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 ^^^\E UNIVERS-/^ ^lOSANCEl 
 
 S\ cxf^ ^^
 
 THE 
 
 BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 Albert Shaw, Ph. D. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE 
 AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS 
 
 It is the positive and aggressive 
 attitude tov/ard life, the ethics of 
 a<flion, rather than the ethics of 
 negation, that mu£l control the 
 modern business world, and that 
 may make our modem business 
 man the mo^ potent f adlor for good 
 in this, his own, industrial period. 
 
 PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO
 
 Copyright, 1904 
 
 by Paul Elder and Company 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 The Tomoye Pres»
 
 
 THE cultivation of public 
 spirit, in the broad sense, 
 and the determination to 
 be an all-round good and effi- 
 cient citizen and member of the 
 c^ community, will often help a man 
 
 is. amazingly to discern the oppor- 
 
 cc tunities for usefulness that lie in 
 
 ^ the dire<fl line of his business life. 
 
 I— i^M^i^MJBn 
 
 o 
 
 «0 
 
 a: 
 
 S 
 
 O 
 
 (9 
 
 439781
 
 THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE 
 
 DESPITE all that can ^ill be said again^ 
 trade pradlices, agciin^ the business 
 lies that are told, the false weights 
 and measures that are used, the trade frauds to 
 which the public is subjeded, we are nearer a 
 high commercial ^andard than ever before in 
 the world's hi^ory. 
 
 Man's confidence in man is greater than ever 
 before, the commercial loss through fraud and 
 dishone^y is con^antly diminishing and ^and- 
 ards are slowly but surely moving upward. The 
 honeS man's chances for success in business are 
 better than ever before, and the dishone^ man's 
 chances for lading commercial success are less 
 than ever before. To grow rich by failing in 
 business is no longer regarded as an ad of clev- 
 erness. The professional bankrupt finds it more 
 and more difficult to get credit. He soon dis- 
 covers that even his cash will not win for him 
 the attention that his poorer neighbor commands 
 simply by his charader. 
 
 Ivl
 
 THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE 
 
 Education has done splendid service in rais- 
 ing commercizJ ^andards. As a rule, the high- 
 toned business man is enlightened, and, as a rule, 
 the dishoneil, unscrupulous man in business is 
 ignorant. Great aid in the diredion of raising 
 commercial ^andards may be rendered by the 
 further spreading of knowledge and enlighten- 
 ment. There are ^ill meiny misguided men in 
 business who imagine that there can be no suc- 
 cess without false weights and measures, without 
 lies and deceit. It is the duty of every man in 
 business, who loves the work in which he is 
 engaged, to do whatever he can to correcft this 
 mistaken notion, and to arouse the same sense 
 of honor in the circles of commerce that, as a 
 rule, is found in professional life. 
 
 In the decades to come men will take as 
 much pride in being engaged in trade as men 
 always have taken in being members of a liberal 
 profession. 
 
 It seemed to me that a ^ep toward ha^ening 
 [vi]
 
 THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE 
 
 such a day might be taken by inviting the beA 
 thoughts of some of the country's be^ minds on 
 the subjed of " The Morals of Trade." 
 
 What better platform for the expression of 
 such ideas than that furnished by the College of 
 Commerce of the University of California? 
 What better vv^ay to spread such thoughts than 
 by means of their di^ribution in printed form? 
 What better vv^ay to train to higher commercial 
 ^andards the minds, not only of the youths who 
 are seeking a university education and who have 
 in view a business career, but also of the many 
 already engaged in business who have not had 
 the benefit of a college training? 
 
 It seemed to me that such a ^ep might 
 set in motion a commercially educational 
 force which would prove far-reaching in its 
 influence and mo^ helpful in raising business 
 chara<5ter. 
 
 Thoughts such as these prompted the recent 
 eilablishing of the ledtureship on "The Morals 
 [vii]
 
 THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE 
 
 of Trade" in connedion with the College of 
 Commerce of the University of California. 
 
 Let the hope be expressed that this is but the 
 beginning of a movement w^hich may be taken 
 up by abler and w^ealthier men in business and 
 broadened in many w^ays. A growing litera- 
 ture on " The Morals of Trade," representing the 
 be^ thoughts of our be^ minds, is likely to live 
 and to do splendid service in elevating commerce 
 and in raising its standards. 
 
 H. WEINSTOCK. 
 
 Iviii]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 THE purpose of this discourse is to set 
 forth some of the social and public 
 aspeds of trade and commerce in our 
 modem life. We have heard much in these 
 recent times concerning the State in its relation 
 to trade, industry, and the economic concerns of 
 individuals and groups. Rapidly changing con- 
 ditions, how^ever, make it fitting that more should 
 be said from the opposite ^andpoint; — that is to 
 say, regarding the responsibilities of the business 
 community as such toward the State in particu- 
 lar and toward the whole social organism in gen- 
 eral. 
 
 Some of the thoughts to which I should like 
 to give expression might perhaps too readily fall 
 into ab^rad or philosophical terms. They 
 might, on the other hand, only too readily 
 clothe themselves in cant phrases and assume 
 the hortatory tone. I shall try to avoid dialedic 
 or theory on the one hand, and preaching on 
 the other. I take it that what I am to say 
 
 [II
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 is addressed chiefly to young men, and that it 
 ought to serve a pradical objedt. 
 
 In the universities the spirit of idealism domi- 
 nates. The academic point of view is not 
 merely an intelledual one, but it is also ethical 
 and altrui^c. In the business vv^orld, on the 
 other hand, we are told that no success is pos- 
 sible except that which is based upon the motive 
 of money-getting by any means, however ruth- 
 less. We are told that the ^andards of business 
 life are in conflidl irreconcilable with true ideal- 
 ise aims. It is this situation that I wish to ana- 
 lyze and discuss; for it concems the ^udent in a 
 very diredt way. 
 
 Our moralists point out the dangerous preva- 
 lence of those low standards of personal life and 
 conduct summed up in the term "commercial- 
 ism." We are warned by some of our foremo^ 
 teachers and ethical leaders againA commercial- 
 ism in politics and commercialism in society. So 
 bitterly reprobated indeed is the influence of 
 [2]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 commercialism that it might be inferred that 
 commerce itself is at be^ a necessary evil and 
 a thing to be apologized for. But if we are to 
 accept this point of view without careful discrimi- 
 nation, we may well be alarmed; for we live in 
 a world given over as never before to the whirl 
 of induSry and the rush and excitement of the 
 market-place. 
 
 This, of all ages, is the age of the business 
 man. The heroic times when warfare was the 
 chief concern of nations, have long since passed 
 by. So too the ages of faith, — when theology 
 was the mainspring of adlion, when whole peoples 
 went on long crusades, and when building cathe- 
 drals and burning heretics were typical of men's 
 efforts and convidions — have fallen far into the 
 historic background. Further, we would seem 
 in the main to have left behind us that period of 
 which the French Revolution is the mo^ con- 
 spicuous landmark, when the gaining of political 
 liberty for the individual seemed the one supreme 
 [3]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 good, and the objecfl for which nations and com- 
 munities were ready to sacrifice all else. 
 
