CHAPTER XIII THE PROMOTIVE POSSIBILITIES OF GROUP ACTIVITY

A little of each of the best of us

Must be voluntarily dedicated to all of us.

An earlier statement contended, and it seems the contention should be clear, that all the elements for the better solution of the problem of “Impoverishment” are available. We live in a friendly climate. Our soil is fertile and productive, at least we admit it when we engage in the puerile practices of crop restriction. Our factories are adequate, or if they are not, there is no lack of brick and mortar and steel to make more of them. We confess to no shortage of natural resources. We stagger under a load of unemployment which suggests no lack of a labor supply. We have millions of people who do not possess actual necessities and millions more who possess a profound desire for more of the comforts and luxuries of life, indicating no absence of a market. No country in the world has, or ever has had, an approach to our transportation and communication facilities and there are no material impediments to our having still more.

The mere existence of these facilities, of themselves, cannot solve the problem. Other countries have had, and do have, nearly as great a basic, natural advantage and yet their people are far more impoverished. The essential difference exists in the degree of human intelligence and ingenuity that can put these natural basic blessings together and make them work. A dunce could be given the separate pieces of a highly developed airplane motor but their value to him would be only so much junk metal. An intelligent mechanic could fit the pieces into a beautifully functioning mechanism, the value of which would be several thousand times the junk of the dunce.

The purpose of this chapter will be to explore the possibilities of developing intelligent action and behavior through the instruments of voluntary groups: chambers of commerce, trade associations and labor organizations. That many of these groups have been woefully inferior to their potential achievements in no measure closes the door to their future possibilities. If there are in them some inherent qualities, yet undeveloped, it behooves us to determine what they are and to see if these qualities will not fit the pattern of some of our pressing economic necessities.

Our Problem Requires a Certain Type of Leadership

One would have to be a fairy-tale victim even to hope that an uncoordinated mass of humanity could evolve an intelligent technique in correlating the confusing factors necessary to a perfected society and economy. That idea passes consideration. That anything beyond a mess of organized confusion could possibly flow from political management needs only the abundant evidence of our own experiences and of all history, for that matter, to support it. It is when politics enters this field that politics becomes what it ought not to become.

Representative government, a high order of which would be a good government, presupposes a wealth of voluntary leadership. This quality of leadership is as much an essential ingredient of our system as the institutional tenets upon which the system itself is based. But voluntary leadership does not arise from and ride on the wind. It requires a stimulus to birth and a vehicle to assert itself. On occasion, it is stimulated to birth by and rides on the vehicle of politics. That type has been dismissed for the purposes we here seek. Leadership is born in and rides on such institutions as churches, schools, corporations, private businesses, social welfare leagues, the military and a host of others.

The type of leadership we require in dealing with the problem of “Impoverishment,” or to state the problem positively, “More goods and more services for more people,” must be essentially economic in its purpose. Although it very likely will be drawn from professional, educational, religious and other groupings, as well as from business, it must be funneled through a vehicle that will give it an economic objectivity—through a vehicle that will emphasize the economic direction, to the substantial exclusion of the specialized interests which compose it. A vehicle must be found that will permit and encourage a general disinterest in matters extraneous to the economic purpose; that is, while this leadership is functioning through this vehicle and in the interest of this purpose.

In looking over the several vehicles, in which leadership is reared and given effect, there are none lending themselves so well to this purpose as chambers of commerce for geographical representation, trade associations for industrial representation, labor organizations for labor and farm federations for agriculture. If the behavior of many of these associations in the past deny the possibility of a better performance in the future, we are left in a discouraging position. There are no other existing groups so naturally equipped for the job.[1] New organizations, even if properly geared to present necessities, are most difficult to get under way.

The overhauling process, on a rather wide front, or a completely new construction, is the only hope of improvement. If the former, a new viewpoint must be supplied, the broader motive made clear. An argument, singularly compelling in its appeal to a new kind of enlightened self-interest, must find an ever-widening sponsorship. An ethic, moulding in the brains of a few idealists, must be brought into the open and given the life of practicability. Dormant leadership, everywhere in evidence, must assert itself and, if you please, do the overhauling of these very vehicles through which it must later function. The possibilities are here if we but have the vision to see them and the courage and ambition to affect them. The alternate road is so obviously Statism with its attendant bureaucracy, red-tape, political bungling, loss of freedom and a static, if not a retrogressive, economy, that the proposition fails to make argument. We will voluntarily do a constructive job of learning what ought to be done and then do it, or face the alternative of being coerced into mis-direction and assured disaster. These are the two real routes between which “America Must Choose.”

A Leaderless Economy Is an Under-developed Economy

One of our foremost statesmen made a remark recently something to this effect: “It is the responsibility of business to pass on to the worker and the consumer a substantial part of those benefits accruing from the machine and other scientific advance.” No truer statement was ever made. But of what practical consequence is it if business merely has that responsibility? What if “business” doesn’t know how? Go out and talk to “business” by the thousands: the corner delicatessen man, the haberdasher, the druggist, the grocer, the small manufacturer, the big manufacturer, the banker, the wholesaler, the bus line owner, the pickle packer, any and all of “business.” Ask the question, “How can more people have more goods and services?” Except in isolated instances, the answers will compare favorably with “Buy in Fizzleville,” “Run the Chains out of business,” “Spend ’til it hurts,” “Pass a law guaranteeing everyone a profit,” and “That’s Washington’s worry.”

