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Fundamentals of Prosperity

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<h2 class="chapter_title">VIII What Truly Counts</h2> The greatest resources in the world to-day are human resources, not resources of iron, copper and lumber. The great need of the hour is to strengthen this human foundation and you business men are the one group that can do it. When it comes to the sale of goods, the same principle applies. Eighty per cent. of our sales organizations are devoted to selling to ten per cent. of the population. We have forgotten to consider whether or not goods are needed. We only consider whether or not they are being bought. We are forgetting to establish new markets, but rather are scrambling over the markets already secured. Tremendous opportunities exist in developing new industries, in creating new communities, in relocating the center of production from one community to another community to match up with the center of consumption. We have forgotten the latent power in the human soul, in the individual, in the community, in the different parts of the country. We have forgotten those human possibilities upon which all prosperity ultimately depends. I cannot perhaps emphasize this any more than by saying that the foundation of progress is spiritual, not material. The greatest resources of the world to-day are human resources,—not resources of iron, copper and lumber. The great need of the hour is to strengthen this human foundation and revive in men a desire to produce and a joy in service. Business men are the one group that can do it. They understand the emotions, understand the importance of the intangible things. They understand how to awaken in people new motives. So my appeal is not to wait too long to revive man and awaken the soul which is slumbering to-day. The nation is only a mass of individuals. The true prosperity of a country depends upon the same qualities as the true prosperity of its people. As religion is necessary for the man, it is also necessary for the nation. As the soul of man needs to be developed, so also does the soul of the nation. ****** Let me tell one more personal incident. Not long ago I was at my Washington office spending the week. While there a little Western Union messenger girl came in to apply for a position. It was in the afternoon—about half-past five. I was struck with the intelligence of the girl’s face and asked her two or three questions. She was tired. I asked her to sit down. I was astonished to hear her story. She had been born and brought up in the mountains of West Virginia,—many miles from civilization. Her father and mother died when she was four years old. She had been living with an old grandfather and brother. When I began to talk with her I found her to have a most remarkable acquaintance with Emerson, with Thoreau, with Bernard Shaw and with the old Eastern writers. I said to her: “How is it that you are delivering telegrams in a khaki suit and a soldier cap?” She replied: “Because I could get nothing else to do. I lived down there in the mountains just as long as I could. I had to get to the city where I could express myself and develop my finer qualities. When I got to Washington there was nothing that I could do. They asked me if I could typewrite, but I had never seen a typewriter. Finally, after walking the streets for a while, I got a job as a Western Union messenger.” I wrote Mrs. Babson and made arrangements to have the girl come to Wellesley and work for a few months with the Babson Organization. I saw in her certain qualities which, if developed, should make her very useful to someone somewhere. She came to Wellesley. About a month after her arrival I was obliged to leave on a two months’ trip and Mrs. Babson invited her up to dine the night before I left. I told her that I was going to speak while away on “America’s Undeveloped Resources.” After dinner she went to my desk and took her pen and scribbled these lines and said: “Perhaps during your talk on America’s Greatest Undeveloped Resources you will give those men a message from a Western Union girl.” These are the lines she wrote. They are by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. <div class="poem"> I gave a beggar from my little store of wealth some gold; He spent the shining ore, and came again and yet again, Still cold and hungry, as before. I gave a thought—and through that thought of mine, He found himself, the man supreme, divine, Fed, clothed and crowned with blessing manifold; And now he begs no more. </div> The mind of man is a wonderful thing, but unless the soul of man is awakened he must lack faith, power, originality, ambition,—those vital elements which make a man a real producer. I do not say that you can awaken this force in every soul. If you are an employer, perhaps only a few of all your employees can be made to understand. But this much is certain,—in every man or woman in whom you can loose the power of this invisible something, you will mobilize a force, not only for his or her good, but for the good and perhaps the very salvation of your own business. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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