 Through these and other periods chara(5terized 
 by their own especial aims and ideals, we have 
 come to an age when commercialism is the all- 
 absorbing thing; and we are told by pessimi^s 
 that these dominant conditions are hopelessly in- 
 compatible with academic idealism or with the 
 maintenance of high ethical Aandards, whether 
 for the guidance of the individual himself or for 
 the acceptance and control of the conmiunity. 
 It is precisely this ^te of affairs, then, that I de- 
 sire briefly to consider. And I shall keep in 
 mind those bearings of it that might seem to 
 have some relation to the views and aims of ^- 
 dents who are soon to go out from the sheltered 
 life of the university, — under the necessity, 
 whether they shrink from it or not, of becoming 
 part and parcel of this organism of business and 
 trade that has invaded almost every sphere of 
 modem adivity. 
 
 141
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 I have only recently heard a great and elo- 
 quent teacher of morals, himself an exponent of 
 the highest and finest culture to which we have 
 attained, speak in terms of the utmo^ doubt and 
 anxiety regarding the drift of the times. To his 
 mind, the evils and dangers accompanying the 
 ^upendous developments of our day are such as 
 to set what he called commercialism in diredl 
 antagonism to all that in his mind represented 
 the higher good, which he termed idealism. The 
 impression that he left upon his audience was that 
 the forces of our present-day business life are in- 
 herently opposed to the achievement of the beA 
 results in ^atecraft and in the general life of the 
 community. He could propose no remedy for 
 the evils he deplored except education, and the 
 saving of the old ideals through the remnant of 
 the faithful who had not bowed the knee in the 
 temple of Mammon. But he pointed out no 
 way by which to proted the tender blossoms 
 of academic idealism, when they meet their 
 (51
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 inevitable exposure in due time to the blighting 
 and withering bla^s of the commercialisin that to 
 him seemed so little reconcilable with the good» 
 the true, and the beautiful. 
 
 To all this the pradlical man can only reply, 
 that if, indeed, commercialism itself cannot be 
 made to furnish a soil and an atmosphere in 
 which idealism can grow, bud, blossom, and bear 
 glorious fruit, — then idealism is hopelessly a lo^ 
 cause. If it be not possible to promote things 
 ideally good through these very forces of com- 
 mercial and industrial life, then the outlook is a 
 gloomy one for the social morali^ and the polit- 
 ical puri^. 
 
 It is not a defensive position that I propose to 
 take. I should not think it needful at this time 
 even so much as briefly to refled any of those 
 timorous and painful arguments pro and con that 
 one finds at times running through the columns of 
 the press, particularly of the religious weeklies, 
 on such a que^on as, for example, whether 
 [61
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 nowadays a man can at the same time be a 
 true Chri^an and a successful business man; 
 or whether the observance of the principles of 
 common hone^y is at all compatible with a 
 winning effort to make a decent living. 
 
 I am well aware that the thoughtful and intel- 
 ledual founder of this ledureship, under which I 
 have been invited to speak, takes no such narrow 
 view either of morality on the one hand or of 
 the fundion of business life on the other. His 
 definition of morality in business would demand 
 something very different from the mere avoidance 
 of certain obvious transgressions of the accepted 
 rules of condud, particularly of that command- 
 ment which says : " Thou shalt not ^eal." Nor, 
 on the other hand, would his definition of the 
 functions of business life be in any manner 
 bounded by the notion that business is a pursuit 
 having for its sole objed the getting of the larger 
 possible amount of money. 
 
 Those people who are content to apply 
 [7]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 negative moral ilandards to the carrying on of 
 business life remind one of the little boy's familiar 
 definition of salt: "Salt," said he, "is what makes 
 potatoes ta^e bad when you don't put any on." 
 According to that sort of definition, morality in 
 business would be defined as that quality which 
 makes the grocer good and respedable when he 
 resits temptation and does not put sand in the 
 sugar. The smug maxim that honeily is the beil 
 policy, while doubtless true enough as a verdidl 
 of human experience under normal conditions, 
 is not fitted to arouse much enthusiasm as a ^ate- 
 ment of ultimate ethical aims and ideals. 
 
 If it were admitted that the sole or guiding 
 motive in a business career mu^ needs be the 
 accumulation of money, I should certainly not 
 think it worth while, in the name of trade morals, 
 to urge young men who are to enter business life 
 that they play the game according to safe and 
 well-recognized rules. I would not take the 
 trouble to advise them to ^udy the penal code 
 [8]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 and to familiarize themselves with the legal defini- 
 tions of grand and petit larceny, of embezzle- 
 ment, or fraud, or arson, in order that they might 
 escape certain hazards that beset a too narrow 
 kind of devotion to business success. It is true, 
 doubtless, that a business career affords peculiar 
 opportunities, and is therefore subjedt to its own 
 charaderi^c temptations, as respe<5ls the purely 
 private and personal ^andards of condudl. 
 
 The magnitude of our economic movement, 
 the very splendor of the opportunities that the 
 swift development of a va^ young country like 
 ours affords, mu^ inevitably in some cases upset 
 at once the sober business judgment of men, and 
 in some cases the ^andard of personal honor 
 and good faith, in the temptation to gel rich 
 quickly; so that wrong is done thereby to a 
 man*s associates or to those whose interests are 
 in his hands, while ^11 greater wrong is done to 
 his own chara(fter. 
 
 But, even again^ this dangerous greed for 
 [91
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 wealth and the unscrupulousness and ruthlessness 
 which it engenders, it is no part of my pres- 
 ent objecfl to warn any young man. I take 
 it that the negative ^andards of private condudt 
 are usually not much affedled by a man's choice 
 of a pursuit in life. If any man's honor could 
 be filched from him by a merely pecuniary 
 reward, whether greater or less, I should not 
 think it likely that he would be much safer in the 
 long run if he chose the clerical profession, for 
 example, than if he went into business. 
 
 Sooner or later his characfter would disclose 
 itself. It is not, then, of the private and negative 
 ^andards of conducft that I wish to speak, — 
 except by way of such allusions as these. And 
 even these allusions are only for the sake of mak- 
 ing more di^indt the positive and adlive phases 
 of business ethics that I should like to present in 
 such a way as to fa^en them upon the attention. 
 
 Many young men, to whom these views are 
 addressed, will doubtless choose, or have already 
 [101
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 
 
 chosen, what is commonly known as a profes- 
 sional career. The mini^ry, law, and medicine 
 are the olde^ and be^ recognized of the so-called 
 liberal or learned professions. Now what are 
 the di^indive marks of professional life? Are 
 the men who pradtice these professions not also 
 business men? And if so, how are they differ- 
 ent from those business men who are considered 
 laymen, or non-professional? Obviously the dis- 
 tindions that are to be drawn, if any, are in the 
 nature of marked tendencies. We shall not 
 exped to find any hard and fa^ lines. Many 
 lawyers, some dodors, and a few clergymen are 
 clearly enough business men, in the sense that 
 they attach more importance to the economic 
 bearings of the part they play in the social 
 organism than to the higher ethical or intelledual 
 aspeds of their work. 
 
 I have read and heard many definitions of what 
 resJly con^tutes a professional man. Whatever 
 else, however, may charaderize the nature of 
 
 [11]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 his calling, it seems to me plain that no man 
 can be thought a true or worthy member of a 
 profession who does not admit, both in theory 
 and in the rules and pradices of his life, that he 
 has a public fundion to serve, and that he mu^ 
 frequently be at some discomfort or disadvantage 
 because of the calls of professional duty. The 
 laborer is worthy of his hire; and the profes- 
 sional man is entitled to obtain, if he can, a com- 
 petence for himself and his family from the use- 
 ful and produdlive service he is rendering to his 
 fellow men. He may even, through genius or 
 through the great confidence his characfler and 
 skill inspire, gain considerable wealth in the prac- 
 tice of his profession. But if he is a true pro- 
 fessional man he does not derive his incentive 
 to effort solely or chiefly from the pecuniary 
 gains that his profession brings him. Nor is the 
 amount of his income regarded among the fel- 
 low members of his profession as the true te^ or 
 measure of his success. 
 