The above is an example of democracy “in the raw”—democracy blundering along on one cylinder—democracy without that absolute essential: a dynamic, compelling and educational voluntary leadership. Not that there is a lack of thought, even excellent thought—there is plenty of thinking. But it is specialized thinking, thinking about me and my business, my specialty—right now! Not much given to the long pull.

Each of us to our own specialties—yes. But a highly specialized economy demands there be not only some highly specialized thinking about the correlations of all our specialties, but that there also be a fairly broad understanding of what the thinking is all about. It is in this field that we are distressingly weak. The old adage, “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business” has come to plague us in a very realistic manner. If there is any one characteristic among us that is nearly unanimously applicable it is, “let someone else do this type of thinking—it isn’t any of my concern.”

And what a pretty kettle of fish this attitude is serving up to us! Like a pack of hungry wolves, the political collectivists have stood avidly by, lapping to their coercive selves every drop of the voluntary function that we, either carelessly or lazily or incompetently, have allowed to slip from our fingers. With this passing of function from the voluntary to the coercive goes the key to the control and direction of our entire economic system. And it follows, as does day the night, that the control passes from men whose success must be predicated on business acumen to men whose success depends on political sagacity. “America Must Choose.”

A Realistic Look At Group Activity’s Past

Chambers of commerce, trade associations, labor organizations and farm federations were originally organized, for the most part, to promote the interests of communities, of types of industries, of laboring men and of farmers. And never think for a minute that a lot of them have not succeeded in acquiring, in a very substantial way, those objectives they sought in the beginning. Perhaps many of those objectives were not in the public interest. Perhaps they were not in the long-range interest, even the immediate interest, of the sponsoring groups themselves. But the point is, these groups have an unmistakable record of accomplishment.

These groups are instruments of power. They make articulate and give a direction to a variety of individual ideas and gradations of opinion which otherwise would amount to little more than a babble of ineffectualities. Because of this influence, these voluntary groups are in a position to do a measurable good if their direction is correct—they can be equally harmful if their direction is wrong. Thus, because of the sizable fraction of the citizenry for which they speak and because of the consequent influence which they wield, their standards, their moral concepts, their system of ethics, their social principles and, above all, their economic policies become matters of paramount importance.

That these organizations have been so glaringly ineffective in dealing constructively with the overall, broad problems, and the record of events furnishes us all the undeniable evidence necessary, has been partly because of a lack of consciousness of their relation to those problems rather than a lack of potential ability to so perform. They need nothing but the will to set themselves to the task.

Not that Chambers of Commerce haven’t gone beyond their local boundaries with their influence, that trade associations haven’t gone out of their markets, and that labor and agriculture aren’t familiar with Washington, D. C. On the contrary, they have tried their wings—plenty. But, on the whole, they have employed an ethic, they have pursued a course, quite the opposite of the one here suggested. To an extent, economically unpardonable, almost unexplainable in the light of present necessities, they have entered the broader field not as the Sir Galahads of obviously right principles, but rather as organized exaggerations of the specialized interests they represent.

To detail the cleverly planned raids on local, state and federal treasuries, to recapitulate the unsound subsidy legislation written on the statute books, to recount the complete sacrifices of principles earlier espoused in swap for some unworthy project, in short, to enumerate the economic sins committed by all these groups, farmers, laborers, veterans, business men and others alike would be to confess a condition of decay to which we are as yet unwilling to admit. A lot of these fall little short of racketeering, dignified by a “nest-feathering” legality and excused on the grounds of economic ignorance. In the commission of these sins, to what extent is suggested the use of the political means?

Not all of these groups have such an inefficacious behavior to their credit. There are some remarkable examples of just the opposite type. It is because of the record of the latter that we are certain a right course is not only possible but as practicable as it is desirable. From the experiences of these better groups will be based our deductions, our opinions, our arguments, our warnings and our recommendations. A constructive and economically sound course has failed to result from the group activity movement not because of any lack of potential ability to chart and sail such a course, but because the groups rigged and equipped to do so have been and still are in a striking minority. It must be obvious, then, that no success can be expected from these sources until the present minority becomes a future majority.

Quite often the best way to make constructive suggestions is to criticize present practices and to demonstrate existing weaknesses. If you turned your car over to a mechanic to repair the ignition system and you caught him puncturing your tires, it would be constructive to suggest he quit puncturing the tires. If, at the same time, he possessed a peculiar knack for fixing ignition systems, it would seem to be constructive to point out where he should be directing his attentions. Many of these groups have been puncturing the tires of our economic machine while possessing at the same time a peculiar adaptability for perfecting that machine.

It is not here necessary to detail the tire puncturing. Such practices are self-evident to those who have engaged in them, and they are the principal ones whom the indictments concern. But it does appear necessary to detail some of the underlying reasons that have resulted in these groups not performing the broader duties for which they are so well adapted and to which present necessities beckon so compellingly. Let us treat with the business organization.

