Canada and Its Development

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,--Elbert Hubbard used to say that a great many wise men came from New York, and he said the sooner they came the wiser they were. (Laughter) For that reason I always hark back to the fact that I came from Kentucky, down where the corn is full of kernels and the colonels are still full of corn. (Laughter) Mr. Volstead, as some one remarked, changed my native State from a democracy to a hip-ocracy. (Laughter) When I asked a friend in Louisville if prohibition had taken effect in Kentucky yet, he replied, "Not a hundred per cent.; in fact, from one drug store to the next is still the shortest distance between two 'pints' in Kentucky." (Laughter)

I have no right on this platform because of any political experience. My work has been in education, first in the class room and then with a great corporation. I have a very great respect for that kind of education which is known as practical, that kind of knowledge which comes out through the personality

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Born in Scottsville, Kentucky, he graduated from the local school to Bethel College, later teaching in the Bowling Green Normal and Business University, at Trenton, N.J., Rockford, Ill., Butte, Montana, Milwaukee, and was finally called to Harvard for a course in Public Speaking. For many years now Mr. Spillman has been prominently connected with the Remington Typewriter Company. In addition to all this, he has managed to find time to write two books entitled "Personality" and the "Speech Effective."

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and expresses itself. The typewriter was the first educational tool ever used to a very large extent in the school-room, so I have been glad to have something to do with the typewriter and education, because I can always see the relation of that sort of education to life.

I know that Canada forms a very important cross-section of the world, and that it has a great deal in common with the United States, and I believe that in spite of rivers and lakes and oceans, and even tariffs, the Mother Country and the Colonies that are, and the Colonies that were, must always be inseparabley bound in the common good not only for each other but for the world. (Applause) I believe that the brightest star in the firmament of Democracy shines out of the fact that "God Save the King" and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" are sung to the same tune and in the same language. (Applause) So it is a great pleasure to talk to you about the development of your great Dominion.

I will find a background for my talk in a very beautiful story that comes down from days of our Civil War. Slocum was carrying a flag in advance of the troops at the battle of Gettysburg, and the flag got so far in advance of the soldiers that the Commander called to Slocum, "Bring the colors back to the regiment"; but Slocum answered, "No, General, you bring the army up to the flag!" Whatever has been the issue, we have always had this story of the stampeded army, following the lines of least resistance, led on by the inspiring example of the colours. I propose to speak to the standard-bearers of a great Dominion like yours, who are the men really responsible for the development of a great republic.

Plato, when writing his delightful Utopia called the "Republic," fixed the responsibility of leadership on the school teachers, the lawyers, etc., but he added, "There is another class of men that I must treat in this ideal Republic of mine, and that is the business man"; so be glorified the business men, who do more to promote and build up a nation than any other class.

Commerce is a very powerful word in our language, indeed, I think the wars of the world are nothing but phases of commerce. I sometimes even think the Bible itself is a paraphrased account of trade; and if we believe its stories we must accept Cain and Abel as the world's first merchants, as Noah was our first great expert in transportation, and the national conserver of our resources. (Laughter) Wherever you find a great nation you will find a great commerce. What made England a great nation? Kings and Crowns and Parliaments made England glorious, but commerce made England great. (Applause) Commerce makes the United States great, and commerce is malting this Dominion great, so it is with the men who have to do with the merchandising principles of a city that build it up.

But if commerce is a seat of power it is also the seat of responsibility; and if you men, by virtue of your position in this community, have the power and the knowledge, we must invest you with the responsibility for development of the community. When I come into Toronto where do I get my impressions of the city? I do not meet your mayor, or Members of Parliament-those men who are supposed to be the builders of a great community; but I meet the business men and trades-people; and the word "Toronto" has come to mean, in the minds of millions, a certain picture that has been moulded out of the contact the world has had not with your politicians or with your educators, but with the merchandizing people of the city. So the merchants of Toronto are the men who build this city and fix and mould the destiny of a great Dominion. Therefore I want to fix very clearly what your responsibility is. You may say, "I am not responsible for the laws of the city; I leave that to our legislative body. I am not responsible for crime; I leave that to our police; I am not responsible for education, I leave that to our Board."

