The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-07-11
WILL SONS VIEWS
 |OF BIC BUSINESS
Tells Atlantic City Audience That Men Who Conduct it Are Really Community
 Trustees

speech at Atlantic City yesterday.)
 T have sometimes heard men say that politics must have nothing to dc with business, and I have often wish. ed that business had nothing to dc with politics; and yet, when you think of the matter seriously, there can be no separation between business and any other interest in life, because the foundations Of our life are necessarily physical and necessarily economical. We alone among the animals thai frequ4nt the surface of the earth as. sociate ourselves together in common endeavor where we subordinate a cer- tain amount of individual interest to the common interest, and a commun- ity is civilized in proportion as.it car sink the individual in the common in. terest.
 T have sometimes known foreigners to laugh at us for boasting of the size of the United States, and they haVe very naturally asked whether we were responsible for the size of the conti- nent. We necessarily answer that we didn't make the continent, but that we are proud of it's size because we have mastered it and used it from ocean to ocean without breaking oul civil connections with one another, and because the man is as big as the thing that he does.
 What is happening now, ladies and gentlemen, is simply this, that we are trying to create everywhere in the meE Of large business this fundamental conception that any man who handles any affair bigger than himself is q trustee for the rest of the commun- ity, and in proportion as we lift our selves to the full dignity of that con ception we shall lift ourselves above Nf fA against all the confusions and difdcul. ties of public life.
 If man does not provide for his children, if he does not provide fol all who are dependent upon him, and if he has not that vision Of conditions that have not yet daWned, which we sum up in the whole idea of thrift and saving. then he has not opened his eyes to any adequate conception oi human life. We are in this world tc provide not for ourselves alone. but for others, and that is the basis ol economy. So that economy and every, thing which ministers to economy sup plies the foundations of National life The reason we are interested in ths postal savings banks and hope tha1 they may develop. very much beycnc ahe present. raeagre beginning is thai we want men who have only pennies to save to save them: we want mer who have only little glimpSes of tht future not to lose those glimpses; we do not want to discourage the naost humble against entertaining g. conf dent hope for tomorrow. because tho man who does not look for tomorrow cannot sustain the enterprises of Ma tional life.
 The only dignity that America has ever had arose out of her conception of her responsibility to the world. She said: We are here going to build g Commonwealth under Gods heaven and this is the refuge of those who believe in the future of the human race on earth.'s
 s.Nations do not have any immortal. ,ity. Nations cannot be damned 1T the ordinary sense. Their only immor. tality, their only salvation. and theil only chance for dignity is that they are building, building for the future And so it is not from mere inetinc- tive curiosity that we turn to ths the buildings, the pyramids, the pal. aces, the great aqueducts, which stand as the permanent memorial of the men who used to live in Egypt, ol in Rome, the men who gathered the lreins of the world in their hands and tried to drive mankind as great cooperative team, moving forward in- to future generations. Every monu- nent of permanency is to us an evi- dsnce of the validity of civilization.
 Now, America, among all the coun. tries in the world, needs a cultivated providence, and think it needs 2 cultivated providence more than any other nation needs cultivated provi- dence. and it needs a cultivated prov idence with a big F. America is rec ognized as spend-thrift country be cause in America, we think we have 41-I 1A population thickens and our resources are more and more exploited and tho difficulties of our public problems in crease, we are. more and more aware that we are in need of a. would be providence in the future.
 "You know philanthropic men of re- cent years have been taking surveys of this, that, and other communities and some friends of mine who were concerned in making survey and a statiStical review of the life of one of the most industrial communities of America, told me the outcome of the survey was this. It is almost incred- ible, but he told me that out of that great community there were hardly more than per cent. of the individu- als who could eat tomorrow if they didn't work today; only 2 per cent of those individuals who had any mar. gin whatever to live upon and who did not depend absolutely upon con- stant labor to sustain their lives.
 T may say that may not be ac- curate. But whether right or wrong. my point is this: We should all make greater security for the tomorrow, and if we do this the sooner we will be able to quiet the disturbances and disqMetude of our working classes
 sThe disturbances in our modern life come. from the difficulty of the casting of the horoscope, and you would be disturbed and uneasy if you did not know what would happen to you tomorrow or the next day. Se- curity is the basis of prosperity in National life. You must make your foundation of hope the foundation of confidence. and then all the coun- tries of the world will clarify them- selves and we can overcome that irn- patience. You cannot overcome 1t in the midst of nervous impatience: you must be sure that the game is going to last long enough for you to go through with that confidence. and SD every enterprise must be concluded in the spirit of trustees for the welfare of the Nation"