The Local Business Function Broadens to a National Sphere

A decade or so ago business decisions concerning any particular business were usually made exclusively by the executives of that business. If the problem had a general relation to all in a given line of business, the decision was made by the trade association. Similarly, problems of a community character were usually decided within the boundary lines of a given community. On occasion something concerning the county seat or the state capital would arise but even these occurrences were the exceptions and not the rule. Business was, on the whole, executed within local or industrial boundaries.

But a centralization of affairs, economic as well as political, set in. Today, as everywhere discussed in this thesis, tremendous authority over the business function is reposed in Washington, D. C. The business decision is no longer local or industrial but, to a marked extent, national. Being national, the individual conducting a business no longer retains a complete control over the business he presumes to run. Nor has he, as an individual, any access to or “say-so” of what these national, centralized, bureaucratic decisions will be that so thoroughly decide the destiny of his enterprise. The former local or industrial economic function has become a present national, social function. That which was formerly one man’s business has become a nation’s business with those we elect to public office or their delegates in control.

Damn the trend all we will. Deny its right to existence. Berate the bureaucrats who tell us what we will or will not do. Work our heads off to change it. Nevertheless, this is an existing condition. It is a realistic thing with which we must deal or, short of dealing with it, accept the only alternate verdict: leave the conduct of our economic affairs in the hands of selfish, predacious, political minorities or perhaps majorities; does it make any difference?

Dealing effectively with our problems that have “gone Washington, D. C.,” is impossible, individually. We must do it through a voluntary, group activity. What or where are those groups? They are our Chambers of Commerce and Trade Associations. True, they were formed in the first place to promote the interest of communities and industries. But were they not formed to deal with those problems which lent themselves better to group treatment than to individual treatment?

It is at this point in the argument that there exists an imperfect understanding. These instruments we have set up for our use, business associations, were formed to deal with those problems we could better handle collectively than individually. The problems, by far the paramount problems, requiring this type of consideration, are no longer the ones we can still handle locally and industrially—they have become national in their character and still require local treatment, but on a nation-wide scale. Our leading problems have changed their position. Is it not obvious then that we should change our tactic to meet them? If we were playing safety on a football team, would we not shift our position to tackle an elusive half-back of the opposition? We probably would do some shifting or we wouldn’t meet that football problem. In our organizations we will shift our positions or we won’t meet our economic problems.

Now a change to this new tactic isn’t easy. As a matter of fact, it is quite difficult, which, in some measure, accounts for so many of our commercial and trade organizations remaining their same ancient selves. This change involves less of a disestablishment of existing routine than it does an acquirement of a new set of unfamiliar practices. Dealing intelligently with national affairs suggests a little different gearing than that required for getting out a folder, promoting a fair or a poultry show, enticing smoke stacks from other cities, running a banquet, sponsoring a bond issue, publishing a trade bulletin or signing the membership to a price agreement or production control program. Too many organizations have demonstrated a hesitancy to explore the technique of successfully operating in this field.

For one thing, this field lacks the ready opportunistic attractions which all too much have served as the guide in framing local and industrial associations’ programs. Literally hundreds of them have selected their program activities on the basis of immediate cash returns—on the basis of a thoughtless membership support and applause. And they have done this with little regard for right principles, not only because they haven’t stopped to inquire as to what constitutes right principle but also because they haven’t been able to resist that nation-pervading urge, “let’s take the money where and when the taking is good.” Some of these mis-doers, given to quick-wit rationalization, defend this sort of program-devising on the shallow pretext that the best test of any program is whether or not the membership will pay for it. Here again, is a reliance upon democracy “in the raw”—a leaderless democracy. The idea is pure poppy-cock.

“But this is only a small community; we have no interest in nor are we able to deal with such complicated problems,” opines the membership multitude. It is the membership multitude speaking, for urban America is little more than an aggregate of small communities. There are only twenty cities in this country larger than Indianapolis! Do the people in the small communities or the small industries wish to have the people in the large cities or the politicians dictate their affairs? Of course not! Granting this conclusion is correct, what is the answer? The obvious answer is: the people in the small as well as the large communities, the people in the small as well as the larger industries; in short, the people who compose the small as well as the large associations are going to perfect these associations to deal intelligently and effectively with their affairs that have gone beyond their individual reach. If they refuse to do this, if they fail to perfect these associations to their potential peak of usefulness, they are saying in language as clear as the English can be stated, that they are willing to submit to, or at least are unwilling to resist, a system wholly alien to the American way of life, a system diametrically opposed to the American philosophy of government and private enterprise.

What about the ubiquitous excuse, “The necessities of my business don’t permit me the time to engage in these affairs”? Well, there never was a proposition more clearly evident than the fact that these affairs are an integral part of every business. Unusual situations require unusual treatment. Such is the present situation. No man is doing a good job of management nor is he being complete in his duties unless these broader affairs are embraced in his activities. Especially is this excuse to be condemned when one considers the effectiveness and the conservation of each individual’s time that can be attained through perfected association work. That that work is oftentimes not on a perfected basis is solely the fault of those who have a right to be considered for leadership. Too many business men seek to escape any contribution of brain or effort by the executive gesture of writing a check. And, these days, to harbor the notion that in the conduct of our several pursuits we can confine our mental capacities and efforts to the four walls of our business, industry or community is to confess a singularly shallow understanding of the society in which we live. The society will not long be a fine edifice with that kind of thinking.

