IV HATEVER we may do, we shall repent, Could we not rupture the accustomed rule? V HE SONNET, by its artful dignity, Lifts one to moods too grave to be quite true; These sentiments, perhaps, have flown too high To tell the actual mirth of me and you. For such astounding merriments we knew, Such reckless gust and kinship, you and I, Our happy hazard let no man construe As something written on a darkened sky. Sonnets are heavy fuel for quick flame: To tell how quaint you are, or blithe or sad, Clear, honest, rash, as quick as April wind, Needs a more free, more volatile exclaim. But, smiling at these laughters we have had, I am less pricked by sins we never sinned. B VI UT LUCKY, lucky you! Since I can't take you, Gross disillusion now can never break you, For in my hungry wonder I shall say Such words of you, not even Time can shake you; A wakefulness for those who think about you. But ere you don this incorruptible Just wait a minute; for I haven't yet VII RITING these precedent, from a fiery whirl But shall I file and smoothen? I abjure! Such honest edges let none pare and knurl, And mayhap find them (thought beyond endure!) With whispering stealth, and keeping delicate time, 0: 0 Where I Think Glenn Frank is Wrong BY EDWARD W. Bok As every one knows, Mr. Bok retired from the editorship of "The Ladies' Home Journal" and from executive responsibility in the Curtis Publishing Company while still in the full flush of physical and intellectual vigor not in order to loaf, but in order to devote the rest of his life to public service. In explaining his resignation he has formulated a gospel of retirement that he commends to his fellows. He has said that he thinks every man's life, after adequate preparation, should be divided into two distinct periods—a period of personal acquisition and a period of social service in behalf of the public good. I took exception to Mr. Bok's gospel in my editorial for April, contending that it is based on a false notion of business and a false notion of social service, that both business and social service have suffered by such splitting of men's lives into two parts, that the most effective social service can be rendered in and through the regular businesses and professions. Mr. Bok and I have since indulged in a correspondence that has been, to me, delightful and stimulating. Despite the fact that I remain unconvinced, I am happy that Mr. Bok consented to present his side in this altogether good-humored debate. -THE EDITOR. MAN said to a friend, "Can you imagine anything worse than to bite into a beautiful red apple and to find a big green worm in it?” "Yes," answered the friend, "to bite into a beautiful red apple and to find half a worm.” So I felt when I read Mr. Glenn Frank's article in the April CENTURY on "Why Edward Bok should not have Retired." It might so easily have been worse; it might so easily have produced half a worm and left a bad taste in the mouth. But it did n't. However, the worm of faulty logic was there, but it had been very skilfully incased. I confess I have long expected this article; in fact, my surprise has been great that it did not come sooner. It was inconceivable that so many arti cles could have been written on one side of the question without the inevitable article on the other side. But, apparently, this other side did not come easily, since this first adverse article has been over three years in arriving. § 2 THE CENTURY'S editor has some points in favor of his argument which I readily concede. For instance, he says that business should not be made a "private adventure in acquisition," but that it should really be a matter "of service first and of profits last.” Fine! I agree heartily with Mr. Frank. If he will read my new book, "A Man From Maine," he will see that I stand shoulder to shoulder with him. But how many business men are there who have the standards and ideals of the man whom I make the central figure in my book, and who are ready to stand for those principles year in and year out, in the face of adversity and probable loss? Here and there, yes, you will find men of that caliber. But if the CENTURY's editor sees these men in any number sufficient to make an impression, he has a clearer vision than I have, although not a clearer vision than I should like to have. I believe in my heart, as I try to point out in this last book, that the standards of business are higher to-day than they have ever been; that there are more honest American business men than at any time in the history of American industry. But I must remind Mr. Frank that it was not a business man who lifted those standards of American business a notch higher. It was Theodore Roosevelt, who always put ethics above economics. § 3 The point really is, Can a man with aspirations remain in business all his life and satisfy a desire to give full service (I am using the word now in its fullest and truest sense)? It all depends upon how a man interprets business, and how far he can satisfy himself that the natural limitations of the mart do not cramp him. My feeling is that a man should serve a full term of real service to industry, using that word