The natural resources of our country are constantly being developed, and men of brains and courage will be sought to lead the armies of workmen. Every man cannot be a captain of industry, but a man of pluck and education need not remain a private in the ranks very long. Still, avoid that vaulting ambition that overleaps itself and falls on the other side.
Whatever your calling may be, try to become your own master in your younger days. Nothing will give you so much self-reliance as the habit of relying on yourself. You may possibly fail at first, but great successes are often built on failures, if the one who fails will profit by the lesson. Bulwer Lytton tells us that in the bright lexicon of Youth, there is no such word as Fail.
When you graduate, do not imagine that your education is completed. Consider that you are just beginning to be able to learn, and that your College life has simply been a period of training to put you in condition for the real struggle for knowledge. Practice makes perfect in all the professions.
See to it that you acquire some new point in knowledge every day that will be of future value to you. This will mean 365 good ideas acquired in a year, and every one of these ideas will be like money out at interest, or like seeds planted in good soil. They will blossom and bear fruit.
Do not believe that all men in politics are rascals, or weaklings, who can be bought for a price. If you have the inclination, get into political life and be a factor in the affairs of your district. Honest and truthful men will be most welcome in this field, and may be of great public service.
Do not be worried by the statements made by so many pessimists that society, and the country at large, are on the verge of moral bankruptcy. I tell you that the world is growing better every day, and good men are held in higher respect than ever. Of course there are more rascals, and more thieves, than there were fifty years ago, but that is because there are far more people. The percentage of bad to good is relatively smaller. Men who do wrong are found out oftener and sooner than they were in the olden days, and the news of wrongdoing is carried all over the land by telegraph and telephone and published broadcast in the daily papers. A hundred years ago a man might commit a crime a thousand miles from New York and we could not get the news of it in a month, even if it was sent at all.
Use all your endeavors to suppress the use of profanity or obscenity in public places or elsewhere. This is one of the crying evils of the day and our women are never safe from the insults of having to listen to talk that would not be tolerated in a first-class barroom. But of course the present company is excepted. You are all gentlemen and scholars.
Be cheerful under adverse circumstances. Ella Wheeler Wilcox expresses what I mean when she says:
“It’s easy enough to be pleasant, When life goes by like a song; But the man worth while Is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong.”
Whenever you see a chance to help a fellow-man who is not as well equipped as you are, give him a lift up. If you do so, _you_ may forget it, but _he_ never will, and you will secure a friend who will be looking for a chance to do you a good turn.
An old clergyman used to preach that true religion consisted in doing something good each day, so that when one went to bed at night, he could feel that the world was a little better, or some one a little happier, because he had lived that day.
Chemistry is going to play the important part in the next twenty-five years that electricity has in the past quarter of a century. Fortune awaits any man who can make use of waste material. Millions of dollars’ worth of this is thrown away every year because the mind of man has not, as yet, been able to solve the problem of utilizing it. Students are now at work to this end and who can tell but one of you may be the man who will play an important part in this great work of discovering new sources of wealth and progress. If so, he will find a bigger gold mine than Wall Street.
Railroad magnates are on the watch for improvements and devices of any kind that will tend toward saving time, increasing facilities, lessening liability of accident, or saving in cost of construction or equipment. Here is a broad field for action and for fertile minds to work in.
Copper metal is in such demand that the price has recently been higher than in a generation, namely, twenty-six cents a pound, and some cheaper metal may be found to possess qualities that will allow it to take the place of copper in a degree.
Surgeons and physicians now perform operations and effect cures that would have been considered miracles in my younger days, and still we find each year that they have much to learn. It is possible that I am now addressing some youthful savant, who will startle the world in the distant future by still more miraculous skill.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, keep your eye on the star of Hope. Every man has his place in the world if he can only find it. Opportunity knocks at every man’s door at some time during his early life. Look sharp and secure it when it knocks at yours, and grab it before it flies.
But, to all I would advise that when you have found occupation, whether it is in the professions, or not, strive to please. Don’t expect to sit in high places at once. Remember that most of you are in the junior class and can only graduate to a higher class by merit. Study well your surroundings and what is ahead of you. Carefully consider what may await you. If you see no evidence of a position worthy of your hopes, do not hesitate to make a change. It is better to change several times while you are young than to waste your time by remaining where you cannot expect to achieve success.
