As if across a desk "New York is calling!" says the operator in San Francisco. And across an entire continent business is transacted as if across a desk. Within arm's length of the man with a telephone are 70,000 cities, towns and villages connected by a single system. Without moving from his chair, without loss of time from his affairs, he may travel an open track to any of those places at any time of day or night. In the private life of the individual the urgent need of instant and personal long distance communication is an emergency that comes infrequently-but it is imperative when it does In the business life of come. on their present scale. Fifty per cent more communications are transmitted by telephone than by mail. This is in spite of the fact that each telephone communication may do the work of several letters. The pioneers who planned the telephone system realized that the value of a telephone would depend upon the number of other telephones with which it could be connected. They realized that to reach the greatest number of people in the most efficient way a single system and a universal service would be essential. By enabling a hundred million people to speak to each other at any time and across any distance, the Bell System has added significance to the motto of the nation's founders: "In union there is strength." "BELL SYSTEM" AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY One Policy, One System, Universal Service, and all directed Eat and Be Well! A condensed set of health rules-many of which may be easily followed right in your own home, or while traveling. You will find in this little book a wealth of information about food elements and their relation to physical welfare. IMPORTANT TO When you notify The Outlook of a change in your address, both the old and the new address should be given. Kindly write, if possible, two weeks before the change is to take effect. PRICES SMASHED 300 10 Days FREE Trial World's makes-Underwood, Remington, Oliver-at big saving, Every machine fully rebuilt to look and work like new. Guar anteed for 10 years. Send no moneybig Free Catalog shows how to save money on type writers. Easy terms. Write today. INTERNATIONAL TYPEWRITER EXCHANGE 177 N. State St. Dept. 9-24 Chicago MY PIECE OF GARDEN WHITE COTTAGE, green blinds and ivy A wher. OTAGE filled with nower ing shrubs, pink peonies, blue larkspur. There is a soft tinkle of a fountain, and a sweet, delicate fragrance fills the air. A porch shaded by elms and pines. On the porch a white-haired gentlewoman of about threescore and ten, knitting her lovely yarn of blue, lavender, pink, and yellow. The gate latch clicked. A young girl in organdy and leghorn hat walked slowly up the cool, shady path. Her eyes were full of sorrow, perplexity. A smile of welcome, a loving kiss. "This is a wonderful place, dear Lady Lavender. "Tis peace, perfect peace. No sin nor trouble could live in here, yet just outside greed makes the world hideous. There is so much that is wrong. I am young, my life before me, but I have no aim. Tell me, dear Lady Lavender, what can I do to help destroy this ugliness of the world?" Patiently sat the little old lady, listening once again to the cry of the young. "What can I do? My dear child, once upon a time there lived a boy who desired great riches and power. He gained the coveted riches by advertising his wares upon huge painted signposts along highways, destroying beautiful views, disfiguring the landscape, stealing from all who passed by the beauty that might have been theirs. Stealing that which is far more precious than mere money, yet the criminal went unpunished, though truly hated, this man behind the painted signs. "With riches in the bank, he longed for happiness and began wandering the world over hunting happiness, contentment. He built hospitals, organized uplift societies. At last he came to a beautiful gate, knocked, heard a voice say, 'Enter, stranger.' It was the sunset hour-all about was enchanting beauty; a waterfall in the distance, a stream of sparkling water. Flowers covered the ground beneath ages-old trees. 'At last,' thought he, 'I have found perfect beauty, happiness.' Then, turning, he with rank weeds, unsightly sand, and ant-hills. Indignantly he turned to the man by his side and said: 'Why is not this spot attended to? Why is it left to. mar the garden?' 'It mars the garden far more than you know, stranger,' the man replied. From this miserable spot millions of weed seeds fly over the place. Hours are spent each day weeding, ever weeding; many a man, many a woman, might have had time for greater things but for this cursed spot. It has stolen hours of ease-hours that might well have been filled with nobler things. Only hard labor has saved the beauty of the garden.' Then why, in the name of beauty, don't you care for it?" "That is the tragedy, stranger; we cannot. It is the law of the garden that each man must care for the piece of ground given him, his work cannot be done by another; and the man to whom this ground was given was not willing to work here; he wanted to do greater things-build hospitals, organize societies for the relief of the weary. Had he remained and attended to his ground, he might have saved many from being ill and weary.' "The stranger flushed with indignation. "Tell me, who is this wretch that has so neglected his piece of work that little children grow tired, men and women downhearted? Tell me the name of the man who builds hospitals and allows such carelessness as this to harm mankind.' 