 [12]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 11 
 
 Thus the lawyer, in the theory of his profes- 
 sion, bears an important public relation to the 
 dispensing of ju^ce and to the protection of the 
 innocent and the feeble. He is not a private 
 person, but a part of the sy^em for supporting 
 the reign of law and of right in the community. 
 Hi^orically, in this country, the lawyer has also 
 borne a great part in the making and admini^er- 
 ing of our in^tutions of government If, as some 
 of us think, the ethical code of that profession 
 needs to be somewhat revised in view of present- 
 day conditions, and needs also to be more ^emly 
 applied to some of the members of the profes- 
 sion, it is true, none the less, that there clearly 
 belongs to this great calling a series of duties of 
 a public nature, some of them imposed by the 
 laws of the land, and others inherent in the very 
 nature of the occupation itself. 
 
 It is true in an even more marked and unde- 
 niable fashion that the profession of medicine, 
 by virtue of its public and social aspedts, is 
 [131
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 di^nguished in a marked way from a calling in 
 life in which a man might feel that what he did 
 was ^ridly his own business, subjed to nobody's 
 scrutiny, or inquiry, or interference. The physi- 
 cian's public obligation is in part prescribed by 
 the laws of the State which regulate medical 
 pradlice, and in very large part by the profes- 
 sional codes which have been evolved by the 
 profession itself for its own guidance. It is not 
 the amount of his fee that the overworked do<5tor 
 is thinking about when he risks his own health in 
 response to night calls, or when he devotes him- 
 self to some especially painful or difficult case. 
 Nor is it a mere consideration of his possible 
 earnings that would deter him from seeking com- 
 fort and safety by taking his family to Europe at 
 a time when an epidemic had broken out in his 
 own neighborhood. 
 
 I need not allude to the unselfish devotion to 
 the good of the community that in so high a de- 
 gree marks the lives of most of the members 
 [141
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 of the clerical profession, for this is evident 
 to all observant persons. 
 
 On the other hand, it cannot be too clearly 
 perceived that there is nothing in the disinter- 
 e^edness, and in the obligation to render public ser- 
 vice charaderizing professional life that amounts 
 to unnatural self-denial or painful renunciation, — 
 unless in some extreme and individual cases. On 
 the contrary, professional life at its be^ offers a 
 great advantage in so far as it permits a man to 
 think firil of the v^ork he is doing and the social 
 service he is rendering, rather than of pecuniary 
 reward. I have myself on more thaui one occa- 
 sion pointed out to young men the greater pros- 
 pedl for happiness in life that comes with the 
 choice of a calling in which the work itself pri- 
 marily focuses the attention, and in which the 
 pecuniary reward comes as an incident rather 
 than as the conscious and diredt result of a given 
 effort. 
 
 The greatest pleasure in work is that which 
 [151
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 comes from the trained and regulated exercise of 
 the faculty of imagination. In the condudl of 
 every law case this faculty has abundant oppor- 
 tunity, as it also has in the efforts of the physi- 
 cian to aid nature in the re^oration of health and 
 vigor in the individual, or in the sanitary pro- 
 tection of the community. I hope I have made 
 clear this point: that pecuniary success, even in 
 large measure, in the work of a professional man, 
 may be entirely compatible with disintere^ed 
 devotion to a kind of work that makes for the 
 public weal, while it is also worthy of pursuit 
 for its own sake, and brings content and even 
 happiness in the doing. And it is clear enough, 
 in the case of a professional man, that he is false 
 to his profession and to his plain obligations if 
 he shows himself to be ruled by the anti-social 
 spirit; that is to say, if he considers himself ab- 
 solved from any duties towards the community 
 about him; thinks that the practice of his pro- 
 fession is a private affair for his own profit and 
 [16]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 advantage, and holds that he has done his whole 
 duty when he has escaped liability for malpradice 
 or disbarment. 
 
 But the three olde^ and be^ recognized pro- 
 fessions no longer ^nd alone, in the carnation 
 of our higher educational authorities and of the 
 intelligent public. In a democracy like ours, 
 with a con^antly advancing conception of what 
 is involved in education for citizenship and for 
 participation in every individual fundion of the 
 social and economic life, the work of the teacher 
 comes to be recognized as professional in the 
 higher sense. Teaching, indeed, seems de^ed 
 in the near future to become the very foremo^ 
 of all the professions. This recognition vsdll 
 come when the idea takes full possession of the 
 public mind that the chief task of each genera- 
 tion is to train the next one, and to transmit 
 such stores of knowledge and useful experience 
 as it has received from its predecessors or has 
 evolved for itself. 
 
 [17]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 I ^^^s^i^ ^^^^^^ 
 
 It is obvious enough that the work of the 
 teacher gives room for the play of the loftier 
 ideals, and that its fundions are essentially public 
 and disintere^ed. But there are other callings, 
 such as those of the architect and engineer, which 
 have also come to be spoken of as professional 
 in their nature. Their kinship to the older pro- 
 fessions has been more readily recognized by the 
 men of conservative university traditions, because 
 much of the preparation for these callings can 
 advantageously be of an academic sort. Archi- 
 tedure in its hi^orical aspeds is closely asso- 
 ciated with the ^udy of classical periods; while 
 the profession of the engineer relates itself to the 
 immemorial university devotion to mathematics. 
 And in like manner the man who for pradical 
 purposes becomes a chemi^ or an eledrician 
 would be easily admitted by President Eliot, for 
 example, to the favored fellowship of the pro- 
 fessional classes for the reason, fir^, of the dis- 
 ciplinary and liberalizing nature of the ^udies 
 1181
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 »== =1 
 
 that underlie his calling, and, in the second 
 place, of the public and social aspeds of the 
 fundlions he fulfils in the pursuit of his vocation. 
 The architedl, the civil or mechanical or 
 eledlrical engineer, and the chemi^, as well as 
 the professional teacher, the trained librarian, or 
 the journali^ vv^ho carries on his w^ork with due 
 sense of its almo^ unequaled pubKc duties and 
 responsibilities, — all these are now admitted by 
 didla of our foremo^ authorities to a place equal 
 with the law, medicine, and the mini^ry in the 
 lift of the professions; that is to say, in the group 
 of callings which, under my definition, are dis- 
 tinguished especially by their public chara<5ler. 
 And in this group, of course, should be included 
 politicians, legislators, and public adminiftrators 
 in so far as they serve the public intereils 
 reputably and in a professional spirit. Nor 
 should we forget such special classes of public 
 servants as the officers of the army and navy; 
 while nobody will deny public charader and 
 [19]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 professional rank to men of letters, arti^s, musi- 
 cians and adtors. 
 
 In all these callings it is demanded not merely 
 that men shall be subjecft to the private rules of 
 conducfl, — that they muil not cheat, or lie, or 
 ^eal, or bear false witness, or be bad neighbors 
 or undesirable citizens, — but in addition and in 
 the mo^ important sense that they shall be sub- 
 \e&. to positive ethical ^andards that relate to the 
 welfare of the whole community, and that require 
 of them the exercise of a true public spirit. 
 