One of the fundamental principles of business is that civility costs nothing and always pays good dividends, both in and out of Wall Street. Very often the temptation will come to you in dealing with a nervous or cranky customer or client, to give vent to your wrath or impatience. My advice is don’t. That is also _Punch’s_ advice to those about to marry. To succeed in holding and pleasing such a customer is a high accomplishment, and sure to attract attention.
The Almighty has endowed every man with two important allies, namely, courage and conscience. The latter can be blunted if not heeded and an elastic conscience is worse than a wooden leg. Be cautious not to enter into any deal or occupation when your conscience warns you that you are treading on dangerous ground; but, having made up your mind that you are in the right, press forward with all the energy that is in you. If you do not succeed, have the courage to rise and try again and renew the struggle. Nearly every man who has made a great success in business life has, in his earlier years, suffered reverses. These failures have been lessons that have taught him the way to win. You may often be temporarily discouraged by seeing success come to the dishonest and unworthy, but remember that such cannot command the respect of their fellows. There is more in life than “filthy lucre,” although Wall Street prizes it immensely. A contented mind is more to be desired than great riches, and, if you are poor, be independently poor. Andrew Carnegie says that to die rich is to die disgraced, so guard against that.
You are really now on the threshold of a new school—the school of Life. As the old forest guides were taught their wood wisdom by the rocks, the streams, the grass, the leaves, and kindred objects, so you will learn by actual contact with all the customs, rules, and complex situations of the business world, what to do and what to avoid.
Many young men are disheartened before they start in business by the fact that so many lines of manufacture are controlled by big corporations and trusts. As I have already shown, they hear the talk of the agitator and discontented that a poor man has no chance in life. Let me repeat that brains will always command a premium and that young men who have brains, backed by energy, will always be in demand. You must prove that you have these requisites, by good work, and you will find capital will seek to combine with such qualities. You may start in business, or the professions, with your feet on the bottom rung of the ladder; it rests with you to acquire the strength to climb to the top. You can do so if you have the will and the force to back you. There is always plenty of room at the top. The men now at the top have their minds and hands full, and are eager to delegate to smart assistants some of their work so as to ease the burden they bear. Success comes to the man who tries to compel success to yield to him. Cassius spoke well to Brutus when he said: “The fault is not in our stars, dear Brutus, that we are underlings, but in our natures.”
Form the habit as soon as you become a money earner, or money maker, of saving a part of your salary, or profits. Put away one dollar out of every ten you earn. The time will come in your lives, when, if you have a little money, you can control circumstances; otherwise circumstances will control you. You may often have to practice self-denial to save ten per cent. of your earnings; but compel yourselves to do so and you will never regret it. Most of the leading men in business life to-day started out less well equipped with worldly goods or education than any of you. What they have done at least some of you can do.
See that the money you spend is well spent. By careful judgment in this respect, you will acquire a habit which will cling to you in after life. Many a man makes bad investments because he did not learn to be cautious in the beginning of his business career.
The improvements in the past quarter of a century have been marvelous and the end is not yet. There are many new ideas being formulated, and some of you may bear an important part in solving problems which will revolutionize the world. Electricity and chemistry are perhaps still in their infancy, and latent forces are floating around unknown to men. The next fifty years may indeed witness changes just as great and startling as we have seen during the last fifty.
I once advised young men to go as soon as possible into business. I have changed my opinion somewhat and think that it is well to get a technical training in a business at college where special courses are taught. I still consider, however, that if a young man is to enter Wall Street he will learn just as much by going into the Street as soon as he graduates, and I consider a large office just as good as any business college, where a pupil can learn by actual experience as well as he could by a theoretical course in a business college. Almost every man in a leading position in a banking house has started as a junior clerk and gradually worked his way up.
The term “Get the habit” has become quite a metropolitan by-word and brings me to speak on this subject, for the habits we acquire have much to do with our progress, and as Lamartine has truly said:
“Habit with its iron sinews Clasps and holds us day by day.”
In the various matters of detail that make up the sum and substance of business—considered as trifles by the foolish, but by the wise as important and vital—such as our methods of occupation, our time, and our manners, great care should be taken to acquire the sterling habits of industry, punctuality, and sobriety. The most watchful and jealous care should ever be exercised by you all in this regard. A single deviation from the straight path may mean much, for habit is not of sudden acquirement, but is formed (and also lost) act by act, thread by thread, as we progress in the journey of life.
