The blessing of business

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Blessing of Business

By E. W. HOWE

Author of "The Story of a Country Town,
"a Moonlight Boy," etc.

Crane <Xk Company, Publishers

Topeka, Kansas

1918

19 ti

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Copyright 1918
By E. W. HOWE

"Astounding hypocrisy is the chief symbol of
our American, life which leads us habitually, and
upon all subjects that most intimately concern
us, to formulate two distinct sets of opinions, one
of which we mouth magnificently, and the other
of which we cherish and put into practice in
secret. On the one hand, in almost any field
you choose, there is the doctrine that is sweet-
sounding ; and on the other hand there is the
doctrine that will work. — H. L. Mencken.

THE BLESSING OF BUSINESS,

I.

The first principle is life ; the sec-
ond, maintenance of life. The thing
of greatest human interest and im-
portance, therefore, is the production
and distribution of food, the manu-
facture of necessities ;

Or what we call Business,
Religion, education, art, politics,
are all secondary to it, since we live
because of our work; and without
life we should need neither salvation,
learning, homes, literature, nor any-
thing else. Business is nothing more
than food-getting; incidentally, it
(«)

6 The Blessing of Business

means founding a home, a family,
assisting in building a school, a road,
a street, and finally, appreciation of
a painting, a book, a sermon, or a
poem.

Of living creatures, business men
are nearest sane ; their philosophy is
as accurate as their multiplication
table.

All should have ideals they cannot
quite reach; all should be a little
high-minded, and accomplish some of
the greater good ; but it is business
men who know these things may
easily be made professional and mis-
chievous.

In thousands of years there has
been no advance in public morals, in
philosophy, in religion or in politics,

By E. W. Howe

but the advance in business has been
the greatest miracle the world has
ever known. The business man
knows the weakness of propositions ;
the danger signs, the failings of men ;
he knows how much statements
should be discounted, and herein lies
his value to the world. The state-
ment is always being made that the
business man has no appreciation of
anything except money ; he is frankly
accused of lack of interest in patri-
otism, liberty, art, and the finer feel-
ings generally ; it is contended that
all he contributes to higher things is
coaxed out of him by orators and
writers.

The world is full of business men
who have as beautiful dreams as the

8 The Blessing of Business

professionals, but who have learned
to know where the absurd begins.

Every great improvement in the
world's history is due, directly or in-
directly, to the munificence of some
man successful in the world's affairs.
Ev( ry great charitable institution is
founded on the surplus earnings of ac-
tive men, who did good while earn-
ing their money, and, having learned
philanthropy, closed their lives with
a burst of it. Look up the history of
nearly any institution of learning or
art gallery, and you will find an en-
dowment from a practical man. The
men of great learning did not build
the institutions in which they teach,
although nearly all of them unjustly
criticise the men who did.

By E. W. Howe

In a newspaper I find a statement
that the publication of a new ency-
clopedic Hbrary, embodying the entire
field of human knowledge, is assured,
Adolph Lewisohn having decided to
back the publication financially.
Who is Adolph Lewisohn? A busi-
ness man. Who will do the work of
preparing the new encyclopedic li-
brary.^ Professors, all working at
good salaries. Who is entitled to
credit for the work, the professors or
the business man ?

I believe the most useful man who
has ever lived is John D. Rockefeller,
a business man, because of the Rock-
efeller Foundation, which will devote
four or five million dollars a year to
human betterment as long as the

10 The Blessing of Business

world endures. I judge Rockefeller
with the impartiality I judge Hanni-
bal, Napoleon, Lincoln, Clay, Web-
ster, or any other noted character.
That he has a great mind and heart
cannot be disputed fairly. I have
read his interviews and memoirs, so
far as they have been published, and
they have not impressed me; but
the man has been made timid by the
unjust hatred of his fellow men. No
one knows the real Rockefeller, ex-
cept possibly his son. I judge Rock-
efeller, Sr., by the facts of history,
two of which are that he met the
keenest men of his time in fair com-
petition, and outranked them, and
that he devised and executed the
world's greatest benevolence. Given

By E. W. Howe 11

the applause of any one of our more
popular statesmen, the common sense
of Rockefeller, Sr., might have saved
this nation much disaster now threat-
ening.

Business is the definition of the
greatest of all words. Industry , and
no man can prove he is industrious
unless he has some measure of suc-
cess to his credit. The real Ameri-
can hero is the man who, in spite of
a poor home, poor schooling, and
residence in a poor neighborhood,
becomes a successful and useful citi-
zen; who somehow acquires polite-
ness, education, and appreciation of
the world's important lessons. Be-
cause a workman is advanced to fore-
man, superintendent, or proprietor,

12 The Blessing of Business

he does not lose the manhood which
distinguished him as a member of his
union ; he is no less a man because
he has been promoted on merit ; pro-
motion does not cause him to lose all
sense of right, correct living and jus-
tice to his fellow men.

