The Five Commandments

By Jach, Dionne

We hear a lot about Trade Ethics in recent years, both in type and from the platform. It is a subject freguently mulled over.

And the best thought on the subject I have ever encountered I got not long ago from a convention speaker who had that subject to discuss.

He said that we are all governed by law. That the laws which provide for the relationship between man and man are as inviolate and unbreakable as the law which provides for the relationship between two bodies in space-the law of gravity. The ethical laws may not seem to us to be as powerful and dependable and self-enforcing as the law of gravity, but they ARE just the same.

And I liked that thought very much. The Constitution of the United States provides that one man's privileges only terminate where the other man's rights begin. And as it is under this constitution, so it is in business.

It is all the law of the Square Deal. You can measuie it bythat yard stick every time. Trade Ethics mean two things in your business life-to be SQUARE, and to be FAIR.

It isn't enough simply to be square. The proper relationship between man and man goes farther than simply to be legally safe in that contact. You must not only be honorable in your dealings with him, and in your relationships to him, but you must go a little farther, and be FAIR with him. You might be SQUARE in your attitude without being entirely FAIR undermanyconditions. There is simple JUSTICE in being SQUARE. But there is TOLERANCE an:l FELLOWSHIP and STEWARDSHIP in being FAIR also.

You can make a complete and thorough talk on Trade Ethics in just four words, and cover the matter thoroughly, when you say-"Be Square-Be Fair."

And, if you will add tothose-"Be Courteous, Be Considerate, Be Kindly"-you will have spoken the five best Commandments ol Business.