'John Brown, of Yorktown.' The stranger staggered, grew pale, and muttered to himself: 'John Brown, of Yorktown. My unkept piece of ground. Hours wasted undoing the work of those seeds, and I thought the task given me of no consequence; too small a piece of work for me. And here, too late, I find it's a piece of ground in the midst of beauty, destroying beauty.' His head dropped, he would have fallen but for the quick arm of the gardener. 'I am old; oh, for my youth, my strength, that I might make this spot like unto the rest of the garden, or even strength enough to clear my small piece of ground! Yes, to even leave it bare, but not, oh, not a curse to mankind!'" The sweet-voiced woman looked up, and saw a tear in the little visitor's eye. She put her arm about her. "Shall we, dear, have tea under the trees? And now tell me about your pretty new frocks." A half-hour passed. Later the girl in organdy, with a bright, happy, contented smile, entered an old-fashioned home. She kissed the crippled father and put her arm about the gentle woman at his side. "No need, mother, darling, worrying about me any longer. I am not going away. I am going first to attend to my piece of the garden." She ran upstairs singing. The father turned to the mother. "Why, Peg is like a ray of sunshine to-day." "Yes, father, I feel ten years younger since she entered that door. And did you hear the happy ring in her voice when she said, 'I am not going away'? But I wonder what she meant when she said, 'I am going to attend first to my piece of the garden."" L. A. G. Better Farming and Better Railroading 66 AKING two blades of grass grow where "MAKI one grew before" means more prosperous farming communities, more prosperous towns, greater buying power and a higher standard of living. All of which spells an increased demand for the service we have to sell-transportation. That is why the New York Central Agricultural Department operates demonstration trains; cooperates in the distribution of limestone in counties where the soil is impoverished; aids in solving local drainage problems; invites county agricultural agents to inspect terminal marketing systems-and generally interests itself in the development of agriculture. A large part of our day's work is hauling the products of the farms, and the goods these products buy. The Financial Department is prepared to furnish information regarding standard investment securities, but cannot undertake to advise the purchase of any specific security. It will give to inquirers facts of record or information resulting from expert investigation, and a nominal charge of one dollar per inquiry will be made for this special service. All letters of inquiry should be addressed to THE OUTLOOK FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. C “CAPITAL IS INTELLIGENT" BY PAUL TOMLINSON |APITAL and labor are almost always fertile topics of conversation. The coal strike and the railway strike have brought them prominently to the fore once again, and talk of the strikes usually leads to a discussion of our whole industrial system. It is to be expected that many divergent opinions are held of the merits of capital's stand as opposed to that of the unions, and on the other side the unions' actions as they affect and are affected by capital. It is not my purpose here to express an opinion on this absorbing subject, but merely to quote an opinion I heard offered a short time ago, and STRAUS BUILDING CHICAGO STRAUS BUILDING NEW YORK The House Which Has Never Sold THE shrewdest way to judge any investment offered to you is to investi. Has the House offering the investment ever recommended and If not, has its business been large enough in volume, long enough The House of S. W. STRAUS & CO. urges you to ask these questions of Our own answer is clear and unequivocal: we have sold securities for run, they have in them great possibilities of good. In union there is strength, is a saying which may apply to organizations of laboring men as well as to bodies politic. But simply because a thing is inherently good is no guarantee that in practice it will work out for good. Further, it is an unescapable fact that a nation, or a business, or an individual, or an association of any kind which ignores everything but his or its own desires and wishes is due for trouble. Labor-meaning many labor unionshas in numerous instances during the past few years pressed its own claims without regard for their effect upon the rest of the community. That is not only a selfish policy, but short-sighted, and the result has been a great loss of prestige to the unions and a sharp decline in the number of men enrolled on their lists of members. Labor has not been intelligent, and is paying the price. Ill-advised strikes have not only alienated public opinion, but caused serious dissension in the ranks of the unions themselves. While waiting at a railway station the other day I fell into conversation with one I asked of the company's employees. him what he thought of the shopmen's strike. "My own union was on strike a couple of years ago," he said. "I was out for three months, and the only result Iwas that at the end of the strike I was five hundred dollars poorer than when the strike started. If my union strikes this time, I resign." Actually many union men have surrendered their cards because they are unwilling to strike themselves or pay assessments for the support of those who are out. In other words, many union men are in doubt about the degree of intelligence being shown by their leaders. An Production is the source of all wealth, strikes