There is one other thought on this matter worthy of mention. If these broad, national problems are not the concern of the more enlightened people in your community—yourself, for instance—then whom do they concern? Is the next fellow better equipped? Does some other city possess better leadership? Is the superior thinking grass greener in Othertown? Have others the answer when you and your colleagues have not? No, the situation is about the same everywhere. If there are a few differences it is because some groups, here and there, have been discontented with mediocrity and have done something about it.

On the whole, however, these national problems seem as remote to the people of Baltimore as they do to the people in Prineville, Oregon. They seem just as difficult and confusing and there is the same general attitude to avoid them. If we don’t elevate ourselves to the place where we can meet them, we are fools to believe that others will. And short of this, we must leave them to unintelligent handling. For with the handling of these problems go the reins to our national economy. And that is a mighty attractive proposition to our many flocks of selfseekers, modern “carpet-baggers” and professional rein-grabbers. They are as eager and ready as they are incompetent to take over these reins. And the course they will steer cannot help, from the very nature of things, being one inimical to the public weal.

The Big, Bad Political Bugaboo

The foregoing might mislead some to believe that the effort to develop a worthwhile leadership through the medium of associational activities, has totally mis-carried because of an inability to rise above this failure to understand, this apathy and this “Let-George-Do-It” attitude. On the contrary, there have been many successful breakaways from these stupid impediments, breakaways that have given the sponsors of this grand experiment in democracy many reasons for a measurable encouragement. But just as a hard-fought-for progress has appeared evident there has emerged another impediment, with few exceptions, devastating in its effect. It has, for the time being at least, nipped in the bud the rising regiments of a voluntary leadership movement of which this country might well have become proud. This impediment is in the form of a dictum issued and engineered by and on behalf of the modern carpet-bagger: “Thou shalt not engage in politics.”

Now this is a very interesting dictum. On its face it appears sensible to a group devoted to the economic purpose. And because little beyond surface appearances have been examined, the dictum has found an all too ready acquiescence. It is only when we become realistic about definitions, it is only when we see for ourselves the broad field of activity the word “politics” embraces, that we comprehend the ignominy of our surrender to this subtle device.

Let us withdraw the drapes and behold the picture. Originally, with us, “politics” connoted a dealing in matters of strictly a political nature. It usually meant something of a partisan attachment to a party, its platform or its personalities. Because politics took such a minor part in the regulation and control of and actual participation in business, the two were considered as distinct fields of endeavor having little more than an academic relation one to the other. In spite of our many infractions of this concept, we have always held rather closely to the original distinctions. Retaining this view, we have been, particularly as associations devoted to the economic purpose, supersensitive to the admonishment, “Keep out of politics.” And this characteristic, at one time, wasn’t a bad one. Politicians looked after politics—business men looked after business.

But a change set in, first cautious and gradual, then with an ever-quickening pace. Politics went into business and in a very big way. But when politicians took over a business control or a business function, they insisted that that control or function lost its identity with the business interest and became, exclusively, the concern of politics. And business, inept in the fickleness of politically managed definitions, held to its old ideas and remained out of politics. And that is precisely in accordance with the designs of the political collectivists, for if they could keep business out of politics there would be no limit, whatever, to the extent politics could take over business.

Thus, the business association, the only medium for dealing with once local and private affairs, now gone national, has, to a large extent, been stopped in its tracks right at the moment when its greatest opportunity for economic and social usefulness was budding into apparency. Matters of the utmost concern, heretofore discussed and decided by associations as a matter of course, have, under the scare of the political bugaboo, become “untouchables.”

At just what point will the breakaway from this impediment develop? Will business permit this political invasion ad infinitum? Will business associations continue to be the unwitting victims of a mere confusion in terms? Business has not gone into politics. Politics went, and is still going, into business. Business still has a right to a voice in the affairs of business, irrespective of whether or not politics decides to impose an interest in those affairs. When politics puts its fingers in the business pie, politics can expect, or at least should expect, precisely the kind of treatment its actions deserve. And if meting out that treatment means that some politicians or even politically minded business men will charge business with “playing politics” then let them make the best of it. Their argument does not make sense.

The business association, heedful and acquiescent of this argument, has permitted itself a degeneration into economic sterility. Its opportunity for usefulness has faded away in exact ratio to the extent politics has invaded the business arena. Should the trend continue, the association will retain only those activities regarded as “trimmings” to any proper program. But it is not too late to cast off the bugaboo of politics.

The New Type Business Association Goes to Work

The chamber of commerce and trade association, meriting present-day membership support, while retaining many of their former essential activities, have substantially altered their approach to meet vastly changed conditions. For one thing, they have definitely gone into politics. By this is not meant a sponsorship of political parties, programs or personalities. With those they have no concern, as associations.

Rather, their function is to marshal economic facts and, upon the basis of such facts, to make, openly and above-board, recommendations to constituted public authorities, looking to the perfection and enactment of legislation which will most effectively accomplish local, public and national purposes.

And equally important, they recognize as their duty, the fearless opposition of proposals of an unsound or uneconomic nature from whatever source they may arise.

