Latest / The Conquest of Bread / Fundamentals of Prosperity - Roger Babson
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Fundamentals of Prosperity. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
- 0:06Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
- 0:10Speaker 1: a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Phil
- 0:16Speaker 1: Shinevert Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson Forward. Some two
- 0:25Speaker 1: thousand years ago, the greatest teacher whoever walked the earth
- 0:30Speaker 1: advised the people of Judea not to build their houses
- 0:34Speaker 1: on the sand. What he had in mind was that
- 0:37Speaker 1: they were looking too much to the structure above ground,
- 0:40Speaker 1: and too little to the spiritual forces which must be
- 0:44Speaker 1: the foundation of any structure which is to stand. Following
- 0:48Speaker 1: the war, we enjoyed the greatest prosperity this country has
- 0:52Speaker 1: ever witnessed, the greatest activity, the greatest bank clearings, the
- 0:57Speaker 1: greatest foreign trade, the greatest railroad gross earnings, the highest
- 1:02Speaker 1: commodity prices. We then constructed a ten story building on
- 1:08Speaker 1: a foundation meant for only a two or three story building. Hence,
- 1:13Speaker 1: the problem confronting us businessmen is to strengthen the foundation,
- 1:18Speaker 1: or else see the structure fall. I am especially glad
- 1:22Speaker 1: of the opportunity to write for businessmen. There are two reasons. First,
- 1:27Speaker 1: because I feel that the businessmen are largely responsible for
- 1:31Speaker 1: having this ten story structure on a foundation made for
- 1:35Speaker 1: one of only two or three stories. Secondly, because I
- 1:40Speaker 1: believe such men alone have the vision, the imagination, and
- 1:44Speaker 1: the ability to strengthen the foundation and prevent the structure
- 1:48Speaker 1: from falling. The fact is we have become crazy over
- 1:52Speaker 1: material things. We are looking only at the structure above ground.
- 1:58Speaker 1: We are trying to get more smoke from the chimney.
- 2:02Speaker 1: We are looking at space instead of service, at profits
- 2:06Speaker 1: instead of volume. With our eyes focused on the structure
- 2:10Speaker 1: above ground, we have lost sight of those human resources thrift, imagination, integrity,
- 2:16Speaker 1: vision and faith which make the structure possible. I feel
- 2:21Speaker 1: that only by the businessmen can this foundation be strengthened
- 2:25Speaker 1: before the inevitable fall comes. When steel rails were selling
- 2:31Speaker 1: at fifty five dollars a ton compared with only twenty
- 2:34Speaker 1: five dollars a ton a few years previous, our steel
- 2:38Speaker 1: plants increased their capacity twenty five percent increased demand. You
- 2:44Speaker 1: say no, the figures don't show it. Only thirty one
- 2:49Speaker 1: million tons were produced in nineteen nineteen compared with thirty
- 2:54Speaker 1: nine million tons in nineteen sixteen. People have forgotten the
- 2:58Speaker 1: gospel of service. The producing power per man has fallen
- 3:04Speaker 1: off from fifteen to twenty percent. We have all been
- 3:08Speaker 1: keen on developing consumption. We have devoted nine tenths of
- 3:12Speaker 1: our thought, energy, and effort to developing consumption. This message
- 3:17Speaker 1: is to beg of every reader to give more thought
- 3:21Speaker 1: to developing production, to the reviving of a desire to produce,
- 3:25Speaker 1: and the realization of joy in production. We are spending
- 3:31Speaker 1: millions and millions in every city to develop the good
- 3:34Speaker 1: will of customers, to developing customers a desire to buy.
- 3:39Speaker 1: This is all well and good, but we can't continue
- 3:43Speaker 1: to go in one direction indefinitely. We cannot always get
- 3:47Speaker 1: steam out of the boiler without feeding the furnace. The
- 3:51Speaker 1: time has come when, in our own interests, in the
- 3:55Speaker 1: interests of our communities, our industry, and of the nation
- 3:59Speaker 1: itself for a while, we must stop adding more stories
- 4:04Speaker 1: to this structure. Instead, we must strengthen the foundations upon
- 4:09Speaker 1: which the entire structure rests. Are double ub in to forward,
- 4:22Speaker 1: Chapter one of Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This
- 4:27Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter one, Honesty
- 4:34Speaker 1: or Steel doors. While fifty one percent of the people
- 4:40Speaker 1: have their eyes on the goal of integrity, our investments
- 4:44Speaker 1: are secure, but with fifty one percent of them headed
- 4:48Speaker 1: in the wrong direction, our investments are valueless. The first
- 4:53Speaker 1: fundamental of prosperity is integrity. While on a recent visit
- 5:00Speaker 1: to Chicago, I was taken by the president of one
- 5:03Speaker 1: of the largest banks to see his new safety deposit vaults.
- 5:08Speaker 1: He described these, as bank presidents will as the largest
- 5:12Speaker 1: and most marvelous vaults in the city. He expatiated on
- 5:17Speaker 1: the heavy steel doors and the various electrical and mechanical
- 5:21Speaker 1: contrivances which protect the stocks and bonds deposited in the institution.
- 5:28Speaker 1: While at the bank, a person came in to rent
- 5:30Speaker 1: a box. He made the arrangements for the box, and
- 5:33Speaker 1: a box was handed to him. In it, he deposited
- 5:37Speaker 1: some stocks and bonds, which he took from his pocket.
- 5:41Speaker 1: Then the clerk who had charge of the vaults, went
- 5:44Speaker 1: to a rack on the wall and took out a
- 5:46Speaker 1: key and gave it to the man who had rented
- 5:49Speaker 1: the box. Then the man put the box into one
- 5:52Speaker 1: of the little steel compartments, shut the door, and turned
- 5:55Speaker 1: the key. He then went away feeling perfectly cure on
- 6:01Speaker 1: account of those steel doors and various mechanical and electrical
- 6:05Speaker 1: contrivances existing to protect his wealth. I did not wish
- 6:10Speaker 1: to give him a sleepless night, so I said nothing.
- 6:14Speaker 1: But I couldn't help thinking how easy it would have
- 6:17Speaker 1: been for that poorly paid, hump backed clerk to make
- 6:21Speaker 1: a duplicate of that key before he delivered it to
- 6:24Speaker 1: the renter of that box. With such a duplicate, the
- 6:28Speaker 1: clerk could have made that man penniless within a few
- 6:31Speaker 1: minutes after he had left the building. The great steel
- 6:35Speaker 1: door and the electrical and mechanical contrivances would have been
- 6:39Speaker 1: absolutely valueless. Of course, the point I am making is
- 6:44Speaker 1: that the real security which that great bank in Chicago
- 6:47Speaker 1: had to offer its clientele lay not in the massive
- 6:51Speaker 1: stone columns in front of its structure, nor in the
- 6:54Speaker 1: heavy steel doors, nor the electrical and mechanical contrivances shredth
- 7:00Speaker 1: of that institution, rested in the honesty, the absolute integrity
- 7:05Speaker 1: of its clerks. That afternoon, I was talking about the
- 7:10Speaker 1: matter with a business man. We were discussing securities, earnings,
- 7:14Speaker 1: and capitalization. He seemed greatly troubled by the mass of
- 7:18Speaker 1: figures before him. I said to him, instead of pawing
- 7:23Speaker 1: over these earnings and striving to select yourself the safest bond,
- 7:28Speaker 1: you will do better to go to a reliable banker
- 7:31Speaker 1: or a bond house and leave the decision with him.
- 7:35Speaker 1: Why he said, I couldn't do that, mister Jones, I
- 7:39Speaker 1: went on, tell me the truth. After you buy a
- 7:43Speaker 1: bond or a stock certificate, do you ever take the
- 7:47Speaker 1: trouble to see if it is signed and countersigned properly? Moreover,
- 7:51Speaker 1: if you find it signed, is there any way by
- 7:54Speaker 1: which you may know whether the signature is genuine or forged? No,
- 8:00Speaker 1: he said, there isn't. I am absolutely dependent on the
- 8:04Speaker 1: integrity of the bankers from whom I buy the securities.
- 8:08Speaker 1: And when you think of it, there is really no
- 8:12Speaker 1: value at all in the pieces of paper which one
- 8:15Speaker 1: so carefully locks up in the safety deposit boxes. There
- 8:19Speaker 1: is no value at all in the bank book which
- 8:23Speaker 1: we so carefully cherish. There is no value at all
- 8:27Speaker 1: in those deeds and mortgages upon which we depend so completely.
- 8:33Speaker 1: The value rests first in the integrity of the lawyers,
- 8:37Speaker 1: clerks and stenographers who draw up the papers. Secondly in
- 8:42Speaker 1: the integrity of the officers who sign the documents. Thirdly
- 8:46Speaker 1: in the integrity of the courts and judges, which would
- 8:50Speaker 1: enable us to enforce our claims, and finally in the
- 8:53Speaker 1: integrity of the community, which would determine whether or not
- 8:57Speaker 1: the orders of the court will be executed. These things
- 9:01Speaker 1: which we look upon us of great value, the stocks, bonds,
- 9:06Speaker 1: bank books, deeds, mortgages, insurance policies, and so forth, are
- 9:11Speaker 1: merely nothing. While fifty one percent of the people have
- 9:16Speaker 1: their eyes on the goal of integrity, our investments are secure.
