Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1914 — CHINESE OF THE OCCIDENT [ARTICLE]

CHINESE OF THE OCCIDENT

Men of Business Are the Ideal of Both United Btates and New Republic. The soldier is, relatively speaking, unimportant in American life. As compared to other countries and other times, even our statesmen, with the possible exception of our presidents, are not held first in our estimation. In spite of all convictions under the Sherman law and the many disclosures of business lobbies, a “successful business man” comes near to being our national ideal. We are beginning even to utilize business in fiction in a way that previous generations have not done. Always there have been "business men” in literature. Shakespeare wrote of Antonio and Shylock, but it was not the technique of their business that he chose to portray. To glorify merchandising and to put in a novel the science of salesmanship is a thing that is probably peculiar to this age. Neither soldier, sailor, poet nor politician is looked upon with such regard as the American business man. And this should have its good effect. The more esteemed a calling the better its standards. A nation that looks up to its Industrial leader puts a premium upon making business a high calling. Already at least two colleges, Harvard and Dartmouth, have business schools, not so much to teach the student business practice as to give him a broad business vision and a high business standard, such an attitude toward his calling as is common among the professions that require special training. In a way we are becoming the Chinese of the occidental world, says the World’s Work. We are doing now what they have done for centuries, glorifying the merchant*and neglecting the soldier who with us for centuries past in fact and in fiction has been the dominant man of our national ideals.