The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1915-02-10
urges COOPERATION
WILSON SAYS GOVERNMENT and
BUSINESS MUST join
EUNITE As In WARTIME

President Delivers Interesting Ad'
dress to Convention Of the Cham.
Der of Commerce-Farmers Must
Prepare to Grow More Grain for
World Must be Fed.
Cooperation between business and
the government in framing laws for
the benefit of all the people was urg-
ed by President Wilson Wednesday
night n an address before several
hundred representative business men
at Washington attending the annual
convention of the Chamber of Com
merce of the United States. He de-
clared that 1--WE must all pool our in
terests" to discover the best means
for handling public problems.
The president urged the creation in
the United States in time of peace of
the same kind of un'teo spirit which
moves nations during wars. He re-
called that when peace is as hand
some as war there will be no wars" "
and that when men engage in the
pursuits of peace in the same spirit of
self-sacrifce as they engage in war,
wars will disappear.
The president predicted that, while
there is a shortage of food in the
world now, the short-ge will be much
greater later. He pointed out that
| under the guidance of the depart
ment of agriculture efforts must be
made by American farmers to grow
more and more grain, that the world
may be fed.
Speaking of the foreign trade Of
the United States the president asked
business men to devise some way of
allowing American exporters to COM
bine in form common selling agen-
cies and to give long time credits in
such a way that these cooperative
devices may be open to the use of all.
He declared that apparently the anti
trust laws prohibited such combina-
tions now, but that he would favor a
change if method fair to all could
be found. He spoke. of the bureau Of
foreign and domestic commerce's
work in surveying the world for
the benefit of all business men.
Business men themselves are to
blame if ignorant laws affecting them
are formed, the president asserted.
He added that they should come out
into the open and use their knowl-
edge Of conditions to bring about
laws to prevent business evils.
The Mexican question was men
toned by Mr. Wilson as an example
of the difficulty he had in getting ac-
curate information.
81 would prefer that you receive
me as if for the time being I were
one of your own number" said the
president, because the longer I. oc-
cupy the Office that now occupy the
more regret any lines of separation,
the more ! deplore any feeling that
one set of men has one set of inter-
ests and another set of men has an
other set of interests; the more feel
the solidarity of the nation, the i'm
possibility of separating one interest
from another without misconceiving
it, the necessity that We should all
understand another in order that we
may understand ourselves.
There is an illustration which I
have used great many times. l will
use it again, because it is the most
seryiceab Bile to my mind. We often
speak of a man who can not find his
way in some jungle or some desert as
having lost himself. Did you never
reflect that that is the only thing he
has not lost? He is there. He lost
the rest of the world. He has no
fixed point from which to steer. He
does not know which is north, which
is south, which is east, which is west;
and, if he did know, he is so confused
that he would not know in which of
those directions his goal lay, and,
therefore, following his heart he
walks in a great circle from right to
left and comes baik to where he start
ed. to himself again.
ITO my mind it is picture Of the
world. If you have lost other inter-
ests and do not know the relation of
your own interests to those other in
terests, then you do not understand
your own interests and have lost
yours. What you want is orienta-
ton, relationship to the points of the
compass, relationship to the other
people in the world, vital connections
which have for the time being been
severed And so 7 am particularly
glad to express my admiration for the
kind of organization which you have
drawn together.
81 have attended banquets of
chambers of commerce in various
parts of the country and have got the
impression at each OF those banquets
that there was only one city in the
country. And it has seemed to me
that these associations were m mt in
order to destroy mans perspective,
in order to destroy his sense of rela-
| tive proportions: worst of all, if I
may be permitted to say so, they were
intended to boost something in par
ticular Boosting is a very unhand-
some thing. Advancing enterprise is
very handsome thing, but to exag-
gerate local merit in order to create
disproportion in the general develop
ment is not a particularly handsome
thing or not particularly intelligent
thing.
THE advantage about a chamber
of commerce of the United States is
that there is only one way to boost
the United States and that is by see
ing to it that the conditions under
which business is done throughout
the country are the best possible con-
ditions. There can not be any dis
proportion about that If you draw
your sap and your vitality from all
quarters then the more sap and vital
ity there is in you the more there is
in the commonwealth as whole and
every time You lift at all you lift the
whole level of manufacturing and
mercantile enterprise.
Moreover, the advantage of it is
that you can not boost the United
States in that way without under
standing the United States. You learn
a great deal. I agreed with a col
league of riine in the cabinet the
other day that we had never attended
in our lives before school to COM
| mart with that we are now attendjn @