- 9:21Speaker 1: But with fifty one percent of them headed in the
- 9:24Speaker 1: wrong direction, our investments are valueless. So the first fundamental
- 9:29Speaker 1: of prosperity is integrity. Without it, there is no civilization,
- 9:36Speaker 1: there is no peace, there is no security, there is
- 9:40Speaker 1: no safety. Mind you also that this applies just as
- 9:45Speaker 1: much to the man who is working for wages as
- 9:47Speaker 1: to the capitalists and every owner of property. Integrity, however,
- 9:52Speaker 1: is very much broader than the above illustration would indicate.
- 9:56Speaker 1: Integrity applies to many more things than to money. Integrity
- 10:01Speaker 1: requires the seeking after as well as the dispensing of truth.
- 10:07Speaker 1: It was this desire for truth which found in our
- 10:11Speaker 1: educational institutions, our sciences and our arts. All the great professions,
- 10:17Speaker 1: from medicine to engineering, rest upon this spirit of integrity.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Only as they so rest can they prosper or even survive.
- 10:29Speaker 1: Integrity is the mother of knowledge. The desire for truth
- 10:33Speaker 1: is the basis of all learning, the value of all experience,
- 10:38Speaker 1: and the reason for all study and investigation. Without integrity
- 10:43Speaker 1: as a basis, our entire educational system would fall to
- 10:48Speaker 1: the ground. All newspapers and magazines would become sources of
- 10:52Speaker 1: great danger, and the publication of books would have to
- 10:56Speaker 1: be suppressed. Our whole civilization upon the assumption that people
- 11:02Speaker 1: are honest. With this confidence shaken, the structure falls, and
- 11:09Speaker 1: it should fall, for unless truth be taught, the nation
- 11:13Speaker 1: would be much better off without its schools, newspapers, books,
- 11:17Speaker 1: and professions. Better have no gun at all than one
- 11:21Speaker 1: aimed at yourself. The corner stone of prosperity is the
- 11:25Speaker 1: stone of integrity. End of chapter one, Chapter two of
- 11:37Speaker 1: Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This LibriVox recording is
- 11:43Speaker 1: in the public domain. Chapter two. Faith the Searchlight of Business.
- 11:51Speaker 1: This religion, which we talk about for an hour a
- 11:54Speaker 1: week on Sunday, is not only the vital force which
- 11:58Speaker 1: protects our community. But it is the vital force which
- 12:02Speaker 1: makes our communities. The power of our spiritual forces has
- 12:07Speaker 1: not yet been tapped. About three years ago, I was
- 12:13Speaker 1: traveling in South America. When going from San Paolo up
- 12:17Speaker 1: across the table lands to Riosanario, I passed through a
- 12:21Speaker 1: little poverty stricken Indian village. It was some three thousand
- 12:25Speaker 1: feet above sea level, but it was located at the
- 12:28Speaker 1: foot of a great water power. This water power, I
- 12:33Speaker 1: was told, could easily develop from ten thousand to fifteen
- 12:37Speaker 1: thousand horse power. For twelve months of the year at
- 12:41Speaker 1: the base of this waterfall lived these poverty stricken Indians,
- 12:45Speaker 1: plowing their ground with broken sticks, bringing their corn two
- 12:50Speaker 1: hundred miles on their backs from the sea coast and
- 12:53Speaker 1: grinding it by hand between two stones. Yet with a
- 12:58Speaker 1: little faith and vision, they could have developed that water power,
- 13:02Speaker 1: even though in a most primitive manner, and with irrigation,
- 13:06Speaker 1: could have made that poverty stricken valley a veritable garden
- 13:10Speaker 1: of Eden. They simply lacked faith, They lacked vision. They
- 13:16Speaker 1: were unwilling or unable to look ahead to do something
- 13:20Speaker 1: for the next generation and trust to the Lord for
- 13:23Speaker 1: the results. I met the headman of the village and
- 13:27Speaker 1: said to him, why is it that you don't do
- 13:30Speaker 1: something to develop this power. Why if we started to
- 13:34Speaker 1: develop this thing, he answered, by the time we got
- 13:38Speaker 1: it done, we would be dead. Indians had lived there
- 13:43Speaker 1: for the last two hundred years lacking the vision. No
- 13:47Speaker 1: one in that community had the foresight or vision to
- 13:50Speaker 1: think or see beyond the end of his day. It
- 13:54Speaker 1: was lack of faith which stood between them and prosperity. Hence,
- 13:59Speaker 1: the second great fundamental of prosperity is that intangible something
- 14:06Speaker 1: known as faith, vision, hope, whatever you may call it.
- 14:11Speaker 1: The writer of the Book of Proverbs says, where there
- 14:14Speaker 1: is no vision, the people perish. Statistics teach that where
- 14:18Speaker 1: there is no vision, civilization never gets started. The tangible
- 14:24Speaker 1: things which we prize so highly buildings, railroads, steamships, factories,
- 14:29Speaker 1: power plants, telephones, aeroplanes, et cetera, are but the result
- 14:34Speaker 1: of faith and vision. These things are only symptoms of conditions,
- 14:39Speaker 1: mere barometers which register the faith and vision of mankind.
- 14:45Speaker 1: This religion, which we talk about for an hour a
- 14:47Speaker 1: week on Sunday, is not only the vital force which
- 14:51Speaker 1: protects our community, but it is the vital force which
- 14:56Speaker 1: makes our communities. The power of our spiritual forces has
- 15:01Speaker 1: not yet been tapped. Our grandchildren will look back upon
- 15:06Speaker 1: us and wonder why we neglected our trust and our opportunity,
- 15:11Speaker 1: just as we look back on those poor Indians in
- 15:14Speaker 1: Brazil who plowed with crooked sticks, grinding their corn between
- 15:18Speaker 1: stones and hauling it on their backs two hundred miles
- 15:22Speaker 1: from the sea board. These statements are not the result
- 15:26Speaker 1: of any special interest. As a churchman, I am not
- 15:29Speaker 1: a preacher. I am simply a business man, and my
- 15:33Speaker 1: work is almost wholly for bankers, brokers, manufacturers, merchants and investors.
- 15:40Speaker 1: The concern with which I am associated has one hundred
- 15:44Speaker 1: and eighty people in a suburb of Boston who were collecting, compiling,
- 15:48Speaker 1: and distributing statistics on business conditions. We have only one
- 15:53Speaker 1: source of income, and that is from the clients who
- 15:56Speaker 1: pay us for an analysis of the situation. Therefore, you
- 16:00Speaker 1: may rest assured that it is impossible for us to
- 16:04Speaker 1: do any propaganda work in the interests of any one nation, sect, religion,
- 16:09Speaker 1: or church. The only thing we can give clients is
- 16:12Speaker 1: a conclusion based on a diagnosis of a given situation,
- 16:17Speaker 1: as probably few of you readers or clients of ours.
- 16:20Speaker 1: May I quote from a bulletin which we recently sent
- 16:23Speaker 1: to these bankers and manufacturers. Quote, the need of the
- 16:29Speaker 1: hour is not more legislation. The need of the hour
- 16:33Speaker 1: is more religion. More religion is needed everywhere, from the
- 16:38Speaker 1: halls of Congress at Washington to the factories, the minds,
- 16:42Speaker 1: the fields, and the forests. It is one thing to
- 16:46Speaker 1: talk about plans or policies. But a plan or policy
- 16:50Speaker 1: without a religious motive is like a watch without a spring,
- 16:54Speaker 1: or a body without the breath of life. The trouble
- 16:58Speaker 1: today is that we are trying to have chickens from
- 17:01Speaker 1: sterile eggs. We may have the finest incubator in the
- 17:05Speaker 1: world and operate it according to the most improved regulations. Moreover,
- 17:10Speaker 1: the eggs may appear perfect specimens, but unless they have
- 17:14Speaker 1: the germ of life in them, all our efforts are
- 17:17Speaker 1: of no avail. Close quote. I have referred to the
- 17:22Speaker 1: fact that the security of our investments is absolutely dependent
- 17:27Speaker 1: upon the faith, the righteousness, and the religion of other people.
- 17:31Speaker 1: I have stated that the real strength of our investments
- 17:34Speaker 1: is due not to the distinguished bankers of America, but
- 17:38Speaker 1: rather to the poor preachers. I now go farther than
- 17:42Speaker 1: that and say that the development of the country as
- 17:45Speaker 1: a whole is due to this something, this indescribable something,
- 17:52Speaker 1: this combination of faith, thrift, industry, initiative, integrity, and vision
- 17:58Speaker 1: which these preach have developed in their communities. Faith and
- 18:03Speaker 1: vision do not come from the wealth of a nation.
- 18:07Speaker 1: It's the faith in vision which produce the wealth. The
- 18:11Speaker 1: wealth of a country does not depend on its raw materials.
- 18:14Speaker 1: Raw materials are to a certain extent essential and to
- 18:18Speaker 1: a great extent valuable. But the nations which today are
- 18:22Speaker 1: richest in raw materials are the poorest in wealth. Even
- 18:27Speaker 1: when considering one country, the United States, the principle holds true.
