Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-05-08
Failure to Act WA Mean Gov
eminent Legislation, Com
.merce Secretary Declares at
Cleveland Meet U. S. Cham
Der of Commerce-Appeals
for High Standard of Ethics

for less government in business"
will apply the Ten Commandments
in its own conduct and correct the
wrong within itself, Secretary
Hoover declared tonight in an adj
dress at the annual meeting of the
Chamber of Commerce of the United
States.
Sounding the warning that the
government will legislate against
existing evils in business unless
those evils are eliminated by bust
ness itself, the Secretary of Com
merce appealed for adoption of
high standard of ethics to keep the
government from injecting itself into
commerce.
"The question we need to consider"
he said, sis whether these rules and
regulations are to be developed sole
ly by government or whether they
can not be in some large part de-
veloped out of voluntary forces in
the nation. In other words can the
abuses which give rise to govern
ment in business be eliminated by
the systematic and voluntary action
of commerce and industry itself?
80
National character cannot be
built by laws. 1t is the sum of the
moral fibre of it's individuals. When
abuses which rise from our growing
system are cured by live individual
conscience, by initiative in the crea
ton of voluntary standards, then is
the growth of moral perceptions
fortified in every individual char
acter."
Mr.. Hoover declared, however.
that the field he primarily would
discuss was the great area of in
direct economic wrong and unethical
practices that spring up under the
pressures of competition and habit"
There is also" he added. 1.-The
great field of economic waste through
destructive competition, through
strikes, booms and slumps, unen-
ployment, through failure of our
different industries to synchronize
and q hundred other causes which
directly lower our productivity and
employment. Waste may be alb
stractly unethical but in any event
it can only be remedied by
economic action.
IF we are to find solution to these
collective issues outside of govern
ment regulation we must meet two
practical problems:
First, there must be organization
in such form as can establish the
standards of conduct in this vast
complex of shifting invention, pro-
duction, and use. There is no ex-
listing basis to check the failure of
service or the sacrifice of public in
tcrest. Some one must determine
e.fo f1oY hn ID
termined and held fiexibly in tune
with the intense technology of trade
Second, there must be some sort
of enforcement. There is the per-
petual difficulty of small minority
who will not play the game. They
too often bring disrepute upon the
vast majority; they drive many
others to adopt unfair competitive
methods which all deplore; their
abuses give rise to public indigna-
ton and clamor which breed legis-
lative action.
Il believe We now for the first
time have the method at hand for
voluntarily organized determine ton
of standards and their adoption,
would go further; I believe we are in
the presence of n new era in the
organization of industry and COM
merce in which, if properly directed
lie forces pregnant with in
finite possibilities or moral progress.
| believe that we are, almost I'M
noticed, in the midst of a great
revolution-or perhaps better
word. transformation in the whole
super organization of our economic
life. We are passing from period
of extremely individualistic action
into u period of associational
activities.
practically our entire American
working world is now organized into
some form of economic association
We have trade associations and
trade institutes, Chambers of Com
merce, labor unions. associations
embracing all the different profess
sions, farmers associations, and we
have the enormous growth of farm
ers' cooperatives for actual dealing
in commodities. or indirect kin to
this is the great increase in owner
ship of industries by their employees,
and customers. and again we have
tremendous expansion of mutual
lied insurance and banking.
"Assoclational activities are, I be-
lieve, driving upon a new road
where the detectives can be made
wholly and vitality of public interest
Inc leSlllmate Trade Associations
and Chambers of Commerce with
which am now primarily concern
ed, possess certain characteristics of
social Importance and the widest
differentiation from pools and trusts.
Their membership must be open to
all members in the industry or trade,
or rival organizations enter the field
at once. Therefore. they are not
Continued on Page 2-coi. y