Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-07-02
Thinking In World Terms.

Chairman Hurley, of the United States Shipping
Board, stated an important truth when he said IN a
recent address to the Illinois Manufacturers Asso-
citation that the end of the will find America
with vast opportunities for world trade but that
they will be OF scant avail unless the American bust
ness man learns to think in terms of world needs.
The return of peace will find productive
facilities expanded beyond parallel and keyed to the
highest point of efficiency. The countrys industrial
DEVELOPMENT has been greater druging the last four
years than in any ten preceding, and especially
great within the last twevemonth. We are pro-
ducing more necessaries of every kind, from corn
10 iron girders, and in the main producing it
by better methods and with better results. With
the coming of peace, it is true, the demand for
much of the present output will cease, but the
majority of war plants can be turned to the manu-
facture of peace products; certainly this can be
done in the of steel mills and in most others
shall be prepared to supply the manifold needs of
the great reconstruction and readjustment period
which will follow the war. Furthermore we shall
have the largest merchant marine in our history If
the beginning of the found us almost wholly
unprovided in this respect, the beginning of peace
will find us equipped beyond precedent. We shall
have ocean carrying facilities capable of serving
our own needs of giving material aid to friends
Finally we shall have the respect good will of
the greater part of the world something we should
not have won if we had remained out of the
But these means and opportunities will not in
themselves bring the trade, which much be secured
if the nation is to prosper. Behind facilities
for production and shipping there must be
derstandng mind and a cosmopolitan spirit. The
American business man. as Mr. Hurley puts it,
must learn to regard the whole world as his mar
ket' Heretofore the majority of American manu-
facturers and merchants have had such point
of view. Their own country being so extensive and
b. tradition so detached from Old World affairs,
they held to the isolation in business that the
Government had held to in world politics. Even
in neighboring Latin America where European
manufacturers and merchants had built up thriv-
ing lines of trade years ago, markedly
hestant and backward. We devoted little study to
the language, the customs the tastes and needs of
Latin Americans. and still less to those of other
foreign lands. We rarely thought, in practical
terms at least, beyond shores. We must
get of this provincial attitude if to hold
cur own in the future of commerce, because COM
meTce like all other human interests and activi-
ties will develop henceforth international lines.
To keep steadily increasing population proftably
employed, must keep the factories multiplying
and keep the ships moving But this cannot be
less we develop foreign markets to absorb our sur
plus output; and the development of those mar
kets, in turn depends on understanding minds and
a cosmopolitan spirit
That shall readily acquire that spirit. there
is every reason to believe, for Americans are now
bound to all the MISUNDERSTANDING peoples of the
earth by ties of a common purpose and a common
faith, thinking in terms Of a world-mind and
feeling the great impulses OF a world heart