businessetiquette

We have no desire to crown the business man with a halo, though judging from their magazines and from
the stories which they write of their own lives, they are almost without spot or blemish. Most of them seem
not even to have had faults to overcome. They were born perfect. Now the truth is that the methods of
accomplishment which the American business man has used have not always been above reproach and still
are not. At the same time it would not be hard to prove that he—and here we are speaking of the
average—with all his faults and failings (and they are many), with all his virtues (and he is not without them),
is superior in character to the business men of other times in other countries. This without boasting. It would
be a great pity if he were not.
Without trying to settle the question as to whether he is good or bad (and he really can be pigeon−holed no
better than any one else) we have to accept this: He is the biggest factor in the American commonwealth
to−day. It follows then, naturally, that what he thinks and feels will color and probably dominate the ideas and
the ideals of the rest of the country. Numbers of our magazines—and they are as good an index as we have to
the feeling of the general public—are given over completely to the service or the entertainment of business
men (the T. B. M.) and an astonishing amount of space is devoted to them in most of the others.
It may be, and as a matter of fact constantly is, debated whether all this is good for the country or not. We
shall not go into that. It has certainly been good for business, and in considering the men who have developed
our industries we have to take them, and maybe it is just as well, as they are and not as we think they ought to
be.