300 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
THE ETHICS OF OUR BUSINESS 
Harlan P. Kelsey, Salem, Mass. 
It is significant as well as hopeful that anyone should 
have been asked to prepare a paper on the ethics of a business 
to be presented at the annual convention of the leading men 
engaged in that particular business. 
The question of ethics in the professions is an old one, and 
doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers, and even 
landscape architects have adopted ethical codes, which, 
when disregarded or ignored, tend to place the delinquent 
in an unenviable light with his fellow members, if not actu¬ 
ally making him amenable to more or less drastic disciplin¬ 
ing. 
Curiously enough, however, the subject of ethics in busi¬ 
ness, and particularly so-called “big business,” has been 
persistently tabooed and even vigorously throttled until 
quite recently, and prevailing practices have been all too 
quietly accepted by the business man while financial success 
has been the one great test of a business man’s right to general 
community esteem. 
Even now, in the face of judicial exposure, of vast frauds 
and systems of frauds involving our largest corporate 
interests and our wealthiest and hitherto most respected 
citizens, he who questions every-day business methods is 
usually termed a muck-raker, if not socialist and anarchist. 
Assuming that the dollar-getting methods of the average 
citizen are often unfair, when closely analyzed, and even 
dishonorable, and that the scramble for position and pre¬ 
ferment leads to questionable practices to attain desired, 
though oft-times undesirable, ends,—this might truly give 
us reason to ponder carefully on the causes and possible 
remedies. 
Yet, is it not a still graver problem when we consider how 
hushed is the voice of the teacher and the preacher on funda¬ 
mental questions of every-day business ethics, which in the 
definition we are here disposed to discuss, means every-day 
business honesty and dishonesty. 
Down the ages, the preacher has thundered against im¬ 
morality, while his voice seems forever strangely still about 
the immorality of his leading church members, even deacons, 
who supply his salary and build and support churches out of 
wealth acquired by dodging taxes, stock gambling, stealing 
public utilities or even petty stealing of sidewalk space that 
belongs to the humble meek and non-complaining “common” 
citizen at large. 
From the beginning our teachers have taught classics, 
art, literature, law, science, and even religion, etiquette and 
so-called ethics ad nauseam, while at the same time, they 
have given Young America precious little schooling in 
fundamental business honor, or ethical business methods. 
They have received a more or less efficient training to go out 
in the world in various directions and shift for themselves, 
which they promptly proceed to do, by “playing the game,” 
as their fathers have played and are playing it, which means, 
to arrive with the goods,—straight if you can,—but above all 
else, arrive. 
And it’s a silly fool who doesn’t early learn that this is 
just what is generally expected of him by those who taught 
him, and by those who paid for his teaching, and desire their 
own so-called “successful” footsteps followed. 
And so we witness the merchant with his unfair competi¬ 
tive methods and shoddy, falsely-advertised goods, the 
importer evading duty, the builder and contractor bidding 
below cost, and relying on evading contract for his profit, 
the patent medicine fakir dealing out poison, the sweat-shops 
and child labor murderer, the manufacturer breeding tuber¬ 
culosis in dusty, ill-ventilated shops, the crowded tenement- 
house owner, whose profits are too often the price of crime^ 
misery, and disease, the lawyer becoming the vote-buying 
politician, and so through the long list we all know so well, 
and admit of so little, to the nurseryman, who endeavors to 
increase his sales by unfair methods; by giving the bribe or 
graft to the gardener, superintendent of estate, or public 
official; by stealing information the property of others, or 
by claiming what is, is not and what is not, is. 
The gardener or other employee is hired to represent his 
employer’s interest, and no sane man will argue that he is 
free to do so, or liable to do so after having accepted a bribe 
or the promise of a bribe or gratuity. There can be no 
distinction in its moral or ethical aspects, between the case 
just cited, and the legislator or public official, theoretically 
serving the people, yet riding on a free pass or accepting a 
retainer from the railroad or other public service corporation 
whose selfish interests are rarely in accord with the best 
public welfare. 
It is bribery, pure and simple, and a conspiracy to de¬ 
fraud, and the most charitably inclined can hardly make the 
indictment less specific or comprehensive. In Massachu¬ 
setts, the giving of a gratuity to a servant, or agent, with a 
view to influencing business with the principal, is a felony 
under the law, and I believe it is not the same in Pennsylvania, 
New York, and possibly other states. Yet, from its very 
nature, such bribery is the most difficult kind to prove when 
both briber and bribed are equally guilty, while the unlawful 
practice is universally conceded to be as common as business 
itself. 
The results of this bribing of employees cannot be other 
than a blunting of the sensibilities in other directions. I 
know of cases where the employers themselves wink at the 
practice, allowing themselves to be robbed, if within decent 
limits, feeling it hopeless to fight against a system so thor¬ 
oughly entrenched, and which they practice themselves. 
One can scarcely blame the underpaid gardener for in¬ 
creasing his meagre income by accepting the small graft 
when all concerned know that the employer is possibly or 
probably an employer only as a result of larger and more 
successful graft, bribery, or other dishonest business methods. 
Time bids me close, and I have specifically touched on but 
one phase of ethics in our business. Misleading advertising, 
exaggerated and incorrect description of goods, speaking 
