Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-04-30

years ago In memphis L Ildue oiiSh
address before you, and now that L
have been asked to report to you on
Some Lessons From the Orient" my
message Is the same as that I brought
you in Memphis:
The prosperity of every man de-
pends upon the prosperity (and there
fore upon the Efficiency Of the aver
age man. The welfare of every in
dividual depends upon the uplift OF
the great masses of the people.
This was the burden of what said
In my former speech in Memphis; and
the most impressive fact that l dis
covered in all my trip through the
Orient was the fundamental, world
wide Importance of this too little ac-
cepted economic doctrine. 1t Is the
biggest lesson that the Old World has
for the New-the biggest and the
most important.
Those who have followed my writ
ings and speeches know how unceas-
ingly l have insisted upon the import
ance of this teaching. The south es-
pecially has been too slow to accept
it-and has paid the penalty of its
delay in a tragically belated develop
ment. Fifty years ago a governor OF
South Carolina declared for the high
training of a select few rather than
the general training Of all the people,
arguing, zone sun Is better than q
million stars" Today we know that
while his isolated statement may be
true, its application is the most vici-
Gus of falsehoods.
Certainly any man who keeps his
eyes open on a trip through the Orient
cannot fail to have 1t burned into his
consciousness how completely the
laws of changeless justice decree that
you must rise or fall, decline or pros
per, with your neighbor. Nowhere In
either America or Asia can the ndi-
vidual accomplish much unless the
great masses of the people have been
trained to efficiency. 1t is true alike In
the oldest continent and in the newest
but a trip to the oldest may cause
you to see 1t sooner-that you prosper
Just in proportion to the prosperity of
the average man with whom you are
brought into business contact. If the
masses of the people are poor and ig-
norant, every individual, every inter-
est, every industry, in the community
will feel and register the pulling-down
power Of their backwardness as inevi-
tably as the thermometer records the
temperature of the air. The merchant
will have poorer trade, the doctor and
lawyer smaller fees, the railroad df-
minished traffic, the banks smaller de-
posits. the preacher and teacher
smaller salaries, and so on. Every
man who through ignorance, lack or
training, or by reason of any other
hindering cause, is producing or earn
ing only half as much as he ought by
his inefficiency in making everybody
else in the community poorer.
In short. your prosperity, no matter
in what wholesome line Of business
you are engaged, depends upon the
prosperity of the average man; the
prosperity of the average man de-
pends upon his intelligence Of prac-
tical sort.
Our Racial Heritage.
In America education, democratic
institutions, and a proper organization
of industry have given the average
man a high degree Of efficiency and
therefore a high degree Of prosperity
as compared with the lot Of the average
man in the Orient-a prosDerity height
ened and enhanced in our case, 1t is
true, by the exploitation Of new con-
tinent's virgin resources, but after all
due mainly, primarily, to the high de-
gree of efficiency with which the av-
erage man does his work.
Thus while there may be too much
Ego in our Cosmos" as Kipling's Ger
man said about the monkey, for us to
like to admit it, the obvious truth Is
that here in America you and I per-
konally deserve very little credit for
the prosperity and comforts that we
enjoy. 1t is not what we have earned.
il is what we have inherited, that en-
ables us to live free from want and
hunger-and this is true even Of those
of us whose fathers did not leave
property enough to pay their funeral
expenses. In any case we have in
herited our share in a civilization and
in an Industrial organization so devel-
oped that it offers the average man
more than enough to hold soul and
body together-as oriental civilization
does not.
Herein lies the real handspring of
the difference between the prosnerity
you enjoy in America and the want
that you would suffer If you had been
born in the Orient. We live in better
homes, have more leisure and more
recreation, endure less bitter toll; in
short, we find human life fairer and
sweeter than our fellowman in Asia not
because you or l, as individuals, de-
serve so much better than he. but be-
cause of our richer racial heritage
We have been born into a society
where higher level of prosperity OBJ
tains, where a mans labor and effort
count for more, simply because OF
what previous generations have done
for increasing the efficiency of the
masses through tools and knowledge
education and machinery.
Work and Wages in the Orient.
Let us see how this principle works
out in the Orient.
In China a member of the emperor's
grand council told me that the aver
age rate of wages throughout the en-
pire is probably eighteen cents a day
In Japan it is probably not more. anc
in India much less. The best mil
workers l saw in Osaka average TWEEN
ty-two cents a day: the labOrers a
work on the new telephone lines II
Peking get ten cents: wheelbarroV
coolies in Shanghai 81 month; limo
type operators in Toxic forty-fiv'
cents a day and pressmen fifty. police
men forty: the iron workers in Han
kov average ten cents; street car con