Gentlemen, there can be no great honor in Toronto that does not belong to you. The Dominion of Canada can have no greatness, no pride, no fame, which is not a part of yours, because you are a member of the community. Likewise, there can be no crime here, no poverty, no squalor, no disease, that does not become your concern. So I say to you, as a group of men, that there are no guardians, no builders, who are more responsible for the destiny of the town than the business men like you who are gathered here.

This business responsibility manifests itself in three ways. First, the leader who wants to build the city nobler, better, more progressive than it has been must build that sort of a business for himself. We never have great minds capable of making great improvements in the neighborhood unless those men have done something for themselves. The leader ought to make money; we must be individually successfully if we are going to contribute to the success of the group. There is no conflict between righteousness and riches. We used to think that if a man had money he could not be the kind of man he should be; and we used to cite the story of Jesus Christ running the money-changers out of the temple as an illustration that the Master despised money. We forgot to recognize the great difference between moneychangers and moneymakers, especially the kind of moneychangers who were around the temple at that time. But I have another illustration of the Saviour's attitude towards wealth that pleases me better than that. I like to think what He said about the man who came back without any increment upon his talent--"You have been digging in the ground and hiding the Lord's money." So 1 believe I have the right to say to you, on the authority of the Saviour, that if there is a merchant here who, for lack of courage or capital or skill, is not turning over his capital individually, he is digging in the ground and hiding the Lord's money; and I do not believe we have any right to expect a man to contribute in any large way to the community unless he has built his own business successfully. In other words, I think I will say:--

"Count that day lost whose slow-descending sun

Sees prices shot to pieces and business done for fun."

(Laughter) I think it is just as dangerous and immoral towards a community for a man to make too little money with his business, over a long term of years, as it is for him to make too much. Roger Babson, our great statistician, said that 75 percent of the retail merchants of America last year failed to make as much money as they were entitled to make in view of the amount of capital and time they invested. That sort of thing is ruinous to a community. If merchants do that over a group of years they cannot accept a responsibility for the trusteeship of a great community. I am prepared to pay fair prices for my merchandise, because every time I get something for nothing somebody else gets nothing for something, and that kind of economic process will ruin any community or nation that engages in it. Don't get the idea that I am an idealist who thinks you ought to go out and do business for fun; on the contrary, you must first be successes yourselves.

The men who are going to accept responsibility for the development of a town must contribute something to the source-mindedness of the community in which they live. . When I come to Toronto one question I like to ask is--What chance has a bright idea to take root and grow in your community? How few of your people are constructive thinkers, and how many are merely readjusting their prejudices day by day and year by year? How many of them are serving the God of Things as They Are, and how many are turning to the God of Things as They Ought to Be? Men like you should contribute something to this ability to think straight and constructively about the larger problems that confront your city. In other words, how many men in Toronto can distinguish between the real and the false in the vital issues of life? A man riding along a road in our country saw a fellow fishing in a flower-bed with a spool on the end of a stick. He concluded this was a Simple Simon escaped from a near-by asylum, and that he would have some fun with him, so he said, "Well, Simon, how many have you caught today?" The fellow replied, "You are the ninth one, sir." (Laughter) You can always tell the man that is doing straight thinking. Just before Gladstone died he said after fifty years' experience, that the lettered, academic, educated classes in England were wrong in nearly every vital issue presented to the people; yet this was the very class of people who should have been in possession of a right-thinking apparatus. So you do not always find that it is the college man that does the constructive thinking. In the United States last year the twelve greatest men who gave the largest amounts of money for education were in every case source-minded, and there was not a college man in the group. That does not mean that the college man can not think straight, but it means that all the knowledge of all the books in the world is poured into a cracked bowl unless it enables the man to think. After all, it is constructive thinking that we want in the community, and it is the business men's business and problem and responsibility to contribute something in that direction.

