Part 5

The greatest resources of the world to-day are human resources,--not resources of iron, copper and lumber. The great need of the hour is to strengthen this human foundation and revive in men a desire to produce and a joy in service. Business men are the one group that can do it. They understand the emotions, understand the importance of the intangible things. They understand how to awaken in people new motives. So my appeal is not to wait too long to revive man and awaken the soul which is slumbering to-day.

The nation is only a mass of individuals. The true prosperity of a country depends upon the same qualities as the true prosperity of its people. As religion is necessary for the man, it is also necessary for the nation. As the soul of man needs to be developed, so also does the soul of the nation.

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Let me tell one more personal incident. Not long ago I was at my Washington office spending the week. While there a little Western Union messenger girl came in to apply for a position. It was in the afternoon--about half-past five. I was struck with the intelligence of the girl's face and asked her two or three questions. She was tired. I asked her to sit down. I was astonished to hear her story.

She had been born and brought up in the mountains of West Virginia,--many miles from civilization. Her father and mother died when she was four years old. She had been living with an old grandfather and brother. When I began to talk with her I found her to have a most remarkable acquaintance with Emerson, with Thoreau, with Bernard Shaw and with the old Eastern writers.

I said to her: "How is it that you are delivering telegrams in a khaki suit and a soldier cap?"

She replied: "Because I could get nothing else to do. I lived down there in the mountains just as long as I could. I had to get to the city where I could express myself and develop my finer qualities. When I got to Washington there was nothing that I could do. They asked me if I could typewrite, but I had never seen a typewriter. Finally, after walking the streets for a while, I got a job as a Western Union messenger."

I wrote Mrs. Babson and made arrangements to have the girl come to Wellesley and work for a few months with the Babson Organization. I saw in her certain qualities which, if developed, should make her very useful to someone somewhere. She came to Wellesley. About a month after her arrival I was obliged to leave on a two months' trip and Mrs. Babson invited her up to dine the night before I left. I told her that I was going to speak while away on "America's Undeveloped Resources." After dinner she went to my desk and took her pen and scribbled these lines and said:

"Perhaps during your talk on America's Greatest Undeveloped Resources you will give those men a message from a Western Union girl." These are the lines she wrote. They are by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

I gave a beggar from my little store of wealth some gold; He spent the shining ore, and came again and yet again, Still cold and hungry, as before. I gave a thought--and through that thought of mine, He found himself, the man supreme, divine, Fed, clothed and crowned with blessing manifold; And now he begs no more.

The mind of man is a wonderful thing, but unless the soul of man is awakened he must lack faith, power, originality, ambition,--those vital elements which make a man a real producer. I do not say that you can awaken this force in every soul. If you are an employer, perhaps only a few of all your employees can be made to understand. But this much is certain,--in every man or woman in whom you can loose the power of this invisible something, you will mobilize a force, not only for his or her good, but for the good and perhaps the very salvation of your own business.

WHAT FIGURES SHOW

Panics are caused by spiritual causes rather than financial. Prosperity is the result of righteousness rather than of material things.

The large black areas on the adjoining chart are formed by combining and plotting current figures on New Building, Crops, Clearings, Immigration, Total Foreign Trade, Money, Failures, Commodity Prices, Railroad Earnings, Stock Prices and Politics in order to give a composite view of business in the United States. (When Interstate Commerce reports of earnings of all United States railroads became available, January, 1909, this record was substituted in place of the earnings of ten representative roads which had been used previous to that time. Revised scales for monetary figures were also introduced, in August, 1912.)

The line X-Y represents the country's net gain or growth. Based on the economic theory that "action and reaction are equal when the two factors of time and intensity are multiplied to form an area," the sums of the areas above and below said line X-Y must, over sufficiently long periods of time, be equal, provided enough subjects are included, properly weighed and combined. An area of prosperity is always followed by an area of depression; an area of depression in turn is always followed by an area of prosperity. The areas, however, need not have the same shapes.

It will be seen that each area is divided into halves by a narrow white line. This is to emphasize the fact that the first halves of areas below the X-Y line are really reactions from the extravagance, inefficiency and corruption which existed during the latter half of the preceding "prosperity" area. Contrariwise, the first halves of areas above the X-Y line are really reactions from the economy, industry and righteousness developed during the hard times just preceding. The high points of the stock market have come in the early part of the prosperity areas and the low points have come about the beginning of the depression areas. In 1914 the war held down prices of all securities. The highest prices of bonds have usually come about the end of the depression areas and high money rates, and lowest bond prices at about the end of the prosperity areas.