If you hold a fiduciary position in a Wall Street banking house, or bank, remember that the information you acquire regarding the secrets and inside facts of the business of your employers belongs to them alone and must not be divulged or spoken of to anyone. Very often you will hear of “tips” being circulated there as inside information. Never put faith in such tips, as an employee who would give away the secrets of the firm he works for would be unscrupulous enough to lie to you, and I warn you not to make a close friend of such a person. Do not think that I look upon you as boys in tendering this piece of advice, but rather as a veteran addressing new recruits.
The trait of tenacity of purpose is very often a natural gift; but if you have not this persistence by nature you must cultivate it. For, with it, you can succeed, you can make difficulties bend, you can make opposition give way, and doubt and hesitancy yield to confidence and success. Without it, the more shining qualities of our nature will not insure your success, nor avert failure and disaster.
At the time the Suspension Bridge over the Niagara River was to be erected the great question was how to get the cable over. A kite was elevated, which, with a favoring wind, alighted on the opposite shore. To its insignificant little string a cord was attached which was drawn over, then a rope, then a larger one, and then a cable; until the great bridge between the United States and Canada was completed.
First across the gulf we cast Kite-borne threads till lines are passed, And habit builds the bridge at last.
In like manner, my friends, our whole character is made up of little things, of threads and strands and ropes of habit. Let us be sure that they are always good and sound.
Next to the unwisdom of selecting and following bad or incompetent advisers in matters of business, there are also certain persons whom, if you wish to do well and make a fortune honestly, you should be careful to avoid. You will not always know them by their appearance; in fact, that is often the worst rule to go by, for they are generally well disguised. It is in their manner and conversation that you will find them out, and, that this be the easier, I have made a collection of their characteristics, as follows:
Avoid a man Who vilifies his benefactor; Who unjustly accuses others of bad deeds; Who never has a good word for anybody; Who, when he drinks, habitually drinks alone; Who boasts of the superiority of his family; Who talks religion downtown in connection with his daily business affairs; Who talks recklessly against the virtue of respectable women; Who runs in debt with no apparent intention of paying; Who borrows small sums on his note or check dated ahead; Who will not work for an honest living; Who looks down upon those who do; Who is always prating about his own virtues; Who imputes bad motives to those trying to do good; Who betrays confidence; Who lies; Who is honest only for policy’s sake; Who deceives his wife and boasts of it to others; Who chews tobacco in a public conveyance; Who gets intoxicated in public places; Who partakes of hospitality and talks behind his entertainer’s back; Who borrows money from a friend and then blackguards the lender.
With a population of 85,000,000 people, which this country now has, it is easy to find associates in life without selecting men possessed of any of these characteristics, and life is the better worth living without them.
You will both save and make money by strict observance of this short catalogue of men to avoid. You are not called upon to do anything or to risk any money in the exercise of this discretion. It simply consists in letting such people severely alone, and if you have been in the habit of being imposed upon by such characters, you will find your happiness, as well as your cash, greatly increased by prudently avoiding them.
There is another subject of signal importance, to which I invite your earnest attention.
You must ever bear in mind that while, when you become citizens, you will possess certain rights and privileges—such as the elective franchise and equality before the law—there are, as well, sacred obligations and duties imposed upon you, as citizens, that should be faithfully regarded and performed.
To properly understand and appreciate these duties, you should, I reiterate, make a careful study of our system of government, and acquaint yourselves with the manner in which municipalities, states, and the nation are governed.
As you mature, attend political meetings and read and discuss economic questions of the day; for public discussion is one of the best quickeners of individual thought and expression. Be prepared, when the time comes, to actively participate in the affairs of your city and state as well as the nation, and stand always ready and willing to lend your aid to the uplifting of the government to the highest ideals of Democracy, or Republicanism, as you see them.
If I should add a further word of advice it would be an appeal to you to ever cherish, deep in your hearts, undying love of country.
Not only be ready to defend it with your lives; but constantly cultivate and encourage the inspiring qualities of civic pride and virtue, so that your whole future career will reflect a sincere and patriotic affection for and just appreciation of the noble institutions of our great republic. As, however, you are doubtless all true patriots this advice may be uncalled for.