I care nothing for the accidental
rich, but for those good workmen
who rise by sheer merit, I have honest
admiration. There are a few un-
worthy sons who have inherited
wealth, but we should not, because of
them, unfairly criticise their worthy
fathers, who were first industrious,
fair and polite, and finally successful.

There are only a few of the shoddy
rich ; but there are millions rich in
character, usefulness and intelligence,

By E. TV. Hotve 13

and with enough success to their
credit to be envied by the shiftless.
Abuse of business in abuse of indus-
try.

Dr. Russell H. Conwell investi-
gated the history of four thousand
successful American business men ; he
found that all but seventeen of them
began life poor ; that all but a pitiful
forty of them contributed largely to
their several communities. So it
seems that the great American re-
wards are for the sons of poor men
who become industrious, well-be-
haved, successful, and then as useful
as selfish men can afford.

It is snobbery to pretend that
character may not accompany posi-
tion or wealth. The talk that the

i-4 The Blessing of Business

greater the rogue the greater the
fortune, originated with thieves, and
they have failed to make their doc-
trine good. If you want to hear that
there is no chastity among women,
associate with those who are
wretched outcasts because of lack of
chastity ; if you want to hear that
a successful business man cannot be
honest, associate with men who are
themselves unclean in thought and
practice.

By E, W. Howe 15

II.

When you visit a public park, you
note that the bronze and marble
statues usually represent statesmen,
warriors or poets. They should rep-
resent the more useful business men ;
so should the pictures on postage
stamps and paper money. Look at
the average community, and con-
sider what business men have done
for it ; the teachers, preachers, states-
men, writers, artists and orators,
however creditable they may be,
have not done as much.

The public has always been plun-
dered, and always will be, but since
men are more careful in paying out
money than they are in voting, a

16 The Blessing of Business

business institution is always held to
a stricter accountability than a pub-
lic man ; and this is the reason busi-
ness is the cleanest thing we have.
Men investigate money problems
with all the practical sense and ex-
perience at command, but in every-
thing else they are sentimental ; and
sentiment is neither honest nor care-
ful. There is trickery in every
human transaction ; every man with
whom you deal charges more than
he should if you do not watch him ;
but it is an absurdity to believe that
only business is tricky, and needs
watching. The earnings of no states-
man are as fairly gained as the five
per cent of the packing houses or the
railroads; every merchant, farmer,

By E. W, Howe 17

mechanic, banker or manufacturer
earns his money more honorably than
any poUtician.

I

18 The Blessing of Business

III.

Every man wishes, and properly,
to make money. The surest way to
make money is to be industrious, po-
hte, temperate and honorable; the
more persistently a man practices
these good habits, the more money
he will make, and the more useful he
will become. The men of greatest
usefulness are those who have a sur-
plus ; those who have only good will
and love for their fellows cannot
equal in well-doing those who have
money and success to their credit.
Nearly every man who accumulates
a surplus, finally accumulates, also, a
disposition to help the weak. Our
successful men do not hoard their

By E, W. Howe 19

gold, and gloat over it: they are
great spenders, and leave a trail of
prosperity behind them. The dis-
position of the successful to help
others is growing, and it has always
been a prominent human character-
istic.

If you have not succeeded, give
your son a chance. And he cannot
have a chance if there are no success-
ful institutions, and no successful
men to die and require successors.

Our plan of permitting the indus-
trious to accumulate a competence
is right ; there is more to it than the
fact that fortunes are made; the
men who make money are, as a ver^
general rule, also industrious, capable
and useful. There are objections to

20 The Blessing of Business

the system which permits a man to
accumulate more than he needs, but
the system also has its advantages :
more advantages than disadvantages,
or men would not maintain it cen-
tury after century. First among the
advantages of the system is that it is
an incentive to every man to become
a respectable and useful citizen. The
system is at the very foundation of
our civilization, and we should not
abolish it because of an occasional
fortune put to bad use. For every
fortune wasted, I can name many
which have been of the greatest serv-
ice to humanity ; for every fortune
made by speculation bordering on
dishonesty, I can name hundreds
made by honest and useful work.

By E. W. Howe 21

If successful men were a privileged
class, every decent citizen would
have a right to protest against the
present system ; but in the United
States there is no law granting one
man rights another does not possess,
except that there are laws favoring
the poor, and discriminating against
the successful. We have a high and
low caste, but anyone may get into
the better class ; caste in the United
States is settled after birth.

I am not a rich man, and never
will be ; I would feel as uncomfort-
able in a palace as in a hovel, but I
am not a toady. Nearly everyone
dislikes a particularly rich or noted
man, and I confess I do. I am of the
opinion that the rich should be

22 The Blessing of Business

threatened sufficiently to keep them
reasonably modest, but I have never
believed the well-to-do and noted are
less honest, patriotic, fair or useful
than I am. I believe their moral
standards are at least equal to mine.
I know I have had exactly the same
chance in the world. Besides, I have
observed that most men, on their
way up the ladder to success, have
accomphshed a good many creditable
things.