They maintain that local, state and federal governments, as governments, are entitled to the support and cooperation of their citizenship. That rule they hold to be universal. These governments also are entitled to the expression of honest criticism, based upon facts and experience, regarding any steps that may be proposed.

In short, these associations care not one whit under what political party sound policies are practiced, but they do care, and intend to see to it, that sound policies are practiced, irrespective of political parties.

Furthermore, these associations are rapidly organizing themselves to deal effectively and intelligently with these matters. They have study committees among their membership, composed of the most competent minds on these complicated matters. They have organized themselves not only to express their viewpoints to their senators and representatives and congressional committees, but they have devised methods of using the radio, newspapers, house-organs, employee bulletin boards, speaking programs and direct contact to inform their own people, the voting public, on the paramount issues of the day.

They realize the necessity of observing the wisdom contained in a statement by Abraham Lincoln:

“Public sentiment is everything. With public opinion nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public opinion goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to execute.”

They are recognizing that the national issues are their issues, that if there is going to be any worthwhile business leadership, it must come from their industry or their community. They are insisting that they become the industrial, or the community, centers for sound economic counsel and they mean to find out precisely the significance of every popular or legislative proposal. They will sponsor or oppose these proposals, with all the indefatigable energy they possess, as they promote or defeat the consumer or public welfare.

For these organizations are developing a new kind of enlightened, self-interest leadership. They have discovered that their community or their industry has no chance of progress and prosperity in a downward national economy. The society in which they exist must be soundly conditioned. Hence, they are developing a technique of bringing forth leadership from all walks of community and industrial life that drops its specialized interest at the doors of the associational endeavor. The leadership, while serving through the association, functions objectively on a broader scale than would otherwise be possible. The leadership thinks in terms of the national economy. Its competitive and specialized interests are not permitted to deny or contradict the broader objectives.

While these organizations are acquiring a new ethic, they are not being deluded by the radical charges of “conservatism.” Most of them don’t believe conservatism to be a part of their former faults. But they are realizing that they need a new grammar to express their conservatism. In the past they have been inclined to take pretty much of a “stick-the-chin-out”—“I-double-dare-you” attitude in expressing their views. Regardless of how correct their views may have been, such attitudes constitute rather poor strategy in giving effect to those views, certainly in gaining public support for them. From here on they propose to take their case to the public and if it can’t be demonstrated to be in the public interest, they are not going to give it sponsorship. They recognize that sound concept: “To be in the interest of business, any measure must be in the public interest.” They further recognize that it is insufficient to merely have sound policies—these policies must also seem right.

Mr. W. J. Cameron, spokesman for the Ford Motor Company, in a nationwide radio broadcast, recently stated:

“But it is extremely difficult to get the simple fact considered that this nation, in its brilliant industrial expansion, has never produced enough to supply its own people. We have never fully utilized our productive facilities, never fully developed our resources or our domestic market, and until we do, no trouble will be permanently eased, no solution will be able to work. Someone somewhere has to grasp the need for a crusade to create more wealth if our people are to get their bearings on this question.”

These associations are going to take up this crusade to create more wealth, they are going to unearth the exact factors that will make it possible to produce more goods and more services for more people. There is no other source from which such a crusade can originate, there is no other type of medium that can command the type of leadership that will initiate this crusade and carry it to a satisfactory conclusion. It means the elimination of impoverishment to the extent it is practically and humanly possible to eliminate it.

They know that the success of any such crusade must first rest upon an identification of the economic course that creates more wealth and, as well, a fairly broad public appreciation of the wisdom of that course. Short of such an appreciation, the best laid plans will assuredly be voted out of consideration. They are not unaware of the difficulties of this crusade; they appreciate the great number of destructive ideas being forwarded under the usurped name of “liberalism.” This crusade will take them into politics; that is, the economic phase of politics, to waylay such situations as Herbert Spencer described as existing in England in 1860:

“See then what legislation has done. By ill-imposed taxes, raising the prices of bricks and timber, it added to the costs of houses; and prompted, for economy’s sake, the use of bad materials in scanty quantities. To check the consequent production of wretched dwellings, it established regulations which, in mediæval fashion, dictated the quality of the commodity produced: there being no perception that by insisting on a higher quality and therefore higher price, it would limit the demand and eventually diminish the supply. By additional local burdens, legislation has of late still further hindered the building of small houses. Finally, having, by successive measures, produced first bad houses and then a deficiency of better ones, it has at length provided for the artificially increased overflow of poor people by diminishing the house-capacity which already could not confine them!”[2]

Or a modern corollary, as recently phrased:

“Because of high taxes, and the high prices for goods and services which result partly from high taxes, many farmers have long since ceased to rotate soil-restoring, non-cash leguminous crops with soil-absorbing, cash crops. The obvious result has been an increasingly depleted soil. Now the government enters with a soil conservation program, causing more government and more taxes, which is bad enough, but it legislates crop restriction, to boot!”

The new ethic, to be effected because of its unquestioned practicability, will take the form of a series of business principles adopted and urged by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States:[3]

1. The foundation of business is confidence, which springs from integrity, fair dealing, efficient service and mutual benefit.