Leaving, these few precepts with you, I wish to assure you that in whatever you may undertake, in banking, trade, or the professions, you will have my good wishes for your success, and if I have planted in your minds seed that will bear good fruit, it will add to the pleasure I have enjoyed in addressing you and giving you incidentally, as students of American social conditions, my experience of human nature, for, in your case particularly, the proper study of mankind is Man.
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CHAPTER LXXXVI.
THE FINANCIAL AND TRADE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS.[12]
Footnote 12:
An address delivered at the Annual Banquet of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, on Thursday evening, April 16, 1908, by Henry Clews, LL.D.
In familiarizing myself with the history, scope, and objects of the distinguished organization I have the honor to address—The National Association of Cotton Manufacturers—I was impressed by the vast extent and importance of the interests it represents through its membership, which covers not only New England but the whole manufacturing world of the United States, to say nothing of foreign countries in which it has a notable representation.
Such an organization is obviously capable of exerting great and lasting power for good in the improvement and development of the cotton manufacturing industry in this country, and incidentally it cannot fail to benefit all our manufacturing interests, for there are ties, visible and invisible, that bind them all together in a bond of mutual sympathy.
How immense these interests are is almost beyond computation; but we may form some idea of them from the fact that the capital stock of the textile mills, print works and bleacheries represented by your Association’s own members alone, aggregates no less than $334,500,000, without counting their surplus.
Your statistics further tell us that in these mills are 17,157,637 spindles, 1,472 sets of woolen and worsted cards, 5,849 knitting machines, and 67 printing machines. These figures are eloquently suggestive of the country’s manufacturing enterprise and skill, which have kept pace with its rapid growth, and the progress of mechanical science.
Beyond all this, you have $400,075,000 more capital in the affiliated manufacturing industries of cotton cloth, cotton, textile machinery, mill supplies and the like, represented by your associate members. This, indeed, is a grand exhibit.
So your association is the representative of $734,586,000 of capital, a large item in the national wealth of the United States. But, great as it is, it will continue to grow with this great and ever-growing nation, and with it will come still further improvements in mechanical processes, methods and machinery, and a far wider foreign market for our manufactures, especially in the Orient and South America, where the British and the Germans have dominated trade in the past.
This association in its work for the advancement of cotton manufacturing interests, and particularly in the promotion of their commercial relations, and whatever relates to improvements in manufacture, is a valuable ally of the motive power that turns the wheels and runs the machinery of the mills; and I congratulate you on being united for a purpose so conducive to both the prosperity of a great manufacturing interest and the national welfare.
I will now turn to the main subject, the financial and trade situation, present and prospective, in which I find much that is encouraging and favorable to a general betterment of conditions from this time forward.
With regard to business conditions and prospects, the general sentiment of both Wall Street and the rest of the country is optimistic, and to this may be attributed the extensive recovery of the stock market that has already taken place since the crisis that began in October. Although the dealings in stocks have been very largely professional, the improvement reflects the confidence in the situation of the rich Wall Street men who have led the movement, and confidence, like distrust, is contagious.
The absence of any considerable buying by the outside public has been conspicuous, but so also, since the end of 1907, has been forced or voluntary liquidation. Hence, there being no pressure to sell actual stock, it was easy for the powerful bull party at work to advance prices against the short interest, which was very large; and the bears were driven to cover their contracts at a heavy sacrifice of their previous paper profits. But, like the poor, the bears are always with us, and their expressed views as to trade conditions and prospects are, of course, as pessimistic as those of the majority are the reverse. But the majority rule, and Wall Street never fails to discount the future. It is the great financial barometer of the United States.
Leaving sentiment aside, there is ample scope for differences of opinion as to the exact situation and the future, so conflicting are the reports that come to us. In some sections, and some industries, very different conditions are reported than those that prevail elsewhere, and bankers, merchants and manufacturers in the same towns disagree as to things as they are.
This shows that we are in that uncertain transition period which always follows panic; and how long it will last, is the problem that business men all over the country are now trying to solve. Meanwhile the rise in stocks, which has been encouraged by the banking interest largely for the sake of its influence in promoting confidence among the people of all classes, may fairly be looked upon as the precursor of substantial improvement in general business.
