Evening star., 1915-01-31

about: what does it do; what does it
mean to you and to me?
To answer these questions is to tell
the story of a great awakening that
has stimulated the whole commercial
consciousness and brought a new dis
tinction and efficiency to business 1t
reaches the roots of our Oldest trade
menace; 1t points the path to a can't
.anIation OF the export opportunity
that the world war created.
Not High-Sounding Crusade.
This is no annal of hiyh.sound;n. O.
crusade shot through with psalm and
precept. IL Is merely the record of a
piece OF practical, common sense upIift
projected along business lines. Its
code is the gospel of far-f1ung CO.
operation which levels all economic
ranks and is helpful alike to clerk
and capitalist. to community and com
Try To know about it makes you a
more useful citizen; to be a part Of II
is TO be a better equipped cog in the
business machine.
Why were Congress and husineS, =,
wide apart all those yearso You need
no diagram to find out.
rake any business man plugging
away At his desk. Unless he has real
IMAGINATION; his outlook is not p4rticu-
larly big. He is absorbed in his own
problems: he does not see across the
frontiers of his own interests.
Like his colleague of Wall street, who
never saw beyond the Hudson river
he was blind to the shifting changes
In public mind and public policy. Like
a pair of ostriches they hid their heads
in the sands of their environment and
trusted to God and whatever party
happened to be in power to deliver
them.
So long as Business was free and
untrammelled agent this procedure was
all right. The country developed SO
fast: the bowels of the earth disgoreed
their treasure so easily that even such
shortsfghtedness could not prevail
against what seemed to be an irresist-
ible prosperity
Censorship and Control.
But censorship and control of BusI-
ness developed: Nation and State put
the probe into the corporation; depres-
sion stalked about. Business looked
up from its desk and saw Big Laws
cleaning like ogre eyes: beheld long
ramparts of regulation hedged around
Unless he was very vitality affected
Mr.. Business Man merely said to him
self:
why worry? There have been other
upheavals. Sanity will return. i have
my own affairs to mind" And he stuck
So he piled a solitary needle, not
realizing that the threads of his own
business were bound up in the greater
fabric of the business of the whole
country. What concerned and dis
turbed that fabric also disturbed him
Had he looked for moment at the
example presented by Germany he
might have saved some cash and char
acter. Her commercial and industrial
agencies are linked into a compac,
union that is a tower of strength a,
| home. bulwark abroad. When foreign
concerns compete with German firms
they do not work against individual
rivals. but against a whole empire
| We had no such unity. When nation.
al investigation swooped down or
| Business like a sledgeha miner there
was no representative national hanC
to stay the blow. To be sure, there
! was swift scurrying to Washing.
| ton: the gum shoe and the lobby made
| their Illicit alliance and Special In.
| terest got it's tainted tag. The black.
| ened brother sought whitewash; the
| great mass of Business, which was
clean and decent. stood supine while
| public sentiment tarred 1t with the
| same brush No wonder Congress re.
! garded all Business with suspicion