 The man of public spirit is he who is able at 
 a given moment, under certain conditions, to set 
 the public welfare before his own. Further- 
 more, he is a man who is trained and habitu- 
 ated to that point of view, so that he is not 
 aware of any pangs of martyrdom or even of 
 any exercise of self-denial when he is concern- 
 ing himself about the public good even to his 
 own momentary inconvenience or disadvantage. 
 Public spirit is that ^ate or habit of mind which 
 [20]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 leads a man to care greatly for the general wel- 
 fare. It is this ethical quality that to my mind 
 should be the great aim and objedl of training. 
 
 On its be^ side, what we term the profes- 
 sional spirit is, then, very closely related to this 
 commendable quality in men of a right intel- 
 lectual and moral development that we call pub- 
 lic spirit. The chief difference lies in this: that 
 whereas all professional men may be public- 
 spirited in a general sense, each professional man 
 should, in addition, manife^ a special and tech- 
 nical sort of public spirit that pertains to the 
 nature of his calling. The lawyer should have 
 a particularly keen regard for the equitable ad- 
 mini^ration of ju^ce. The dodor should truly 
 care for the physical wholesomeness and well- 
 being of the community. The clergyman should 
 be alive to those things that concern the reditude 
 and purity of life. The journali^ should be 
 willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the 
 enlightenment of public opinion; and so on. 
 [21]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 Is^-s— --^--------^^^^^^ 
 
 Without either the general or the technical mani- 
 festations of public spirit, in short, the so-called 
 professional man is a reproach to his guild and 
 a failure in his neighborhood. 
 
 Now, what has all this to do with the moral 
 ^andards that belong to the business career as 
 di^inguished from the professional life? My 
 answer mu^ be very clear and very dire<5t if I 
 am to ju^fy so long an analysis of the ethical 
 characterises of the professions themselves. I 
 have merely used the time-honored method of 
 trying to lead you by way of familiar, admitted 
 points of view to certain points of view that, if 
 not wholly new, are at lea^ less familiar and less 
 widely recognized. The whole thesis that I wish 
 to develop is simply this: that however it may 
 have been in business life in times pa^ and gone, 
 there has been such a tremendous change in the 
 organization and methods of the business world 
 and also in the relative importance of the func- 
 tions of the business man in the community, that 
 [22]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 the di^dions which have hitherto set apart the 
 professional classes have become obsolete for all 
 pradical purposes in many branches and depart- 
 ments of the business world. 
 
 At lea^, the work of the responsible leaders 
 is no longer to be regarded as essentially a thing 
 of private concern and free from public responsi- 
 bility. If the business world is not charader- 
 ized, fir^, by public spirit and a sense of public 
 duty in general, and, second, by the special and 
 technical sense of public obligation that pertains 
 to particular kinds or departments of business 
 adivity, then it is falling short of its be^ oppor- 
 tunities and evading its providential tasks. It is 
 for the modem business world to recognize the 
 conditions that have in the fulness of time given 
 it so great a power and so dominant a position; 
 and it mu^ not shirk the responsibilities that be- 
 long to it as fully and truly as they belong to any 
 of the professions. 
 
 I hold, then, that the young man of education 
 1231
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 and opportunity who proposes to go into a busi- 
 ness career enters it not merely with a low and un- 
 worthy ^andard if his sole motive and objedt be to 
 acquire wealth, but he also enters it in disregard 
 of the ideas that fill the minds of the be^ mod- 
 em business leaders. He shows a pitiable lack of 
 appreciation of the elements that are to constitute 
 real business success in the period within which 
 his own career mu^ fall. 
 
 Let us consider, briefly, the evolution of our 
 present-day economic or business life, and then 
 take note of the necessary place that particular 
 classes of business men mu^ hold in the ^rudture 
 of our society. I, for my part, look upon this la^ 
 century of economic progress, — under the sway 
 of what is often called "capitalism" as a term of 
 reproach, — as an immeasurable boon to man- 
 kind. It began with the practical utilization of 
 several great inventions, notably that of ^eam 
 power, which broke up the old household and 
 village indu^ries, gave us the modern fadtory 
 [24]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 syftem, and along with the development of rail- 
 roads gave us the modern indu^rial city. This 
 new^ and revolutionizing sy^em of industry and 
 business forced its way into a world of poverty, 
 of disease, of depraved public life, of low morals 
 in the main pervading the community, — a world 
 for the mo^ part of class diilindlions in which 
 the lot even of the privileged few was not a very 
 noble or enviable one, while the ^ate of the va^ 
 majority was little better than that of serfs. 
 
 Many writers have sought to throw a charm 
 and a glamour over that old condition of eco- 
 nomic life and society that followed the break-up 
 of feudalism and that preceded the creation of 
 our new political and indu^rial institutions. But 
 with some mitigations it was for moft people a 
 period, as I have said, of squalor, disease, and 
 degradation. The fundamental trouble could be 
 summed up in the one word, poverty. The mis- 
 sion of the new indu^rial system, for the mo^ part 
 unconscious and unrecognized, was to transform 
 [25]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 the world by abolishing the reign of poverty. 
 Doubtless it would be desirable if the improve- 
 ment of conditions, material and spiritual, could 
 make progress with exadly even pace on some 
 perfedly symmetrical plan. But hi^ory shows 
 us that the forward social movement has pro- 
 ceeded fir^ in one asped, then in another, on 
 lines so tangential, often so zigzag, that it is difii- 
 cult until one gets di^ance enough for perspedtive, 
 to see that any true progress has been made at all. 
 Thus, the modem industrial system, which 
 found the conditions of poverty, disease, and 
 hardship prevalent, seemed for quite a long time, 
 in its rude breaking up of old relations and its 
 ruthless adherence to certciin newly proclaimed 
 principles, to have brought matters from bad to 
 worse. The squalor and poverty of the village 
 of hand-loom weavers seemed only intensified in 
 the new indu^rial towns to which the weavers 
 flocked from their deserted hamlets. Manu- 
 fadurers were doing business under the fierce^ 
 [26]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 and moit unregulated competition. Economics 
 were demonilrating their "law of supply and 
 demand" and their "iron law of wages** as 
 capable in themselves of regulating all the con- 
 ditions and relations of business life. Epidemics 
 raged and depravity prevailed in the new fadory 
 centers. 
 
 But things were not, in reality, going from bad 
 to worse. The beginnings of a better order had 
 to be based upon two things: fir^ and foremo^, 
 the sheer creation of capital; second, the disci- 
 pline and training of workers. In the fir^ phases, 
 the new modem business period had to be a 
 period of produdion. There had got to be 
 developed the in^rumentalities for the creation 
 of wealth. Until the industrial sy^em had raised 
 up its class of efficient workers and had created 
 its great mass of capital for produdive purposes, 
 there could be no supply of cheap goods; and 
 without an abundant and cheap output there 
 could be no possible diffusion of economic 
 [27]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 [=^— ^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 benefits; in other words, no marked ameliora- 
 tion of the prevailing poverty. 
 
