THE BUSINESS CAREER
Barbara Weinstock Lectures on
The Morals of Trade
This series will contain essays by representative scholars and men of affairs dealing with the various phases of the moral law in its bearing on business life under the new economic order, first delivered at the University of California on the Weinstock foundation. The first volume to appear in this series is:
The Business Career.By Albert Shaw, Ph.D.
Paul Elder and Company
San Francisco
THE
BUSINESS CAREER
IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS
BY
Albert Shaw, Ph.D.
EDITOR OF THE
AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS
It is the positive and aggressive attitude toward life, the ethics of action, rather than the ethics of negation, that must control the modern business world, and that may make our modern business man the most potent factor for good in this, his own, industrial period.
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright, 1904
byPaul Elder and Company
San Francisco
The Tomoyé Press
Thecultivation of public spirit, in the broad sense, and the determination to be an all-round good and efficient citizen and member of the community, will often help a man amazingly to discern the opportunities for usefulness that lie in the direct line of his business life.
THE FOUNDER'S PREFACE
Despiteall that can still be said against trade practices, against the business lies that are told, the false weights and measures that are used, the trade frauds to which the public is subjected, we are nearer a high commercial standard than ever before in the world's history.
Man's confidence in man is greater than ever before, the commercial loss through fraud and dishonesty is constantly diminishing and standards are slowly but surely moving upward. The honest man's chances for success in business are better than ever before, and the dishonest man's chances for lasting commercial success are less than ever before. To grow rich by failing in business is no longer regarded as an act of cleverness. The professional bankrupt finds it more and more difficult to get credit. He soon discovers that even his cash will not win for him the attention that his poorer neighbor commands simply by his character.
Education has done splendid service in raising commercial standards. As a rule, the high-toned business man is enlightened, and, as a rule, the dishonest, unscrupulous man in business is ignorant. Great aid in the direction of raising commercial standards may be rendered by the further spreading of knowledge and enlightenment. There are still many misguided men in business who imagine that there can be no success without false weights and measures, without lies and deceit. It is the duty of every man in business, who loves the work in which he is engaged, to do whatever he can to correct this mistaken notion, and to arouse the same sense of honor in the circles of commerce that, as a rule, is found in professional life.
In the decades to come men will take as much pride in being engaged in trade as men