352 



SELLING LUMBER 



Something 

 for Salesmen 

 to Remember 



Small Busi- 

 ness and Big 

 Business 



along forever. He sees James or Tom or Dick or Harry climb- 

 ing up the mountain sides towards the heights and he envies 

 him in his heart, and he commences to become a grouch, because 

 a man who envies his neighbor is an unhappy man always. So 

 in salesmanship as in following law or in a grocery store or in 

 running a mill; a man who gets in a rut cannot get out of it, 

 cannot keep abreast of the times. And you are not men of that 

 type. You are alive, you are awake, you are here touching 

 shoulders with each other, going to school, in manifestation ot 

 the fact that you are alive. Now, I want you to go back to your 

 various fields of labor with a vision, a great, outstanding vision, 

 and that vision is this : That you represent the leading industry 

 in America (applause) ; that it employs more men, save and ex- 

 cept one other industry, than any other industry; that is ships 

 more freight and pays more money to the railroads of this coun- 

 try than any other industry; that it buys more farmers' produce 

 than any other industry; that it deals in a great initial resource 

 that is of essential value to the evolution and progress of human- 

 ity ; that you have an industry that is the pioneer of civilization, 

 because it is only due to the woodsman that civilization is here. 

 Where the woods once stood we have now the farm. Those 

 woods were conquered and the forests leveled by the pioneers 

 and there is one of the troubles also with that industry. I was 

 here last night and saw those wonderful pictures. Wasn't it a 

 wonderful inspiration, wasn't it a wonderful thing to see it 

 the whole manufacture of boards ! Don't you know that if the 

 boys in the country towns, that if the people of this nation could 

 visualize what you and I saw last night, what a fine thing it 

 would be for this industry? But did you see that little old fellow 

 without any teeth that stood there near that circular saw, cutting 

 up three or four logs a day? He stood there chewing tobacco 

 and spitting over the logs that went through his saw and cutting 

 slowly and laboriously a log. Gentlemen, that is small business. 

 And you noticed that other great mill, or one of them there 

 were many where you saw the gang saws cutting up in one 

 operation a whole log a mammoth, magnificent picture with 

 the delicacy that a watch is made. That is big business. Which 

 of the two businesses, the little business or the big business, spells 

 progress and glory for the nation? Oh, gentlemen, the politician 

 has got to recognize that although the little man has his rights 