- 18:33Speaker 1: The coal and iron and copper have been here in
- 18:36Speaker 1: this country for thousands of years, but only within the
- 18:40Speaker 1: last fifty years have they been used. Water powers exist
- 18:45Speaker 1: even today absolutely unharnessed. Look the whole world over, and
- 18:50Speaker 1: there has been no increase in raw materials. There existed
- 18:55Speaker 1: one thousand years ago more raw materials than we have today.
- 19:00Speaker 1: We then lacked men with vision and the faith to
- 19:03Speaker 1: take that coal out of the ground, to harness the
- 19:07Speaker 1: water powers, to build the railroads, and to do other
- 19:10Speaker 1: things worthwhile, So I say, the second great fundamental of
- 19:15Speaker 1: prosperity is faith. End of chapter two, Chapter three of
- 19:27Speaker 1: Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This LibriVox recording is
- 19:32Speaker 1: in the public domain. Chapter three Industry versus opportunity. Industry
- 19:42Speaker 1: is the mother of invention. Struggle, sacrifice, and burning midnight
- 19:47Speaker 1: oil have produced the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the
- 19:50Speaker 1: printing press, the steam engine, the electric motor, the telephone,
- 19:55Speaker 1: the incandescent lamp, and the other great inventions of civilization.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Some religious enthusiasts think only of the lilies of the
- 20:05Speaker 1: fields and forget the parable of the talents. A few
- 20:10Speaker 1: years ago I was employed by one of the largest
- 20:13Speaker 1: publishing houses in the country to make a study of
- 20:16Speaker 1: America's captains of industry. The real purpose of the study
- 20:21Speaker 1: was to discover some industry or some man that could
- 20:25Speaker 1: be helped greatly through national advertising. In connection with that
- 20:29Speaker 1: study of those captains of industry, I tabulated their ancestry.
- 20:35Speaker 1: These were the seventy greatest manufacturers, merchants, and railroad builders,
- 20:40Speaker 1: the leading men who have made America by developing the fields,
- 20:44Speaker 1: the forests, the mines, and the industries. What did I find?
- 20:50Speaker 1: I found that only five percent of these captains of
- 20:54Speaker 1: industry are the sons of bankers. Only ten percent of
- 20:58Speaker 1: them are the sons of menus factors, fifteen percent of
- 21:02Speaker 1: them are the sons of merchants, while over thirty percent
- 21:06Speaker 1: of them are the sons of poor preachers and farmers.
- 21:11Speaker 1: Why is it that minister's sons hold a much more
- 21:14Speaker 1: important place in the industrial development of America than the
- 21:18Speaker 1: sons of bankers. The minister's sons inherit no wealth, They
- 21:23Speaker 1: have no more than their share of college education. They
- 21:26Speaker 1: are not especially religious as the world measures religion. In fact,
- 21:31Speaker 1: there is an old saying about ministers sons and deacons daughters.
- 21:36Speaker 1: I would be false to my reputation as a statistician
- 21:39Speaker 1: to hold up these captains of industry as saintly examples
- 21:43Speaker 1: for young men to follow. But the fact remains, nevertheless,
- 21:48Speaker 1: that these men are creating America today. Now, what's the reason.
- 21:55Speaker 1: The reason is that these men have a combination of
- 21:58Speaker 1: the two traits of already mentioned and a third added thereto,
- 22:02Speaker 1: namely the habit of work. They have inherited a certain
- 22:08Speaker 1: rugged integrity from their mothers and a gift of vision
- 22:12Speaker 1: from their fathers, which, when combined with the habit of
- 22:16Speaker 1: work forced upon them by their family's mere income, means power.
- 22:22Speaker 1: Integrity is a dry seed until put in the ground
- 22:26Speaker 1: of faith and allowed to grow. But faith with works
- 22:30Speaker 1: is prosperity. A man may be honest and wonder why
- 22:35Speaker 1: he does not get ahead. A man may have vision
- 22:39Speaker 1: and still remain only a dreamer. But when integrity and
- 22:43Speaker 1: vision are combined with hard work, the man prospers. It
- 22:47Speaker 1: is the same with classes and nations. It has been
- 22:52Speaker 1: said that genius is the author of invention. Statistics do
- 22:57Speaker 1: not support this statement. The facts show that industry is
- 23:00Speaker 1: the mother of invention. Struggle, sacrifice, and burning midnight oil
- 23:05Speaker 1: have produced the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the printing press,
- 23:09Speaker 1: the steam engine, the electric motor, the telephone, the incandescent lamp,
- 23:14Speaker 1: and the other great inventions of civilization. Why is it
- 23:18Speaker 1: that most of the able men in our great industries
- 23:21Speaker 1: came from country districts. The reason is that the country
- 23:25Speaker 1: boy is trained to work. Statistics indicate that very seldom
- 23:30Speaker 1: does a child brought up in a city apartment house
- 23:33Speaker 1: amount too much, while the children of well to do
- 23:36Speaker 1: city people are seriously handicapped. The great educator of the
- 23:41Speaker 1: previous generation was not the public school, but rather the
- 23:46Speaker 1: wood box. Those of us parents who have not a
- 23:49Speaker 1: wood box for our children to keep build, or chores
- 23:52Speaker 1: for them to do, are unfortunate. Run through the list
- 23:56Speaker 1: of the greatest captains of industry as they come to
- 23:59Speaker 1: your mind. How many of the men who are really
- 24:02Speaker 1: directing the country's business gain their position through inherited wealth.
- 24:07Speaker 1: You will find them astonishingly few. There is no divine
- 24:12Speaker 1: right of kings in business. In fact, statistics show us
- 24:17Speaker 1: that the very things which most people think of as advantages,
- 24:21Speaker 1: namely wealth and not having to work, are really obstacles
- 24:25Speaker 1: which are rarely surmounted. Industry and thrift are closely allied.
- 24:31Speaker 1: Economic studies show clearly that ninety five percent of the
- 24:35Speaker 1: employers are employers because they systematically saved money. Any man
- 24:42Speaker 1: who systematically saves money from early youth automatically becomes an employer.
- 24:48Speaker 1: He may employ thousands, or he may have only two
- 24:51Speaker 1: or three clerks in a country store, but nevertheless he
- 24:54Speaker 1: is an employer. The same studies show that ninety five
- 24:59Speaker 1: percent of the world wage workers are wage workers because
- 25:02Speaker 1: they have systematically spent their money as fast as they
- 25:07Speaker 1: ever earned it. They of necessity remain wage workers. These
- 25:12Speaker 1: are facts which no labor leader can disprove, and which
- 25:15Speaker 1: are exceedingly significant. This is especially striking when one considers
- 25:21Speaker 1: that the employer often started out at the same wages
- 25:24Speaker 1: and in the same community as his wage workers. The
- 25:28Speaker 1: employer was naturally industrious and thrifty, while those who remain
- 25:33Speaker 1: wage workers were not. The development of this nation through
- 25:38Speaker 1: the construction of the transcontinental railways, the financing of the
- 25:42Speaker 1: Western forms and the building of our cities is largely
- 25:46Speaker 1: due to the old New England doctrine that laziness and
- 25:51Speaker 1: extravagance are sins in some Western communities. It is popular
- 25:56Speaker 1: to laugh at these New England traits, but had it
- 25:59Speaker 1: not been for them, m these Western communities would never
- 26:03Speaker 1: have existed. The industry and thrift developed by the Old
- 26:07Speaker 1: New England religion or the basis of our national growth.
- 26:12Speaker 1: I especially desire to emphasize this point because of the
- 26:16Speaker 1: position of certain religious enthusiasts who think only of the
- 26:20Speaker 1: lilies of the field and forget the parable of the talents.
- 26:25Speaker 1: It is a fact that the third fundamental of Prosperity
- 26:29Speaker 1: is industry. End of chapter three, Chapter four of Fundamentals
- 26:40Speaker 1: of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This LibriVox recording is in
- 26:45Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter four cooperation success. By helping the
- 26:52Speaker 1: other fellow, our industrial system has resulted in making many
- 26:57Speaker 1: men economic eunuchs. The salvation of our cities, the salvation
- 27:02Speaker 1: of our industries, and the salvation of our nation depend
- 27:06Speaker 1: on discovering something which will revive in the man that
- 27:10Speaker 1: desire to produce and joy in production, which he had
- 27:14Speaker 1: instinctively when he was a small boy. A few days ago,
- 27:19Speaker 1: I was present at a dinner of business men in
- 27:21Speaker 1: Boston who were called together in order to secure some
- 27:24Speaker 1: preferential freight rates for Massachusetts. The principal theme of that
- 27:30Speaker 1: gathering was to boom Massachusetts at the expense of the
- 27:34Speaker 1: rest of the country. At the clothes of the dinner,
- 27:37Speaker 1: I was asked to give my opinion, and said, let
- 27:40Speaker 1: us see how many things there are in this room
- 27:44Speaker 1: that we could have were we dependent solely on Massachusetts.
- 27:49Speaker 1: The chairs and furniture are from Michigan. The cotton is
- 27:53Speaker 1: from Georgia, the linen from Ireland, the silver from Mexico.
