Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-02-04
PRESIDENT WILSON CALLS.
y +3s
FOR COOPERATION OF U. s.
GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS
Address Before Several Hundred Business Men
at Washington Wednesday Night


in framing laws for the benefit of all
the people was urged by President
Wilson tonight in an address before
several hundred representative bust
ness men here, attending the annual
convention Of the Chamber Of Com
merce Of the United States. He de-
clared that I'VE must all pool our in
terests" in order to discover the best
means for handling public problems.
Calls for Moro Grain
The President predicted that. while
there is a shortage of food in the
world now. the shortage will be much
greater. He pointed out, that under
the guidance of the department of ag-
riculture. efforts must be made by
farmers in the United States to grow
more and more grain in order that the
world may be fed.
Speaking of the foreign trade Of the
United States, the President asked
that business men devise some way
Of allowing exporters in the United
States to combine to secure common
selling agencies and to give long time
credits in such a way that these CO.
operative devices may be open to the
ly the antitrust laws prohibited such .
combinations now, but that he would
favor a change if a method fair to
all could be found. He spoke Of the
work being done by the bureau Of for
eign and domestic affairs in serving
the world for the benefit of all bus
mess men. The business men them
selves are to be blamed if intelligent
the President said. He added that they
should come out into the open and
use their knowledge of conditions to
bring about fair laws to prevent bus
mess evils.
The Mexican question was mention
ed by Mr.. Wilson as an example of
the difficulty he had in getting accu-
rate information.
Asks to Be One Of Number
II would prefer that you receive me as
if for the time being l We're one Of your
own number said the President, be
cause the longer I occupy tue office that
I now occupy, the more I regret any
lines Of separation, the more I deplore
any feeling that one set Of men has one
set Of interests and another set of men
l.
feel the solidarity of the nation, the i'm
possibility Of separating one interest
from another without misconceiving: the
necessity that we should all understand
one another in order that we may un-
derstand ourselves. There is an illus
tration which 1 have used many times
l will use it again because the most ser
viceable to my mind. We often speak Of
a man who cannot find his way in some
jungle or some desert, as having lost
himself. Did you never reflect that that
is the only thing he had not lost? He is
there. He has lost the rest Of the world.
He has no fixed point by 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 there
fore. following his heart, he walks in a
great circle from right to left and comes
back to where he started, to himself
again.
Relationship the Need
ITO my mind it is a picture of the
world. If you have lost other interests
and do not know the relation of your
own interests to those other interests,
then you do not understand your own in
terests and have lost yours. What you
want is orientation relationship to the
points of compass. relationship to the
other people of the world; vital conDec-
tions which have for the time being been
severed. And so l am particularly glad
to express my admiration for the kind of
organization which you have drawn to-
gether.
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 those associations
were meant in order to destroy manys
perspective, in order to destroy their
sense Of relative proportions. worst of
ALL if may be permitted to say so, they
were intended to boose something in par
ticular. Boosting is very unhandsome
thing, but to exaggerate local merit in
order to create disproportion in the gen.
eral development is not particularly
handsome thing or particularly intel
igent thing.
IL YOU O!dW you1 sap t1Ao SouA W
tality from all quarters, the more sap
and more vitality there is in you the
more there is in the commonwealth as
a whole. and every time You lift ct
all You lift the whole level Of manu-
featuring and mercantile enterprise.
Moreover, the advantage Of it is that
you cannot boost the United States
in that way without understanding the
United States. You learn great deal.
1 agreed with a colleague of mine in
the cabinet that we have never at
tended In our lives before a school to
compare with that we were now at
tending for the purpose of gaining a
liberal education,
Some Things Not So
"of course, learn L great many
things that are not so. But the inter-
esting thing about 1t Is this: Things
that are not so do not match. It is a
crazy quilt. Whereas, the truth al
ways matches piece for piece. with
other parts Of the truth.
mo man can lie consistently and
he cannot lie about everything II ne
talks to you long. So that would
guarantee that II enough liars talked
to you. you would get the truth.