I think one reason why we cannot think any straighter and more comprehensively is that we do not get enough help from our subjective minds. In other words, we are not as good picture-painters as we ought to be. A visitor was going through the asylum for the insane in Kentucky, and the. Superintendent said to him, " We have a remarkable man here; he is perfectly sane except in one respect-he thinks he is a great artist. Go over and talk to him." The visitor went and said to the man. "Mr. Brown, I understand you are a very wonderful artist?" Yes, I just finished painting a very beautiful picture of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites. You remember they could not cross until the Lord caused the waters to roll back, and then they went over dry-shod." The visitor assented, and Brown continued, "Then the Egyptians came up and tried to cross while the waters were rolled back, but the Lord caused the waters to meet and drowned them. That is the picture I have painted." He took a blank piece of paper and showed the visitor the picture. The visitor, who saw nothing on the paper, asked, "But where are the waters of the Red Sea?" Brown replied, "They are rolled back." But where are the Israelites?" "They have crossed over and gone on." Then where are the Egyptians?" asked the visitor; and Brown replied, "They haven't come up yet." (Laughter) Now, you might say that man was crazy, but I tell you, he was a genius; and there has never been a great picture by Michael Angelo or any other great artist that was not painted first in that fashion-painted first in the subjective mind. You do not see the great pictures of the world with your physical eye; they are back in the rear, like the waters of the Red Sea. Our great bridges are builded that way; the war was won that way; and everything great in the history of the world has been builded in the subjective mind first. So I say Toronto will never be any bigger, grander, or more noble than what men like you who build have first in their minds.

I think we are on the eve of very wonderful development of great communities, because there is a great migration going on over the world. People are associating success with matters of geography. This is an age of scientific development, and we have been able to reason out certain things according to the laws of science. We want an answer to everything; we have reached an age of scepticism, and we are afraid to believe anything we do not know for certain; but though we reject the things that we do not know for certain, we are likely to find that we are taking the biggest propositions on earth for granted. We are big enough and optimistic enough to believe them, even though we cannot prove them as facts. You say, "Maybe Christ rose from the dead; maybe there is a life after death; maybe-God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world"; but nobody can prove it; it is only "maybe"; yet the world would be a very sad place if we were not willing to believe those propositions that are not subject to objective evidence. (Hear, hear) Why cannot we apply the same philosophy to our business, to materials, and to our outlook on life?

You may remember a very beautiful passage in literature known as "Pascal's Wager." Pascal said one day to a group of men, "Let us speculate a little on this great proposition of the immortality of the soul. No man knows for sure that the soul is immortal. Suppose you bet everything you have on the fact that the soul is immortal, and on the day of Judgment you find out that it is not; you have not lost anything. On the other hand, suppose you bet everything that the soul is not immortal, but when you come to the judgment you find it is, then you have lost everything." I use that illustration as a background for the question, How is it with our own affairs? Suppose you say to me, "Canada is going to the dogs; her people are moving away to other countries." I cannot prove that Canada is not going to the dogs; I cannot prove that a hundred years from now there will not be any Canada; but you cannot prove your proposition, therefore why should I not say that Canada is headed for the greatest prosperity? Why not believe that which is useful? (Applause)

Some years ago the Remington Typewriter Company promoted one of their men, giving him what they thought a very substantial promotion by sending him to Butte, Montana, where they had a branch office. When he went home he told his wife about the promotion as manager out in Butte she said, "You fool, you have never heard how one-third of the people there live under ground all the time; they have no flowers, no vegetables; we don't want to go to Butte." The man came back and said to our President, "Well, I don't want to go to Butte." The President replied, "Go or get out; that is the only job we have today." The man went, and when he got as far as Chicago he went up to the ticket office, and evidently the ticket agent had done a good deal of travelling himself, for when the fellow went to the wicket and said, "I want to go to Butte," the agent said, "You're a liar, you've got to go to Butte." (Laughter) I lived in Butte for two years, and I don't know any place in the United States where a man can see more wonders of God and make a bigger contribution to society; but you must have eyes to see these wonders, and willingness to work, in order to enjoy the development of these wonders; and that is true of every city in the world that I know of.

