A
combination has a tendency to exclude new members. When a group of men
get control of a good thing, they do not see any particular point in
letting other people into the good thing. What I would like very much to
be shown, therefore, is a method of cooeperation which is not a method of
combination. Not that the two words are mutually exclusive, but we have
come to have a special meaning attached to the word "combination." Most
of our combinations have a safety lock, and you have to know the
combination to get in. I want to know how these cooeperative methods can
be adopted for the benefit of everybody who wants to use them, and I say
frankly if I can be shown that, I am for them. If I cannot be shown
that, I am against them. I hasten to add that I hopefully expect I _can_
be shown that.
You, as I have just now intimated, probably cannot show it to me
offhand, but by the methods which you have the means of using you
certainly ought to be able to throw a vast deal of light on the subject.
Because the minute you ask the small merchant, the small banker, the
country man, how he looks upon these things and how he thinks they ought
to be arranged in order that he can use them, if he is like some of the
men in country districts whom I know, he will turn out to have had a
good deal of thought upon that subject and to be able to make some very
interesting suggestions whose intelligence and comprehensiveness will
surprise some city gentlemen who think that only the cities understand
the business of the country.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220