- 27:58Speaker 1: The glassware from Pennsylvania, the paper from Maine, the paint
- 28:02Speaker 1: from Missouri, the clock from Connecticut, and so on. Finally
- 28:08Speaker 1: I got the courage to ask if there was a
- 28:10Speaker 1: single thing in the room that did not originate from
- 28:13Speaker 1: some state other than Massachusetts. Those men were absolutely helpless
- 28:19Speaker 1: in finding a single thing. The same fact applies in
- 28:24Speaker 1: a general way to every state in every home. Look
- 28:28Speaker 1: about where you are sitting. Now, how many things are
- 28:31Speaker 1: there in the room Just where you are There is
- 28:34Speaker 1: a table, a chair, a shoe, a coat, a necktie,
- 28:39Speaker 1: a cigar, a lamp, shade, a piano, a basket. For
- 28:43Speaker 1: all of these, you are dependent upon others. The same
- 28:48Speaker 1: fact is true when we analyze one staple, like shoes,
- 28:52Speaker 1: which primarily are made of leather, Where does the leather
- 28:56Speaker 1: come from? Just follow that leather from the back of
- 28:59Speaker 1: the steer until you buy it in the form of shoes.
- 29:03Speaker 1: Think where that steer was raised and where the leather
- 29:07Speaker 1: was tanned. Think of all the men engaged in the industry,
- 29:11Speaker 1: from the cow punchers to the salesmen in the stores.
- 29:15Speaker 1: But there is more than leather involved in shoes. There
- 29:18Speaker 1: is cotton in the shoelacing and lightning, there is metal
- 29:22Speaker 1: in the nails and eyelets. Not only must different localities
- 29:27Speaker 1: cooperate to produce a shoe, but various industries must give
- 29:31Speaker 1: and take. Likewise, civilization is ultimately dependent on the ability
- 29:37Speaker 1: of men to cooperate. The best barometer of civilization is
- 29:42Speaker 1: the desire and ability of men to cooperate, the willingness
- 29:46Speaker 1: to share with others. The desire to work with others
- 29:50Speaker 1: is the great contribution which Christianity has given to the world.
- 29:56Speaker 1: The effect of this new spirit is most thrilling when
- 29:59Speaker 1: one consider the clothes which he has on his back,
- 30:02Speaker 1: the food which he has on the table, the things
- 30:05Speaker 1: which he has in the house, and thinks of the
- 30:08Speaker 1: thousands of people whose labor has directly contributed toward these things. Now,
- 30:16Speaker 1: this clearly shows that the fourth great fundamental of prosperity
- 30:21Speaker 1: is cooperation, the willingness and ability of men to cooperate,
- 30:26Speaker 1: to serve one another, to help one another, to give
- 30:30Speaker 1: and to take. But the teachings of Jesus along these
- 30:34Speaker 1: lines have a very much broader application than when applied
- 30:38Speaker 1: merely to raw materials are even manufactured products, as we
- 30:44Speaker 1: can begin to prosper only when we develop into finished
- 30:48Speaker 1: products the raw materials of the fields, mines, and forests.
- 30:53Speaker 1: So we can become truly prosperous only as we develop
- 30:57Speaker 1: the greatest of all resources, the human resources. Not only
- 31:03Speaker 1: does Christianity demand that we seek to help and build
- 31:06Speaker 1: up others, but our own prosperity depends their own as well.
- 31:13Speaker 1: When in Washington during the war, I had a wonderful
- 31:17Speaker 1: opportunity of meeting the representatives of both labor and capital.
- 31:22Speaker 1: I had some preconceived ideas on the labor question when
- 31:25Speaker 1: I went to Washington, but now they are all gone.
- 31:30Speaker 1: I am perfectly willing now to agree with the wage earner,
- 31:34Speaker 1: to agree with the employer, to agree with both, and
- 31:38Speaker 1: to agree with neither. But this one thing I am
- 31:41Speaker 1: sure of, and that is that the present system doesn't work.
- 31:47Speaker 1: The present system is failing in getting men to produce
- 31:52Speaker 1: by nature. Man likes to produce. Our boy, as soon
- 31:57Speaker 1: as he can toddle out of doors, start instinctively to
- 32:01Speaker 1: make a mud pie. When he gets a little older,
- 32:04Speaker 1: he gets some boards, shingles and nails and bills a hut.
- 32:08Speaker 1: Just as soon as he gets a knife, do you
- 32:11Speaker 1: have to show him how to use it? He instinctively
- 32:14Speaker 1: begins to make a boat, or an arrow, or perhaps
- 32:17Speaker 1: something he has never seen. Why, because in his soul
- 32:22Speaker 1: is a natural desire to produce and an inborn joy
- 32:27Speaker 1: in production. But what happens to most of these boys
- 32:31Speaker 1: after they grow up? Our industrial system has resulted in
- 32:36Speaker 1: all most stultifying men economically and making most of them
- 32:41Speaker 1: economically none productive. Why I don't know. I simply say
- 32:47Speaker 1: it happens. And the salvation of our industries depends on
- 32:50Speaker 1: discovering something which will revive in man that desire to
- 32:54Speaker 1: produce and that joy in production which he had instinctive
- 33:00Speaker 1: when he was a small boy. Increased wages will not
- 33:05Speaker 1: do it. Shorter hours will not do it. The wage
- 33:09Speaker 1: worker must feel right and the employer must feel right.
- 33:13Speaker 1: It is all a question of feeling. Feelings rule this world,
- 33:17Speaker 1: not things. The reason that some people are not successful
- 33:22Speaker 1: with collective bargaining and profit sharing and all those other
- 33:26Speaker 1: plans is because they think that men act according to
- 33:30Speaker 1: what they say, or according to what they learn, or
- 33:33Speaker 1: according to that in which they agree. Men act according
- 33:38Speaker 1: to their feelings, and good feeling is synonymous with the
- 33:43Speaker 1: spirit of cooperation. One cannot exist without the other. And
- 33:48Speaker 1: prosperity cannot continue without both. Hence the fourth fundamental of
- 33:53Speaker 1: prosperity is cooperation. End of chapter four, Chapter five of
- 34:06Speaker 1: Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This libryvox recording is
- 34:13Speaker 1: in the public domain. Chapter five. Our real resources. We
- 34:21Speaker 1: have gone daffy over things like steam, electricity, water power, buildings, railroads,
- 34:27Speaker 1: and ships, and we have forgotten the human soul upon
- 34:32Speaker 1: which all of these things depend, and from which all
- 34:35Speaker 1: of these things originate. Two captains of industry. We're standing
- 34:41Speaker 1: one day on the bridge at Niagara, looking at the
- 34:43Speaker 1: great falls. One man turned to the other and said,
- 34:48Speaker 1: behold the greatest source of undeveloped power in America. No,
- 34:54Speaker 1: the greatest source of undeveloped power in America is the
- 34:57Speaker 1: soul of man. The other REPLI. I was talking with
- 35:02Speaker 1: a large manufacturer the other day, and he told me
- 35:05Speaker 1: that he was supporting scholarships in four universities to enable
- 35:10Speaker 1: young men to study the raw materials which he is
- 35:13Speaker 1: using in his plant. I asked him if he was
- 35:16Speaker 1: supporting any scholarships to study the human element in his plant,
- 35:21Speaker 1: and he said no yet, when asked for definite figures,
- 35:26Speaker 1: it appeared that eighty percent of every dollar which he
- 35:29Speaker 1: spends goes for labor, and only twenty percent goes for materials.
- 35:35Speaker 1: He is endowing four scholarships to study the twenty percent
- 35:39Speaker 1: and is not doing a thing to study the eighty percent.
- 35:44Speaker 1: Statistics show that the greatest undeveloped resources in America are
- 35:48Speaker 1: not our minds, or our forests or our streams, but
- 35:53Speaker 1: rather the human souls of the men and women who
- 35:56Speaker 1: work for us. This is most significant when one resorts
- 36:02Speaker 1: to statistics and learns that everything that we have, every improvement,
- 36:06Speaker 1: every railroad, every ship, every building costing and excess of
- 36:11Speaker 1: five thousand dollars, every manufacturing concern employing over twenty men, yes,
- 36:17Speaker 1: every newspaper and book worthwhile, has originated and been developed
- 36:22Speaker 1: in the minds of less than two percent of the people.
- 36:26Speaker 1: The solution of our industrial problems and the reduction of
- 36:30Speaker 1: the cost of living depend not on fighting over what
- 36:33Speaker 1: is already produced, but upon producing more. This means that
- 36:39Speaker 1: this two percent must be increased to four percent, and
- 36:43Speaker 1: then to six percent. If all the good things which
- 36:47Speaker 1: we now have come from the enterprise of only two percent,
- 36:51Speaker 1: it is evident that we would all have three times
- 36:54Speaker 1: as much if the two percent were increased to six percent.
- 36:59Speaker 1: Jesus was absolutely right in his contention that if we
- 37:03Speaker 1: seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, all
- 37:07Speaker 1: these other things would naturally come to us. This is
- 37:12Speaker 1: what Jesus had in mind when he urged people to
- 37:14Speaker 1: give and serve, promising that such giving and serving should
- 37:19Speaker 1: be returned to them a hundredfold or more. Jesus never
- 37:23Speaker 1: preached unselfishness or taught sacrifice as such, but only urged
- 37:28Speaker 1: his hearers to look through to the end, see what
- 37:32Speaker 1: the final result would be, and do what would be
- 37:35Speaker 1: best for them in the long run. Jesus urged his
- 37:38Speaker 1: followers to consider the spiritual things rather than the material,
- 37:43Speaker 1: and the eternal things rather than to temporal, but not
- 37:47Speaker 1: in the spirit of sacrifice. The only sacrifice which Jesus
- 37:51Speaker 1: asked of his people was the same sacrifice which the
- 37:55Speaker 1: farmer makes when he throws his seed into the soil.
