COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATIONS. Early Organizations.— There were but few commercial associations in the United States before the Civil War. As a rule, only the larger cities possessed them. The functions of these organizations were scarcely more than to hold annual meetings to elect officers and to have occasional banquets where local politicians spoke. The strictly commercial organizations frequently aimed to maintain a produce ex change and provide room-trading facilities in such staples as grain, cotton and tobacco. The larger of these associations compiled and pub lished trade statistics in their annual reports. These early statistics are very interesting to the historian. The volumes of the New York Chamber of Commerce give statistics of the movement of freight by the Erie Canal. The Cincinnati reports chronicle the rise and fall of the Ohio River trade and give the figures for Western pork packing. The Saint Louis volumes contain an account of the lumber rafts of the Mississippi River, of the Galena lead trade, of the furs and gold brought down from the upper waters of the Missouri River, of the buffalo skins shipped East from the plains and of the merchandise which passed to the Southwest by wagon over the Santa Fe trail.
Trade After the Civil War there began to be formed in various parts of the country organizations of men engaged in the same line of trade. The wagon makers united; the window glass blowers got together; the hotel keepers began to consider their prob lems, etc. These various organizations, planned along trade lines, were local, state or national in scope. Among the important functions which they attempted were to standardize com mercial usages, to exchange craft knowledge between the members and to control prices more or less directly. Some of these associa tions have done good work. The Society for Testing Materials (an organization of pur chasing agents) has formulated many scien tifically complete buyers' specifications. The
Association of Railway Master Mechanics called attention, some years ago, to the dearth of skilled mechanics, and started the move ment for apprenticeship courses and shop schools, which has accomplished so much in the hands of American railroads. Some of the trade associations have brought their members upon a more or less uniform plane of effi ciency by prescribing a standard system of cost accounting suited to the industry. The majority of the associations formed along trade lines are of merchants. If an organization be of wholesalers it is very likely to plan trade getting trips, to make special arrangements for buyers' weeks either by securing railway transportation of members at reduced rates or by giving free transportation to those who buy a specified amount of merchandise, and to organize a credit rating bureau. Organizations of retailers often make arrangement for style shows, draw up rules to prevent unprofitable advertising, operate a co-operative delivery system or establish a local credit bureau to identify delinquent debtors.
The Civic Basis of the Modern Move The recent rapid growth of commer cial associations in this country may be at tributed to a revival of local civic life and to a new understanding of the basis of local busi ness prosperity. The civic motive is about equal in importance with the economic one in the typical modern board of trade or chamber of commerce. There is coming to exist a more vivid civic consciousness. People now travel about so much that they get into the habit of appraising towns and cities as com munities and of comparing them with their home town. Young businesses now look about more diligently for an advantageous location than was once the case, and less frequently grow up where the original idea happened to strike the founder. In other words, there is now a competition not only of individuals and firms but of neighborhoods for social, civic and economic prestige.