 It required some development of wealth to 
 lift our modern peoples out of a poverty too 
 grinding and too debasing for intellectual or 
 moral progress. It is tme that the fadtory 
 towns, created as they have all been by modem 
 indu^rial conditions during the pait century, 
 brought their di^ncftive evils. There was over- 
 crowding in ill -built tenement houses; and long 
 hours for women and children in the fadlories. 
 Yet with these and many other disadvantages, 
 the new indu^rial sy^em made for discipline and 
 for intelligence, and above all for a new kind of 
 solidarity and for a sense of brotherhood among 
 workers. 
 
 In due time the woril evils began to be miti- 
 gated, largely through the application of those 
 very methods of organization which had char- 
 aderized the new kind of industry itself. Thus 
 for men who had applied ^eam power to 
 [281
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 f^^ggggg — — ^ 
 
 manufadturing and had begun to build railroads, 
 it was soon perceived to be a matter not only of 
 sanitary and social service, but of pecuniary 
 profit, to provide water supplies, public illumina- 
 tion, and other conveniences to the crowded city 
 dwellers. Moreover, with the progress of in- 
 du^ry and the development of railroads and 
 ^eam navigation, produdion and trade took on 
 an ever-increasing volume. 
 
 Then the world began to be less poor. There 
 had been no rich men in the modern sense, and 
 of course no such thing as capitalized corpora- 
 tions for produdion. The richer man in the 
 United States at the time of his death, a little 
 more than a hundred years ago, was George 
 Washington, with his land and his slaves; and 
 so in England and France there were no rich 
 men in the modem sense — that is to say, no 
 men who controlled great masses of productive 
 capital. The men of wealth were those who 
 held landed elates. The chief business of all 
 129]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 countries was agriculture. The capitaliilic sys- 
 tem in indu^iy and trade exited in its rudiments 
 and in limited measure; but all its great achieve- 
 ments were yet to be wrought. 
 
 All modern business life, then, is the result of 
 this growth of produdive capital, and its appli- 
 cation and con^ant reapplication to the pro- 
 duction of wealth. It made its way by virtue of 
 cui intense individual initiative and a fierce com- 
 petitive druggie. But unlovely as were these 
 things, many of their phases were necessary at a 
 certain ^age. It was this fierce competition that 
 compelled capital to pay the loweS possible 
 .wages in order to market cheap goods. But 
 the same situation Emulated the use, one after 
 another, of new labor-saving inventions in order 
 to increase the per capita produdivity. This pro- 
 cess was attended by the higher efficiency of the 
 worker and an increase in his earning capacity. 
 As his position began to improve, the worker 
 gained some hope and cheer; and he and his 
 1301
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 fellows began to organize, with the result that 
 both wages and conditions of labor were Readily 
 improved, and the workman began to attain ap- 
 proximately his share of benefits. 
 
 All this is a familiar ^ory, although the depth 
 of its significance is beyond the compass of any 
 living human intelligence. It is easy to say in a 
 glib sentence that the amount of wealth pro- 
 duced every few years nowadays is equal to all 
 the accumulated wealth of all the centuries dovm 
 to the early part of the nineteenth ; but the social 
 meaning of so great a change baffles all attempt 
 at full comprehension. 
 
 The competitive syitem, which had been es- 
 sential to the launching of this modern period of 
 production, and which had given to it so much 
 of its irresi^ble momentum, at length brought 
 the economic organization to a point of develop- 
 ment where, in some fields of produdion, it 
 was no longer a benefit. The accumulation of 
 capital had become so large, — and with new 
 [31]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 inventions the possible output had become so 
 abundant, that it was well nigh impossible to 
 Iru^ to the blind working of demand and supply 
 to regulate things in a beneficial way. It began 
 to dawn on men*s minds that a successful period 
 of competitive economic life might lead to a 
 period largely dominated by non-competitive and 
 cooperative principles. 
 
 Tlie superior possibilities of this neweft regime, 
 along with its many difficulties and perplexities, 
 began to captivate the minds, not merely of theo- 
 retical ^dents and onlookers, but, even more, of 
 great makers of industry and productive capital. 
 It began to be seen that in place of blind and 
 fierce competition as a regulator of prices and as 
 an equalizer of supply and demand, there might 
 come to be gradually substituted some more con- 
 sciously scientific methods of business admini^ra- 
 tion and of the adjustment of production to the 
 needs of the market. 
 
 Furthermore, with the development of business 
 [321
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 on the great scale, capital had become relatively 
 abundant and cheap, while, on the other hand, 
 labor was becoming relatively expensive and exact- 
 ing. It was evident that the modem sy^em of 
 indu^ry had passed through its earlier period to 
 one of comparative maturity; and that the prob- 
 lem of wealth produdion was no longer so exclu- 
 sively the pressing one, but that the problems of 
 di^ribution were demanding more attention. 
 
 How to organize business life on a basis at 
 once ^able and efficient; how to see that capital 
 was assured of a normal even though a declining 
 percentage of dividends; while labor should be 
 rewarded according to its capacity and desert, — 
 were problems which took on pubUc rather than 
 private aspeds. And when the business world 
 began to face these problems with the conscious- 
 ness that they were to be met, it had virtually 
 passed over from the lower plane of moral and 
 social responsibility to the higher plane where 
 what the direding minds do or decide is not 
 [33]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 measured solely by immediate results in money- 
 getting, but also by the teil of larger social and 
 public utilities. 
 
 Although these conditions are not novel ones, 
 cind are therefore not difficult to grasp even vv^hen 
 ^ated in general terms, it is ^ill true that the 
 concrete often helps to make the point appear 
 more pertinent Take then the railroad busi- 
 ness as it is now shaping itself, in comparison 
 with its conditions and methods twenty or thirty 
 years ago. The railroads have always exited 
 by virtue of charters which gave them a quasi- 
 public character, and have always been theo- 
 retically subjedl to certain old principles of 
 English common law under which the public 
 or common carrier, like the innkeeper, performs 
 a fundion not wholly private in its nature. 
 Nevertheless, in its earlier ^ages the railroad 
 sy^em of this country was in large part con- 
 ^ru(5led and operated by its projecflors with 
 no sense whatever of responsibility for their 
 [341
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 performance of public fundions, but with the 
 idea that they were carrying on their own private 
 business in which interference on the part of the 
 public was to be avoided and resented. They 
 fought the railroad codes of State legislatures in 
 the federal courts ; they made oppressive rates to 
 give value to new issues of watered ^ock; they 
 discriminated in favor of one city and again^ 
 another; by a syilem of secret rebates they 
 made different terms with every shipper, thus 
 enabling one merchant or manufacflurer to de- 
 ^roy his competitor; and they pursued in gen- 
 eral a career at lea^ anti-social in its spirit and 
 false and short-sighted in its principles. 
 
 A profound change — would that it were 
 already complete ! — is coming about in this great 
 field of transportation business. It is perceived 
 that many of the evils to which I have alluded 
 were incident to the speculative periods of con- 
 ^rudion and development in a new country. 
 The better leaders in the business of railway 
 [351
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 I— ^^^^■^— "i^^^^^i^^^gl 
 
 admini^ration now see clearly that it is the duty 
 of the railroads to work with and for the public 
 and not again^ it. The railroads are gradually 
 passing out of the hands of the ^ockjobbers and 
 speculators, into the control of trained adminis- 
 trators. It is to be remembered that in a coun- 
 try like ours, the larger single branch of organ- 
 ized admini^ration is that of the railroads. We 
 have reached a point where their relations to all 
 the elaborate intere^s of the community are such 
 that their public character becomes more and 
 more pronounced and evident. It was only the 
 other day that a brilliant railway admini^rator, 
 Mr. Charles S. Mellen, recently president of the 
 Northern Pacific, and now president of the New 
 York, New Haven & Hartford sy^em, made 
 some ^atements in an address to the business 
 men of Hartford at a Board of Trade meeting. 
 With much else of the same import, he made 
 the following significant remarks: 
 
 "If corporations are to continue to do their 
 [36]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 work as they are be^ fitted to, those qualities in 
 their representatives that have resulted in the 
 present prejudice againil them mu^ be relegated 
 to the background. 
 
