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stop it unless you root it out and kill it. We know the sun will rise to- 

 morrow. We know that next spring crops will grow. It is upon this 

 basis which every man actually lives, whether he recognizes the fact or not. 



If, therefore, agriculture may be considered the basis of all life, and 

 we find ourselves in congested communities, detached of necessity from 

 close contact and association with this foundation of life, it is at once 

 evident that the greatest problem of modern days is to get the proper 

 adjustment between the producer and the consumer, but in making this 

 statement, dividing the producer from the consumer, we make a state- 

 ment which is not exactly true, because as a matter of fact all are pro- 

 ducers and consumers. 



This convention is for the purpose of determining whether or not 

 the present arrangements between the producers and consumers is the 

 best that can be thought out, but whatever our deliberations may lead 

 to, we must recognize the fact that the present methods are the result 

 of slow progressive changes, society adjusting itself at each point as new 

 conditions have arisen, and no radical and completely successful rearrange- 

 ment can possibly be adopted in any short space of time. Let me diverge 

 for one moment. I happen to be personally one of those terrible middle- 

 men that we now hear so much about, who stands between the producer 

 and the consumer. I happen to be a jobber, but I represent tonight 

 the Hardware Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association of Philadelphia, 

 composed of the great manufacturing industries of Philadelphia and the 

 great hardware distributing houses. 



It is not my purpose to go into a discussion of the question of jobbers. 

 You probably have discussed that at many of your meetings. I believe 

 the jobber is a necessity, otherwise he would not exist, and so I believe 

 the middleman and the distributor of agriculture is a necessity. 



Now what do we do in the hardware business in the effort to adjust 

 ourselves to the complicated conditions of trade? We have formed this 

 association of manufacturers and jobbers, and we get together once a 

 month in friendly intercourse, and there we thrash out in a spirit of good 

 fellowship our differences. This I claim is the difference between modern 

 trade and that of a few decades ago. People who have interests that 

 are divergent or partially in harmony and partially divergent, instead of 

 standing off at long range and fighting out the battle by correspondence, 

 meet face to face and talk the situation over. 



In a larger sense that is just what world's fairs are for, so that people 

 from the rural districts can see how shoes are made, how clothes are 

 made, what thought has been required in designing them; and the man 

 from the city sees the great agricultural products there exhibited. So 

 this convention is for the same purpose of bringing together the man that 

 produces the great natural wealth of the country and the man that pro- 

 duces other things, so that each shall have an intelligent appreciation of 

 the other's viewpoint of life. 



