Part 3

Run through the list of the greatest captains of industry, as they come to your mind. How many of the men who are really directing the country's business gained their position through inherited wealth? You will find them astonishingly few. There is no "divine right of kings" in business. In fact, statistics show us that the very things which most people think of as advantages, namely, wealth and "not having to work" are really obstacles which are rarely surmounted.

Industry and thrift are closely allied. Economic studies show clearly that ninety-five per cent. of the employers are employers because they systematically saved money. Any man who systematically saves money from early youth automatically becomes an employer. He may employ thousands or he may have only two or three clerks in a country store, but he nevertheless is an employer. These same studies show that ninety-five per cent. of the wage workers are wage workers because they have systematically spent their money as fast as they have earned it. They of necessity remain wage workers. These are facts which no labour leader can disprove and which are exceedingly significant. This is especially striking when one considers that the employer often started out at the same wages and in the same community as his wage workers. The employer was naturally industrious and thrifty; while those who remained wage workers were not.

The development of this nation through the construction of the transcontinental railways, the financing of the western farms, and the building of our cities is largely due to the old New England doctrine that laziness and extravagance are sins. In some western communities it is popular to laugh at these New England traits; but had it not been for them, these western communities would never have existed. The industry and thrift developed by the old New England religion were the basis of our national growth.

I especially desire to emphasize this point because of the position of certain religious enthusiasts who think only of "the lilies of the field" and forget the parable of the talents. It is a fact that the third fundamental of prosperity is Industry.

COOePERATION--SUCCESS BY HELPING THE OTHER FELLOW

Our industrial system has resulted in making many men economic eunuchs. The salvation of our cities, the salvation of our industries and the salvation of our nation depend on discovering something which will revive in man that desire to produce and joy in production which he had instinctively when he was a small boy.

A few days ago I was present at a dinner of business men in Boston who were called together in order to secure some preferential freight rates for Massachusetts. The principal theme of that gathering was to boom Massachusetts at the expense of the rest of the country. At the close of the dinner I was asked to give my opinion and said: "Let us see how many things there are in this room that we could have were we dependent solely on Massachusetts. The chairs and furniture are from Michigan; the cotton is from Georgia; the linen from Ireland; the silver from Mexico; the glassware from Pennsylvania; the paper from Maine; the paint from Missouri; the clock from Connecticut--and so on." Finally I got the courage to ask if there was a single thing in the room that did not originate from some state other than Massachusetts. Those men were absolutely helpless in finding a single thing.

The same fact applies in a general way to every state and every home. Look about, where you are sitting now. How many things are there in the room just where you are,--there is a table, a chair, a shoe, a coat, a necktie, a cigar, a lampshade, a piano, a basket--for all of these you are dependent upon others.

The same fact is true when we analyze one staple like shoes which, primarily, are made of leather. Where does the leather come from? Just follow that leather from the back of the steer until you buy it in the form of shoes. Think where that steer was raised, and where the leather was tanned. Think of all the men engaged in the industry from the cow-punchers to the salesmen in the stores. But there is more than leather involved in shoes. There is cotton in the shoe lacing and lining. There is metal in the nails and eyelets. Not only must different localities cooeperate to produce a shoe; but various industries must give and take likewise.

Civilization is ultimately dependent on the ability of men to cooeperate. The best barometer of civilization is the desire and ability of men to cooeperate. The willingness to share with others,--the desire to work with others is the great contribution which Christianity has given to the world. The effect of this new spirit is most thrilling when one considers the clothes which he has on his back, the food which he has on the table, the things which he has in the house, and thinks of the thousands of people whose labour has directly contributed toward these things. Now this clearly shows that the fourth great fundamental of prosperity is cooeperation, the willingness and ability of men to cooeperate, to serve one another, to help one another, to give and to take.

But the teachings of Jesus along these lines have a very much broader application than when applied merely to raw materials, or even manufactured products. As we can begin to prosper only when we develop into finished products the raw materials of the fields, mines and forests, so we can become truly prosperous only as we develop the greatest of all resources,--the human resources. Not only does Christianity demand that we seek to help and build up others; but our own prosperity depends thereon as well.

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When in Washington, during the war, I had a wonderful opportunity of meeting the representatives of both labour and capital. I had some preconceived ideas on the labour question when I went to Washington; but now they are all gone. I am perfectly willing, now, to agree with the wage worker, to agree with the employer, to agree with both or to agree with neither. But this one thing I am sure of, and that is that the present system doesn't work. The present system is failing in getting men to produce.

By nature man likes to produce. Our boy, as soon as he can toddle out-of-doors, starts instinctively to make a mud pie. When he gets a little older he gets some boards, shingles and nails and builds a hut. Just as soon as he gets a knife, do you have to show him how to use it? He instinctively begins to make a boat or an arrow or perhaps something he has never seen. Why? Because in his soul is a natural desire to produce and an inborn joy in production. But what happens to most of these boys after they grow up?

