Faith in Business

By Jack Dionne

If I got nothing more out of Bruce Barton's latest book, "What Can A Man Believe?" than just his remarks on the great part that FAITH plays in modern business (as a matter of fact the entire book is filled with interest to the man whose mind is free), I would still be greatly over-paid for my investment of money and time in the volume.

Take just this one paragraph, for instance:

"No man can stay in business except through some measure of FAITH. It is impossible even to discuss business without us ing that word again and again. You hear men say:'The whole modern commercial structure is built on a foundation of credit.' And what is credit? Where does the word come from? CREDO: I BELIEVE. Business is good or bad,.the statisticians point out, according to the degree of confidence. What is confidence? Whence comes the word? CON-FIDES: WITH FAITH. 'Such and such a concern is weak' men say, 'because it's personnel lacks fidelity'. FIDELITY: FIDELIS, FAITHFUL.,'

And Barton concludes in his own words: "Faith in business, faith in ones self, faith in other people, faith in the country-this is the power that moves the world.

Surely this is a good sermon for lumber, for if there is any great business that suffers for lack of that great element of FAITH-iI is this trouble-ridden industry.

In talking on FAITH, Mr. Barton mentions Henry Ford, and quotes him interestingly. He says he asked Ford what he would do if his automobile business went entirely dead, and he went broke. Mr. Ford replied that he would look about for something that a whole lot of people had to have, and h e would find means for manufacturing it better and cheaper than ever before.

"Business," said Mr. Ford, "is only the mechanism for supplying human wants, and the wants keep right on getting bigger and bigger. As fast as you get a want supplied, a bigger want rises to take its place."

Isn't there something for YOU in these quotations?