Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-28
HOW PHILADELPHIA CAN SPUR =.
AND UNIFY HER TRADE POWER
The Plan Of a Splendid Sales Exhibit
Building Is Big With Possibilities
in This Rich Industrial
Community

pie is sound and applicable not only to
military strategy, but also to commerce,
manufacturing, art. stock speculation and
even courtship.
But is no one to seek the moon be-
cause the sixpencc lies hard by? Are
initiative and courage TO be rcnounced
because failure is factor in the phi
losophy of possibilities?
We hardly think the great French
marshal, follower of Napoleonic meth
DDS, meant to imply this in his indict-
ment of German overcontidence. There
is vast gulf between delusive quiXotism
and clear stimulating constructive vision.
Here in Philadelphia there is an indis
putable tendency to overlook that fertile
mld-region of true progress. Calcula-
tions on the contingency of failure
abound. Forward-looking pioneers predi-
eating their plans on success are alto
gether too frequently dismissed as
dreaS spinning sensationalists No
Foch is needed to endow us with self
critical caution. We register that trait,
chronically, automatically.
1t was typical of our attitude, there
fore, that the suggestion of the need in
this city for magnificent sales exhibit
building, patterned somewhat after the
Bush enterprise in New York, should be
received with certain amount of skepti-
ciSm.
R. W. Wood, addressing the Chamber
of Commerce, unfolded the plan and en-
phasized especially the magnitude Of it's
scale. Hints that perhaps all the condi-
tions necessary to insure the success of
so pretentious and costly an undertaking
might not prevail were made. They
were worth considering, as all sides of
question are, but they weakened not IA
whit the essential significance of the case
presented.
A buyers exchange conducted on the
proper lines promises a complete and
wholesome transformation of some of our
business methods. Its possibilities are
thoroughly enlivening. 1t is no more
logical to condemn the idea on the ground
that it might lack sufficient cooperative
support than it is to dismiss the project
because the building might happen to
burn down.
Happily the Chamber of Commerce
was not dominated by doubts. A reso-
luton was passed authorizing that body
to sound out the sentiments of manu-
facturers on the subject. II is their
practical Endorsement and their contri-
buttons of cash and zeal which will
count. The conception has already JUS
titled itself elsewhere. 1t responds to a
new want in great industrial and COM
mercial communities. 1t simplifies a
physical problem which has rapidly been
growing too complex for treatment in
any other fashion.
This fact has been impressively real
lied in New York, where the Bush Sales
Exhibit Building has revolutionized GER
tain business methods which had reached
a maximum of inconvenience. The great
structure on Forty-second street fills to
some extent the functions of Il permanent
fair. Display is secured by manufactur-
ers for the mutual benefit Of themselves
and buyers. The large scale centraliza-
tion of samples is also a concrete and
practical concentration of the industrial
possibilities of the community.
Efficiency is a much-abused word, but
in this instance it goes for it's entire
value. 1t is obvious that trade is both
expedited and invigorated. The produc-
tivity of manufacturing New York is
realistically revealed. Buyers are nc
longer compelled to search laboriously for
what they want and to forgo acquaint-
ance with products which they would
have desired had they known of their ex.
istence and makers.
The saving of time and money is self.
evident. The market is no longer diffuse
and elusive. 1t is crystallized and the
multifarouS lines of trade are drawn to-
gether in a new intimacy.
The Bush idea is, after all, merely the
development Of that long recognized
business movement which has evolved
! stock exchanges, cotton exchanges, sill
/ exchanges, coffee exchanges. Trade
! having co-ordinated its special fields
now passes to Iong-needed systematl
| ing Of general productive interests. The
! need for this tightening of industria
| forces is, of course, a direct result of the
variety of manufacturing endeavor coin,
cident with the growth Of population anC
the progress and solidarity of worlc
! trade.
1t was comparatively simple matter
for the merchants of the Rialto in Venice
to exchange the products Of the East anc
West. Commerce on an internationa
scale was centralized there in the Middl,
Ages. 1t is important to note, however
that there was a definite p'acc for thes,
transactions.
The diversion of trade routes causec
by the discovery of America produced
simultaneously greater commercial ex
pansion and decentralization, but cte
with the best exchange systems, com
bined with favorable geographical loca
tions, still took the ascendancy. Stocl
exchanges clarified and fortified finances
Trade in goods, however, was carried o.