The most agreeable people I know
are those of about my own station
in life ; those who have had enough
bad luck to keep them reasonably
modest. I have lived a long time,
and have known many worthy men
and women, but have never known

I

By E. W, Howe 23

a hero or heroine, though I know
many men of whom I often think:
"How dull they are! And how well
they have succeeded!"

I admire the men who work regu-
lar and long hours, are fairly good
citizens, and patiently take their
chances in life's lottery. There are
millions of them, and they are suc-
ceeding. And in becoming success-
ful, they accomplished nothing that
is not natural.

Drive through any agricultural
community, and you will find plenty
of farmers who are successful be-
cause of good habits. You will find
successful men in every shop, store,
office and bank. Working under
them you will find younger men who

21^ The Blessing of Business

are obeying the rules, and who will
become successful in time ; there are
millions of these young men toiling
away patiently, cheerfully and ef-
fectively. They are not entitled
under the hard rules made by the
world to jump into distinction in a
day, but when their time comes, they
will be recognized in the degree they
deserve.

Genius is born, and very rare, but
a money-maker is made ; if the av-
erage man will observe a few simple
rules, he cannot very well avoid be-
coming well-to-do. First in the list
is industry; but he must be polite
and fair, because these simple virtues
are of almost equal importance : the
man who makes a profit from my

By E. W. Howe 25

grocery trade must have a good stock
of politeness and fairness, as well as
a good stock of groceries. Many
geniuses have been idlers and drunk-
ards, and became famous over night,
but no idler or drunkard ever suc-
ceeded in business.

I sing the praise of the average
man ; and the average man succeeds
in some degree. I have sympathy
for those who fail, whatever the
cause ; but the men who work hard
and progress slowly to success are
entitled to first consideration. There
are only a few of the very poor and
the very rich ; but there are millions
who are getting along comfortably,
and who will be better off in a few
years than they are now. In a little

26 The Blessing of Business

while our distinguished men will be
dead, and younger men will occupy
their places ; our great men are not
only those who have arrived, but
those who are on the way.

By E, W. Howe 21

IV.

It has long been known that what
we call "booming" is dangerous in
business ; but we do not seem to
know that booming in morals, pa-
triotism, religion or art is equally
dangerous. Herbert Spencer took
thirty-two acts of the English Parlia-
ment, and had them traced down by
a force of clerks. He found that
twenty-nine of them produced an
effect contrary to the effect intended.
This is dangerous booming in pa-
triotism.

I dislike over-wrought sentiment
as I dislike unnecessary filth, and be-
lieve it is as harmful as polluted
water or bad air ; yet it has become

28 The Blessing of Business

entrenched in our affairs, public and
private, to such an extent that re-
spectable and important truth is op-
posed to our detriment. I have as
beautiful and foolish fancies as any-
one, but am ashamed of them ; I
never hear a great musical perform-
ance that I am not moved to tears,
but actually have no respect for the
elves released by the performance of
an orchestra or chorus.

By E. W. Howe 29

Of all ambitions, the most alluring
to mankind is the ambition to make
fame and fortune by doing good.
To the public speaker there is great
fascination in the thought of address-
ing and moving hundreds of people,
at the same time doing them good,
and receiving fifty cents admission
from each one. Thousands of boom-
ers fail at the fascinating game of
public speaking or writing, and be-
come mischievous disturbers.

How the term "Public Service" is
overworked! The profound fellows
who write for the magazines say
everyone should be devoted to the
public service ; the orators claim

30 The Blessing of Business

they have consecrated their hves to
it; women agitators, ministers, so-
ciahsts, labor leaders, editors of news-
papers, missionaries, all claim to be
devoted to the public service. But
in spite of the devotion of these
ladies and gentlemen, no people get
such wretched public service as we
do. There is little honesty in it ;
little economy ; little patriotism ;
those occupying public positions re-
gard the people as fools to deceive.
We all begin life with an ambition
to succeed, but in case of failure
there does not seem to be a man fair
enough to admit why he failed, or
why another succeeded. The most
popular literature is unfair abuse of
the successful ; the greatest phrase-

By E, W. Howe 31

maker is the most popular man in
the United States today, while our
greatest philanthropist is the most
thoroughly despised.

People have an unfortunate habit
of petting themselves : they have
carried it so far that some of them
say they will never die. They admit
that while they may be compelled to
go through the grave as a prepara-
tion, they will be resurrected, and
live in endless bliss, as they deserve.
Naturally they add to this doctrine
that the present necessity of working
is not natural, and that those who in-
dulge in it are vulgar and sordid.