- 37:59Speaker 1: The story of the loaves and Fishes is still taught
- 38:03Speaker 1: as a miracle, but the day will come when it
- 38:05Speaker 1: will not be considered such. The same is true regarding
- 38:10Speaker 1: the incident when Jesus found that his disciples had been
- 38:13Speaker 1: fishing all night without results, and he suggested that they
- 38:17Speaker 1: cast the net on the other side. They followed his advice,
- 38:21Speaker 1: and the net immediately filled with so many fishes that
- 38:25Speaker 1: they could hardly pull it up. If we today would
- 38:29Speaker 1: give more thought to the spiritual and less to the material,
- 38:33Speaker 1: we would have more in health, happiness, and prosperity. The
- 38:37Speaker 1: business man today would be far better off if, like
- 38:41Speaker 1: the fishermen of Galilee, we would take Jesus's advice and
- 38:46Speaker 1: cast our net on the other side. We are told
- 38:50Speaker 1: that with sufficient faith we could remove mountains. Have mountains
- 38:56Speaker 1: ever been removed or tunneled without faith? The bridge of rivers,
- 39:00Speaker 1: the building of railroads, the launching of steamships, and the
- 39:04Speaker 1: creation of all industries are dependent on the faith of somebody.
- 39:10Speaker 1: Too much credit is given both to capital and labor
- 39:13Speaker 1: in the current discussions of today. The real credit for
- 39:17Speaker 1: most of the things which we have is due to
- 39:20Speaker 1: some human soul which supplied the faith that was the
- 39:24Speaker 1: mainspring of every enterprise. Furthermore, in most instances, this human
- 39:30Speaker 1: soul owes this germ of faith to some little country
- 39:35Speaker 1: church with a white steeple and old fashioned furnishings. The
- 39:40Speaker 1: reason I say old fashioned church is because our fathers
- 39:43Speaker 1: were more willing to rely upon the power of faith
- 39:46Speaker 1: than many of us today. What they lacked in many
- 39:50Speaker 1: other ways was more than compensated by their faith in God.
- 39:55Speaker 1: They got through faith that something which men today are
- 39:59Speaker 1: trying to get through every other means. All the educators,
- 40:03Speaker 1: all the psychologists, all the inspirational writers cannot put into
- 40:08Speaker 1: a man the vision and the will to do things
- 40:11Speaker 1: which are gained by a clear faith. Most of us
- 40:15Speaker 1: today are frantically trying to invent a machine which will
- 40:19Speaker 1: solve our problems, when all the while we have the
- 40:23Speaker 1: machine within us, if only we will set it going.
- 40:28Speaker 1: That machine is the human soul. The great problem today
- 40:34Speaker 1: is to develop the human soul, to develop this wonderful
- 40:38Speaker 1: machine which each one of us has between his ears.
- 40:43Speaker 1: Only as this is developed can we solve our other problems.
- 40:48Speaker 1: When we give as much thought to the solution of
- 40:50Speaker 1: the human problem as we give to the solution of
- 40:53Speaker 1: the steam problem or the electrical problem, we will have
- 40:57Speaker 1: no labor problem. We have gone daffy over things like steam, electricity,
- 41:04Speaker 1: water power, buildings, railroads, and ships, and we have forgotten
- 41:09Speaker 1: the human soul. Upon which all these things depend, and
- 41:13Speaker 1: from which all of these things originate. End of chapter five,
- 41:25Speaker 1: Chapter six of Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This
- 41:29Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter six, Study
- 41:36Speaker 1: the Human Soul. The first step is to give more
- 41:40Speaker 1: thought and attention to people, to establish more points of contact.
- 41:45Speaker 1: Let us do humanly, individually, man to man, what we
- 41:50Speaker 1: are trying to do in a great big way. I
- 41:54Speaker 1: was visiting the home of a famous manufacturer recently, and
- 41:58Speaker 1: he took me out to his farm. He showed me
- 42:01Speaker 1: his cattle. Above the head of each heifer and each
- 42:04Speaker 1: cow was the pedigree. The most careful record was kept
- 42:09Speaker 1: of every animal. He had a blue print in his
- 42:12Speaker 1: library at home of every one of those animals. Yet,
- 42:16Speaker 1: when we began later to talk about the laborer problem
- 42:19Speaker 1: in his own plant, and I asked him how many
- 42:22Speaker 1: of his people he knew personally, he told me, I
- 42:25Speaker 1: quote his words, why they are all alike to me,
- 42:28Speaker 1: mister Babson, I don't know one from the other. Later
- 42:32Speaker 1: in the evening, it was steering the Christmas vacation. A
- 42:36Speaker 1: young fellow drove up to the house in a fancy
- 42:39Speaker 1: automobile came in and asked for this manufacturer's only daughter
- 42:44Speaker 1: in order to take her to the party. I didn't
- 42:47Speaker 1: like the looks of the fellow very well. After they
- 42:49Speaker 1: had gone out, I said to the father, who is
- 42:52Speaker 1: that chap? The father replied, I don't know, some friend
- 42:56Speaker 1: of mary's. The father had every one of his cows blueprinted,
- 43:02Speaker 1: but he didn't know the name of the man who
- 43:04Speaker 1: came to get his daughter, and who didn't deliver her
- 43:08Speaker 1: until two o'clock the next morning. That man was neglecting
- 43:12Speaker 1: the human soul, both in his factory and in his home.
- 43:17Speaker 1: I repeat that we have gone crazy over structures. Above ground.
- 43:21Speaker 1: We are absolutely forgetting the greatest of our resources, the
- 43:26Speaker 1: great spiritual resource upon which everything depends. How shall we
- 43:31Speaker 1: develop these resources? Certainly we are not developing this great
- 43:36Speaker 1: spiritual resource in the public schools. The educational system was
- 43:40Speaker 1: originally founded by the church to train the children in
- 43:44Speaker 1: the fundamentals of righteousness. Gradually, but constantly, we have drifted
- 43:49Speaker 1: away from this goal, and today the purpose for which
- 43:53Speaker 1: our schools were started has been almost entirely lost. In
- 43:59Speaker 1: some states, it is now a criminal offense for a
- 44:01Speaker 1: school superintendent to ask a prospective school teacher, what she believes,
- 44:07Speaker 1: or whether she has any religion whatever. Under these conditions,
- 44:12Speaker 1: is it surprising that the spiritual resources of our children
- 44:16Speaker 1: are lying dormant. Much of the prosperity of this nation
- 44:21Speaker 1: is due to the family prayers which were once daily
- 44:24Speaker 1: held in the homes of our fathers. To a very
- 44:27Speaker 1: large extent, this custom has gone by. Whatever the arguments
- 44:32Speaker 1: pro and con may be, the fact nevertheless remains that
- 44:37Speaker 1: such family prayers nurtured and developed these spiritual resources to
- 44:42Speaker 1: which the prosperity of the nation is due. The custom
- 44:46Speaker 1: of family prayers should be revived, along with many other
- 44:49Speaker 1: good New England customs, which some modern radicals may ridicule,
- 44:54Speaker 1: but to which they owe all that they possess. The
- 44:58Speaker 1: masses today are getting there real education from the daily newspapers.
- 45:03Speaker 1: Many of these newspapers have much good material, but the
- 45:07Speaker 1: great effort of the daily press is not to make producers,
- 45:12Speaker 1: but rather to make consumers. The policy of the daily
- 45:16Speaker 1: press is not to get people to serve, but rather
- 45:19Speaker 1: to get them to buy. Not only is the larger
- 45:23Speaker 1: portion of the newspapers given up to advertising, but most
- 45:26Speaker 1: of this advertising is of none essentials if not of luxuries.
- 45:32Speaker 1: With this advertising constantly before the people of the country,
- 45:36Speaker 1: it is but natural that the material things should seem
- 45:39Speaker 1: of greater importance to remedy. This situation is a great
- 45:43Speaker 1: problem today facing the Christian businessmen of this country. What
- 45:47Speaker 1: shall we do about it? The first step is to
- 45:52Speaker 1: give more thought and attention to people, and to establish
- 45:56Speaker 1: more points of contact. Let us do humanly, in individually,
- 46:00Speaker 1: man to man what we are trying to do in
- 46:03Speaker 1: a great way. Another method to develop this human resource
- 46:08Speaker 1: is to give people responsibility. Moreover, we must do so
- 46:13Speaker 1: if the nation is to be truly prosperous. End of
- 46:17Speaker 1: Chapter six, Chapter seven of Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson.
- 46:29Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter seven.
