Presto

PRESTO
May 10, 1924.
THE PROBLEM OF
BUSINESS ETHICS
IT IS A FACT
That SEEBURG ELECTRIC
PIANOS can always be
relied upon.
The Age of Associational Systems, and How
Business Organizations and the Exchange
, of Views in Trade Help to Lift to
Higher Levels.
SECRETARY HOOVER'S SPEECH
IT IS A FACT
that SEEBURG ELECTRIC
PIANOS are dependable.
IT IS A FACT
that SEEBURG ELECTRIC
PIANOS are durable.
IT IS A FACT
that SEEBURG ELECTRIC
PIANOS when sold on in-
stallments bring back the
money quicker than any
other piano sale.
IT IS A FACT
that SEEBURG ELECTRIC
PIANOS are real pianos,
built to stand the hard
usage a c o i n - o p e r a t e d
piano gets.
IT IS A FACT
that your stock is incom-
plete without SEEBURG
ELECTRICS.
IT IS A FACT
that you ought to write
to-day for catalogue and
particulars.
Do it!
J. P. SEEBURG
PIANO CO.
CHICAGO
ILLINOIS
Pointed Extracts from an Address Delivered by the
Secretary of Commerce at Cleveland This
Week Wednesday.
In-these times of muddled thought it is sometimes
worth repeating a truism. Industry and commerce
are not based upon taking advantage of other persons.
Their foundations lie in the division of labor and ex-
change of products. For through specialization we
increase the total and variety of production and secure
its diffusion into consumption. By some false anal-
ogy to the "survival of the fittest" many have con-
ceived the whole business world to be a sort of
economic "dog eat dog."
,
We often lay too much emphasis upon its com-
petitive features, too little upon the fact that it is in
essence a great co-operative effort. And our home-
made Bolshevist-minded critics to the contrary, the
whole economic structure of our nation and the sur-
vival of our high general levels of comfort are de-
pendent upon the maintenance and development of
leadership in the world of industry and commerce.
Any contribution to larger production, to wider dif-
fusion of things consumable and enjoyable, is a serv-
ice to the community and the men who honestly ac-
complish it deserve high public esteem.
What Business Needs.
The thing we all need to searchingly consider is
the practical question of the method by which the
business world can develop and enforce its own stand-
ards and thus stem the tide of governmental regula-
tion. The cure does not lie in mere opposition. It
lies in the correction of abuse. It lies in an adapta-
bility to changing human outlook.
The problem of business ethics, as a prevention of
abuse, is of two categories: Those where the stand-
ard must be one of individual moral perceptions, and
those where we must have a determination of stand-
ards of conduct for a whole group in order that there
may be a basis for ethics.
The standards of honesty, of a sense of mutual
obligation and of service were determined 2,000 years
ago. They may require at times to be recalled. And
the responsibility for them increases infinitely in high
places either in business or Government, for there
rests the high responsibility for leadership in fineness
of moral perception. Their failure is a blow at the
repute of business and at confidence in Government
itself.
The Question of Ethics.
The second field and the one which I am primarily
discussing is the great area of indirect economic
wrong and unethical practices that spring up under
the pressures of competition and habit. There is also
the great field of economic waste through destructive
competition, through strikes, booms and slumps, un-
employment, through failure of our different indus-
tries to synchronize and a hundred other causes which
directly lower our productivity and employment.
Waste may be abstractly unethical, but in any event
it can only be remedied by economic action.
If we are to find solution to these collective issues
outside of government regulation we must meet two
practical problems:
First, there must be organization in such form as
can establish the standards of conduct in this vast
complex of shifting invention, production and use.
There is no existing basis to check the failure of
service or the sacrifice of public interest. Someone
must determine such standards. They must be deter-
mined and held flexibly in tune with the intense
technology of trade.
Second, there must be some sort of enforcement.
There is the perpetual difficulty of a small minority
who will not play the game. They too often bring
disrepute upon the vast majority; the}' drive many
others to adopt unfair competitive methods which all
deplore: their abuses give rise to public indignation
and clamor which breed legislative action.
An Industrial Revolution.
