Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-01-10

UAAo, d11u HldIly PUBIC uCluCy ana
other industrial and commercial COR
porations are encouraging their work.
erS to invest savings in the enterprise
SO that they may have profit as
we'll as a wage interest in it's success.
Recently, at the dedication of a group
of buildings to house the Graduate
School of Business Administration at
Harvard university, Mr.. owen D.
Young, chairman of the board of the
General Electric company said that
he hoped the day may come when
the great business organizations of
the country will truly belong to the
men who are giving their lives and
efforts to them.
Effect of Cooperation
ct may be long time before that
takes place, not because of the sell
fishness and dominance of capital or
the fact that workers lack adequate
resources to margin the capital they
SEEK but because SO many men are
unwilling to assume responsibility and
take risk and prefer a fixed income
without risk to share in possible
profits.
"This is the day of cooperative
group action, where all interested in.
an enterprise are banding together to
advance it, Nearly every line of
business is organized i11s a trade as
sociation and nearly every city has
it's chamber of commerce. The one
form of organization isSto advance the
interests of particular line of bust
ness or trade and the other to ad-
vance the interests of city or town.
And through such association we are
learning more about the hurnanities,
about economic facts and ethical
conduct, and it makes for improved
method and what we are striving
for more certain of accomplishment
80 far as the chamber of, COM
merce is concerned it's town is its
plant and it's field of activity is in
plant. With this in mind it has no
difficulty in arranging it's program. If
it is. for the good of the plant it is a
proper activity to be undertaken
! Development of Home Concerns
''More and more chambers of cirn-
merce are coming to realize that their
growth does not depend SO. much on
their ability to get outsiders to move
in with factories and stores as it
does on developing those already es-
tablished and stimulating others to
make start; that TIL eindustrial and
commercial growth of our cities has
been largely from within and not
from without; that the little fellow
Ga today may be the big fellow Of
tomorrow, and that every man who
Ercspers and expands his enterprises
adds to the wealth and payroll of
the community as surely, and probab-
ly more safely, than the new and
unknown enterprise from outside to
which financial help in some form
may have been extended. What we
need to learn is that organized group
action can accomplish more in COM
munity building if more attention is
paid to developing enterprises through
local men and capital than in trying
to sell our opportunities to outsiders,
Another thing we need to learn is
that the growth of chain S1oces and
mail order houses need not drive the
independent storekeeper out of bust
ness nor alarm him to any degree.
Business research bureaus show that
the average cost of doing business is
about the same in an independent as
in chain store and that the advan-
tage of the chain store is more ap-
parent than real.
How to Help Merchant
MANY merchants are negative
critics of their chambers of COM
merce, claiming that it does nothing
for them What they really mean is
that the chamber should in some way
eliminate the competition of chain
stores, mail order houses, house to
house canvassers and stores in other
communities and insure him the
patronage to which he feels he is
entitled by virtue of his being in
business. Competition cannot be re-
moved by fault finding or appeal to
sentiment, but only by adopting
sound competitive methods, and it is
a province of the chamber, in its
work of business and community
building, to encourage its merchants
to adopt sound methods, such as
knowledge of customers wants, prof
liable stock, turnover, suitable adver-
tising, attractive displays, knowledge
of operating costs, intelligent plan
ming for future, trained sales force,
and service.
"The civic program of commun-
ity should have in mind future as
we'll as present needs. We should
vision our cities, not as they are
today but as they are going to be
years ahead, and as we are going
to try to make them be. If we can
once get into the public concept a
vision of the city we are trying to
achieve there will be a constant in
spirational impulse to reach the goal.
Must Use Business Methods
1--WE cannot override economic
laws nor regulate affairs over which
we have no control, but there are
many matters over which chamber
GAL TWO BROWN HTK-Q
of cimmerce can and should exercise
influence, and these matters, as they
arise, form it's everchanging program
of work. The chamber of commerce
provides the machinery for the as
certaining of facts, for applying in
formation resultfully, for safeguard
ing and advancing business and civic
life. 1t succeeds to the extent that it
is organized and conducted along
business lines.
According to recent statement
&c IF oo17oToo pY.on thnrn