Our industrial system has resulted in almost stultifying men economically and making most of them economically non-productive. Why? I don't know. I simply say it happens and the salvation of our industries depends on discovering something which will revive in man that desire to produce and that joy in production which he had instinctively when he was a small boy.

Increased wages will not do it. Shorter hours will not do it. The wage worker must feel right and the employer must feel right. It is all a question of feeling. Feelings rule this world,--not things. The reason that some people are not successful with collective bargaining and profit sharing and all these other plans is because they think that men act according to what they say, or according to what they learn, or according to that in which they agree. Men act according to their feelings, and "good feeling" is synonymous with the spirit of cooeperation. One cannot exist without the other and prosperity cannot continue without both. Hence the fourth fundamental of prosperity is Cooeperation.

OUR REAL RESOURCES

We have gone daffy over things like steam, electricity, water power, buildings, railroads, and ships and we have forgotten the human soul upon which all of these things depend and from which all of these things originate.

Two captains of industry were standing, one day, on the bridge at Niagara looking at the great falls. One man turned to the other and said: "Behold the greatest source of undeveloped power in America."

"No. The greatest source of undeveloped power in America is the soul of man," the other replied.

I was talking with a large manufacturer the other day, and he told me that he was supporting scholarships in four universities to enable young men to study the raw materials which he is using in his plant. I asked him if he was supporting any scholarships to study the human element in his plant, and he said "No." Yet when asked for definite figures, it appeared that eighty per cent. of every dollar which he spends, goes for labour, and only twenty per cent. goes for materials. He is endowing four scholarships to study the twenty per cent. and is not doing a thing to study the eighty per cent.! Statistics show that the greatest undeveloped resources in America are not our mines or our forests or our streams, but rather the human souls of the men and women who work for us.

This is most significant when one resorts to statistics and learns that everything that we have,--every improvement, every railroad, every ship, every building costing in excess of $5,000, every manufacturing concern employing over twenty men, yes, every newspaper and book worth while, has originated and been developed in the minds of less than two per cent. of the people. The solution of our industrial problems and the reduction of the cost of living depend not on fighting over what is already produced, but upon producing more. This means that this two per cent. must be increased to four per cent., and then to six per cent. If all the good things which we now have, come from the enterprise of only two per cent., it is evident that we would all have three times as much if the two per cent were increased to six per cent.

Jesus was absolutely right in His contention that if we would seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness all these other things would naturally come to us. This is what Jesus had in mind when He urged people to give and serve, promising that such giving and serving should be returned to them a hundred fold or more. Jesus never preached unselfishness or talked sacrifice as such, but only urged His hearers to look through to the end, see what the final result would be and do what would be best for them in the long run. Jesus urged His followers to consider the spiritual things rather than the material, and the eternal things rather than the temporal; but not in the spirit of sacrifice. The only sacrifice which Jesus asked of His people was the same sacrifice which the farmer makes when he throws his seed into the soil.

The story of the loaves and fishes is still taught as a miracle, but the day will come when it will not be considered such. The same is true regarding the incident when Jesus found that His disciples had been fishing all night without results and He suggested that they cast the net on the other side. They followed His advice and the net immediately filled with so many fishes that they could hardly pull it up. If we to-day would give more thought to the spiritual and less to the material, we would have more in health, happiness, and prosperity. The business men to-day would be far better off if--like the fishermen of Galilee--we would take Jesus' advice and cast our net on "the other side."

We are told that with sufficient faith we could remove mountains. Have mountains ever been removed or tunnelled without faith? The bridging of rivers, the building of railroads, the launching of steamships, and the creation of all industries are dependent on the faith of somebody. Too much credit is given both to capital and labour in the current discussions of to-day. The real credit for most of the things which we have is due to some human soul which supplied the faith that was the mainspring of every enterprise. Furthermore in most instances this human soul owes this germ of faith to some little country church with a white steeple and old-fashioned furnishings.

The reason I say "old-fashioned" church is because our fathers were more willing to rely upon the power of faith than many of us to-day. What they lacked in many other ways was more than compensated by their faith in God. They got, through faith, "that something" which men to-day are trying to get through every other means. All the educators, all the psychologists, all the inspirational writers cannot put into a man the vision and the will to do things which are gained by a clear faith. Most of us to-day are frantically trying to invent a machine which will solve our problems, when all the while we have the machine within us, if we will only set it going. That machine is the human soul.

The great problem to-day is to develop the human soul, to develop this wonderful machine which each one of us has between his ears. Only as this is developed can we solve our other problems. When we give as much thought to the solution of the human problem as we give to the solution of the steam problem or the electrical problem, we will have no labour problem. We have gone daffy over things like steam, electricity, water-power, buildings, railroads and ships, and we have forgotten the human soul upon which all of these things depend and from which all of these things originate.

STUDY THE HUMAN SOUL