Practically all \vriters and public
speakers say materialism is danger-
ous to higher civilization ; it is

32 The Blessing of Business

actually the only straight road to the
highest civilization possible. I know
of no greater folly than trying to
live a spiritual life in a world un-
doubtedly material. The really spir-
itual nations are notoriously worth-
less ; before we do the best we can,
we must first look facts in the face,
and act upon them. So far as civili-
zation is breaking down, it is due to
the individual faults of the people;
we have every public right we can
have. No law is lacking that would
give the people greater opportunity.
Law cannot make the individual
sensible, thrifty and efficient; law
may only prohibit, not prevent.

An elderly man once told me he
had been persecuted all his life be-

By E, TV. Howe

cause he insisted on doing right. He
declared that his superior officers were
thieves ; and the same charge was
made against associates of only a
little higher rank than his own. Did
this man actually believe he had
been persecuted all his life because
of his determination to be honest .^^
Possibly he did ; we all have a dis-
position that way, and all our educa-
tion encourages it. The man who
receives $100 a month is apt to be-
lieve that his associate who gets $200
is a rascal. And the man worth
$50,000 believes that the man worth
$100,000 accumulated his fortune by
means of trickery ; while million-
aires are so generally hated that they
are always attacked, often unfairly,

3^ The Blessing of Business

by Legislatures, political conventions
and newspapers. Yet the morals of
the two hundred dollar a month man
average with the morals of the man
receiving only half as much ; the
morals of the man with a fortune of
fifty or a hundred thousand dollars
average no better than the morals of
the millionaire. Riches are like edu-
cation : we all have exactly the same
chance, and poor men criticise the
rich no more generally than the un-
educated sneer at the educated.

If a man is lazy, shiftless and un-
reliable, there is no power on earth
that will make him prosperous and
respected. If a man has bad habits,
he must overcome them, or suffer the
consequences. Emerson said: "If

By E. W. Howe 85

the black man is feeble, and not im-
portant to the existing races, not on
a parity with the best race, the black
man must serve. I say to you, you
must save yourself, black or white,
man or woman ; other help is none."
We engaged in a terrible war to help
the black man, and spent billions of
money in his interest, but we admit
now that he must save himself. Ex-
actly the same thing is true of the
white man. If he is feeble, unreli-
able, and not important to his race,
and not on a parity with average
men, he must serve; other help is
none. The churches and conventions
have fought for inferior man since
time began, but he is still where he
was at the beginning, and always

36 The Blessing of Business

will be, unless he helps himself,
which he may usually do.

We know our present social sys-
tem (although imperfect, like every
other human thing, and subject to
careful modification) is effective, be-
cause we have created, while living
under it, a country where there is
more liberty and prosperity than ever
existed before in any period in the
past. The best evidence that we
cannot afford to throw away this
system to try exploded experiments,
is the fact that we do not do it.

We do not cut the throats of suc-
cessful men and divide their property
because there is doubt that it is the
best way : we are willing to do it,
but have a suspicion that successful

By E. W. Howe £7

men are, after all, useful ; that it is
best, in the long run, to protect a
man in the possession of what he
fairly earns. Every man wants such
protection, and grudgingly grants it
to others.

I believe in any system the people
have tried a long time, and found
most expedient. The plans men have
adopted are better than the plans
they have talked about, and neg-
lected to put into effect because of
doubt of utility ; it is foolish to say
Henry George thought out a better
tax system than the system worked
out by all men as a result of time
and experience.

Whatever progress is made, the
Majority makes ; I know nothing in

38 The Blessing of Business

which the majority is habitually
wrong ; when the Majority makes a
mistake, it will inevitably correct it ;
the Majority cannot afford to follow
a bad plan when a better one may
be found, and only does it until the
better plan appears and demonstrates
itself. There is something wrong
with every doctrine the Majority
does not put into effect. I cannot
believe that mankind, after experi-
menting with life for thousands of
years, finally adopted the worst sys-
tem, and steadily refuses to put into
effect a better.

Therefore I believe in the best
workmen being made foremen, and
general superintendents, and general
managers. In every place where men

By E. W. Howe 39

toil there are inexperienced workmen
who need direction, in order that they
may better learn their trade, and
themselves become foremen and su-
perintendents. There is the same
reason for foremen, superintendents,
and rules and laws, that there is for
giving a father authority to direct
his children. Workmen are con-
stantly becoming foremen and su-
perintendents; children are con-
stantly becoming parents ; poor men
are constantly becoming rich men.
Occasionally you find a worthy in-
surgent in advance of the people,
but the people soon catch up. I be-
lieve in the present System because
whatever the critics may say, they
actually accept it in their practical

-40 The Blessing of Business

affairs. When the critics reach per-
fection, rest assured the people will.

I believe promotion in business is
a gauge by which men may be fairly
judged. Take a hundred locomotive
engineers, and they will average a
little better in reliability, temper-
ance, fairness and politeness than
their firemen. A hundred wholesale
grocers will average a little better
than a hundred retail grocers ; a
hundred owners of farms will average
a little higher than a hundred renters.

It is true in every trade, calling
and profession.