in its largest sense. He should, while he is in business, do his utmost to set and maintain the highest standards in whatever line of business or professional relation he finds himself. To be an upright trader, even in the most homely commodity in life, is for a man to render a distinct service to himself and to those with whom his business relations bring him into contact. While he is doing this, he has a right to consider the materialistic side to the extent of comfortably providing for his family and himself and in putting aside a sufficient reserve in order to provide for emergency or for the goal in which I believe retirement. No man can be a good citizen until he first proves himself a good husband and father, and that means such adequate provision as will insure comfort to those who are dependent upon him; in other words, until he acquires a competency not only for the present, but sufficient to guarantee him and his for the future. The accomplishment of this will require a goodly part of his life; he will have laid a foundation of ethical standards for his business, which have gone down the line and become the keystone of the structure which he has built. All this time his mind has ever been on his ledgers. So long as a man is immersed in business, his mind must rest there. That is business. Moreover, he feels a conscientious responsibility for the organization behind him, which may mean scores or hundreds or thousands who are dependent upon his management for their livelihoods. The answer to this is, of course, that the man has built up what he has by legitimate means and honest practices, and what limitation does he feel which he would not feel if he retired and devoted himself to civics or public welfare? The limitation that any material proposition places upon any man. He can, as Mr. Frank says, manufacture for use rather than for sale, but he cannot wash his mind entirely of the sale element. He must produce to sell. The selling is ever present. Raise an economical selling proposition to whatever degree you wish, the selling part, the material element, the dollar is there and must be ever present. It is this natural and ever present element that I think stands in the way of a man's full expression in business. He is and remains an economic trader; honest, yes, but always a trader. 84 My contention is that trade is not the Alpha and Omega of life. Man cannot live by bread alone. All sides of his nature cannot be fed or satisfied if he lives his life solely in the mart and its atmosphere. That is always, mind you, if he has inner aspirations. It may be argued that a budget must always be present and that the dollar is not any more absent in a civic or a public welfare proposition than in a purely commercial transaction. True. But the aim of the one is different; the end to achieve is entirely different. The problem is no longer how to make more money; it is the problem of what can money best accomplish. It is no longer taking something out of life; it is what you can put into it. It is taking that which came from the public and giving it back to that public for the advancement of its higher, and not for its material, life. It is appealing to the spirit rather than to the body. Call it subtle, if you will, idealistic if you choose, but there it is, and humanity cannot be reckoned without the idealistic or spiritual side. Can Mr. Frank imagine a world where all the people would be engaged in working out the material or economic questions? Yet this is what he would have if his idea of counseling business men to remain in business were to prevail. The proper adjustment of idealism to our present-day life needs just as keen mental capacity as does the management of the economic factors, not a whit less. One reason why Mr. Frank can find fault with the social service of the world is because there are not enough capable executives at the helm. $ 5 Another point which I think THE CENTURY editor misses by advocating business men to stay at their posts: if we gray-heads are going to insist upon remaining in our jobs, what possible chance is there for the brown-haired chaps who are back of us? Are they not to have their opportunity by having the full, not a partial, sense of responsibility put upon them, thus developing a succeeding generation of business men? They cannot fully develop so long as we remain and share the responsibility which they should feel to be fully theirs. We can remain for counsel. But every young man who shows ability should, to my mind, be given an unobstructed chance to the top, not next to the top. If we have set certain standards in our business which are a bit higher than others have in our line of activity, the influence is bound to be felt all down the line, since it is the note struck at the top which determines the work below. But are these men below not to be given an opportunity to accept those standards and carry them out and perhaps carry them further? No man becomes truly great of himself until he works from within himself. He may become better by adopting the standards of another and following those standards, but he becomes great him |