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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXIH. No. 17 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, Oct. 21, 1916 si»*iecopie.ioc«n.t.
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The Profession of Business
E
ACH of the civilizations which in turn has left its impress on world history has come to stand in our
minds for some special world idea.
To take only a few instances: The Greeks furnished the first definite concept of scientific order.
They were the rightful founders of rational science and rational philosophy; founded on investigation,
not on fear or ignorance.
The Romans stamped deeply on the world consciousness the idea of public law, and paved the way for
the modern community, protected by the sanction of law, recognized and obeyed through its intrinsic justice.
The reformers of the Renaissance taught the freedom of the human spirit and laid the foundations of
modern science, modern art, modern freedom of inquiry.
The English of the seventeenth century, in the Puritan Commonwealth, established the supremacy of
representative government.
The American colonists, under Washington and his colleagues, erected permanently the idea of govern-
ment established ultimately on the popular will.
The American nation of to-day has another task before it; the task of bringing into the now established
order, into the order of scientific regularity and precision, the vast and tangled forests of commerce.
Despised for ages, persecuted by kings, restrained by absurd legislation, kept in the darkness of boundless
ignorance of its laws, of ignorance even that it was governed by any laws at all, commerce, business, has
struggled out into the light, has become first the tolerated, then the admired, and finally the dominating force
of the world.
Twenty centuries ago wars were not only occasional. They were continual, the normal business of each
community. But their cause was simple pillage, everywhere save where the Roman arms swept triumphant.
Ten centuries ago wars were individualistic; let loose on the world by the pride and ambition of strong
men, Byzantine autocrats, Frankish kings.
Five centuries ago wars were dynastic, promoted, fomented to secure the power and aggrandizement of
reigning houses.
To-day wars are commercial, brought about by trade rivalries of great commercial nations, striving to
exploit, each for itself, the uttermost corners of the earth.
Commerce—made possible, motivated, engineered by those who practice business—is the driving force of
modern life.
America, standing aside from the complications of Old World policies, individualistic to the utmost
and with a virgin continent to develop, has brought private business to a degree of organization hitherto
unknown, undreamed of.
But this organization is as yet incomplete. Business is still popularly supposed to be altogether a matter
of individual cunning, a sort of game in which the victory is to the strong and the skilful; especially if the
skill be not too scrupulous.
It is the part of the men of to-day in this country to develop into practical form the laws which thinkers
have discovered at the bottom of all business activity.
Under a scientific understanding of the laws of economics, business will no longer be a matter of chance,
no longer subject to speculation, rumor, panic; but will be conducted on the basis of rules as well known and
as easily applied as the rules of mathematics.
Every advance in accounting methods, every improvement in office machinery, every well-thought-out
business law marks another step made towards the goal.
(Continued on page 5)
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