160 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
their adoption. I would go further; I believe we are in the 
presence of a new era in the organization of industry and com¬ 
merce in wdiich, if properly directed, lies forces pregnant with 
infinite possibilities of moral progress. I believe that we are, 
almost unnoticed, in the midst of a great revolution—or perhaps 
a better word, a transformation in the whole super-organization 
of our economic life. We are passing from a period of extreme¬ 
ly individualistic action into a period of associational activities. 
Practically our entre American working world is now organ¬ 
ized into some form of economic association. We have trade 
associations and trade institutes embracing particular indus¬ 
tries and occupations. We have Chambers of Commerce em¬ 
bracing representatives of different industries and commerce. 
We have the labor unions representing the different crafts. We 
have associations embracing all the different professions—law, 
engineering, medicine, banking, real estate, and whatnot. We 
have farmers’ associations, and we have the enormous growth 
of farmers’ cooperatives for actual dealing in commodities. Of 
indirect kin to this is the great increase in ownership of indus¬ 
tries by their employees, and customers, and again we have 
a tremenduous expansion of mutualized insurance and banking. 
Although such associational organizations can trace parentage 
to the middle ages, yet in their present implication they are 
the birth of the last 50 years, and in fact their growth to envelop¬ 
ing numbers is of the last 25 years. We have, perhaps, 25,000 
such associational activities in the economic field. Membership, 
directly or indirectly, now embraces the vast maority of all 
the individuals of our country. Action of wide import by such 
associations has become an important force of late in our polit¬ 
ical, economic and social life. 
It is true that these associations exist for varied purposes* 
Some are strong in recognition of public responsibility and large 
in vision. Some are selfish and narrow. But they all represent 
a vast ferment of economic striving and change. 
Ever since the factory system was born there has been within 
it a struggle to attain more stability through collective action. 
This effort has sought to secure more regular production, more 
regular employment, better wages, the elimination of waste, 
the maintenance of quality or service, decrease in destructive 
competition and unfair practices, and oft times to assure prices 
or profits. The first phase of development on the business side 
was “pools” in production and distribution . They were in¬ 
fected with imposition upon the public and their competitors. 
In some part they were struggles to correct abuse and waste. 
They were followed by an era of capital consolidations with the 
same objects, but also to create a situation of unbreakablje 
agreements. Both were against public interest and the public 
intervened through the Sherman Act. Yet underneath all these 
efforts there was a residum of objects which were in public 
interest. 
Associational activities are I believe driving upon a new road 
where the objectives can be made wholly and vitally of public 
interest. The legitimate Trade Associations and Chambers of 
Commerce with which I am now primarily concerned, possess 
certain characteristics of social importance and the widest 
differentiation from pools and trusts. Their membership must 
be open to all members in the industry or trade, or rival or¬ 
ganizations enter the field at once. Therefore, they are not 
millstones for the grinding of competitors as was the essence 
of the old trade combinations. Their purpose must be the ad¬ 
vancement of the whole industry or trade, or they cannot hold 
together. The total interdependence of all industries and com¬ 
merce compels them in the long run to go parallel to the general 
economic good. Their leaders rise in a real democracy with¬ 
out bosses or political manipulation. Citizens cannot run away 
from their country if they do not like the political management, 
but members of voluntary associations can resign and the as¬ 
sociation dies. 
I believe that through these forces we are slowly moving 
toward some sort of industrial democracy. We are upon its 
threshold, if these agencies can be directed solely to construc¬ 
tive performance in the public interest. 
All this does contain some dangers, but they will come only 
from low ethical standards. With these agencies used as the 
machinery for the cultivation and spread of high standards and 
the elimination of abuses, I am convinced that we shall have 
entered the great era of self-governing industry and business 
which has been a dream to many thinkers. A self-governing 
industry can be made to render needless a vast area of Gov¬ 
ernmental interference and regulation which has grown up out 
of righteous complaint against the abuses during the birth 
pains of an industrial world. 
