lost motion is found in one corporation? How can such things be? They exist merely because purchasing agents today have no common meeting ground, no contacts with each other, no publicity. The very salesman who boasted of selling his commodity at three different prices was guilty of an economic misdemeanor. The railroads are great public utilities. It is to the advantage of all that they be efficiently and economically managed. As they touch intimately every single industry in a most vital point, their ability to prosper and give adequate service is of interest to all. It is essential that they be competently administered. They should pay fair prices for their equipment and maintenance, yet every industry should coöperate in their problems. The remedy for all such abuses is coöperation-coöperation by publicity. Organization to secure such proper publicity and coöperation is necessary, and this implies an association of purchasing agents. No honest manufacturer has anything to fear from such an association of purchasing agents, properly organized, with proper purposes, and with its full publicity and exchange of price information and shop talk. It would aid in the free and speedy operation of the law of supply and demand; it would check and control speculative buying and the aggression of the middleman; it would be a formidable weapon against every form of secret dishonesty, for membership in such an association could be made to mean character. It would raise the tone and morals of every industry that felt its contact.

"The honest manufacturer welcomes intelligent open buying. The long-established policy of publicity in Governmental work has hurt no one, the manufacturer least of all. No advocacy is here made of the application to private corporations of the red tape and safeguards necessary in Governmental work. The point at issue is that we have traditionally become wedded to the secret price,

and are ridiculously afraid that our competitor will learn our prices. The absurdity of this lies in the fact that any proper selling organization prides itself on its ability to find out what its competitors are quoting and furnishing. This very ability leads often to abuses, which it is to the interest of the industry to correct. Rather than to fear such an association of purchasing agents, if organized on proper lines, we should recognize that it would create higher standards, that it would strengthen, conserve and stabilize."

XXXI

While there are a number of associations in open and successful operation, it is also true that more have purported to try the plan and failed-failed mainly because they sought to use the plan as a cloak for pricefixing.

Usually these attempts are made with subservient and inefficient secretaries and without counsel-they are foredoomed to failure.

The open price does not control prices and end competition, hence men who wish to do those things are disappointed. Only broad-minded and far-sighted men have the patience to follow the plan and look for results in the future. It is the application of scientific methods to competitive conditions, and must be worked out by men of enthusiasm and intelligence, and it requires from three to six months of hard work to get an open price association in even fairly efficient operation; and each year it improves.

Old men in business do not take kindly to the new suggestions. It is hard to get it into the head of the man over sixty, almost impossible if he is fifty. It is practically useless to try to convert the man who has "built up my own business in my own way."

They are blind to the truth that no man can build up a business alone.

The community is the greater partner.

True success is in proportion to the extent the community's interest is recognized.

There will have to be a lot of first-class funerals in many of the large industries of this country before any progress is made along new lines.

The other day I heard an old man at the head of a large company say:

"I go on the theory that if I can't get an order it's good business to make my competitor lose money on it." That man will go to his grave without a glimmer of the great law that a man prospers in business as his competitors prosper.

The man who builds on the losses of others is a greater menace to the community than the poor devil who steals a pocket-book.

The future of the country depends upon you young men. Don't do in all things as your fathers have done; don't always try to walk in their footsteps; go forward; profit by their mistakes; follow better and finer ideals; and begin by revising practically every maxim that has heretofore prevailed in the business or industry with which you are connected.

CHAPTER XI

HARMONY

I

Coöperation means a broader outlook than the mere quest of money.

It may be said once for all that no organization can live beyond the exigencies of the hour unless it has an interest above dollars and cents. The desire to make greater profits may bring men together but it will not hold them long, the motive is too sordid to encourage any large degree of enthusiasm, and without enthusiasm no movement can go forward.

Heretofore combinations, associations, pools, agreements have all been for the one object, higher prices. Men who disliked each other heartily came together for the sole purpose of making money, they were willing to swallow their aversions for the sake of a few dollars; they would lunch and dine together with a great show of friendship only to denounce each other roundly on separating.

In these combinations to advance prices the man who had a decent regard for his word was always the loser since he adhered to the understanding longer than the others.

There being nothing to hold the members together except an agreement that few intended to keep, it is not surprising the old line associations fell apart about as fast as they were brought together.

II

Men, whether in an association or not, should consider the relations enumerated below, but when organized they must consider them.

A. Relations of members to one another.

B. Relations with employees.

C. Relations with those to whom they sell-customers.
D. Relations with those from whom they buy.
E. Relations to the public generally.

III

If an association is small all it can do is to keep in mind and give some serious thought to the several relations named, especially to (B) relations with employees, (C) relations with customers and (E) relations to the public. It is hardly conceivable that two or three men in a given industry could come together without doing things that would affect those three classes.

If an association has a large number of members standing committees should be appointed to deal systematically with all matters affecting these relations.

RELATIONS OF MEMBERS ONE TO ANOTHER

I

Among the duties of the committee having this in charge would be the following:

(a) Gather information regarding different methods of cost-estimating used by members.