I believe we now for the first time have the method
at hand for voluntarily organized determination of
standards and their adoption. I would go further; I
believe we are in the presence of a new era in the
organization of industry and commerce in which, if
properly directed, lies forces pregnant with infinite
possibilities of moral progress. I believe that we are,
almost unnoticed, in the midst of a great revolution—
or perhaps a. better word, a transformation in the
whole super-organization of otir economic life. We
are passing from a period of extremely individualistic
action into a period of associational activities.
Practically our entire American working world is
now organized into some form of economic associa-
tion. We have trade associations and trade institutes
embracing particular industries and occupations. We
have chambers of commerce embracing representa-
tives of different industries and commerce. We have
the labor unions representing the different crafts. We
have associations embracing all the different profes-
sions—law, engineering, medicine, banking, real estate,
and whatnot. We have farmers' associations, and we
have the enormous growth of farmers' co-operatives
for actual dealing in commodities. Of indirect kin to
this is the great increase in ownership of industries by
their employees, and customers, and again we 4iave a
tremendous expansion of mutualized insurance and
banking.
Economic Associations.
Although such associational organizations can trace
parentage to the middle ages, yet in their present im-
plication they are the birth of the last 50 years, and
in fact their growth to enveloping numbers is of the
last 25 years. We have, perhaps, 25,000 such asso-
ciational activities in the economic field. Member-
ship, directly or indirectly, now embraces the vast
majority of all the individuals of our country. Ac-
tion of wide import by such associations has become
an important force of late in our political, economic
and social life.
It is true that these associations exist for varied
purposes. Some are strong in recognition of public
responsibility and large in vision. Some are selfish
and narrow. But they all represent a vast ferment
of economic striving and change.
Ever since the factory system was born there has
been within it a struggle to attain more stability
through collective action. This effort has sought to
secure more regular production, more regular em-
ployment, better wages, the elimination of waste, the
maintenance of quality or service, decrease in de-
structive competition and unfair practices, and oft-
times to assure prices or profits. Yet underneath all
these efforts there was a residuum of objects which
were in public interest.
On a New Road.
Associational activities are, 1 believe, driving upon
a new road where the objectives can be made wholly
and vitally of public interest. The legitimate trade
associations and chambers of commerce with which 1
am now primarily concerned possess certain charac-
teristics of social importance and the widest differ-
entiation from pools and trusts. Their membership
must be open to all members in the industry or trade,
or rival organizations enter the field at once. There-
fore, they are not millstones for the grinding of
competitors as was the essence of the old trade com-
binations. Their purpose must be the advancement
of the whole industry or trade, or they cannot hold
together.
The total interdependence ofiall industries and com-
merce compels them in the long run to go parallel
to the general economic good. Their leaders rise in a
real democracy without bosses or political manipu-
lation. Citizens can not run away from their coun-
try if they do not like the political management, but
members of voluntary associations can resign and
the association dies.
The Industrial Democracy.
1 believe that through these forces we are slowly
moving toward some sort of industrial democracy.
We are upon its threshold, if these agencies can be
directed solely to constructive performance in the
public interest.
All this does contain some dangers, but they will
come only from low ethical standards. With these
agencies used as the machinery for the cultivation and
spread of high standards and the elimination of abuses,
I am convinced that we shall have entered the great
era of self-governing industry and business which has
been a dream to many thinkers.
A self-governing industry can be made to render
needless a vast area of governmental interference and
regulation which has grown up out of righteous com-
plaint against the abuses during the birth pains of an
industrial world.
CABLE SALESMAN'S DEATH.
James C. Welch, whose death occurred last Satur-
day in Jackson, Mich., was well known in the musi-
cal and theatrical world, having been a successful
manager and director for more than a quarter of a
century. Seven years ago, Mr. Welch went to Jack-
son as manager of the Lou Whitney Stock Company.
For the past four years he has been connected, as
salesman, with the Cable Piano Company.
The Stafford Springs, Conn., branch of the United
Talking Machine Co., recently added a new piano de-
partment. The store has secured the agency for the
entire line of the Weaver Piano Co., York, Pa.
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