Music Trade Review

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JO
would not have been held, and you gentle-
men, would not be in business to-day.
You are doing something which may be
called the supplying of the spiritual wants
of men. I do not use the word ''spiritual"
in any pietistic sense but as meaning the
highest side of human character and human
elements.
It is always a pleasure to meet face to
face the men engaged in any branch of in-
dustry whether they are the proprietors,
the great projectors of industry, or the
men who are working with their skill and
hands; for they are the men that meet the
spiritual want of the age. And this is
above the line of the iron law of wages.
The demand of labor to-day is not for that.
The demand of labor everywhere is not for
mere subsistence. Once the conflict was
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Tissot, know the inspiration which has
guided his mind and his hand. And thus
the highest aesthetic side of human elements
is supplied.
And you, gentlemen, are in this very busi-
ness. Your prosperity is due to the fact
that men have grown to make this demand
for something higher, something beyond
their mere physical wants. As I have
said, if industry were directed simply to
supplying those wants your great trade
could not exist. You are the exemplifica-
tion, the personification, the manifestation
of this very spiritual side of human nature.
(Applause.) You may call it what you
please; you may apply to it philosophical
terms, ethical terms, religious terms—I do
not care what; the fact remains that the
great want of the age is the wise supply
which such industries as this can give.
Capital finds in the furnishing of this sup-
ply something more than the commercial
spirit. As has been said here to-night,—
and there was never a truer word than that
uttered by the gentleman from Chicago
and emphasized by Governor Long—senti-
ment has its value as well as mere commer-
cial profit. Take out of this town if you
please the Congressional Library and the
Corcoran Art Gallery; take out of Boston
the Public Library and the Art Museum;
take out of any of our great cities the
results of this spirit; and you have depre-
ciated the commercial values of those com-
munities. (Applause.)
Yet you have
taken out something that cannot be sup-
plied by mere physical industry.
The material side of life is essential;
but industry has supplied that; and it has
done something more; otherwise it would
simply be the cheap illustration of hard,
sordid work. Such organizations as yours
come forward and lift industry above that
plane, exhibiting the spirit expressed in
the sentiment I have quoted from your
CALVIN WHITNEY—A. B. Chase Co.
menu—the constant striving after the ideal.
for existence—which man should . live. And I may say that this sums up the whole
Then came the conflict for subsistence, and philosophical basis of the labor problem.
that was under the iron law that I have How shall this struggle for the ideal—
stated. To day the demand is a higher which you may resolve into another expres-
one; it is a demand for those things which sion, the struggle for a higher standard of
shall supply this spiritual nature of the living—be secured? You are helping to
human race. So industry for its prosperi- secure it by helping to make men and
ty to-day depends upon the wisdom of that women everywhere cleaner in their lives,
supply. This demand is ten or fifteen per better in their hearts and truer in their
cent, above the subsistence line; and the homes. (Applause.) It is this that makes
me an optimist in considering industry,
margin is constantly increasing.
And here you find a demand which because underlying it all, at the very bot-
must be met. Education comes in. We tom of it, there is what you may call the
are training our people to want more than soul of the work. That which gives the
subsistence, more than food, raiment and highest occupation to the human mind and
shelter. We have taught our men and hand is the best; and it is only when peo-
our women in our schools that there is a ple are engaged in the higher qualities of
higher side. . President Eliot has well labor that they are the truest citizens and
expressed it when he said that the whole the besl. members of the community. It
result of education is to fit a man for social is through such influences that we reach
serviceableness. And social serviceable- the true end of education—"social service-
ness cannot be attained without afield for ableness"—when a man recognizes that he
our higher nature. So if you look about secures more from the community than he
over the industries of the country, you will can possibly render to it. It is what the
find that more than half of them are man draws from his associations that stim-
prosecuted to supply this very want. ulates him and gives him the modern idea
Music—all the arts—education—literature of what Drutnmond has called "other-self-
—these are the things which the common ishness "—the selfishness that looks after
man to day wants; and human ingenuity is the welfare of your neighbor as well as
to supply them. Millet paints his great your own. (Applause.) We call it phil-
pi:ture the Angel us, and appeals to the o s o p h i c a l altruism, but Drummond's
very highest aesthetic sentiments. Former- designation is the better one after all,—
ly, only the few could look upon his work; "other-selfishness."
but to-day the whole mass of humanity can,
Now if we can find in the elements that
through invention and human ingenuity, belong to industry the things that stimulate
look upon the Angelus and enjoy its spirit- to this higher ethical character of men, is
ual meaning by means of the many artistic there not something which can give us all
reproductions. Now we have Tissot, who hope for the future, never minding the
is giving us the new idea of life—the struggles that may come? It is the conflict
Christ. But only the few can look upon always that brings the purification. It is
the originals as they come from his hand. the storm that clears the sky. And the
The many, however, can purchase the troubles that accompany all these industrial
ten-cent magazine and know the genius of developments are only the accompaniments
of intelligence and not of an increasing
ignorance. These accompaniments mean
that the men who are engaged in the con-
flicts are simply struggling for this higher
side of industrial life—that side which shall
feed their souls, which shall feed the spirit-
ual nature, which after all comes through
an exalted industry. (Applause.)
I think, if I occupied a pulpit, I should
always preach about the spiritual side of
industry, because I find in its study more
that belongs to the development of human
character than I find in studying philosophy
itself. Somebody has said, as you will re-
member, that when philosophy settles a
point there is no more philosophy; and
hence philosophers do not care to reach any
conclusive point. But industry, on the
other hand, is constantly reaching points
and conclusions—constantly developing to
the minds of men that in it are to be found
the great resources of ethics.
In the late war with Spain this very
element found its embodiment. A nation
not given to the use of inventions can never
overcome a nation that is given to the use
of inventions. (Applause.) A non-machine-
using country can never prevail over a
machine-using country. Hence the Amer-
ican people—the Anglo-Saxon everywhere
—will in time prevail over the nations that
seek to attack them. It may take time;
but the skill of our American mechanics
has had as much to do with the victories of
the navy of the United States as any other
one element (applause); because the use of
inventions involves intelligence. We used
to speak, during the Civil War, of men
with brains behind the guns. You must
shoot with brains as well as do other things
with brains. You remember the artist
who, when someone asked him how he
mixed his colors, said that he mixed them
with brains. It is so with industry. And
when I consider the men who are conduct-
ing great industrial enterprises to-day, I
ROBT. PRODDOW—Estey Piano Co.
look upon them as the saviors of the Amer-
ican Republic, (applause) as the men who
are bringing to bear that magnificent ex-
ecutive quality which enables them to
marshal great forces and conduct great
enterprises; and when you have that class
of men being developed everywhere in our
land and among Anglo-Saxon peoples—
allied to the intelligence and the skill of