But what causes these fluctuations in business and prices? Statistics show that panics are caused by spiritual causes, rather than financial, and that prosperity is the result of righteousness rather than of material things. Hence, the importance to industry and commerce of the forces already mentioned. These spiritual forces are the true fundamentals of prosperity. This in turn leads us to consider from where they come and upon what we are to depend for their further development. The following pages will give the answer.

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What are the sources of these fundamentals of prosperity? Where do we get this faith, integrity, industry, cooeperation and interest in the soul of man upon which civilization is based?

As already explained, we do not get it from the raw materials. We have always had the raw materials. We do not get it from education. From a statistical point of view Germany is the best educated country in the world. It has the least illiteracy. It has the largest percentage of scientific culture. No, these three fundamentals do not come from education. They do not come from the inheritance of property. I mentioned in the preceding pages the investigation we made of leading captains of industry in America, the men who head the various greatest industries in this country. Out of this group of men, only ten per cent. inherited their business, while only fifteen per cent. received special education. This shows that the source of these qualities is from something more than wealth or education.

We are striving and even slaving to lay up property for our children, when statistics clearly show that the more we lay up for them the worse off they are going to be. If statistics demonstrate any one thing, they demonstrate that the less money we leave our children the better off they will be; not only spiritually and physically, but also financially. When it comes to the question of education, we work and economize to give our children an education and to send our children to college. Yet statistics show that only a small percentage of these leading business men are college graduates.

The success of individuals, the success of communities, the success of nations, depends on these fundamentals,--integrity, faith, industry, brotherly kindness and an interest in the soul of man. To what do we owe these great fundamental qualities? Statistics show clearly that we owe them to religion. Yes, and to the old-fashioned religion of our forefathers. Moreover, I say this not as a churchman. I would give the same message if I were speaking to a group of bankers or a group of engineers. I was first brought into the Church through the Christian Endeavour Society, but I was really converted to the Bible teachings through a study of statistics.

To religion we owe our civilization and to the Church we owe our religion. All there is in the world to-day that is worth while comes from men filled with, and from groups actuated by, these fundamentals of integrity, faith, industry, brotherly love and those other factors which come only through God. The Church to-day deserves the credit for keeping these factors before the world. Hence, it is evident that the people of America have not the bankers to thank for their security and prosperity, but rather the preachers and the churches. To these men we are obligated for our growth and development.

WHERE THE CHURCH FALLS DOWN

Become saturated with Christ's principles, be clean and upright, cooeperate with one another, have faith, serve, trust the Almighty for the results, and you will never have to worry about property. "If you will do these things, all of the others will be given to you."

There are two groups of people who criticize the Church. First, there are those who claim great love for their fellow-men, but do not go to church because it is allied with the property interests of the community. I believe that to be the fundamental reason why the wage workers, labour leaders, socialists and radicals are not interested in the Church. They believe that the Church is too closely allied with property. I have been severely criticized myself for presenting the Church as a defender of property and as a means of making your home, your business and your securities safer. Such critics are perfectly conscientious and the Church suffers much because those people, in their love for humanity, are antagonistic to the Church.

The second group are those defenders of property who look upon the Church as impractical; who consider the Golden Rule as something all right for the minister to talk about on Sundays, but something useless to try to follow during the week. Those men criticize the Church for preaching love, for talking the Sermon on the Mount, and for being what they say is "impractical." So the Church suffers to-day by having both of these groups stand off alone. Neither of them is interested in the Church, the most important organization in America. It is the Church which has created America, which has developed our schools, which has created our homes, which has built our cities, which has developed our industries, which has made our hospitals, charities, and which has done everything that is worth while in America.

Yet to-day, the Church is the most discarded industry of all, because it has not the cooeperation of either of the above groups,--the radical group which claims to be interested only in humanity and not in property, and the propertied group which frankly says that it is primarily interested in property and not humanity. It seems that we should stop side-stepping this question. Instead we should face it squarely and answer both of these criticisms. My answer is as follows: