The National Association of Credit Men has been a powerful factor in establishing and maintaining high standards of business conduct. The association has adopted eight "canons of commercial ethics" which have exerted a fine influence on the conduct of credit men and their employers.
The National Association of Purchasing Agents is doing much to free business transactions from certain objectionable features. Not many years ago, for ex ample, the acceptance by a purchasing agent of a com mission, or of some other valuable consideration, was tolerated and regarded as quite the proper thing.
Today commissions are not welcome and any salesman who attempts to arrange such retainers injures his chances of sale.
Of all the classes of business men who have sincerely attempted to work out standards of business conduct the advertising men have had the hardest problem, but their various associations, national and local, have worked at it with great intelligence and determination. It is not too much to hope that the time will soon come when a mendacious, unprincipled advertiser will be unable to get his name into the columns of a respect able newspaper or magazine. As a result of the vigorous educational campaigns carried on by adver tising clubs and associations much objectionable advertising has already been eliminated from our newspapers.
11. Wall Street.—Thruout the country there exists an idea that Wall Street is a very wicked place and that the New York Stock Exchange is a den of gam blers who would not hesitate to ruin the country if they thereby could make a dollar. In many states the prejudice against Wall Street is so bitter that men are sent to Congress virtually pledged to oppose any measure that has the hearty support of the financial interests of New York City. A demagogue can al ways win votes by denouncing the conspiracies, the trickery, the deceit, the corruption, which are alleged to exist in Wall Street.
The popular idea of Wall Street and its practices is entirely erroneous. By "Wall Street" is meant the financial and speculative markets of the United States. It is the national loan or capital market. Wherever capital is loaned and borrowed, wherever securities are bought and sold, there is Wall Street. It is called Wall Street merely because the greatest financial houses of the country happen to be located in or near a street of that name. As the reader will
discover in reading the Modern Business Texts on "Speculation and the Exchanges" and "Investment," the business transactions of Wall Street are the great est done anywhere in the world. The man who says that Wall Street is controlled by gamblers or by men lacking principle or patriotic sentiment is, without knowing it, slandering the whole American people. The leaders of Wall Street live not only in New York, but in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis and in other cities and towns. They got their leadership with the approval of the American people; and by their ability they have been able to plan and finance those mighty industries which give employ ment to millions of men and have placed the United States first among nations in the production of wealth. From the point of view of industry as well as finance tbe nation's brain is in "Wall Street." The reader should not be surprised, therefore, when told that nowhere in the world will he find a higher code of business honor than that which prevails in Wall Street. The man who does not keep his word, even tho Ile has given it only by telephone, the man who seeks to evade a contract because of some techni cality, the man who misrepresents, is not tolerated in the "street." As soon as he is found out he is shunned. The men who give character to the "street," doing 90 per cent of its real business, will have nothing more to do with him. Undoubtedly trickery and deception are practised in the shadows of Wall Street and many guileless investors are fleeced. It would be strange, indeed, if this were not true, for thieves and swindlers are attracted to the "street" as are flies to an open sugar barrel. Foolish, gullible persons, reading about the many million dollar trans actions in the "street," often go there hoping to pick up a fortune without work. The keen men who wel come them on arrival, or who advertise for them in newspapers, are not the regulars of Wall Street. They are despised parasites, for whose extermination the men who do the real business in the "street" never cease to work.