 "They mu^ come out into the open and see 
 and be seen. They muft take the public into 
 their confidence and ask for w^hat they w^ant and 
 no more, and then be prepared to explain satis- 
 fadorily vv^hat advantage will accrue to the pub- 
 lic if they are given their desires, for they are 
 permitted to exift not that they may make money 
 solely, but that they may effedlively serve those 
 from whom they derive their power. Publicity 
 should rule now. Publicity, and not secrecy, 
 will win hereafter, and laws will be con^rued 
 by their intent and not killed by their letter; 
 otherwise public utiKties will be owned and 
 operated by the public which created them, even 
 though the service be less efficient and the result 
 less satisfactory from a financial ^andpoint." 
 
 Mr. Mellen's ilate of mind is that which 
 [37] 
 
 439781
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 l--^s— --^^-------^^^^^^ 
 
 ought to prevail among all the managers of cor- 
 porations which enjoy public franchises and per- 
 form fundions fundamental to the welfare of the 
 community. There will at times be prejudice 
 and passion on the part of the public, and unfair 
 demands will be made. We shall not see the 
 attainment of ideal conditions in the management 
 or the public relations of any great business cor- 
 porations in our day. But the time has come 
 when any intelligent and capable young man who 
 chooses to enter the service of a railroad or of 
 some other great corporation may rightly feel that 
 he becomes part of a sy^em whose operation is 
 vital to the public welfare. He may further feel 
 that there is room in such a calling for all his 
 intelligence and for the exercise and growth of 
 all the be^ sentiments of his moral nature. 
 
 In the va^ mechanism of modern business the 
 
 con^rudive imagination may find its full play; 
 
 and the desire to be of service to one's fellow 
 
 men in a spirit reasonably disinterested may find 
 
 [38]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 opportunity to satisfy itself every day. Under 
 these circum^ances there is no reason why rail- 
 way admini^ration should not take on the same 
 ethical ^andards as belong rightly to governmental 
 admini^ration, to educational admini^ration, or 
 to the be^ professional life. 
 
 The same thing is clearly true when one con- 
 siders nowadays the delicate and important func- 
 tions of the world of banking and finance. The 
 old-fashioned money-changer and the usurer of 
 earlier periods were regarded as the very antith- 
 esis of men engaged in honorable mercantile 
 life, and especially of those who possess a social 
 spirit and the desire to be useful members of the 
 community. But in these days the banks are 
 not merely private money-making in^tutions, but 
 have public fundions that admittedly affedl the 
 whole social organism, from the government itself 
 down to the humbleil laborer. They mu^ con- 
 cern themselves about the soundness and the suffi- 
 ciency of the monetary circulation; they muil 
 [39]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 protecft the credit and fo^er the welfare of hon- 
 e^ merchants and manufadurers ; they mu^ co- 
 operate in critical times to help one another, and 
 thus to su^ain the public and private credit and 
 avert commercial disa^er ; they mu^ at all haz- 
 ards protedt the savings of the poor. Thus the 
 banks, Hke the railroads and many other corpo- 
 rate enterprises, are quasi-public affairs, in the 
 condudl of which the public obligation grows 
 ever clearer and ilronger. 
 
 We are not at heart — in this splendid coun- 
 try of ours — engaged in a mad druggie and race 
 for wealth. We are engaged rather in the greater 
 effort ever made in the world for the upbuilding 
 of a higher civilization. To avow that this civ- 
 ilization mu^ re^ upon a physical and material 
 basis, — that is to say, upon a high development 
 of our produdive capacity and upon a con^ant 
 improvement in our processes of di^ribution and 
 exchange, — is not, on the other hand, to confess 
 that our civilization is materiali^ic in its nature 
 140]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 or in its aims. I was very glad, the other day, 
 to read the wholesome and underSanding words 
 of a di^nguished Bo^on clergyman who is ju^ 
 now coming to New York to take charge of an 
 important parish. He declared that this nation 
 was founded on an ideal, and that the mo^ 
 powerful influences in its life today are working 
 toward noble ideals. The moral and spiritual 
 tone of the country, he asserted, is higher than 
 ever, in spite of the accidents of wealth and 
 poverty. He declared that the great ho^ of 
 men and women who cherish our ideals will 
 continue to ^amp idealism upon the minds and 
 hearts of our youth, and that they in turn "will 
 convert wealth to the service of ideals." 
 
 Such views are not merely the expressions of 
 a comfortable optimi^. They are true to the 
 fads of our current progress. There are vail 
 portions of this country today in which the en- 
 terprising business man who can succeed in 
 selling to the farmers an hone^ and effedive 
 [411
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 I ^ 
 
 commercial fertilizer is the be^ possible mission- 
 ary of idealism, — is, in fad, a veritable angel 
 for the spread of sweetness and light. There 
 are regions where the capitali^ or the company 
 that will build a cotton mill or some other kind 
 of fadory is rescuing whole communities from 
 degradation. It is poverty that has kept the 
 South so backward, and it is poverty alone that 
 explains the illiteracy and the lawlessness not 
 merely of the Kentucky mountains, but of great 
 areas in other States as well. Good schools can- 
 not be supported in regions like those, for the 
 palpable reason that the taxable wealth of an 
 entire school di^rid cannot yield enough to pay 
 the salary of a teacher. But when modern 
 business invades those uplands, utilizes the water- 
 power now wa^ed, opens the mines, builds cot- 
 ton fadlories or foundries, the situation changes 
 almo^ as if by magic. 
 
 There will, indeed, ensue a brief period of 
 di^urbance due to changed social conditions, — 
 [421
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 to women and children in fadories, and other 
 things of incidental or serious disadvantage. But, 
 as again^ a survival of the sort of life that 
 was widely prevalent a century or two ago, 
 all the phenomena of our modem indu^rial life 
 make their appearance, in full development. 
 The one -room cabin gives place to the little 
 house of several rooms. There is rapid diffusion 
 of those minor comforts and agencies which 
 make for self-respedt and personal and family 
 advancement. Hie advent of capital, that is to 
 say, of taxable property, is speedily followed by 
 the good schoolhouse and the good teacher. 
 
 It is in^rudive to note the transformation that 
 is thus taking place in one county after another 
 of the Carolinas, or Georgia, or others of the 
 Southern States, because the conditions make it 
 possible to witness within a single decade the 
 triumph of those business forces which, while 
 they have even more truly and completely trans- 
 formed the prosperous parts of America and 
 [431
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 I BB^gi^^^ 
 
 Europe, have operated more gradually through 
 longer periods, and therefore in a less easily 
 perceived and dramatic fashion. 
 
