is saved, it will be saved by you and by men like you; if it is lost to the world as the foremost example of democracy, it will be lost by you and by men like you.

Nothing succeeds without ownership interest in the management. This is as true of Governments as of business; as true of your Government as of your banks. If you want a good government you must pay the price that insures a good government. The price of good government in a republic means a deep personal interest in your government, the same serious interest you have in your business. The price of good government in a republic means work, means watchfulness, means giving the best there is in you to your government. The living of a life is a serious business. The life that absorbs from the world, gets everything it can out of the world, and gives back nothing to the world is not worth while. It is a flat waste of human force.

A man may serve his government in many ways. Public service does not consist solely in holding public office. The organization back of public office is in the public service quite the same as the Congressman or the Governor or the President, for it is the organization that puts him in office. Service in the organization is fundamental and imperative in the life of a democracy.

The position you hold in your respective communities means more than being a good banker, means more than earning dividends for your stockholders. It means citizenship responsibility, means citizenship service to your respective communities, means citizenship service to your country.

CHARLES NAGEL

CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE

Charles Nagel was born in Colorado County, Texas, in 1849, studied in the University of Berlin and Washington University, St. Louis, was admitted to the Bar in 1873 and was Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Taft. This address was delivered at the exercises dedicating the new building of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, in Washington, D. C., on May 20, 1925. The speech of Richard F. Grant given on the same occasion is printed in Vol. IV.

It must be obvious to you, as it is to me, that this is not a political organization. The Chief Justice will bear me out if I say that it is contrary to all political tradition to remember anybody for anything that he might have done, for a period of more than ten years.

At the same time, the organization of this body did involve some political considerations. It may have been easy enough to find a secretary who would give patient ear to intelligent business men, and to be persuaded of the need of this organization. But it was a rare fortune to have in the White House a President who always gave patient audience to his secretaries, and who, after he decided, had the courage and will, to stand as President of the United States, for the idea that had been adopted. Without him, we could not have done it, although I want to be fair and say that not even after he had given the word and I shall speak of only one man-if we had not been fortunate enough to think of Mr. Wheeler, and to have appealed successfully to his patriotic spirit, in my judgment this organization would have died.

More than that, I belong to that school of politics which does not believe that anything is created by the form in which it happens to be cast, or by the man or men who happen to pro

mote it. No law can live, and no institution can survive, unless the wills of those who are to be governed or who are to be benefited, are in favor of that institution. The truth is that the conditions in this country were ripe for a Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and we were fortunate enough to recognize it, and to have a President who believed in seeing it done.

What were the conditions? Up to that time we were divided by the rule of self interest in this country. The labor unions stood for one side, the merchants for another, industrials for another, agriculture for another, and each believed that its purpose must be to seek the greatest advantage for itself, regardless of the cost to the others.

We were not unlike the illustration given by Sydney Smith, who is said to have walked through the streets of London with a friend, and, seeing two women talking violently at each other across the street, each leaning out of her particular window, stopped and said, "They will never agree." When asked why, he said, "Because they are arguing from different premises." That was our situation, and the idea of this institution was to organize the commercial and industrial forces of this country upon an intelligent basis, for their own information, for the enlightenment of the entire community of this country, and with a view to find rules of conduct that would permit them to prosper because those who were related to them in one way or another were equally prosperous with them. The purpose was to find a mutuality of interest in this country, instead of perpetuating the eternal antagonism that had prevailed.

Much water has flowed over the dam since then. Sometimes I hope that some of it has had the advantage of the clarifying process.

We have had experiences in this ten or twelve years that are bound to modify many of our views. If the war has had no other good result, it has certainly forced us to think and to reflect and to amend many of the accepted rules of action which had up to the time of the War governed us.

I feel safe in saying that the accepted rule of competition, as understood in those days, no longer controls as it did then. I feel safe in saying that the popular prejudice against the

mere power of an organization no longer persists as it did, just as I believe that the most powerful industrial organizations of this country see more clearly now than they did then that the maintenance of their power depends upon the just and fair employment of it.

We have seen what competition may mean. We have been forced to accept the truth that no nation can prosper so long as a large percentage of nations lie low. We know now that to carry on war is one thing, but to mend its consequences is another; and that in the last analysis, the prosperity of even our advantaged country must depend upon the ability of all the peoples of the earth to survive by their own means and their own methods.

That is true in business. Competition has suffered some modification. Altogether, we have less confidence in the employment of force than we had. We made war upon it. We have come to see that force, as a permanent power, is not safe. Repression-Yes. Every rule of conduct must be sustained by the ability to repress the few or the percentage that will not obey. But so soon as any statute or law depends upon the power of repression from day to day, so soon as any statute must be enforced against the great mass of the people all the time, in my humble judgment, it ceases to be a law.

We like to trace our system of law to Great Britain—and we should. We could find no better source for inspiration as to how law ought really to be made, because Great Britain is the one country whose law was built upon the custom of the people by present consent.

What have we come to? We have embraced the belief that when a resolution is authorized to be printed, and is called a statute, it has become a law. It should be, but it will not be, until the will of the people is really behind it. We are not safe in assuming that a naturalization paper makes a citizen. It gives him the right and the privilege to become one. We are too willing to take the form for the spirit, and that is the explanation of the over-legislation that has flooded our country.

These are all questions in which you are perhaps more interested than any part of the community; but in the last analysis every citizen is interested in not having our statute books

loaded down with legislative promises which the executive branch of the Government cannot keep.

President Coolidge said in his last message:

Unless the desire for peace be cherished, all the artificial efforts will be in vain.

He spoke of foreign affairs, but he struck a note which is universally true. Nothing is more true, to my mind, than that we are given to make resolutions, statutes, speeches, promises, and that we ought to learn to substitute conduct for speech. That is what we need in this country. If I were asked how to explain the unparalleled support that has gone to President. Coolidge in the last year, I should say that it is precisely because he, in his official conduct, has given most persuasive proof of the recognition of that simple fact, substitution of conduct for speech.

That should be the motto of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Of course, this organization is interested in knowing what legislation is put upon the books. It is interested in preventing, at times, in amending at others, in helping to shape and formulate, yes. But it is, in my judgment, more interested in helping to mold a rule of conduct that will not invite any legislation.

Lincoln said that he who molds public opinion will have far more influence than he who makes or enforces laws. That is a simple truth, but, as I have often said, we always talk about Lincoln, and we do not live Lincoln; and that is what we need.

The Chamber of Commerce, in my judgment, has one of the great problems before it, in that it ought to seek to interpret and to impress upon its membership and upon those outside of its membership rules of conduct that will invite satisfaction, and that will repel, of themselves, every attempt to regulate. That is a large contract, but it is the only salvation there is. We cannot win by simply resisting proposed legislation. We can only win by taking the sting out of the complaint, and leaving the challenger helpless and hopeless. That is the measure. I have believed that all organizations in this country should have more power and control over their own membership and