No business can succeed or be-
come useful unless it makes money ;
every great thing in the world's his-
tory has resulted from men working

By E, W. Howe U

for profit. There is no good result
Idealism strives for that business
men do not actually accomplish,
when accomplishment is possible.

I am a believer in the people.
Whatever they have worked out in
their homes, in their places of busi-
ness, and on the highways and mar-
kets, I believe in. If I had young
children, I should rather have them
taught by the better class business
men than by statesmen, orators, or
dreamers.

The world's weakness is not that
we have many successful men and
institutions ; the real menace is that
so many men are poor, and so many
institutions weak and unprofitable,
for failure, in most cases, is the re-

J^2 The Blessing of Business

suit of carelessness, of idleness ; of
neglect of simple and important rules
that long experience has taught.

There is a reason why some people
are rich, and this reason is not dis-
creditable ; on the contrary, it usu-
ally indicates thrift, good sense and
hard work. Go into any community,
and compare the dozen most success-
ful men with the twelve poorest, and
it is nonsense to say that those se-
lected because of their prosperity are
more vulgar, ignorant or unprincipled
than those selected because of their
poverty. The men who succeed are
nearly always forceful and useful
characters; they stand well every-
where, except in literature.

The man who does me most good

By E. W. Hmve JtS

is he who sells me necessary supplies
and conveniences at a low price, be-
cause of economies of production ; I
can give myself more good advice
than I can possibly take. Great
business establishments of every kind
are not manufactured over night;
they are the result of years of labor
on the part of worthy men. Behind
nearly every noted family in this
country you will find useful pioneer-
ing in business, which teaches mod-
esty, industry, fairness, education,
progress and practical common sense,
while Statesmanship teaches shorter
hours and louder talk. We Ameri-
cans have reached a dangerous atti-
tude in prublic affairs ; a nation may
engage in a wrong policy that will

-44^ The Blessing of Business

wreck it ; a sound national policy is
even more important than a sound
individual policy, since a bad na-
tional policy means final disaster to
millions, while a bad individual pol-
icy may mean only disaster to an
individual and his family.

By E. W. Howe ^5

VI.

Many people seem to believe busi-
ness is Original Sin ; it is really the
most respectable and useful human
activity. It is business men who
know best that the civilities of life
are respectable and profitable; go
into a successful place of business
anywhere, and you may depend upon
politeness and fairness. It is in the
store or oflSee of the failure where
you are treated uncivilly or dishon-
estly.

The principles of business are
just ; they give every man the same
chance; we know no other real de-
mocracy. Business is fanatical in
nothing.

J^6 The Blessing of Business

Revolution is only agreeable when
it is brewing; when it breaks, and
the furies are unchained, the people
begin clamoring for order. It is to
the credit of business men that they
steadfastly oppose the world-old mis-
take of anarchy ; business men know
that revolution is followed by years
of destruction and murder, and fi-
nally a return to old conditions.

The rich man is objectionable, but
not so objectionable as the pro-
fessional disturber who is forever
preaching a Brotherhood of Man he
does not believe in, since he would
promptly desert his doctrine if he
should in some way suddenly achieve
fame and fortune.

Matches are a great convenience

By E. W. Howe V7

to me, and I really contribute very
little to the Match King's private
yacht and swagger; it is no hard-
ship to pay four cents for a box of
matches — it would be a hardship
were not matches sold at present low
prices. In spite of his display of
prosperity the Match King is really
a useful man : not as useful as he
should be, but still useful in many
ways. And remember that millions
of men are not useful ; that they are
burdensome to the communities in
which they live, and to the world.

There are thousands of men who
have made fortunes canning vege-
tables. Before these fortunes were
made, hundreds of men spent many
years and great sums of money in

Jf8 The Blessing of Business

perfecting the different processes.
These men have been of the greatest
use to the world ; the Match Kings,
Vegetable Kings, Money Kings,
and successful men of every other
sort, were useful while making their
money. Thomas Edison may be ar-
rogant because of his great success —
I have never heard that he is — but
think of the usefulness of the man,
and forgive his vanity. I am able
to live more conveniently, comfort-
ably and economically because of
Edison's fortune ; he won what he
has in fair competition with other
men, and at least we have not been
taxed to enrich him, as we are in the
case of thousands of useless public
men. Edison has never robbed me ;

By E. W. Howe

on the contrary, he has benefited me,
and I will not hate and misrepresent
him. I can more easily forgive his
vanity because he is a king among
men than I can forgive the shiftless-
ness of the thousands of others who
increase my burdens.

And there are millions of success-
ful men more modest than the Match
Kings, or kings of business in other
Hues ; in every community you find
that a considerable majority of the
people are successful in greater or
less degree. Every year millions of
worthy men are promoted to better
positions ; the world is a great
training camp. Those who succeed
in country towns go to the cities;
and business is the base of it all.