 Our modern ideals have required, not the 
 refinement and the culture of the seled few, but 
 the uplifting and progress of the multitude. This 
 could only be possible through a general devel- 
 opment of wealth, so va^ in comparison with 
 what had previously exited as to con^itute the 
 mo^ highly revolutionary fad in the hi^ory of 
 human civilization and progress. The man, 
 therefore, who has a clear perception of those 
 laws of mind and of society under which mod- 
 ern economic forces have been set at work, can- 
 not for a moment think that the end and outcome 
 of this modern business sy^em is a new kind of 
 human bondage, "the rich growing richer and 
 the poor growing poorer"; or that it can mean 
 any such thing as the elevation of property at 
 the expense of manhood. 
 
 Even if it were a part of my subjecSt to 
 [44]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 discuss the growth of va^ individual fortunes as 
 an incident of this modern development of wealth, 
 which it is not, there would be no time for more 
 than a passing allusion. And in making such an 
 allusion, I might be content to call attention to 
 my earlier didlum, that progress is not upon 
 diredl lines, but tangential or zigzag. When the 
 fadlory appears on the Piedmont slopes of the 
 Appalachian country, it may indeed make a 
 fortune for the missionary of civilization who 
 planted it there. But meanwhile it has given 
 the whole neighborhood its fir^ chance to relate 
 itself to the civilized world. I am content for 
 the present to leave that neighborhood in posses- 
 sion of its opportunities, serenely confident that 
 it will in due time work out its own completer 
 de^iny. 
 
 When the capitali^ has retired from the scene 
 
 of his exploitation, will the day arrive when the 
 
 regenerated neighborhood will own that fadlory, 
 
 and others, too, for itself? Very likely. In any 
 
 [45]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 n^^^^=»— =1 
 
 case, the neighborhood has been emancipated 
 from its wor^ disadvantages. 
 
 In short, I have little doubt but that the further 
 progress of our civilization w^ill give effed to cer- 
 tain economic law^s and tendencies, and to certain 
 social rules and principles, that will make for a 
 higher measure of equality in the di^ribution of 
 realized w^ealth. Meanwhile wherever a practical 
 ^ep can be taken to remedy an evil, let us do 
 what we can to promote that ^ep. Let us recog- 
 nize the already great possibilities for useful par- 
 ticipation in the social and public life that belong 
 to an honorable business career. 
 
 From the ^andpoint of the intelledlual intere^ 
 of the young man going into business, let it be 
 borne in mind that there are scientific principles 
 underlying every branch of trade or commerce 
 or indu^ry, and that there is almo^, if not quite, 
 as much room for the delightful play of the 
 faculty of imagination in the successful condud 
 of a soap business as in writing poetry or in 
 1461
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 making ^atuary groups for world's fairs. The 
 cultivation of public spirit in the broad sense, 
 and the determination to be an all-round good 
 and efficient citizen and member of the commu- 
 nity, will often help a man amcizingly to discem 
 the opportunities for usefulness that lie in the 
 dire(5t line of his business work. The more 
 thoroughly he ^udies underlying principles — 
 whether of a technical sort as related to his own 
 trade, or of a general sort having to do with the 
 organization and general methods of commerce — 
 the less likely he will be to take narrow and anti- 
 social views of business life. The high develop- 
 ment of his intelligence in relation to his own 
 work will show him the value in his business — 
 as in all else in life — of the ^andard thing, the 
 genuine thing, the thing that will bear the te^ as 
 contra^ed with the shoddy, or the inferior, or 
 the spurious. 
 
 Our technological schools, our colleges of me- 
 chanic arts, our in^tutes of agriculture and their 
 147]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 related experiment Nations, — these are all teach- 
 ing us many valuable objed-lessons regarding 
 the way in which the wealth of the individual 
 and that of the community can both, at the same 
 time, be advanced by scientific methods. Thus 
 it is coming about that business life is ever more 
 ready to welcome the moil highly trained kinds 
 of intelligence, inasmuch as it is perceived that 
 specialized knowledge is henceforth to be the 
 mo^ valuable commodity that a man can possess. 
 1 have already said that the delicate problems 
 of di^ribution mu^ be faced ever more frankly 
 and liberally by the modern business world. 
 Thus, those who control capital, or admini^er 
 capitalized enterprises, cannot afford any longer 
 to be without a knowledge of the hi^ory and 
 significance of the labor movement. We should 
 not have had the desperate druggie between an- 
 thracite coal corporations and the miners in Penn- 
 sylvania, a year or so ago, if there had been a 
 full understanding on the part of the capitali^s 
 [48]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 of the honorable and valuable nature of trade 
 agreements, and particularly of the hi^ory of the 
 relations of capital and labor in the bituminous 
 coal distrids of the United States. I am speak- 
 ing now from the ^andpoint of the business man. 
 There is much to be said, doubtless, in resped 
 to the shortcomings and the sometimes fatuous 
 and even suicidal methods of the labor organiza- 
 tions. But for the modern business man w^ho 
 cares to take his place influentially in commerce, 
 in social life, and as a man among men in his 
 city or his commonwealth, it is no longer ju^ifi- 
 able to be unfamiliar with the labor que^on in 
 its economics and its hi^ory. 
 
 Herein lies one great service that the univer- 
 sity can perform (and our be^ colleges and uni- 
 versities are today performing it wdth marked 
 intelligence and ability), the service, namely, of 
 providing very liberal courses for young men who 
 expedl to go into business, in the general science 
 of economics, in the hi^ory of modem economic 
 [49]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 progress, in the development of the wage sy^em, 
 in the hi^ory and methods of organized labor, 
 and in very much else that helps to place the life 
 of a pradical man of business affairs upon a 
 broad and liberal basis. In the early days of 
 our hiilory it was the especial fundion of the 
 college to train young men for the mini^ry. In 
 a somewhat later period it was notably true of 
 in^itutions like Yale and Princeton that their 
 training seemed to fit many men for the law and 
 for ^atecraft. We had, you see, passed from 
 that theocratic phase of colonial New England 
 life to the political con^rudlive period of our 
 young republic. 
 
 But we have been passing on until we have 
 emerged in a great and transcendent period of 
 commercial expansion and scientific discovery 
 and application. It is a hopeful sign, therefore, 
 that our universities are finding out and admitting 
 the demand that present-day conditions impose, 
 and are training many men in the pursuit of 
 [50]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 modern science, while they are training many 
 others in the underilanding of the application of 
 social and economic principles to modern life. 
 All this they are doing and can well do without 
 ignoring the value of the older forms of scholar- 
 ship and culture. 
 
 But I have a few remarks to make also upon 
 the ethical relations of the business world of 
 today toward the political world ; that is to say, 
 toward organized government, whether in its 
 sovereign or in its subordinate forms. We can- 
 not take too high a ground in proclaiming the 
 value, for the present, at lea^, of the political 
 organization of society. I should like to dwell 
 upon this point, but I mu^ merely ^ate it. If 
 the State: /. e., the political form of social or- 
 ganization, is valuable, — it ilands to reason that 
 it mu^ be respeded and maintained at its be^. 
 It is also obvious that it will have a higher or a 
 lower charader and efficiency, according to the 
 attitude toward it taken by one or another of 
 151]
 
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 the dominant fadors that make up the complex 
 body politic. 
 