- 46:34Speaker 1: Boost the other fellow. Just as our property is safe
- 46:39Speaker 1: only as the other fellow's property is safe, just as
- 46:42Speaker 1: our daughter is safe only as the other fellow's daughter
- 46:45Speaker 1: is safe. So it also is true that in order
- 46:49Speaker 1: to develop the human soul and other men, we have
- 46:52Speaker 1: to give those men something. My little girl has a
- 46:57Speaker 1: black cat about once in four or months. This cat
- 47:00Speaker 1: has kittens. Opposite our place is a man who has
- 47:04Speaker 1: an airedale dog. When that dog comes across the street
- 47:08Speaker 1: and that cat has no kittens, the cat immediately beats
- 47:12Speaker 1: it as fast as she can, with a dog after her.
- 47:15Speaker 1: But when the dog comes across the street and that
- 47:18Speaker 1: cat has the responsibility of some kittens, she immediately turns
- 47:23Speaker 1: on the dog, and the dog beats it, with the
- 47:26Speaker 1: cat after him. It is the same dog, the same cat,
- 47:30Speaker 1: and the same backyard. But in one instance the cat
- 47:34Speaker 1: has no responsibilities, and in the other case she has
- 47:38Speaker 1: responsibilities develop faith, vision, courage, initiative, and other things that
- 47:45Speaker 1: make the world go round. Just as our property is
- 47:49Speaker 1: safe only as the other fellow's property is safe, just
- 47:53Speaker 1: as our daughter is safe only as the other fellow's
- 47:56Speaker 1: daughter is safe, so is it also true that in
- 47:59Speaker 1: order to develop the human soul in other men, we
- 48:02Speaker 1: have to give those men something. We must give them
- 48:06Speaker 1: a chance, we must give them opportunity, We must give
- 48:11Speaker 1: them a boost. All of us are simply storage batteries.
- 48:15Speaker 1: We get out of life what we put into life.
- 48:19Speaker 1: We care for others not in a cordinance with what
- 48:22Speaker 1: they do for us, but rather in accordance with what
- 48:26Speaker 1: we have done for them. I am quite often asked
- 48:30Speaker 1: about investments. Well, there are times about once in three
- 48:34Speaker 1: or four years during Panix, when everyone is scared to
- 48:38Speaker 1: death that I invest in stocks. There are other times
- 48:42Speaker 1: when I advise the purchase of bonds. The fact is, however,
- 48:46Speaker 1: that I have not made my money investing either in
- 48:49Speaker 1: stocks or bonds. What money I have made has come
- 48:53Speaker 1: from investing in boys and girls, young men and young women.
- 48:58Speaker 1: There is a common belief covered today that only people
- 49:02Speaker 1: with experience are worth while. But I say, quit looking
- 49:06Speaker 1: for the experienced salesman and trying to make a man
- 49:09Speaker 1: out of him. Get a man, and then make a
- 49:13Speaker 1: salesman of him. I have a young man in my
- 49:16Speaker 1: business who was delivering trunks for an express company twelve
- 49:19Speaker 1: years ago. Today he is my sales manager and has
- 49:24Speaker 1: built our gross from one hundred thousand to one million dollars.
- 49:28Speaker 1: One of my best experts, a man who was sought
- 49:31Speaker 1: for by the leading chambers of commerce all over the land,
- 49:35Speaker 1: was a carpenter on my garage nine years ago. Another
- 49:39Speaker 1: one of my experts, a man the demand for whose
- 49:41Speaker 1: services I cannot supply, never acquired recognition until he was
- 49:45Speaker 1: over forty five years of age. I found him keeping
- 49:49Speaker 1: hens at Wellesley Farms. A young lady in my office
- 49:53Speaker 1: to whom I pay two hundred dollars a week, and
- 49:56Speaker 1: who is worth to me one thousand dollars a week
- 49:59Speaker 1: I picked up at four dollars a week twelve years ago.
- 50:03Speaker 1: Such cases exist everywhere. You men yourselves, know them. You
- 50:09Speaker 1: look over your own organizations. Who are the men who
- 50:12Speaker 1: are really doing things? Are they the men you acquired
- 50:16Speaker 1: ready made from other concerns. No, they are the men
- 50:20Speaker 1: that have been taken up and developed. They are the
- 50:23Speaker 1: men that have made money for you, and have created
- 50:27Speaker 1: the business enterprise of which you are the head. Yet,
- 50:30Speaker 1: when we have reached a point of prestige and have
- 50:33Speaker 1: a big business, we are tempted to say, I haven't
- 50:37Speaker 1: time to develop any more people. I have got to
- 50:39Speaker 1: get them already made. This is a big mistake. I
- 50:44Speaker 1: beg my readers, those who have them, to get your
- 50:47Speaker 1: foremen together. Say to the partners, are the officials of
- 50:51Speaker 1: your concern? Haven't we given too much thought to developing
- 50:55Speaker 1: the structure? Aren't we piling too many stories one upon
- 51:00Speaker 1: another with too little thought to the foundation. Then go
- 51:03Speaker 1: out and look over your plant and select a few
- 51:07Speaker 1: people in each department to whom you will give a
- 51:10Speaker 1: real opportunity, start in to develop them, and thereby strengthen
- 51:15Speaker 1: the foundation of the business and the prosperity of the nation.
- 51:19Speaker 1: End of chapter seven, Chapter eight of Fundamentals of Prosperity
- 51:29Speaker 1: by Roger Babson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
- 51:35Speaker 1: Chapter eight. What truly counts the greatest resources in the
- 51:41Speaker 1: world today are human resources, not resources of iron, copper,
- 51:46Speaker 1: and lumber. The great need of the hour is to
- 51:49Speaker 1: strengthen this human foundation, and you businessmen are the one
- 51:53Speaker 1: group that can do it. When it comes to the
- 51:57Speaker 1: sale of goods, the same pre applies. Eighty percent of
- 52:02Speaker 1: our sales organizations are devoted to selling to ten percent
- 52:06Speaker 1: of the population. We have forgotten to consider whether or
- 52:10Speaker 1: not goods or needed. We only consider whether or not
- 52:14Speaker 1: they are being bought. You are forgetting to establish new markets,
- 52:19Speaker 1: but rather are scrambling over the markets already secured. Tremendous
- 52:24Speaker 1: opportunities exist in developing new industries and creating new communities,
- 52:29Speaker 1: and relocating the center of production from one community to
- 52:32Speaker 1: another community to match up with your center of consumption.
- 52:36Speaker 1: We have forgotten the latent power in the human soul,
- 52:40Speaker 1: in the individual, in the community, in the different parts
- 52:44Speaker 1: of the country. We have forgotten those human possibilities upon
- 52:49Speaker 1: which all prosperity ultimately depends. I cannot perhaps emphasize this
- 52:55Speaker 1: anymore than by saying that the foundation of progress is spiritual,
- 53:00Speaker 1: not material. The greatest resources of the world today are
- 53:05Speaker 1: human resources, not resources of iron, copper, and lumber. The
- 53:10Speaker 1: great need of the hour is to strengthen this human
- 53:13Speaker 1: foundation and revive in men a desire to produce and
- 53:18Speaker 1: a joy in service. Business Men are the one group
- 53:23Speaker 1: that can do it. They understand the emotions, understand the
- 53:27Speaker 1: importance of the intangible things. They understand how to awaken
- 53:32Speaker 1: in people new motives. So my appeal is not to
- 53:36Speaker 1: wait too long to revive man and awaken the soul
- 53:39Speaker 1: which is slumbering today. The nation is only a mass
- 53:44Speaker 1: of individuals. The true prosperity of a country depends upon
- 53:49Speaker 1: the same qualities as the true prosperity of its people.
- 53:53Speaker 1: As religion is necessary for the man, it is also
- 53:57Speaker 1: necessary for the nation. As the soul of man needs
- 54:01Speaker 1: to be developed, so also does the soul of the nation.
- 54:05Speaker 1: Let me tell one more personal incident, not long ago
- 54:09Speaker 1: I was at my Washington office spending the week. While there,
- 54:13Speaker 1: a little Western Union messenger girl came in to apply
- 54:17Speaker 1: for a position. It was in the afternoon, about half
- 54:20Speaker 1: past five. I was struck with the intelligence of the
- 54:24Speaker 1: girl's face and asked her two or three questions. She
- 54:27Speaker 1: was tired, I asked her to sit down. I was
- 54:30Speaker 1: astonished to hear her story. She had been born and
- 54:34Speaker 1: brought up in the mountains of West Virginia, many miles
- 54:37Speaker 1: from civilization. Her father and mother died when she was
- 54:40Speaker 1: four years old. She had been living with an old
- 54:43Speaker 1: grandfather and brother. When I began to talk with her,
- 54:47Speaker 1: I found her to have a most remarkable acquaintance with Emerson,
- 54:51Speaker 1: with thorough and Bernard Shaw, and with the old Eastern writers.
- 54:55Speaker 1: I said to her, how is it that you are
- 54:58Speaker 1: delivering telegrams and ac KACKI suit and a soldier cap.
- 55:02Speaker 1: She replied, because I could get nothing else to do.
- 55:06Speaker 1: I lived down there in the mountains just as long
- 55:09Speaker 1: as I could. I had to get to the city
- 55:11Speaker 1: where I could express myself and develop my finer qualities.
