small de- positors Is greater than the average balance of a few big depostors. And the small depositor's money is at hand
 when loan rates are high while the | big depositor draws his out when he
 can get high interest for it.
 One of the newest professions of to- | day is that of the business systematizer. | He has been called the surgeon of conn | mercial warfare. He goes into a bus | mess house. finds out just what ails 1t,
 and proceeds to use the knife of sys-
 tenn to lop off the little diseased parts of waste. He has a cost-keeping sys-
 tenn and everything else that enables
 the firm to know exactly where it 1 stands any day in the year.
 His is but one of hundred busi-
 nesses that an inventive genius has | created for itself. In Boston there is
 a young woman who makes a speciality | of taking inventories of furnished | houses for renting agents. Before a | family moves in she takes a full inven- l tory for the agent of the property. ! When it moves out she checks off the | list and notes all damages to furniture. | Her work is so good that every rent i ing agent in the city Is said to be her | cl ent. and she Is making money.
 one of the biggest leaks In the bus l mess world is the annual fire bill. ! There Is wide difference of opinion as to how much of the nations wealth annually goes up in great confagra- tions. The figures of experts place It somewhere between a200. 900, 900 a year
 and $1.oOO.OOO a day But even at tbe | lower of these figures 1t amounts to
 nine times as much per capita as the
 fire loss of Europe. There is talk of
 organizing an American Fire Proven