HOW LUMBERMEN HAVE SERVED THE PUBLIC 273 



v\-as to tell the students how, if they ever had a lumber business to 

 manage, he would advise their going at it. And strange to say, the 

 whole burden of his talk was on the very point above mentioned. 

 He told the fellows that the chief element in their success would be 

 to have the men like them. Not the kind of job altogether, or the 

 conditions of work, or the pay — ^but, do they like yon? If they do 

 they will work with heart, and when a pinch comes will jump into 

 the collar and take the load over. 



I believe that has been true in very large measure of American 

 lumbering, particularly of the logging branch of it. I wish it might 

 always t/e true in industry, for relations of that kind between men 

 either settle or stifle a good many possible questions. 



Second of the points I want to take up is the discipline of 

 industry. I have heard intellectual men talk in a disparaging way of 

 business, and perhaps in my younger days rather looked down on 

 it myself; but i£ so, experience has led me to look at it differently. 

 What I mean in the first place, I can bring out sharply by contrast. 

 One of the biggest disappointments I ever had in my life came in 

 connection with an early service I had on a college faculty. I had 

 of course had experience of student consultations and debates, and 

 I had ideals of thoroughness and business-like procedure that were 

 dififerent. One of the rewards of being a member of a college faculty 

 I thought would be to see business done like business. The dis- 

 appointment I had I cannot measure. 



Years later, and yet years ago, I had experience of the reverse 

 character. I was working for a first-class business concern and had 

 occasion, in connection with buying timber property, to be for a con-* 

 siderable time with the heads of it and see them go over some proposi- 

 tions of consequence. That was what I had been looking for. From 

 point to point they went, making sure of each one. The promising or 

 plausible wouldn't do. All the facts had got to be clear, to be weighed, 

 and that the thing was sound and right had got to be demonstrated. 

 Otherwise, as they well knew, there was a good chance of failure. 

 I am glad I had the sense to see the matter on the intellectual 

 as well as the money side, and in some degree to profit by the 

 experience. Since then my eyes have been opened. We know that 

 business today attracts many of the ablest and strongest in this 

 country, and, as I see it, those men congregate to it in part because 

 of the vigor and test of it — in other words, they crave as well to 