50 The Blessing of Business

Every professional teacher arouses
a certain opposition ; we know it is
his business to teach, and that pos-
sibly he teaches some things that are
to his interest rather than to ours,
but the man who teaches good lessons
by example is a real force. This is
the special mission of the successful
business man.

When parents tell their sons to be
good boys, and amount to something,
it is usually interpreted as advice
that they become preachers, teach-
ers, writers, artists, doctors or law-
yers. There has always been a preju-
dice against the long hours and hard
work connected with business.

The fairest publications issued to-
day are devoted to business. They

By E, W, Howe 51

do not wantonly and notoriously ad-
vocate any untruth ; they come
nearer being fair with the other side
than any other class of publications.
The explanation is that business men
are trained in accepting palpable
facts, and in rejecting palpable ab-
surdities. Business is founded on
simple experience, which is truth ; so
it is the fairest thing we have. A
good business man rarely cares for
gossip that is untrue; he may dis-
like his rival, and usually does, but
he does not say he is a fool when he
is really a clever man ; he does not
say he is a thief when the evidence
shows he is reliable and obliging.
This commendable attitude of busi-
ness men is having an effect; it is

5^ The Blessing of Business

being copied. I note with pleasure
that the Bishop and the editor of
The Truth Seeker are lately treating
each other with more fairness. The
Truth Seeker is becoming less violent,
and the Bishop is notably improving
in the same way. The superior com-
mon sense and fairness of business
men is the force that will finally
make the foolish old world sensible,
in case such a thing is possible.

By E. W. Howe 58

VII.

The average American citizen is, I
regret to confess, a great dunce in
some respects. About so often he
feels that he is expected to declare
that We are the Richest Nation in
the World, although he may know
that individually he and his neigh-
bors are not prospering greatly, and
that we need to confess that in this
country there are millions who are
poor. But above all, in his boasting
he doesn't stop to think that his big
talk has a tendency to increase the
extravagance at Washington, at State
capitals, and at county seats.

About so often, also, he tells how
patriotic he is, and rather broadly

5^ The Blessing of Business

intimates that while he is ordinarily
peaceable, and a kind and indulgent
husband and father, he would on oc-
casion hurry away to war, and do
something terrible to our enemies.

In the same sentimental way he
frequently tells how gallant he is to
the ladies, with the result that they
often impose upon him unmercifully.

He tells grandly how we are a
Christian nation, devoted to world-
freedom ; he talks about the Spir-
itual Side of man, and his higher
ambitions, having read about such
things in newspaper, magazine or
book in the evening or on Sunday.
Sentimental editors and orators ex-
hibit him as teachers exhibit their
pupils when there are visitors at the

By E. W, Howe 55

school, and he holds up his hand or
arises to his feet at chautauquas or
revivals. He does these things be-
cause he has been told they are to
his credit ; and after he has put him-
self on record so frequently as a Pa-
triot, a Christian, a Gallant Hus-
band, etc., he is ashamed to protest
when the leaders call on him for
sacrifices he cannot afford, or does
not believe to be necessary.

Our public folly is due to this
moral cowardice of the Average Cit-
izen, who almost advocates anarchy
in his devotion to fine sentiments.

Why have we not gone all the way }
Who has supplied the saving grace .^^
Why have we not gone as far as
the Russians or Mexicans.'^ Cer-

56 The Blessing of Business

tainly newspapers and politicians
have taught anarchy. What has
held us in check?

I believe the credit is due the
better class business men ; they of-
ten seem half ashamed of their com-
mon sense, but they believe in it,
and teach it, greatly to the world's
advantage. Give a politician great
responsibility, and he goes crazy ;
the same test sobers a business man.
To think correctly and sensibly is as
natural with him as to dodge when
a missile is thrown at him. It is
his training, and proper training will
finally get rid of bad education.

Everybody agrees that our public
affairs are wrong. Many suggest
that we try a different form of gov-

By E. W, Howe 57

ernment. Why not first try giving
business men control, instead of pol-
iticians and statesmen? Mischiev-
ous New Thought is being dis-
tributed as liberally as a weed throws
its seeds to the four winds, but there
are a few simple principles that must
be respected. Who know them best ?
Business men. Where do the great
ideas, thoughts and improvements
come from ? From the market-places
and fields. Science is only human
experience corrected and catalogued.
And he who knows his community
knows the world, since one commu-
nity is like another, in a little differ-
ent form. There is not in New York
a peculiar type of man who thinks of
things that have not been thought of

58 The Blessing of Business

by some one in the vicinity of Van-
dalia, Illinois, or Emporia, Kansas.
Literary men write about the dark
woods in terms of mystery, but prac-
tical men have charted them, and are
able to tell you the meaning of the
darkness and the moaning. Uni-
versity professors, editors and states-
men are specialists ; they do not
come in contact with the real prob-
lems of life as do farmers, bankers,
mechanics, merchants, and other men
active in real affairs. Of the profes-
sors it may be said they are mainly
modest, and realize their inability to
direct in practical affairs, but editors
and statesmen, hidden away in pri-
vate rooms, where they smoke and
write, have become dictators. The

By E. W. Hotve 59

people who are not politicians must
organize to protect themselves from
those who are. Politics has finally
become a menace to the country,
yet I do not believe one man out of
fifty realizes it.

