58 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 
in Boston wished to talk to a man living in San Francisco, he had 
to transport his body across the continent before he could do it. 
Today, all that is necessary is for you to turn in your chair, pick 
up a tiny instrument, and command the voice of your friend whose 
body is on the other side of the continent, and his voice immediately 
sounds in your ear. 
The Germans were the first people who had sufficient vision and 
courage to comprehend what mighty and practical changes the 
scientist and the inventor had wrought in business methods. They 
lost no time, twenty-five }ears ago, in shaping their future to be 
in keeping with the great new electrical age which the world was 
entering. They formed large trading companies, with great rapidity 
abandoned the old axiom " competition is the life of trade," and 
substituted the new slogan cooperation is the life of trade." With 
this slogan they went out for the trade of the world. At the same 
moment our country took exactly the opposite course, and through 
the passage of the Sherman law declared that competition was and 
must continue to be the life of trade. 
Japan is another country that has lost no time in throwing off 
the customs and precedents of the past and entering the great new 
electrical world with broad vision and splendid courage. Witness 
what Japan has accomplished in less than half a centun,-. She has 
cast off the customs and precedents of centuries, and has reached 
out with great eagerness for the newer and more advanced thought 
of the world. She has sent her best young manhood to the uni- 
versities of all the civilized countries. She has sent commissions 
of her most able men to all points of the globe, that they might 
bring back the best thought and most advanced practices in social 
and business relations. For the last quarter of a century precedent 
has meant nothing to Japan. She has thought only of the match- 
less opportunities that are opening to the world because of universal 
education and vastl\ improved methods of intercommunication. 
In both Germany and Japan the government has worked hand in 
glove with its merchants and manufacturers, leaving no stone 
unturned to make it clear to their people that the customs of their 
fathers and forefathers were things of the past, and that new 
beliefs, methods, and practices must take the place of old ones. 
Foreign Business Methods Ahead of American. We pride 
ourselves on being a new country, a progressive country, free from 
the shackling influence of precedent. As compared to Germany 