- 55:15Speaker 1: When I got to Washington, there was nothing that I
- 55:17Speaker 1: could do. They asked me if I could typewrite, but
- 55:21Speaker 1: I had never seen a typewriter. Finally, after walking the
- 55:24Speaker 1: streets for a while, I got a job as a
- 55:26Speaker 1: Western Union messenger. I wrote missrus Babson and made arrangements
- 55:31Speaker 1: to have the girl come to Wellesley and work for
- 55:34Speaker 1: a few months with the Babson organization. I saw in
- 55:38Speaker 1: her certain qualities which, if developed, should make her very
- 55:42Speaker 1: useful to someone somewhere. She came to Wellesley About a
- 55:47Speaker 1: month after her arrival, I was obliged to leave on
- 55:51Speaker 1: a two months trip, and missrus Babson invited her to
- 55:54Speaker 1: dine the night before I left. I told her that
- 55:58Speaker 1: I was going to speak while away on America's undeveloped resources.
- 56:02Speaker 1: After dinner, she went to my desk and took her
- 56:05Speaker 1: pen and scribbled these lines and said, perhaps during your
- 56:10Speaker 1: talk on America's greatest undeveloped resources, you will give those
- 56:14Speaker 1: men a message from a Western Union girl. These are
- 56:18Speaker 1: the lines she wrote. There By Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I
- 56:25Speaker 1: gave a beggar from my little store of wealth some gold.
- 56:28Speaker 1: He spent the shining oar and came again, and yet again,
- 56:32Speaker 1: still cold and hungry as before. I gave a thought,
- 56:36Speaker 1: and through that thought of mine, he found himself the
- 56:40Speaker 1: man supreme, divine, fed, clothed and crowned with blessing, manifold,
- 56:46Speaker 1: and now he begs no more. The mind of man
- 56:52Speaker 1: is a wonderful thing. But unless the soul of a
- 56:55Speaker 1: man is awakened, he must lack faith, power, originality, ambition,
- 57:01Speaker 1: those vital elements which make a man a real producer.
- 57:05Speaker 1: I do not say that you can awaken this force
- 57:08Speaker 1: in every soul. If you are an employer, perhaps only
- 57:12Speaker 1: a few of all your employees can be made to understand.
- 57:16Speaker 1: But this much is certain. In every man or a
- 57:19Speaker 1: woman in whom you can loose the power of this
- 57:22Speaker 1: invisible something, you will mobilize a force not only for
- 57:28Speaker 1: his or her good, but for the good and perhaps
- 57:31Speaker 1: the very salvation of your own business. End of chapter eight,
- 57:41Speaker 1: Chapter nine of Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This
- 57:47Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nine what
- 57:53Speaker 1: figures show panics are caused by spiritual causes rather than finance.
- 58:00Speaker 1: Prosperity is the result of righteousness rather than of material things.
- 58:07Speaker 1: The large black areas on the adjoining chart are formed
- 58:11Speaker 1: by combining and plotting current figures on new buildings, crops, clearings, immigration,
- 58:18Speaker 1: total foreign trade, money failures, commodity prices, railroad earnings, stock prices,
- 58:25Speaker 1: and politics in order to give a composite view of
- 58:29Speaker 1: business in the United States. When Interstate Commerce reports of
- 58:33Speaker 1: earnings of all United States railroads became available January nineteen
- 58:37Speaker 1: oh nine, this record was substituted in place of the
- 58:41Speaker 1: earnings of ten representative roads, which had been used previous
- 58:45Speaker 1: to that time. Revised scales from monetary figures were also
- 58:50Speaker 1: introduced in August nineteen twelve. The line x Y represents
- 58:57Speaker 1: the country's net gain or growths on the economic theory
- 59:01Speaker 1: that action and reaction are equal when the two factors
- 59:04Speaker 1: of time and intensity are multiplied to form an area.
- 59:08Speaker 1: The sums of the areas above and below said line
- 59:11Speaker 1: x Y must, over sufficiently long periods of time, be equal,
- 59:17Speaker 1: provided enough subjects are included properly weighed and combined. An
- 59:22Speaker 1: area of prosperity is always followed by an area of depression.
- 59:28Speaker 1: An area of depression, in turn, is always followed by
- 59:31Speaker 1: an area of prosperity. The areas, however, need not have
- 59:35Speaker 1: the same shapes. It will be seen that each area
- 59:40Speaker 1: is divided into halves by a narrow white line. This
- 59:45Speaker 1: syster emphasize the fact that the first halves of areas
- 59:48Speaker 1: below the x Y line are really reactions from the extravagance, inefficiency,
- 59:53Speaker 1: and corruption which existed during the latter half of the
- 59:57Speaker 1: preceding prosperity area. Contrarywise, the first halves of area above
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: the xy line are really reactions from the economy, industry,
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: and righteousness developed during the hard times just preceding. The
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: high points of the stock market have come in the
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: early part of the prosperity areas, and the low points
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: have come about the beginning of the depression areas. In
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen. The war held down prices of all securities.
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: The highest price of bonds have usually come about the
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: end of the depression areas, and high money rates and
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: lowest bond prices at about the end of the prosperity areas.
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: But what causes these fluctuations in business and prices. Statistics
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: show that panics are caused by spiritual causes rather than financial,
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: and that prosperity is the result of righteousness rather than
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: of material things. Hence the importance to industry and of
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: the forces already mentioned, these spiritual forces are the true
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: fundamentals of prosperity. This in turn leads us to consider
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: from where they come and upon what we are to
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: depend for their further development. The following pages will give
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: the answer. What are the sources of these fundamentals of prosperity?
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: Where do we get this? Faith, integrity, industry, cooperation, and
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: interest in the soul of a man upon which civilization
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: is based. As already explained, we do not get it
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: from raw materials. We have always had the raw materials.
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: We do not get it from education. From a statistical
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: point of view, Germany is the best educated country in
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: the world. It has the least illiteracy. It has the
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: largest percent of scientific culture. No, these three fundamentals do
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: not come from education. They do not come from the
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: inheritance of property. I mentioned in the preceding pages the
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: investigation we have made of leading captains of industry in America,
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: the men who had the various greatest industries in this country.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: Out of this group of men, only ten percent inherited
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: their business, while only fifteen percent receives special education. This
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: shows that the source of these qualities is from something
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: more than wealth or education. We are striving and even
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: slaving to lay a property for our children, when statistics
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: clearly show that the more we lay up for them,
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: the worse off they are going to be. If statistics
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: demonstrate any one thing, they demonstrate that the less money
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: we leave our children, the better off they will be,
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: not only spiritually and physically, but also financially. When it
- 1:02:53Speaker 1: comes to the question of education, we work and economize
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: to give our children an education, to send our children
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: to college. Yet statistics show that only a small percentage
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: of these leading businessmen are college graduates. The success of individuals,
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: the success of communities, the success of nations depends on
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: these fundamentals integrity, faith, industry, brotherly kindness, and an interest
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: in the soul of man. To What do we owe
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: these great fundamental qualities. Statistics show clearly that we owe
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: them to religion, Yes, and to the old fashioned religion
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: of our forefathers. Moreover, I say this not as a churchman.
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: I would give the same message of our speaking to
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: a group of bankers or a group of engineers. I
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: was first brought into the Church through the Christian Endeavor Society,
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: but I was really converted to the Bible teachings through
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: a study of statistics. To Reion we owe our civilization,
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: and to the Church we owe our religion. All there
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: is in the world today that is worthwhile comes from
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: men filled with and from groups actuated by these fundamentals
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: of integrity, faith, industry, brotherly love, and those other factors
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: which come only through God. The Church today deserves the
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: credit for keeping these factors before the world. Hence, it
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: is evident that the people of America have not the
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: bankers to thank for their security and prosperity, but rather
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: the preachers and the churches. To these men we are
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: obligated for our growth and development. Endo Chapter nine, Chapter
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: ten of Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This LibriVox
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Ten where the church
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: falls down, become saturated with Christ's principles. Be clean and upright,
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: cooperate with one another, have faith, serve, trust the Almighty
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: for the results, and you will never have to worry
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: about property. If you will do these things, all of
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: the others will be given to you. There are two
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: groups of people who criticize the Church. First, there are
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: those who claim great love for their fellow men, but
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: do not go to church because it is allied with
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: the property interests of the community. I believe that to
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: be the fundamental reason why the wage workers, labor leaders, socialists,
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: and radicals are not interested in the Church. They believe
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: that the Church is too closely allied with property. I
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: have been severely criticized myself for presenting the Church as
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: a defender of property, and it's a means of making
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: your home, your business, and your securities safer. Such critics
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: are perfectly conscientious, and the Church suffers much because those people,
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: in their love for humanity, are antagonistic to the Church.
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: The second group are those defenders of property who look
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: upon the Church as impractical, who consider the Golden Rule
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: as something all right for the minister to talk about
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: on Sundays, but something useless to try to follow during
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: the week. Those men criticize the Church for preaching love,
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: for talking the Sermon on the Mount, and for being
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: what they say is impractical. So the Church suffers today
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: by having both of these groups stand off alone. Neither
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: of them is interested in the Church the most important
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: organization in America. It is the Church which has created America,
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: which has developed our schools, which has created our homes,
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: which has built our cities, which has developed our industries,
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: which has made our hospitals charities, and which has done
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: everything that is worthwhile in America. Yet today the church
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: is the most discarded industry of all, because it has
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: not the co operation of either of the above groups,
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: the radical group, which claims to be interested only in
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: humanity and not in property, and the propertied group, which
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: frankly says that it is primarily interested in property and
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: not humanity. It seems that we should stop sidestepping this question. Instead,
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: we should face it squarely and answer both of these criticisms.
