286 JOHN FOSTER FRASER 



quarter of a century that they think it as solid as the British 

 constitution. They have had no incentive to slog and slave 

 like the Americans. They belong to the second or the third 

 generation. 



All this is, of course, a generalization, and, like most 

 generalizations, cannot be made to apply to particular cases. 

 But it is, I believe, a generalization which accurately repre- 

 sents the position of the mass of British manufacturers. 



The American manufacturers of the present day are of the 

 first generation. They are the kind of men, with differences, 

 such as we had in England half a century ago creating mighty 

 industrial concerns. Take up a catalogue of big American 

 firms, and you will be surprised at the tiny percentage that 

 did not start from practical nothings, and whose heads did 

 not launch first into business with the proverbial shilling. 

 Once I was talking to a millionaire, and in reply to an airy 

 question of mine what was the first ingredient to make a man 

 as wealthy as himself he replied, " Poverty!" 



Here, then, is one of the foundations of the colossal suc- 

 cess attained by so many American firms : that their directors 

 came from rough stock, many of them immigrants or the 

 children of immigrants — men who had the initial courage to 

 break with the old ties in Europe, to forsake their homeland, 

 their friends, and go into a strange world with a healthy deter- 

 mination as their only asset; men, indeed, who have had to 

 shift for themselves, who have not sunk because they have 

 been obliged to put forth all their energies to swim, who have 

 had the whole world to combat, and who, by the necessities 

 of the struggle, have been obliged to put every ounce of brain 

 into their work. 



The American has had the best of incentives — "Had to" 

 — and his brain has been strained, often to snapping, to gain 

 all points that mean advantage. These men are often loud- 

 mannered and bragging-tongued ; they display a lack of re- 

 finement which makes a cold shiver run down one's back in 

 talking to them. But probably the fathers and grandfathers 

 of our present day British manufacturers had like failings. 

 The point, however, to be considered in this matter of com- 

 parison is that the Americans have been through the mill: 



