438 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 9, 1903. 



and there are at least 300 of them, I should say, who have 

 never seen a copy of the Constitution of the Association to 

 'which they belong-. Now, doesn't that surprise you ? But 

 that is so. I am not making- rambling statements that are 

 not borne out by the facts. Three or four gentlemen said in 

 Tiiy presence here, "Can I get a copy of the Constitution of 

 the National Association ?" I do not know where you would 

 ^et it. They ought to be accessible, and you ought to have 

 had one very long since. They hadn't been printed. Never 

 ■but once in years have we seen anything credible in the 

 form of advertising given out to the world, and that was 

 the report of the Buffalo convention, which was published 

 by Mr. York, and I have been watching and waiting anx- 

 iously to know whether we were to have a report of the same 

 kind of our Denver meeting. What it stands for, what it 

 proposes to do, and there isn't in existence to-day a single 

 pamphlet, a single leaflet, a single scrap of printed matter 

 on which a member can see — which will tell the story — and 

 read it when you have time. And yet, we wonder why 

 there are not ten thousand instead of one thousand mem- 

 bers. I wonder why we haven't done more than we have. 



Do you know whose goods are on the shelves of the 

 merchants down in Iowa ? I will tell you whose goods are 

 there. The goods of the people who had a nature aggres- 

 sive enough to send a smart and energetic traveling man 

 there to show the goods to the best advantage, and make 

 those people down there feel that it was to their advantage 

 to do business with that house, and no other. The goods 

 that are prominent in the United States to-day have been 

 made prominent by aggressive men and women, and by the 

 expenditure of printers' ink broadcast everywhere until the 

 babe begins to lisp, as it were, the moment it says papa and 

 mamma, Mellin's Food it knows next. Why? Because 

 Mellin has used printers' ink. Because Mellin has used the 

 agencies that are necessary. Now, there is Mr. Jones liv- 

 ing over in a county in Illinois. He is a member of the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association. Is there any reason 

 why Mr. Jones should not be a walking advertisement for 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association ? He ought to be, 

 and, if necessary, if Mr. Jones can not afford voluntarily to 

 do the work for nothing, then he should be paid. There is 

 no reason why we should not send out solicitors to entreat 

 men to become members of our Association, than there is 

 for life insurance men not to send out solicitors to get men 

 to take out life insurance in their company. There is no 

 reason why we might not be 50,000 strong in a little while 

 actually, but we will never be 50,000 strong until we use the 

 agencies of the Twentieth Century to make ourselves strong, 

 and these agencies must be used by us if we ever expect to 

 succeed, and one of the strongest and best of these is prin- 

 ters' ink, properly applied and properly distributed, backed 

 up by the energy and enthusiasm of live men and women. 



Now, it seems to me, that it is worth our while to think 

 about this just a little. Suppose I could just stir up enough 

 enthusiasm in you people here to send you out as walking 

 advertisements in the interests of the National Association, 

 or in the interests of this Chicago meeting. Why do you 

 have a better meeting here than they have in any other 

 place in the United States, aside from the National ? It 

 comes pretty nearly holding its own by some meetings of 

 the National. Why is it ? Printers' ink ! And I hope you 

 will excuse me if I ask another question. Why, instead of 

 300 or 400 members in the National is it 1000 strong ? Prin- 

 ters' ink distributed by George W. York and others has 

 done the work. Those are the sober facts. Those are stern 

 realities. 



Now, if we were all to distribute it, we would do that 

 much more. We must have something to distribute. It 

 costs money to get out neat circulars ; it costs money to do 

 anything. It costs money to print a journal like Mr. Hutch- 

 inson's, with fine illustrations, printed on good paper, but 

 it all tells in the end, it all counts for something, and if we 

 want to be a force and a power in the world we must let the 

 world know that we are abreast of the times, and not a hun- 

 dred years behind the age. A little peanut stand uses more 

 advertising than we do, and we have no right to compete 

 with the peanut stand unless we use some of their methods. 

 I believe in advertising, in pushing matters. 



As to the way to do these things, as to the special thing 

 to be accomplished first, as to whether we had better try to 

 build up a honey exchange— that's a business proposition. 

 Whatever line of work we select, it must be along the lines 

 I suggest— advertising— letting the world know that you are 

 trying to do that thing. Let me say another thing : Per- 

 haps you never thought of it. It is just as much news to 

 find that there are bee-supplies for sale in Chicago as to 

 read that they held a meeting here and I made a speech. 