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: My answer is as follows. Jesus was not interested in
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: property per se. There is no question but that Jesus
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: had no interest in property. These things which look so
- 1:07:52Speaker 1: important to us, houses, roads, taxation, buildings, fields, crops, foreign trade, ships,
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: it is very evident, were insignificant to Jesus. When any
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: of Jesus's disciples came to him to settle some property question,
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: he pushed them aside and said he was too busy
- 1:08:11Speaker 1: to consider it. I am sure that if Jesus were
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: here today, he would tell us all that we are
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: idiots for striving so to accumulate things, building ourselves bigger houses,
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: getting bigger bank accounts, and more automobiles. Hence, when these
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: socialists are the radical or the labor leader complaints to me,
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: I frankly admit this fact without doubt. The Church should
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: emphasize that property of itself is of no value, and
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: the only things worthwhile in life are happiness and the
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: health and the freedom which come from living an upright
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: simple life. On the other hand, and this point I
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: wish to emphasize just as strongly, Jesus took a position
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: throughout his teachings that if his disciples would simply get
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: saturated with him his fundamentals, if they would be clean
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: and upright, if they would cooperate with one another, if
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: they would have faith to serve and trust the Almighty
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: for the results, they would never have to worry about property.
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: Property would take care of itself. Jesus emphasized first that
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: they should not think of property, but he always closed
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: his discourses by some such statement as if you will
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: do these things, all the others will be given to you.
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: It is absolutely impossible for any individual to develop the
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: above fundamentals of prosperity faith, integrity, industry, and brotherly kindness
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: without being successful. I care not whether he is a doctor, teacher, banker, lawyer, businessman,
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: or manufacturer. That same thing is true of groups and
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: of nations. It is fundamental law whatsoever a man soweth,
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: that shall he also reap. Those who serve will be served.
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: Those who knock will be knocked, those who boost will
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: be boosted. We are paid in the coin that we give.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: We are forgiven as we forgive. If we are friendly,
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: we will make friends. Statistics show that the Church is
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: the greatest factor in the worldly success of men, groups,
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: and nations. Some readers may have seen a book written
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: by Professor Carver of Harvard entitled The Religion Worth Having.
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: In that book, the author discusses the various denominations of Christianity.
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: Then he says most conclusively that the religion worth having,
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: the religion that will survive, is the religion which produces
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: the most. Yet this production will not come by seeking
- 1:10:49Speaker 1: production per se, but rather by the development of these
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: fundamental characteristics which have been described. Try as you will,
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: you who cannot separate the factor of religion from economic development.
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: In the work conducted by my organization at Wellesley Hills.
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: We study the trend of religious interest as closely as
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: we do the condition of the banks. Are the supply
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: of and demand for commodities. Statistics of church membership form
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: one of the best barometers of business conditions. We have
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: these figures charted back for the past fifty years. Whenever
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: this line of religious interest turns downward and reaches a
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: low level, history shows that it is time to prepare
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: for a reaction and depression in business conditions. Every great
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: panic we have ever had has been foreshadowed by a
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: general decline in observance of religious principles. On the other hand,
- 1:11:50Speaker 1: when the line of religious interest begins to climb and
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: the nation turns again to the simple mode of living
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: laid by in the Bible, then it is time to
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: make ready for a period of business prosperity. End of
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: Chapter ten, Chapter eleven, The Fundamentals of Prosperity by Roger Babson.
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter eleven
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: The Future Church. The time is coming where the Church
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: will awake to its great opportunities. The greatest industry in America,
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: but the most backward and inefficiently operated, is still in
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: the stagecoach class. Of course, the church is very far
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: from developed. The church is in the same position today
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: as Worthy Water Powers fifty years ago. The church has
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: great resources, but these resources are sadly undeveloped. From an
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: efficiency point of view, from an organizational point of view,
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: from a production point of view, the church today is
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: in the stagecoach class. It holds within itself the keys
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: of prosperity. It holds within itself the salvation and solution
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: of our industrial, commercial, and international problems. Yet it is working,
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: or at least the Protestant branch is open only three
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: or four hours a week. The church has the greatest
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: opportunity today of any industry. It is the least developed industry,
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: the most inefficiently operated, and the most backward in its methods.
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: Let us shut our eyes and look ahead at what
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: it will be twenty five years from now. Let us
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: imagine five churches within a radius of five miles, all
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: of them now operating independently, each one open only a
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: few hours a week. Twenty five years from now, these
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: five churches will be linked up together under a general
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: manager who will not be a parson, but who will
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: be a business man. Today, the preacher of our churches
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: is a combination of preacher, business manager, and salesman. He
- 1:14:13Speaker 1: is the service department, the finance department, and everything but
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: the janitor. The church is being operated today as a
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: college would be operated with one professor who would be president, treasurer,
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: general manager, and everything else. The church is being operated
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: today as a factory with simply a production man and
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: no one to tend the finances. Are the sales manufacturers
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: reading this book know how long a factory could be
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: run with only a superintendent and no one to sell
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: or finance. The proposition twenty five years from today, instead
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: of the pastor being at the head of the church
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: and a few good people doing voluntary work, there will
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: be four are five churches of the sale aim denomination,
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: united under one general manager. I do not mean by
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: this that four of them will be closed. They will
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: all be open much more than they are now. But
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: they will all be under one general manager and will
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: be taking orders from that general manager. Twenty five years
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: from today, the churches will be self supporting. The days
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: of begging will be over. Religion has been cheapened by
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: singing about salvations free for you and me. When we
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: have our legal difficulties, we go to a lawyer and
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: pay him. When we have a pain, we go to
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: a doctor and pay him. If we want our children taught,
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: we pay the price. But if we want our children
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: instructed in the fundamentals of prosperity upon which their future depends,
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: we send them to a Sunday school for a half
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: hour a week, with the possibility of having them taught
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: by a silly girl who doesn't know her work. In
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: the event, the parent seldom takes the trouble to ascertain
- 1:16:03Speaker 1: the quality of the teaching. The time is coming when
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: the church will awaken to its great principles and opportunities.
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: The greatest industry in America is still the most backward
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: and most inefficiently operated. When these four or five churches
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: are combined, the preacher will not have to spend half
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: the week in preparing a different sermon every Sunday. He
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: will have two weeks or a month to prepare that sermon.
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: He will have time and have the pep and energy
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: to deliver it to you, so you won't go to
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: sleep while sitting in the pews. The audience will then
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: hear the same preacher only once each month, and the
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: preacher will then have more than one congregation to appeal to.
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: The same man is not going to be expected to
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: preach on love, hate, the League of Nations, how to
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: settle labor disputes, and the health of the community, and
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: every other subject. All of these men will preach the
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: salvation of Jesus, and each one will specialize in one
- 1:17:08Speaker 1: particular phase of the Christian life, such as faith, integrity,
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: industry cooperation. Then we will take more stock in our
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: preaches because they won't pretend to know every subject. Then
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: the preacher will not be of lesser intelligence than the
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: average audience. Fifty years ago, the ablest men in every
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: community were the preachers, the doctors, and the lawyers. They
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: were the only college graduates of the town and were
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: looked up to. Today, while we pay our sales managers
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars a year and
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: lawyers in doctors large fees, we pay our preachers only
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: miserable salaries. It's a damnable disgrace to all of us.
- 1:17:55Speaker 1: I often think that if Jesus were to come back
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: to us, that he would take for his text that
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: thought from the Sermon on the mount, if you have
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: aught against your neighbor, before you enter into your worship,
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: go and square up. I think that when he came
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: in to speak to us on Sunday morning, he would say, gentlemen,
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: I suggest that before we have this service, we raise
- 1:18:18Speaker 1: funds to pay the preacher a decent salary. Just before
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: I went to Brazil, I was the guest of the
- 1:18:26Speaker 1: President of the Argentine Republic. After lunching one day, we
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: sat in his son parlor looking out over the river.
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: He was very thoughtful, He said, mister Babson, I have
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: been wondering why it is that South America, with all
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: its great natural advantages, is so far behind North America,
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: notwithstanding that South America was settled before North America. Then
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: he went on to tell how the forests of South
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: America had two hundred and eighty six trees that can
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: be found in no book of botany. He told me
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: about many ranches that had thousands of acre under alfalfa.
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: In one block. He mentioned the mines of iron, coal, copper, silver, gold,
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: all those great rivers and water powers which rival Niagara.
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: Why is it with all these natural resources, South America
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: is so far behind North America? He asked, well, those
- 1:19:26Speaker 1: of you who have been there know the reason. But
- 1:19:30Speaker 1: being a guest, I said, mister President, what do you
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: think is the reason? He replied, I have come to
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: this conclusion. South America was settled by the Spanish, who
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: came to South America in search of gold. But North
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: America was settled by the pilgrim fathers who went there
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: in search of God. Friends, let us American citizens never
- 1:19:54Speaker 1: kick down the latter by which we climbed up. Let
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: us never forget the found invation upon which all permanent
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: prosperity is based. End of chapter eleven, end of Fundamentals
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: of Prosperity by Roger Babson. This book recorded by Phil
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: Schinevert