Under our political system we
train men at public expense to dis-
turb us. They enter college with a
view of engaging in public life ; from
a small oflBce and small salary they
graduate to a larger one, and their
quarrels with each other over pre-
ferment become mischievous and ex-
pensive.

The old English idea was that a
man engaged in trade ought to be
excluded from public functions, and
could not be a gentleman. The truth

60 The Blessing of Business

is that the bulk of our gentlemen are,
or have been, in trade, and we can
never have reasonably satisfactory
public service until they are given
charge of public affairs. Nearly
every successful and useful man ac-
quires gentility with his years and
experience; a gentleman is anyone
who has sufficient ability and char-
acter to become one. Some of the
most agreeable and perfect gentle-
men I know came from the Prole-
tariat. They were born into rude
families, and as boys lived among
rude neighbors, but as they looked
at the world, they discovered the
importance of gentility. It is absurd
to say a man is born a gentleman;
gentility is an acquirement, like an

By E. W. Hmoe 61

education, or ability to play on a
musical instrument. One of the
most perfect gentlemen of my ac-
quaintance didn't know enough as a
boy to take his hat off when he en-
tered a strange house ; neither his
father, his mother or his neighbors
taught him this simple preliminary
in ordinary gentility ; but he soon
learned it when he went out into the
world as a bound boy. He had no
education, but acquired one ; he was
poor, but became well-to-do; he
lacked politeness, but acquired it.
No difference how lowly a man is
born, if he becomes a reliable, useful,
upright and polite citizen, he is a
gentleman ; and if a man born in a
mansion becomes idle and dissipated,

62 The Blessing of Business

he is not a gentleman. The real
meaning of Democracy is that any-
one living under such a government
may become a gentleman ; that all
have the privilege of outgrowing ig-
norance, poor birth, poverty and in-
civility.

By E. W. Howe 63

VIII.

I take an interest in medical ad-
vertising; not because I use medi-
cine, but because of the surprising
exaggeration of the advertisers, and
the lamentable certainty that mil-
lions of worthy people are harmed
by it. Men and women print testi-
monials of benefits that are without
the slightest foundation in fact ; one
newspaper quotes a former English
cabinet minister as saying that a
certain worthless medicine is a "na-
tional necessity." In the same an-
nouncement, four famous men are
quoted as giving great credit to a
remedy that deserves none at all.

I do not merely think I know these

6i The Blessing of Business

widely proclaimed remedies are not
remedies ; I know it.

On the other hand, I know I may
adopt health suggestions made by
my grandmother, and repeated by
simple and intelligent people ever
since, with prompt and unmistakable
benefit. These suggestions are known
to everyone, cost nothing, and are
effective without doubt; anyone
may test them, and receive benefit —
not in the distant future, but within
the day of trial.

I know, also, that the simple rules
of life taught by my grandparents,
my parents, my neighbors, are ef-
ficient, while the great remedies ad-
vocated in books, in magazines, in

By E. W, Howe 65

newspapers and by orators, are often
mischievous, and never work.

I have a body, and can't make it
over; no one can make it over for
me. If we should all give our best
efforts to changing the natural rules
governing our bodies, and contribute
liberally of our means, we couldn't
do it. I learn from old books and
from old men that the ancients had
the same experiences I am having,
and that they had the same bodies
we have today ; that those who have
gone before were deceived by the
same shrewd advertisers, who became
rich and famous in that day as they
do in this, and that finally they could
not change the natural rules. The

66 The Blessing of Business

gentleman who says that if we will
elect him to Congress he will make
easier rules, is a deceiver as surely as
is the man who says he can change
our bodies with a dollar bottle of
medicine on which he makes an un-
fair profit.

How promptly I have been pun-
ished for intemperance, laziness, un-
fairness! The devil has never once
forgiven me. But I have been bene-
fited with equal certainty when I
have accepted the simple, sensible,
just rules my neighbors have taught
me. And the most reliable of these
neighbors have been business men :
by which I mean the workers, as
distinguished from those who live by
their wits.

By E. W, Heme 67

There is a fairness among the
physical scientists I have long ad-
mired. When a new theory is an-
nounced, the specialists of different
nations examine it, and pick it to
pieces. If it turns out to be a dis-
covery, it is admitted and accepted,
and thereafter taught. Business men
are gradually accepting the same
policy ; they supply the world's sober
second thought. They are our most
numerous and active class, and make
many mistakes, but their best teach-
ing is founded on truth. The best
teaching of many other men is not.

68 The Blessing of Business

IX.

