164 



SELLING LUMBER 



Why Business 



Growth 



Stopped 



world productive, everything in the world that makes for GROWTH 

 is Salesmanship. Salesmanship is the "ACT OF GROWTH." In 

 the individual, in YOU, it is legitimate selfishness in action not 

 greed, but sensible self-interest, self-increase, self-multiplication, 

 self-betterment, self-development,, aggressiveness, progress, push. 

 Every productive, progressive act that expresses the natural law 

 of GROWTH is Salesmanship. 



This being the fact that "Salesmanship is the act of Growth," 

 it follows that Salesmanship governs growth, and in turn, is gov- 

 erned by the possibility of growth. There cannot be growth 

 without Salesmanship to produce it. Neither, on the other hand, 

 can there be Salesmanship without the possibility of growth to 

 stimulate it. Salesmanship simply cannot be where there can be 

 no growth. Hence, the economic fallacy of stunting salesmen 

 with fixed salaries to produce constantly increasing growth the 

 unsoundness of trying to grow at the expense of another, which 

 is the logical explanation of our country-wide stoppage in the 

 growth of business that ensued from the year 1907 until the war 

 abroad artificially inflated our markets, and now being blamed by 

 our two contesting political parties upon each other. 



Without wishing to hold a brief for the Republican party, 

 whose present nominee I greatly revere, and without wanting to 

 champion the Democratic party, whose highest representative I 

 personally know and admire, I do desire to take advantage of this 

 opportunity to point out to you business men that our country- 

 wide stoppage in the growth of business is not to be charged to 

 political error, but to the business error of failure to comply with 

 the natural law of Compensation, which is the underlying principle 

 of Salesmanship. 



Business ceased to grow because the majority of those re- 

 sponsible for the growth of business not being permitted to share 

 in that growth, began to assail the bigness of business. Through 

 their assaults "big business" got into bad repute. These non- 

 participating producers of the growth of business actually talked 

 themselves into believing that "bigness" and "badness" were syn- 

 onymous as applied to business. With the hyper-criticism of dis- 

 contented minds, they pictured "big business" in all our maga- 

 zines as devilish, beastly, having claws instead of hands, and always 

 clutching at the public purse. With the super-virtue of well de- 

 veloped muck-rakers, they gave the glad ax to the biggest and the 

 best of our business men. They literally hacked away at bigness 