Some people have been alarmed lest this associational move¬ 
ment means the destruction of our competitive system, lest it 
inevitably destroy the primary individualism which is the im¬ 
pulse of our society. This alarm is groundless. Its rightful ac¬ 
tivities do not destroy equality of opportunity or initiative. In 
fact they offer new avenues of opportunity for individuals to 
make progress toward leadership in the community. Anyone 
of them wdll die at once if it does not offer equality of oppor¬ 
tunity to its members; or if it restricts its membership, rival 
associations at once emerge. They are the safeguards of small 
business and thus prevent the extinction of competition. They 
are the alternative to capital consolidation. They are not a 
growth toward socialism—that is Government in all business— 
they are in fact a growth directly away from such an idea. 
Right here for the benefit of the gloomy persons who have a 
frozen belief that every form of associational activity is a con¬ 
spiracy to fix prices and to restrain trade, to perpetuate tyranny 
of employer or employee, we may remember that there aa’e 
some crooks in every line of endeavor. The underlying pur¬ 
poses of the vast majority are constructive. A minority may 
be violating the Ten Commandments and need the application of 
criminal standards. I am speaking, however, of something more 
vital than porch climbing. 
I am, of course, well aware of the legal difficulties that sur¬ 
round certain types of associational work. I do not believe 
that the development of standards of conduct or the elimination 
of abuses in public interest has ever been challenged as a vio¬ 
lation of the Sherman Act. Moreover, to establish either a 
physical or a moral standard directly sharpens competition. 
These associational activAies are the promising machinery 
for much of the necessary determination of ethical standards, 
for the elimination of useless waste and hardship from the bur¬ 
den of our economic engines. Moreover, we have in them not 
only the agencies by which standards can be set, but by co¬ 
operative action among the associations representing the dif¬ 
ferent stages of production, distribution and use we can secure 
a degree of enforcement far wider than mere public opinion in 
a single trade. 
When standards are agreed upon by the associations repre¬ 
senting the manufacturer and distributor and by those repre¬ 
senting the user, we have a triple force interacting for their 
enforcement. 
Now I do not wish any one to think my feet are not on the 
ground in all this, and I propose to give a few illustrations from 
real life of what can be effected by constructive associations 
and by cooperation among them. 
The Department of Commerce has, at the request of the lum¬ 
ber industry, held a number of conferences to discuss the rules 
of the road in that industry and its relation to the other indus¬ 
tries and the common good. The problem was to establish more 
general and more constructive standards of practice, ethics, 
and waste elimination. 
In the toil of formulating these standards there arose a ques¬ 
tion of how thick a one-inch board should be. It sounds easy. 
But it quickly developed to be a question whether it should be 
one inch thick when it was green; after it was dried; when 
planed on one side, or when planed on both sides. It developed 
not only that a choice had to be made among these four alter¬ 
natives, but also that this choice had to be based upon a proper 
consideration for the conservation of our forest on one hand, and 
the provision of a material of such structural character as to 
constitute a square deal to the consumer on the other. It also 
developed that there were 32 different thickness of a one inch 
board in current use and that some minority of manufacturers 
in the drive of unfair competition were gradually thinning the 
board until it threatened to become paper. There also had \to 
he developed the exact differences which threw a board into 
four or five different grades, and there had to be a determination 
of standard trade names for different species of wood. The 
point was that an accurate standard had to be determined be¬ 
fore discrimination as to fair dealing and public service could 
be guaged. That occasion was the foundation of ethics in 
one-inch hoards. 
These conferences established some 80 questions involving 
the whole technology of lumber and comprising for the first 
time a defiinite series of national standards. Here is the sum 
of our problem. It could only be accomplished through an as¬ 
sociation in the industry. It is proof of industrial conscience 
and service. 
The second part of the practical problem which I enumerated 
before is enforcement. Again associational activities were called 
upon. The manufacturers were not alone in these conferences, 
but the distributor and consumer were also represented by the 
Architects’ Association, the Building Contractors’ Association, 
the Railway and other Purchasing associations, and the Retail¬ 
ers Associations. The action and reaction of the buyer and) 
seller upon each other in their desire to secure fair dealing in 
industry can procure enforcement. Joint inspection bureaus 
have been erected, where complaint for violation can be lodged 
and determination made. Enforcement may not be 100 per cent, 