One thing is just as much news as the other. It is just as 

 much news to know that there is a suit of clothes for sale at 

 a certain store in Chicago as it is to know that a hotel 

 burned up — deplorable ! — and 21 people lost their lives. 

 There are people wanting clothes, and needing supplies, 

 and the thing that carries that news to them is just as 

 much distributing information as one that carries gossip 

 about Jennie Smith and her beau. We have said it is of 

 value to advertise. That's part of the thing itself, and 

 that's part of what we want to know. You might say that 

 of the National Association. They are blowing their own 

 horn. I notice that some blow their own horns a good deal 

 in something that I was doing. We have the famous 

 horn-blower with Sousa, you all heard him, he is a citizen 

 of St. Joseph. How much do you suppose Mr. Sousa would 

 pay Arthur Prior if he let somebody else blow the horn ? 

 He has a good horn, and he is a good blower, and he has a 

 right to blow it. I believe in people who have a good horn 

 blowing it. It will never be Slowed on earth if you don't 

 blow it. The other fellow will never blow it for you. He is 

 busy looking after his own horn. That's all there is to it. 

 We can't build up a National Association. We can't do 

 anything that bee-keepers want to do unless we blow our 

 own horns sufficiently that they may be heard, and that the 

 people may know that we have this thing, and that the peo- 

 ple who want that are just as anxious to secure that which 

 you have for sale. You don't want to think that you bore 

 a man because you tell him a large story about your bees, 

 for he is as pleased to hear it as you are to tell it. He is in- 

 terested in hearing you, and it may do him some good. I 

 have lived in St. Joseph 20 years, and, believe me, there 

 isn't a week but somebody comes in and buys honey. It is 

 some I produce myself with my money. A woman gets 

 some of that honey and she says, " Mr. Abbott, I never had 

 anything like it, I want your honey all my life." 



Dr. Miller — She never tried "York's Honey !" (Laugh- 

 ter. ) 



Mr. Abbott — And she says, " I never knew that there 

 was any Abbott's honey before." Don't you see, if I had 

 blowed my horn a little sooner what an amount of honey I 

 might have sold ; and when she found it she was so de- 

 lighted that she was in the fourth heaven. " York's Honey " 

 — they find it that way. The more they take the better we 

 can treat our wives, the more money it brings to us. I 

 have said enough ; I have taken enough of your time. I 

 thank you. Embrson T. Abbott. 



Pres. York — There are two little corrections I would 

 like to make about the Constitution of the National Asso- 

 ciation. I think Mr. Abbott said not over 300. 



Mr. Abbott — I was asking it. 



Pres. York — The Constitution was mailed in the Buffalo 

 report. You didn't think of that, perhaps. 



Mr. Abbott — No, sir. Let me say another thing. That 

 wasn't said by way of criticising anybody, because it wasn't 

 anybody's duty to have that Constitution printed. All the 

 Constitutions that have been printed — I think Mr. York put 

 that in the Buffalo convention report without being told to 

 do so by the National. I was chairman of the Board of 

 Directors for a long time, and if they ever passed a vote 

 directing Mr. Secor to print it, I didn't know it. Mr. York 

 printed it of his own volition. 



Pres. York — It seems to me that Mr. France ought to 

 take part now, following Mr. Abbott, about building up the 

 National Association in Wisconsin, and I think he can say 

 something very interesting on increasing our own member- 

 ship. We heard him on another subject, but he hasn't had 

 a chance yet on this. 



Mr. France — I fully agree with Mr. Abbott, that we 

 haven't used very much printers' ink. We debated cheat- 

 ing the consumers in a box of comb honey — squeezing. We 

 have been doing the same thing, cheating our National 

 Association. We haven't given any encouragement to bee- 

 keepers, and the other subject of the National Association 

 forming a honey exchange, if you please, will all correct 

 itself as soon as you have members enough in the National. 

 The first and foremost thing we want is to get strong 

 enough to do some good, and although we have set our mark 

 at 1000 and reached it, it looks small that a thousand mem- 

 bers are all that we have when there are over 700,000 bee- 

 keepers in this land of ours. I was surprised over my own 

 State what a few members were taking the bee-papers. Mr. 

 Abbott said that we haven't encouraged others to become 

 members. If it is advisable that we organize, and we know 

 that it is — we have the National — and the thing to do is to 

 get more members in it, even though we have to pay a man 

 for soliciting members like the insurance companies do for 



