STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. VJ 



not trust a merchant as to the quality of the cloth in the coat 

 you bought, when you could not trust him as to the quality of 

 the sugar, or the coffee, or the rice, or the flour, when you could 

 not trust a trader as to the quality of anything that he offered 

 for sale; when the Whole business world, the world of exchange 

 and barter, was filled with distress. Today that has been 

 largely replaced, because there has gone into the hearts of all 

 of us in this matter of business a principle of common honesty. 

 We believe in our fellow man, and in turn we expect him to 

 believe in us. And that mutual faith has been aroused because 

 there has gone into the practice of us all a larger modicum of 

 honesty. 



I well remember the story of John Wanamaker, when he 

 opened his store in Philadelphia and announced through the 

 papers of that city that in his store all articles would be marked 

 in plain figures, one price to everybody, and that any buyer 

 dissatisfied could return his purchase and receive his money 

 back without any question being asked. Without a single ex- 

 ception, every merchant in the city of Philadelphia prophesied 

 that John Wanamaker would be bankrupt inside of three 

 months; that no business could be conducted on that basis; 

 that unless you had different prices upon the same article to 

 different people, that unless you insisted that when a sale was 

 made it was made, and must stick, you could not live in busi- 

 ness in the good old Quaker city of. Philadelphia. But John 

 Wanamaker based his practice upon faith in people. He pro- 

 posed to deal in absolute openness and honesty with those who 

 dealt with him, and he is still in business. 



Thousands of men — hundreds of thousands of men — have 

 followed that example. And so I want to say again, that one of 

 the greatest words in life today is that word "honesty." It is 

 the great key-word of our progress and success for tomorrow. 

 But along with it goes that other word that has been mentioned 

 T think by all the speakers, so far, this evening, "cooperation," 

 cooperation in the broadest sense, cooperation with the mati 

 who is in a business entirely different from ours, giving to him 

 the same courtesy, having in his operations the same faith, be- 

 lieving that there is in him the same honesty that we expect 

 him to believe there is in us, — cooperation in such a broad 

 sense that it reaches out and touches all the activities of all men. 



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