The business career in its public relations

by Albert Shaw

But I have a few remarks to make also upon the ethical relations of the business world of today toward the political world; that is to say, toward organized government, whether in its sovereign or in its subordinate forms. We cannot take too high a ground in proclaiming the value, for the present, at least, of the political organization of society. I should like to dwell upon this point, but I must merely state it. If the State: i.e., the political form of social organization, is valuable,—it stands to reason that it must be respected and maintained at its best. It is also obvious that it will have a higher or a lower character and efficiency, according to the attitude toward it taken by one or another of the dominant factors that make up the complex body politic.

Thus, for example, it is the feeling of men in control of the political organization in France today that the Church, as a great factor in the social structure of the nation, is essentially hostile to the spirit and purposes of a liberal republic. Hence a great disturbance of various relationships. I do not cite that instance to express even the shade of an opinion. My point is that if the political organization of society is desirable and to be maintained, it is a fortunate thing when one finds the dominant forces of society rendering loyal and faithful support to the laws and institutions of government and recognizing without reserve the sovereignty of the State. Yet in our own country there is a widespread feeling that many of the most potent forces and agencies in our business life are not wholly patriotic, in that they are not willing in practice to recognize the necessity of the domination of government and of law. I do not believe that this is permanently and generally true. It would constitute a great danger if it were a fixed or a growing tendency.

As matters stand, however, every one must admit that there is an element of danger that lies in the very fact that as a nation we are in a condition of peace, content, and prosperity, and do not find our political institutions irksome. The danger consists in this: that under such circumstances the rewards of business and professional life are for the most part so much more certain and satisfactory than those which come from the precarious pursuit of politics, that public interests have a tendency to suffer from being in weak hands, while private interests have a tendency to assert themselves unduly, from being in the hands of men of superior force. Thus it happens that it is often difficult for the State to maintain that dignity, that mastery, that high position, as the impartial arbiter and dispenser of justice, which it is now even more necessary than ever that it should maintain, in order that the whole social organization should keep a true harmony and a safe balance.

At present, the State is largely concerned with the maintenance of conditions under which the economic and business life may operate equally and prosperously. The State in one sense is the master of the people. In another sense it is merely their creature and their agent for such purposes as they choose to assign it. Is the State, then, to absorb the industrial functions, and are we to develop into a socialistic commonwealth? Or, shall the political democracy and the coöperative organization of business life go on side by side, related at many points but in the main distinct from each other? Whatever the relation of the State to industry may be destined to become in the distant future, we may be sure that there will be no rash upheavals, no harmful socialistic experiments, if the potent business world clearly sees how necessary to its own salvation it is that the State shall be maintained upon a high plane of dignity and honor, and that the official dispensation of justice, as well as the official administration of the laws, shall be prompt, just and impartial.

There is no higher duty, therefore, incumbent upon the business man of today than to bear his part in promoting and maintaining the purity of political life. The modern business man should regard good government as one of the vital conditions of the best economic progress. Yet scores of instances are at hand that show to what a painful extent certain business interests again and again, for purposes of immediate advantage,—to secure a franchise, to escape a tax, or to procure some improper favor or advantage at the hands of those in political authority,—have employed corrupt methods and thus stained the fair escutcheon of American business honor, while breaking down the one most indispensable condition of general business progress,—namely, honest and efficient free government.

I will not dwell upon these things. It is enough to say that they are things the modern business man must have upon his conscience. For, if such offenses come by way of the business world, their remedies must also come, and indeed can only come, by that same path. In our municipal life, for example, it is the aroused interest and zeal of the best business community for better government and better conditions that can alone produce important results. Happily, all over the country we find chambers of commerce, boards of trade, merchants' associations, and other bodies of men of practical business affairs, taking their stand for the transaction of public business upon high standards of character and efficiency. I have no doubt or fears as to what the result will be. All of our large cities are themselves purely the creations of modern industrial, commercial, and transportation conditions. And I hold that these very forces of industrial and commercial life that have created the problems by bringing together great masses of people in crowded communities, must and can in turn solve the problems by the application to municipal government of the scientific and intelligent principles which belong to the best phases of business life.

All of this relates to my subject; but I must pass it by with a mere statement or two. It belongs to the developed constructive imagination and to the trained ethical sense of the modern business man to perfect the transit systems, to improve the housing conditions, to assure cheap sanitary water supplies, cheap illumination, and, above all, due provision for universal education, parks, museums, and opportunities for recreation,—in short, all possible improvements of environment that can make life in our cities not merely endurable but beneficial for the people. Here, then, is furnished a great field for the definite and conscious aspirations of the successful man of business. Here lies a great many-sided work for social and moral as well as physical and material progress which the business man, in the quality of good citizen and man of public spirit, is fitted better than any one else to accomplish.

The intelligent young man who holds before himself ideals of usefulness that extend to such projects as these, may be sure that the modern conditions of life will bring him great opportunities, and he may feel that he is thus lifting his business career up to the plane of idealism that has, in the past, been reserved for a few exclusive professions. Partly through his own endeavors,—largely through association in commercial or other organizations with his neighbors,—he may help to accomplish for the benefit of all his fellow men of a great community one step after another in the direction of public works that will meet the needs of a high civilization.

Some of the most useful men, as well as the most unselfish and devoted, with whom I come in contact are successful business men of large affairs. They are modest and unassuming; simple and direct in their methods; wide as the world in their sympathies; lofty as the stars in their aspirations for human progress; sagacious beyond other classes of men, and respected to the point of veneration by those who know them well, because they are men of deeds rather than of words, who make good their professions from day to day. Business has not so narrowed them, nor has devotion to philanthropic ends or public reforms so distorted their mental visions, that they are not able to enjoy what is good in life, whether books, music, pictures, the companionship of friends, or the restful contact with nature in field or forest.

The lives of such men are dominated by certain fixed ethical standards. Given such moral landmarks, the remarkable conditions and unequaled opportunities of modern business life will promote the frequent development of men of this kind, with their breadth of view and strength of mind and character. It is the positive and aggressive attitude toward life, the ethics of action, rather than the ethics of negation, that must control the modern business world, and that may make our modern business man the most potent factor for good in this, his own, industrial period.