Benjamin Franklin went over to Paris as Ambassador extraordinary, and the people there said, "Why don't you stay here? We have a wonderful city, with paved boulevards, and we have a great magazine and university." Franklin replied, "When I left Philadelphia three months ago there were mud-puddles all over Market Street. It is true we have not a great magazine, and it is five hundred miles to a good university, and we have not a great newspaper; but, after all, I am going back to Philadelphia to give her what she ought to have." So Franklin came back and agitated for good pavements and got them, and he started the first great magazine in America, and began the foundation of Pennsylvania University. Do not forget that Toronto is your city, and that you have a proprietory interest in the Dominion of Canada, and if it is not the place that you like to live in, do something to make it better. (Applause)

You tell me today that your territory is rotten, and I tell you that in the rottenness of your territory lies the richness of your opportunity. I have visited every great city in North America, and have yet to visit a city anywhere that has not at some time or other been bounded on the north by hardship, on the south' by disappointment, and on the west by disadvantage, but always on the east by the rising sun. (Applause)

So I say to you that the Kingdom of heaven is not in Florida or somewhere out in California; the Kingdom of God is within you, from wherever you fetch it; you can have it right here if you want it. (Applause)

My last point is that as standard-bearers in the community we must do something to save this city from the infamy of toil that knows no joy. What can be better than that a man should eat and drink and let his soul enjoy itself in its labour? The hen is the only creature I know that can sit still and produce dividends. (Laughter) I think it is a fine thing that we have to work, and we ought to thank God that we are not rich enough to have nothing to do. This great Canada is what it is because you had working men enough to do its work. A man who is sick of work never was so sick before. Mutt said to Jeff, "I dreamed I died and went to hell, and I was agreeably surprised to find out that I hadn't much work to do. I always thought that when I got down to the lower regions I would be very busy." Jeff said to Mutt, "I just had the contrary dream; I dreamed I died and went to heaven, and I was awfully busy there; I was busy by day, hanging out the sun, and the moon and stars by night, and there was an awful lot of work to do, and we were awfully short of help." (Laughter)

When you get short of help in the Dominion, and men get no joy out of their labour, your nation is very sick.

What can we do to overcome this condition? We have to look at work from a new angle; we have to put into it our hearts, our inspiration, our enthusiasm. Some years ago a man travelling through the United States came to one of the drawbridges that span the Missouri River, and he found a man there in overalls, wearing a tattered hat, but with a smile on his face. He asked the man, "What have you to be happy about?" The man replied, "I was just thinking that I am one of the most successful men in the world." "How comes that?" the traveller asked, "Are you the Governor of this Commonwealth?" The man replied, "No, but I am more important than the Governor of the State, because for twenty years I have been keeper of this drawbridge, and during all that time never has a locomotive approached and found the bridge open. There are no graves, no orphans, no widows out here from my neglect. Whatsoever my hands have found to do I have done it with diligence." So I say to you, it is not the size of the job, and not always the money from the job, but it is the manner of the job that makes it a great job. A young man said to me the other day, "I have come to New York, but I have brought with me a lot of imperfections." I said, "You ought to thank God that you are not perfect, because otherwise you would be in a museum. If you were really perfect, Barnum and Baily would want to put you on exhibition between the sword-swallower and the ape-man. If you were perfect you would be deprived of the grand and glorious privilege of becoming more perfect than you are." And that is the meaning of life-the process of becoming better and more perfect than we are. (Applause) If any man tells you he is perfect on the physical plane, take him over to the Chief of Police to be measured by that scientific Bertillon system, and probably he will not be within 40 percent of normal; and if he is within 20 percent let him take Dr. Thorndike's psychological test and you will find he probably needs the sympathy of the whole community. We are all imperfect and all handicapped; and that is why I believe in God, because he has touched me a little in the way he touched you and our neighbours. We all have our handicaps and discouragements; that is true in the life of communities as well as that of nations and individuals.

Dr. Crane tells of finding a teamster feeding his horse by the side of the road, and saying to that driver, "It is really too bad that you have to drive a horse that is not fit to drive, with a scalded place on its shoulder," and the driver replied, "Yes, but after all, we would never get the world's work done if we only used horses that are fit, for there are not fit horses." Neither are there fit men, and the world's work has always been done by people who were sick, or who had pains in their back, and it always will be, because we all have that hall-mark of humanity, we are all imperfect in one way or another. If you take out of the life of the Dominion of Canada her places of hardship and discouragement, you rob her of the very places where the secret of her greatness has been revealed. So I close by asking you business men of Canada, standardbearers as you really are, Why don't you fly to the defence of your colours? In the words of Slocum, "Let the regiment come forward to the flag." (Loud applause)

MR. GEORGE BRIGDEN expressed the thanks of the Club for the address.