2. The reward of business for service rendered is a fair profit plus a safe reserve, commensurate with risks involved and foresight exercised.

3. Equitable consideration is due in business alike to capital, management, employees and the public.

4. Knowledge—thorough and specific—and unceasing study of the facts and forces affecting a business enterprise, are essential to a lasting individual success and to efficient service to the public.

5. Permanency and continuity of service are basic aims of business, that knowledge gained may be fully utilized, confidence established and efficiency increased.

6. Obligations to itself and society prompt business unceasingly to strive toward continuity of operation, bettering conditions of employment, and increasing the efficiency and opportunities of individual employees.

7. Contracts and undertakings, written and oral, are to be performed in letter and in spirit. Changed conditions do not justify their cancellation without mutual consent.

8. Representation of goods and services should be truthfully made and scrupulously fulfilled.

9. Waste in any form—of capital, labor, services, materials, or natural resources—is intolerable and constant effort will be made toward its elimination.

10. Excesses of every nature,—inflation of credit, overexpansion, over-buying, over-stimulation of sales,—which create artificial conditions and produce crises and depressions are condemned.

11. Unfair competition, embracing all acts characterized by bad faith, deception, fraud, or oppression, including commercial bribery, is wasteful, despicable, and a public wrong. Business will rely for its success on the excellence of its own service.

12. Controversies will, where possible, be adjusted by voluntary agreement or impartial arbitration.

13. Corporate forms do not absolve from or alter the moral obligations of individuals. Responsibilities will be as courageously and conscientiously discharged by those acting in representative capacities as when acting for themselves.

14. Lawful cooperation among business men and in useful business organizations in support of these principles of business conduct is commended.

15. Business should render restrictive legislation unnecessary through so conducting itself as to deserve and inspire public confidence.

These organizations have another proposal—this one to do with a weakness, heretofore characterizing their own behavior. They are going to acquire the technique of dealing with controversial issues. They are going to cease shying away from such issues. They are going to “take them on” in their stride, handle them as a matter of course, with about the same degree of concern a surgeon performs an operation. After all, they are aware that the new necessities require a realistic entry into the field of controversial issues. The big issues, the worth-while things meriting the time and attention of busy leaders, are all controversial—if not, how can they be issues?

This new leadership will next undertake its biggest task: an entry into the field of industrial relations, a field in which intelligent action has been woefully neglected. The present industrial strife, costing tens of millions of dollars daily, increasing impoverishment at an unprecedented pace, is plenty of evidence of this neglect. This leadership is unwilling to adopt that insipid gesture, smiled with such utter nonchalance by so many: “Strikes and labor troubles are merely the signs of returning good times—they always follow depressions.” No remark was ever a better indication of shallow reasoning or shirked responsibility or both.

This effort first requires an initiation of a crusade to create more wealth with a simultaneous adoption and practice by business of high principles and standards of conduct. Not only are these features preludes to any such effort, but it is equally essential that labor and the public recognize that this course is precisely the one business intends to follow. On the adoption of this course there can be no misgivings.

When we speak of business “putting its house in order,” we do not necessarily refer to dishonesty, stupid greed and economic viciousness. While these vices are not nearly as prevalent as most people believe, their inclusion in any program of house cleaning is taken for granted. No decent citizen condones them. Rather, what is meant is a correction of practices, honest in every respect, but economically unintelligent. The latter far exceeds the former in its destructiveness to more goods and more services for more people.

Obviously, these two features of the new program are no minor tasks—they are a challenge to the best leadership, irrespective of how efficiently organized, this country ever possessed. But the new leadership recognizes them as requisites to any promising entry into the difficult field of industrial relations. Once acquired, however, business will be in a position to deal firmly with radical leaders whose only objective is discontent, industrial strife, harm to labor, business and the public alike, looking eventually to a “new order” with themselves in control. Short of this ethically and economically sound position, it is inevitable that nothing but a guerilla warfare can result, for labors position is strikingly untenable. There can be no gains when both sides are wrong. There is a chance if one side is right.

The new associational effort will demonstrate in a grammar, at once simple and compelling, a series of principles upon which any system of industrial peace must, of necessity, be predicated. For instance, they will reveal:

• That the interests of employer and employee are not in substantial conflict—that the conflicts are only the minor, natural ones which exist between any two people. They will stress the real harmony of interests and show that when the conflicts are natural they lend themselves easily to friendly adjudication.

• That the present strife is not the result of natural conflicts, that present industrial problems are only surface problems, that they cannot be more than temporarily settled until deeper, basic causes are removed. These basic causes will be identified, both labor and business being made to understand they have a common purpose in their elimination.

• That the theory and present practice of negative profit (one side considering as a gain the infliction of more damage than received) is uncivilized and several steps below moronic expectancy, and finally

• That in a wealth crusade, requiring the best efforts of capital, labor and management, lies the only route of material interest to anyone. This, of course, will include a complete analysis of those factors going to destroy wealth and those going to create it.