hinder production, and the strikers can no more escape the results Unions in many than any one else. cases consistently aim to keep down production, having the misguided notion that by so doing they are benefiting themselves, when, as a matter of fact, it is the laboring man who is the greatest sufferer from such a condition. other assumption on which the unions are prone to act is that every man's work is equally valuable. But it isn't, and it never can be. This assumption kills the efficient man's initiative, however, and deadens his ambition. The good man earns no more than the shirker, so what's the use in trying? Any system which breeds this attitude cannot rightly be termed intelligent. The argument may be advanced that capital is not intelligent, but merely powerful. The answer to that is that power which is not backed by brains is always of short duration, and capital has not only been powerful for a long time, but is still fairly robust even in these days of sovietism and communism and syndicalism. Capital is strong because it has recognized the existence of economic laws, while labor, to its sorrow, has frequently assumed they can be Expediting business abroad AN AMERICAN export firm cabled its representative in care of our Paris Office to call upon an important customer in Naples. Our travel expert looked up schedules and connections for the representative, purchased his tickets, helped him secure passport visés and gave him a letter to our Naples correspondent. While the salesman was en route, our office wired ahead to reserve hotel accommodations. Upon his arrival in Naples, our correspondent there accorded him a number of courtesies in our name and honored his Equitable Letter of Credit, paying him the equivalent of his dollar drafts in Lire, at the vailing rate of exchange. pre Facilitating the transaction of foreign business and saving the valuable time of our customers' representatives are daily services rendered by our offices abroad. 1714 Bridges to Wealth ENETIAN nobles of the sixteenth century inlaid their gondolas with jewels and gold-a fashion abolished by a famous edict, curbing extravagance, which stipulated that all gondolas be painted black. Today it is not legislation that enforces careful expenditure, but the burden of increased taxes and commodity prices, and the swift changes of modern life. Foresight points to the need of building an income for the future, which is met by systematic bond-buying, year by year. The sound basis of municipal bonds makes them a most satisfactory investment for that purpose. Our lists of bond offerings, selected with the experience of thirty years' specialization in municipal issues, are a reliable guide for the investments of individuals and institutions demanding absolute safety. FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT overlooked (Continued) or ignored. Russia, of course, is the "horrible example" of what happens when these fundamental facts are disregarded. Supply and demand is the basic principle on which all business is conducted. Men who conduct successful businesses must keep constantly in touch with the demand for their products and fix the supply to meet it. There is considerable agitation for year-round employment for everybody, and some day it may be possible to accomplish this. But is it fair to an employer to expect him to keep his whole force employed, when he knows he cannot find a market for the goods produced? Every one knows that at harvest time a farmer needs lots of help, but who expects the farmer to keep all of that help on his pay-roll throughout the winter when there is little work to do? Businesses also have their harvest times and their winter seasons, and their help, too, must be regulated to meet these requirements. If it is not, the business is doomed to certain failure. No employer throws men out of work for the fun of the thing; he realizes that if his plant can be operated at capacity he personally will benefit along with the others, and it is not human nature willingly to forego profits. Similarly, most employers-capitalrealize that it is good business to keep their employees contented, to pay them good wages, and furnish them with good working conditions. Supply and demand, however, must largely determine wages, and when wages are cut it is because of this economic law and not capital trying to grind down labor. All of which is bound to bring hardship upon individuals; but no workable suggestion has ever been made as to how this situation can be avoided. In our present state of development it seems impossible to make everybody happy, and the policy which does the most good for the greatest number is the best one to follow. Moreover, if any one argues that the laboring man is not well off under a capitalistic system, let him compare the condition of labor under such a system with its condition in a place where capital does not control. Capital may not always be as generous as it might be, and yet there are hundreds of instances to prove that it is not as "hard boiled" as it is sometimes pictured. Whether the motive is philanthropic or shrewd, is beside the point. Probably it is a combination of both; but the fact remains that capital has for years been growing constantly more alive to the interests of labor and working in those interests. Which is no more than intelligent. Many people may not agree with all these sentiments. But, I believe, most people must agree that capital is powerful whether it is intelligent or not. And its power comes from the possession of |