Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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REAL ESTATE m®m ""mmm B UlLDERS Vol. CII. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 14, 1918 No. 24 Business Men Declare For Business As Usual Representatives of 381 Lines in Convention Complete Plans for Preventing Great Disturbance in Readjustment Period Atlantic City, Dec. 10, 1918. THE greatest piece of constructive work accom- plished by the convention of business tnen held here last week under the initiative of the Cham- ber of Commerce of the United States was the re-estab- plishment of American pluck and determination to achieve success in the niinds of several thousand leaders in hundreds of lines of business who came here disposed to have confîrmed their opinion that the country was in for a bad time generally for the next few years. It is probably true that nine out of every ten dele- gates to the convention expected to hear that conditions elsewhere in the United States were much worse than in his own community where he was assured "there was likely to be trouble." There had not been any trouble yet, it was true, but just wait until one of many things happened and then everybody would see what we were up against. There were the four million soldier boys who would be back in a short time and want jobs—and would have to have them even if some other fellows who had been just as patriotically at work but who had not been in uniform had to get out. There was the labor question, meaning the question of a reduction of wages, and just listen to what Gompers said last week. And there was the mater of the piles and piles of wool, and iron and wheat and cotton and tractors and autos and monkey wrenches and a million other things that the Government had bought, at high prices, Ijad not used, and was now ready to dump into the regular channels of trade at a price that would play havoc with the whole works. These were only a few of the things that "were going to" bring about chaos, and nearly every man had local variants of the tales of woe. Gossip had been busy spreading the propaganda of disintegra- tion and decay and possible revolution throughout the clubs and in the corner groceries of the whole country. And these men who are good business men because they keep in touch with what is public opinion and com- munity afifairs had been influenced to despair of getting back to normal conditions without having to undergo the wrenching and vicissitudes of panicy times. That's how it was when the convention met. In two days seven men had turned nearly fĩve thousand timor- ous and hesitant individuals who were apparently ready to settle down into aimless acceptance of an inactive and unprofĩtable period of reconstruction into a militant body of alert, vigorous American manhood ready to make Business Depression look like Chateau Thierry after the old 69th had smashed its way through it over the flower of the Hun's army. These seven men deserve the Congressional Medal or surely as General Pershing did. They said, relying on their intimate knowledge of the tested enterprising character of the American business man, as General Pershing knew that he could depend on the men in his army when he ofîered it to General Foch, that the American Army of Commerce was equal to the emer- gency which confronted it and was ready to and would go over the top. The American Expeditionary Force without the grit and courage and confĩdence of General Pershing would have made a sorry exhibition of itself instead of ac- quitting itself with glory. The American Commercial Force under the inspiring leadership of Generals Wheeler and Schwab and Redfĩeld and Farrell and Rockefeller and Warburg and Baruch has turned "face front" and is ready for business. It took nerve to say to five thousand men, hungry for foreign trade to keep their will wheels turning, that the United States must not try to bag the foreign com- merce of the world but must practice the doctrine of live and let live so that the American people could not be accused of dollar philanthropy—but that is what Mr. Harry A. Wheeler, President of the Chamber of Com- merce and Chairman of the convention did not hesit^te to say, and was heartily applauded. It was courageous for Mr. Charles M. Schwab, Presi- dent of the Bethlehem Steel Company, to suggest bor- rowing money to build factories when the five thou- sand pessimists in front of him were wondering what they were going to do with the plants they had—but he made them feel he was on the right track. It required vision to urge upon a crowd of men bur- dened with the problems of practical business to seek the aid of science in shaping the future so that competi- tion would be more easily overcome, but Secretary William C. Redfield lifted a big load ofif the tired busi- ness men's shoulders when he showed them that with the aid of the machinery in the Department of Com- merce they could cut the costs of manufacture and en- able them to meet foreign competition on better terms. It was only to a nation that had been baptized with fire for humanity's sake that a man could say we must not accept as our commercial standard the principles that had brought the hatred of the world upon the heads of the German people, but James A. Farrell, Pres- ident of the U. S. Steel Corporation, declared that the future security of the world could not be brought about by waging a perpetual bloodless war, inspired by the same emnity, suspicions and fears that but lately divided the world—and the men who are the keenest in business competition in the whole world saw the truth in what he said. High purpose was necessary to point out to those who had grudgingly admitted labor to a share in the profĩts of business that still more of freedom and of generous participation must be granted to the partners of Capital in the world's work if the land was to be made safe to live in—but Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s, creed was subscribed to with enthusiasm by the men who had