The Profession of Commerce in the Making

Abstract

T HERE are distinct indications today of forces at work in business life which can recreate the purposes of commerce and set high standards for the conduct of business not only for America but for the world. In hundreds of meetings, across scores of luncheon tables, men are discussing the necessity for a new industrial leadership and the opportunity for that industrial leadership in America. The fine thing about these discussions by thoughtful men is that each sees in his own profession that opportunity for leadership. The lawyer, the engineer, the economist, the statesman, the industrialist, the banker, the manufacturer, the merchant and the salesman, men in all fields of professional and commercial activity are thinking in new terms of their work, and each in a different way is giving expression to a universal desire. Each is really trying to answer the question, old as civilization, which was phrased by Dean Kimball of Cornell when he said that we are attempting to solve the problem, What is mine and what is thine? America above all other nations offers the most fruitful opportunity for a new leadership. Our social structure is not laid-up in a stratification of classes. It is still possible for a newspaper publisher to become President of the United States and for a steel mill hand to head the works. We are, as Americans, idealists. Business to us is an end in itself and not merely a means to an end. The novelist in interpreting the social responsibilities of industry, usually to its disparagement, is prone to overlook this fact. There is something truly American in the possibility that a man, only twenty years old, may come to our shores from Egypt and in ten years become owner of a factory and two retail stores.