If we know the simple rules gov-
erning life, and that its conditions
are fixed and unchanging, we need
not greatly care about guesses called
"the deeper significance of it all,"
since no two of the guesses agree.

I wished to visit a neighboring
town called Leavenworth. I heard
that the road was plainly marked,
and found that it was. The people I
met on the way were exactly like
those I had known all my life,
as were their houses, live stock,
churches, villages, kitchens, parlors,
marriages, funerals.

Where did these people originate ?
It is an interesting speculation, but

By E. W. Howe 69

not comparable in interest to the
certainty that they are here, and
that I am compelled to deal with
them a few years.

How did the world originate? I
do not know ; but I know its rules,
and that they will certainly endure
as long as they are of interest to me.

And the road to Mandalay is as
plainly marked as the road to Leav-
enworth. I have been around the
world, and can attest that every
reasonable thing I have heard about
distant places turned out to be true ;
accurate reports of Singapore, Shang-
hai, Tokio, Cairo, Zanzibar, Mel-
bourne, Rome, Jerusalem, Aden,
London, Bombay, Trinidad, Paris,
and New York had reached me at

70 The Blessing of Business

my home far in the interior of the
United States.

The first duty of every man is to
acquire as much common sense as
possible as soon as possible. What-
ever a man's natural handicaps may
be, the sooner he acquires common
sense, the sooner he is able to take
advantage of his opportunities, the
sooner he makes the best of his life.

A writing man is something of a
black sheep, like the village fiddler.
Occasionally a fiddler becomes a vio-
linist, and is a credit to his family,
but as a rule he would have done
better had his tendency been toward
industry and saving. It doesn't ac-
tually make much difference what
literary men say in their writings ;

By E. W, Howe 71

their business is to entertain, to
make you laugh, or cry, or indignant,
not to instruct. For instruction, go
to professors in the University of
Fact.

I contend only for old and simple
principles we know to be true and
important. I have no New Notions ;
no New Thought; I am no New
Voice, or Discovery ; simply an old
fogy pleading for more common
sense, more efficiency, more polite-
ness, more fairness, more temperance.

One of the living, certain truths
is that the vital forces with which
we are compelled to deal are alive,
and forever screaming that their
well-established and well-known laws
must be obeyed. The big questions

7^ The Blessing of Business

of possible importance often obscure
simple questions of undoubted im-
portance. A philosophy requiring
large volumes to print is too much ;
a hundred pages is enough.

By E, W, Howe 78

H. L. Mencken, said to be one of
three men in the United States whose
critical judgments are of most value,
recently wrote :

"Astounding hypocrisy is the chief
symbol of our American life, which
leads us habitually, and upon almost
all subjects that most intimately
concern us, to formulate two dis-
tinct sets of opinions, one of which
we mouth magnificently, and the
other of which we cherish and put
into practice in secret. On the one
hand, in almost any field you choose,
there is the doctrine that is sweet-
sounding; and on the other hand
there is the doctrine that works."

7-4 The Blessing of Business

If what this writer says is true —
and there is general agreement that
it is — what excuse can we give for our
daily practices and convictions? If
they are wrong, we should correct
them ; if they are right, we should
publicly maintain them. Are not prin-
ciples we apply in our homes and in
business worthy of application in our
relations with the church and state?

Our habit of pretending to believe
what we do not, is responsible for
the disagreeable fact that almost one-
half our citizens are politicians in one
degree or another, in one cause or
another, and this results in every
really useful and industrious man
supporting an idler who only an-
noys him with sentimental and fool-
ish doctrines.

By E. W. Howe 75

The truth is that the leaders —
made up of only one-tenth of the
population : editors, public speak-
ers, professors, preachers, and poli-
ticians of lower grade — have failed
in their big undertakings, and the
nine-tenths are now confronted, not
only with the right, but duty, of
boldly applying their practical and
just philosophy.

This would not mean the aban-
donment of any good thing, it seems
to me, but the betterment of every
good thing by a simpler and easier
plan. And I wonder that we fight
so strenuously for principles we do
not believe in, because they won't
work, and so feebly for principles
we do believe in, and know mil work.

76 The Blessing of Business

And if we correct this mistake, we
have gone far on the right road.

Our private enterprises succeed
because of enthusiasm we give en-
terprises we beHeve in ; our public
affairs fail because we do not believe
in the methods we employ. In our
private affairs we know the folly of
brag; in our public affairs we at-
tempt to put into effect the pro-
gramme of every braggart, provid-
ing he will brag of education, pa-
triotism, gallantry, religion, human
brotherhood, Christianity, liberty,
and kindred subjects. And in doing
this we have raised rose-scented hell
until finally we are able to detect
the smell of brimstone.

other BooKs by E. W. Howe:

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"Daily Notes of a Trip Around the
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"The Trip to the West Indies;" illus-
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" Country Town Sayings ; " a book of para-
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..^.«<,^.^.8«