 Thus, for example, it is the feeling of men in 
 control of the political organization in France 
 today that the Church, as a great fadtor in the 
 social ^rudture of the nation, is essentially ho^ile 
 to the spirit and purposes of a liberal republic. 
 Hence a great di^urbance of various relation- 
 ships. I do not cite that in^ance to express 
 even the shade of an opinion. My point is that 
 if the political organization of society is desirable 
 and to be maintained, it is a fortunate thing when 
 one finds the dominant forces of society render- 
 ing loyal and faithful support to the laws and in- 
 ^itutions of government and recognizing without 
 reserve the sovereignty of the State. Yet in our 
 own country there is a widespread feeling that 
 many of the mo^ potent forces and agencies in 
 our business life are not wholly patriotic, in that 
 they are not willing in pradice to recognize the 
 necessity of the domination of government and 
 [52]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 [B^ggg»— — — — i— ^^^^^»l 
 
 of law. I do not believe that this is perma- 
 nently and generally true. It would con^itute a 
 great danger if it were a fixed or a growing 
 tendency. 
 
 As matters ^and, however, every one mu^ 
 admit that there is an element of danger that lies 
 in the very fad that as a nation we are in a con- 
 dition of peace, content, and prosperity, and do 
 not find our political in^itutions irksome. The 
 danger consi^s in this: that under such circum- 
 ^ances the rewards of business and professional 
 life are for the mo^ part so much more certain 
 and satisfactory than those which come from the 
 precarious pursuit of politics, that public intere^s 
 have a tendency to suffer from being in weak 
 hands, while private intere^s have a tendency to 
 assert themselves unduly, from being in the hands 
 of men of superior force. Thus it happens that 
 it is often difficult for the State to maintain that 
 dignity, that ma^ery, that high position, as the 
 impartial arbiter and dispenser of juftice, which 
 [53]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 it is now even more necessary than ever that it 
 should maintain, in order that the vv^hole social 
 organization should keep a true harmony and a 
 safe balance. 
 
 At present, the State is largely concerned 
 with the maintenance of conditions under which 
 the economic and business life may operate 
 equally and prosperously. The State in one 
 sense is the ma^er of the people. In another 
 sense it is merely their creature and their agent 
 for such purposes as they choose to assign it. 
 Is the State, then, to absorb the indu^rial func- 
 tions, and are we to develop into a sociali^ic 
 commonwealth? Or, shall the political democ- 
 racy and the cooperative organization of business 
 life go on side by side, related at many points 
 but in the main di^indl from each other ? What- 
 ever the relation of the State to indu^ry may be 
 defined to become in the di^ant future, we may 
 be sure that there will be no rash upheavals, 
 no harmful sociali^ic experiments, if the potent 
 [54]
 
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 business world clearly sees how necessary to its 
 own salvation it is that the State shall be main- 
 tained upon a high plane of dignity and honor, and 
 that the official dispensation of ju^ice, as well 
 as the official admini^ration of the laws, shall be 
 prompt, ju^ and impartial. 
 
 There is no higher duty, therefore, incumbent 
 upon the business man of today than to bear his 
 part in promoting and maintaining the purity of 
 political life. The modern business man should 
 regard good government as one of the vital con- 
 ditions of the be^ economic progress. Yet 
 scores of in^ances are at hand that show to 
 what a painful extent certain business intere^s 
 again and again, for purposes of immediate ad- 
 vantage, — to secure a franchise, to escape a tax, 
 or to procure some improper favor or advantage 
 at the hands of those in political authority, — 
 have employed corrupt methods and thus Gained 
 the fair escutcheon of American business honor, 
 while breaking down the one mo^ indispensable 
 [551
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 condition of general business progress, — namely, 
 hone^ and efficient free government. 
 
 I will not dwell upon these things. It is 
 enough to say that they are things the modern 
 business man mu^ have upon his conscience. 
 For, if such offenses come by way of the busi- 
 ness world, their remedies muil also come, and 
 indeed can only come, by that same path. In 
 our municipal life, for example, it is the aroused 
 intere^ and zeal of the be^ business community 
 for better government and better conditions that 
 can alone produce important results. Happily, 
 all over the country we find chambers of com- 
 merce, boards of trade, merchants' associations, 
 and other bodies of men of practical business 
 affairs, taking their ^and for the transadion of 
 public business upon high ^andards of character 
 and efficiency. I have no doubt or fears as to 
 what the result will be. All of our large cities 
 are themselves purely the creations of modern in- 
 du^rial, commercial, and transportation conditions. 
 1561
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 I "I 
 
 And I hold that these very forces of indu^rial 
 and commercial life that have created the prob- 
 lems by bringing together great masses of people 
 in crowded communities, mu^ and can in turn 
 solve the problems by the application to muni- 
 cipal government of the scientific and intelligent 
 principles which belong to the be^ phases of 
 business life. 
 
 All of this relates to my subjedl; but I mu^ 
 pass it by with a mere ^atement or two. It be- 
 longs to the developed con^rudtive imagination 
 and to the trained ethical sense of the modern 
 business man to perfed the transit syilems, to 
 improve the housing conditions, to assure cheap 
 sanitary water supplies, cheap illumination, and, 
 above all, due provision for universal education, 
 parks, museums, and opportunities for recrea- 
 tion, — in short, all possible improvements of en- 
 vironment that can make life in our cities not 
 merely endurable but beneficial for the people. 
 Here, then, is furnished a great field for the 
 [57]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 Q 
 
 definite and conscious aspirations of the success- 
 ful man of business. Here lies a great many- 
 sided work for social and moral as well as 
 physical and material progress which the business 
 man, in the quality of good citizen and man of 
 public spirit, is fitted better than any one else to 
 accomplish. 
 
 The intelligent young man who holds before 
 himself ideals of usefulness that extend to such 
 projedts as these, may be sure that the modern 
 conditions of life will bring him great opportuni- 
 ties, and he may feel that he is thus lifting his 
 business career up to the plane of idealism that 
 has, in the pail, been reserved for a few exclusive 
 professions. Partly through his own endeav- 
 ors, — largely through association in commercial 
 or other organizations with his neighbors, — he 
 may help to accomplish for the benefit of all his 
 fellow men of a great community one ^ep after 
 another in the diredion of public works that will 
 meet the needs of a high civilization. 
 158]
 
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 Some of the mo^ useful men, as well as the 
 mo^ unselfish and devoted, with whom I come 
 in contadl are successful business men of large 
 affairs. They are mode^ and unassuming; 
 simple and diredl in their methods; wide as 
 the world in their sympathies; lofty as the ilars 
 in their aspirations for human progress ; sagacious 
 beyond other classes of men, and respedled to 
 the point of veneration by those who know them 
 well, because they are men of deeds rather than 
 of words, who make good their professions from 
 day to day. Business has not so narrowed them, 
 nor has devotion to philanthropic ends or public 
 reforms so di^orted their mental visions, that 
 they are not able to enjoy what is good in life, 
 whether books, music, pictures, the companion- 
 ship of friends, or the re^ful contadl with nature 
 in field or fore^. 
 
 The lives of such men are dominated by 
 certain fixed ethical ^andards. Given such 
 moral landmarks, the remarkable conditions and 
 [59]
 
 THE BUSINESS CAREER 
 
 unequaled opportunities of modern business life 
 will promote the frequent development of men of 
 this kind, with their breadth of view and ^rength 
 of mind and charader. It is the positive and 
 aggressive attitude toward life, the ethics of adion, 
 rather than the ethics of negation, that mu^ 
 control the modern business world, and that may 
 make our modern business man the mo^ potent 
 fador for good in this, his own, indu^rial period. 
 
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