One of the difficulties today is the fact that most of business and most of labor do not know how to deal with the problem of industrial relations in spite of the self-evident truth that a vast majority of both would like to do the right thing. This lack of knowledge of handling this problem is understandable. It is a most difficult and confusing one. It is a problem requiring specialized and laborious study. This study does not lend itself to individual thinking alone. The problem is one embracing the inter-relationships of a vast and intricate economic system. The study must be of a voluntary group character, the association serving as the vehicle for the development, the assemblage and the propulsion of a leadership widely representative and highly endowed in every respect. The attitude upon which this study is based and the views arising therefrom projected must be maintained on a friendly level regardless of opposing unfriendly gestures. In no other way can that essential, public confidence be won to the side of superior economic thinking.

A fair question at this point would be, “Where are these organizations with these attainments and lofty ideas—do they actually exist?” Here and there they do. In existing organizations is represented every conceivable gradation of attainment. Some are little better than mis-named jokes, but in them is always some worthy trifle to be admired. A few others are near-models of perfection but usually possessing some minor policy or behavior deserving censure. All of which is quite natural and to be expected. Aristotle left us an interesting explanation:

“One may go wrong in many different ways, but right only in one, which is why it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed—easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it.”

If eleven years of intimate experience in this field gives one the right to some opinions and the more questionable right of passing judgment, then the business association described here so glowingly, is a composite of the virtues, the improvements and the general excellencies found in hundreds of existing bodies. At least these ascribed activities appear to be virtues, improvements and excellencies when considered in the light of present necessities. Too idealistic? Absolutely not! The height of practicability lies in the nearest approach possible to the ideal. If we can merely determine the right thing to do, even if we don’t do it, we will have made a measurable gain. We will be less likely to do the wrong thing. For to do something merely to do something, if there is unwisdom in the doing, is transcendental folly. To do the right thing constitutes progress, but we first need to determine what is right. The answer? There is no infallible rule to follow nor will there ever be one. But the best answer available to us in the solution of our economic and social problems lies in that which representative government presupposes: a wealth of voluntary leadership!

The Labor Organization Needs Some Repairing, Also

There are many activities of present labor organizations that merit the highest kind of commendation. But these commendatory features are not the preponderant features characterizing recent trends in organized labor circles. To the contrary, they are submerged almost beyond recognition.

The present movement seems to deny the possibilities of any logical, rationalized base beyond that of a dead-end economy, an economy that can produce no more wealth, that the wealth which already exists is all there is—and that the proposition of dividing existing wealth is a proper tactic. If this criticism seems unfair, point out one, just one, major recent proposal bearing the official stamp of organized labor that will stand up under studied examination of its wealth-producing potentialities, No useful purpose is served in dwelling further on these points or the character of present labor leadership. Rather should we devote ourselves to the question: Has not organized labor an offensive rather than a defensive, a constructive rather than a destructive channel for its acknowledged, superior power?

Along what general channels can organized labor direct its efforts? It can and is attempting a division of existing wealth. This tactic is not a progressive one and should be dismissed as improper and uneconomic. There are three other channels to which labor may look for the betterment of its position: employer altruism, governmental statutes and the creation of new wealth.

Should labor place a sole dependency on either employer altruism or governmental statutes? No. Labor’s position should be secured by, its basic reliance placed upon, a favorable economic behavior in which the creation of new wealth and the destruction of the jams that hinder its flow are inherent features. Let altruism and statutes bring all the benefits they will but they do not constitute the best insurance for labor. Beneficence and the practice of the Golden Rule are blessed endowments, are to be encouraged and applauded, but they are fickle backlogs for anyone or any group in society’s present advancement. Honesty is the best policy but experience teaches that honesty is best practiced under favorable conditions. Different people become dishonest under varying degrees of adversity. Likewise, beneficence and the Golden Rule find their greatest observance when satisfactions are most general. Not that they should—but they do! Not to recognize this human failing is to be exceedingly unrealistic.

The way to examine employer altruism as a factor for insuring higher wages and better working conditions is to place any individual from the whole labor movement into the ownership or managership of a private business. Would he suddenly go altruistic? Would he pay $10 a day for common labor if his competitors were using $5 a day labor and he could get all of that kind of labor he wanted? Hardly. He probably would have a sufficiently difficult time making a profit paying only the wages the labor market demanded. At least the record of business failures would indicate he might have some troubles being successful. Very few entrepreneurs consider they are doing society a favor by failing in their enterprise.

The way to examine governmental statutes as an undependable factor for insuring higher wages and better working conditions is to examine the equally justified propositions of legislating prices for goods, profits for business, prosperity for farmers, in other words, to examine the question: can the satisfaction of desires be resoluted in the halls of Congress and carried out as designed? They cannot. Nor do the multitude of affirmative answers change this decision one iota. The proposition has never demonstrated more than parlor logic—more than that, there is no evidence in all history to support it. If the idea of legislating partial prosperity is tenable, why isn’t the idea of legislating a millennium reasonable?

The contention here is not that every device should not be employed to encourage employer pride in higher wages and better working conditions nor that government should not umpire and police both labor and business practices that are dishonest and vicious. Rather, the contention is that labor should not place final reliance on these sources for the support of its position. The only sensible route lies in entirely another direction.

If the labor movement were intelligently directed, relying less on political and professional opportunists and more on sound economic advice which exists in its own ranks, labor would have two broad objectives. In these two objectives is embraced a wide field of activity which if carried out would result in all the material advantages labor seeks.