Yet, however much we may hope for quick recovery from the effects of the crisis, we should always look unfavorable facts squarely in the face, for self-deception is the worst kind of folly. We must consider the worst, as well as the best, features of the situation, in order to gauge it correctly; and the reduction of ten per cent. in the wages of cotton mill operatives in New England, and the working of many cotton, woolen and other mills on part time only, and the shutting down of others, shows how much manufacturing industry there, as well as elsewhere, has been affected by the severe ordeal we have passed through.
But, so far as the banking institutions were concerned, Boston enjoyed a larger degree of immunity from trouble during the crisis than any other city, a fact that bears testimony to their soundness and conservatism. Boston may, therefore, well pride herself on this memorable circumstance, the result of good banking and good business methods. She had, fortunately, no speculative capitalists with chains of important banks under their control, as New York had.
The crisis accomplished one good thing, and that was the sweeping away of this unsound banking, which had become a menace not only to New York, but to the whole country.
The best banking authorities believe that actual business improvement is already making headway, although there is no uniformity in it, the recovery in some places, and some lines of business, being decided, while in others it is barely visible. Thus the Southwest, and its great distributing center, St. Louis, report a larger degree of betterment than any other section, while Chicago, like the Eastern and Middle States, reports comparatively little.
In the present stage of recuperation, the wage problem is forcing itself more and more upon public attention, and especially upon that of mill owners and the railway companies. The urgent necessity the railways are under of reducing them, to offset reduced earnings, is met by the unwillingness, or refusal, of the men to have them reduced. They have been encouraged in this attitude by President Roosevelt’s action, and now the labor leaders are urging Congress to legislate in support of their position. But Capital has its rights as well as Labor.
The railway companies, as an alternative to reducing wages, have proposed an increase in freight rates, but shippers are up in arms against this, particularly manufacturers; and the authorities of the States, as well as the Interstate Commerce Commission, signified their opposition to it. The railways, meanwhile, have kept pace, as far as practicable, with the contraction of traffic, by discharging large numbers of their men. In this way they have materially reduced their expenses, while they report increased efficiency by the labor still employed, every man in these times being anxious to hold his place by doing good work.
That is to say, jobs being now scarce, men want to keep their jobs instead of being “laid off,” as the phrase is. This of itself is a wholesome effect of hard times.
The labor problem is one of peculiar difficulty, and substantial, permanent improvement in trade and securities will not be seen until there has been a complete readjustment of commodities, prices and wages in accordance with the altered conditions. To insure steady work for labor, and a fair profit for employers, why would it not be wisdom for the labor union leaders to agree to a contract to last for the coming four months only, consenting to a reduction of 20 per cent. in wages?
Readjustment is a harmonizing process, and harmony promotes recovery and the full development of our powers and resources. This is what the business situation imperatively calls for now, and all business men should do their best to foster it, and so work together as a unit, for in unity there is strength. We have an example of it in our United States.
The cotton goods industry in New England has, I know, been much more severely depressed by the crisis than was at first thought possible; but, fortunately, the losses sustained will be the more easily borne because of the large profits of previous years. Notwithstanding the cuts made in standard goods, the demand for them is still abnormally light, and hence stocks are accumulating in the face of the heavy decrease in production.
No wonder, therefore, that those most intimately concerned are more or less at sea as to how long this depression will continue, and what the results will be. They see certain grades of goods that were selling at 8⅜ cents a yard just before the panic now being offered at 5½ cents, and this is an object lesson that tends to make even the most optimistic of them a trifle blue for the time being. But this is precisely the time when courage and confidence in the situation are most needed. I give you all credit, however, for being equal to the occasion.
With eighty-five millions of our own people to clothe—to say nothing of the rest of mankind—manufactured cotton products will before long be in demand again at rising prices, for civilization demands clothes in hot weather as well as cold.
Meanwhile, endurance is called for, and will doubtless not be found wanting, except where special circumstances impose limits to it, and we all know that patience is a virtue.
Recovery to normal conditions will, of course, be gradual, and it is better that it should be so, to ensure permanence. In the meantime, it will be a relief to the dry goods trade when sales are no longer extensively made by cutting under quoted prices more or less sharply.