The first objective would be the establishment of a healthy labor market; i.e., the bringing about of a condition in which the demand for labor exceeds the supply. Nor does this mean a program of reducing supply. The field for increasing demand is so unexplored that it can well occupy our sole attention for years to come. This can only be accomplished by encouraging those elements which go to promote the “X” factor and discouraging those elements which go to subvert this factor, for the simple reason that this is the only way more goods and more services can be available for more people.

When, and only when, goods and services are lower in price in relation to a given amount of labor, will the real, as distinguished from the inflationary, naked demand for goods increase. This demand will call for a greater production. This increased production will necessitate more employment. More employment will absorb the unemployed and establish a condition in which producers will want more labor to help them supply the demand than there is labor available. The wages for labor will then be decided as they should be: on the basis of competitive bidding for labor.

What employer, under these circumstances, could pay low wages? Each employer would be eager to hire each other’s labor force. Would not all employers be forced by the dictates of an unprejudiced, uncompromising and impersonal market to pay the best wages and maintain the very best possible working conditions? They would have no choice but to do so. And furthermore, in a flourishing situation of this kind, with goods being produced to satisfy an unlimited demand, would not the laboring man find his best opportunity to become a business man if he so chose?

The second objective would be very much related to the first. It would seek to destroy every single one of the factors which go to dissipate the advantages naturally flowing from technological improvements and working efficiencies. The identification of these factors would make an interesting job for most labor organizations. They might discover, to their astonishment, that a reversal of their position along several lines would be necessary. For instance, these organizations would have to discard the use of the political means and begin showing some hospitality to the economic means. Labor organizations, for instance, thus engaging themselves, would be far better and more successful proponents of governmental economy than business organizations have ever been.

Let the labor economists discover these factors. They are found among the subversions of the “X” factor, some of which have been discussed in this thesis. They are not difficult to find if the sole objective is the public welfare rather than some selfish, immediate aggrandizement. For one thing, labor will press for a development of economic voluntarism under which, and only under which, competition can survive. Competition is assuredly one of the best weapons labor has to force a passage of economic advantages to the consumer. Monopoly, price-fixing, and many other legislated rigidities will be included among the new enemies of labor.

Intelligently manned organizations, business associations, labor and farm federations, all have seats at the same conference table in any highly civilized economy. If the objective of each is what it should be—the public welfare, or, economically speaking, the consumer’s welfare—there can be little basis for more than friendly disagreement. The real problem is one common to all and should be so treated.

In conclusion, organizations for the sake of themselves, any of them—business, labor or agriculture—deserve no support nor any allegiance. The sound conditioning of the national economy is the thing. Only if these groups can be geared to implement this purpose do they merit existence.

They must, if they are to accomplish this objective, find a course that is at once publicly attractive and economically sound. For if their actions gain public disaffection, regardless of the rightness of their principles, their efforts will be less than effective. And to compromise with wrong principles is shockingly untenable.

There is a course that can and must be devised to meet this dual requirement. Very little is new about it. It has in some measure been attempted by some organizations, but the proper emphasis has been lacking.

In the first place, these groups will renounce their narrowly selfish and combative tactics, provided they have been practicing such tactics. Next, they will dedicate themselves genuinely, realistically and sincerely to an all-embracing, broad interest as distinguished from their former group, class or geographical interests that are contradictions of the broad interest.

They will dedicate themselves to a new lodestar, a new objective, the inherent features of which will meet, four-square, every social, humanitarian and economic test. It can be stated in a simple formula, although lending itself to an infinite variety of expressions:

CRUSADERS	FOR: more goods and more services for more people
	(Two ways of saying the same thing)
	AGAINST: poverty and unemployment

The direction of these organizations from this point is easily defined although the road, because of current trends, must be difficult. These voluntary groups will study (profoundly examine) proposals, measures, behaviors or practices, from whatever source they may arise, in the light of their effect on this objective. Their sponsorship or opposition, their endorsement or denouncement will be based on a proposal’s ultimate promotion or subversion of this objective. The pursuance of such a course will not only be right—it is the only one that can be economically right—and it will be demonstrable to the public as right.

Furthermore, the adoption of and adherence to this objective possesses the merit of insuring as well as labeling the activities of an organization as constructive. It is the only course that can lead to more and better business, to more profitable agriculture, to better wages and working conditions for labor, to an ever-widening diffusion of wealth to the whole public, in short, to a materially better America. Our future, very likely, rests on the answers to the question, “Who will volunteer for this crusade?”

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[1] This point and the thought surrounding it may be easily misunderstood. The writer is referring only to groups and is not denying, in the least, the potential benefits that can flow from individual effort, particularly from well-known and statesmen-like leaders, whatever their field. For the most part, however, the vast majority of us, under modern conditions, do not qualify for effective individual leadership of the kind we are here seeking. Most of us are not these great men. There being an insufficiency of really great men, it is therefore necessary we give some character to our single voices that are only rustlings in the wilderness. Thus the significance of the group and the importance of its direction.

[2] “Man Versus The State,” Williams and Norgate, London, England.

[3] Resolution, Annual Meetings, 1924 and 1936.