these words, "Don't scold, rather enthuse;" or he would say, "Appeal to the hearts of the men." I first learned lessons along these lines from George H. Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post; but those were confirmed and emphasized by what I have experienced with W. B. Wilson. Manufacturers and other employers would come to him to discuss questions of wages and hours, and he would always courteously discuss these two things with them. After the interview was over, however, and these manufacturers had left the room, he would say: "Oh, how they miss the point! It's not wages and hours, as such, in which wage earners of the country are interested. Wages and hours are but temporary means to an end. Wage earners are no different from the rest of us. We are all actuated by the same basic motives. The three great words of life are self-preservation, self-reproduction, and self-respect. These are fundamental with all normal persons, whether employers or wage workers. Oh, may the time come when the employer will realize that it is not wages or hours that the wage workers are interested in; but rather, they are interested in self-preservation, self-reproduction, and self-respect! When employers grasp this fact, and so arrange industry as to enable the wage worker to work out his self-preservation, self-reproduction, and self-respect, then the question of wages and hours will solve itself. We talk about co-operation. We all want co-operation, but co-operation will come only as employer and wage worker unite in developing means whereby both shall have and enjoy self-preservation, self-reproduction, and self-respect, CHAPTER X BUSINESS CYCLES IN FORMER times, when the telegraph, railroads, and other modern conveniences were unknown and monetary systems were only of the simplest type, cycles in the business world took the form of "years of plenty" and "years of famine"; but with the advent of modern industrial improvements and business methods we have gradually arrived at a more or less systematic, cyclical condition of affairs affecting the commercial and financial interests of the entire world. As such a cycle consumed the major portion of Mr. Wilson's life, a description is worth while. All history has been marked by distinct economic cycles. Although of different durations, each cycle has consisted of four distinct periods, namely: (1) A Period of Prosperity; (2) A Period of Decline; (4) A Period of Improvement. The idea that reckless prosperity can ever become permanent and will not be followed by a business. depression, or the idea that there can be an unlimited period of depression without being followed by renewed activity, shows both ignorance of economics and utter inexperience in the business world. Theoretically, there should be a state where everybody is always prosperous and nobody over-extends, where the cost of living is reasonable, and the wage earner has a margin to save for old age. Yet it is true that we have never so far seen a condition so equable. As above indicated, if the business of every country were left to progress along a normal line of growth (such as is represented by XY on the Babson Composite Plot), neither being inflated beyond what it should be nor declining below its proper mean, there would be no cycles, and panics, depressions, and booms would be things of the past; but up to the present we have not experienced this. Nevertheless, the varying periods continue less violent in the older and more conservative countries like England and France, although radical and marked in our own comparatively new continent where the temperament of the people is so energetic, impatient, and impulsive. There are various changes in the business conditions of our country which are generally known as minor cycles. These are of a duration of only a very few years (witness such depressions as those of 1884, 1903, etc.); but these are only incidents in the great general or major cycles of about twenty years' duration-1837-1857, 1857-1873, 1873-1893, and 1893-1914, the last two of which had an important effect upon Mr. Wilson's life. Let us examine the various features connected with each period. Let us imagine ourselves in the midst of an era of improvement, such as was incident to the period beginning about 1878 or 1898, at a time when Mr. Wilson and his associates had plenty of work. Let us assume that the accumulated surplus on the merchants' shelves has now been sold, and new orders are coming in, first with a measured increase, and later like an avalanche. The workmen who a few years before were despondent and out of work are now carrying the "full dinner pail and singing a blithesome song." Over time and "double shifts" will soon be the order of the day. Railroad affairs, so long in a dormant or unsatisfactory condition, are now awakened into life,-first for repairs and equipment, then for improvements, and later on for extensions and double trackings. Consumption now exceeds production, causing a continued rise in prices, merchants buy freely, and stock up with large bills of goods, fully believing that the increasing demand will enable them to sell much merchandise at a handsome profit. In consequence of this new demand, the smaller firms begin to expand, hire more elaborate quarters, add to their working force, and the larger established companies plan new factory buildings and great campaigns for a permanently enlarged business. Right at this point the tendency to over-build and over-expand appears, especially among those who have not given sufficient attention to fundamental conditions, and watched bank clearings, foreign trade, crops, etc., or all combined as shown on the Composite Plot. The big interests plan not only for present needs and growth, but for many years hence, on the supposition that business will increase indefinitely at the same rapid rate. The more conservative resist at first the temptation to expand unduly; but later, seeing the other concerns preparing to take the lion's share of the extra demand for goods in their line, increase their own plants to keep pace with the expansion, The cut-throat competition of a few years previous is almost forgotten in the effort to fill orders at fancy prices. This is the period when competition gives way to consolidation, and the manufacturing and other interests, tired of price and rate wars, naturally tend to co-operation inasmuch as there is more than enough business for all. They, in fact, inaugurate plans for close alliances and consolidation of interest which will do away, as far as they are concerned, with the disastrous times they have lately experienced. Such a period of railroad "community of interests" and trust forming existed in 1870, when Billy Wilson as a boy landed at Ellis Island, and then again in 1890, and later in 1910. The beginning of this real activity is the sign for the foreign population to rush for the "boom" country. Many laborers, who had a few years before crowded the outgoing steamships to return with their savings to the "Old Country" where living was cheap, now return to take advantage of the great demand for labor and good wages. At first the immigration figures show a small increase, then a larger increase, until finally every incoming ocean steamer is crowded, and the steamship authorities, intent on making up for lost time, search high and low for European peasants to swell the lists of those who make up their steerage traffic as they come to take advantage of our prosperity. Skilled labor also enjoys particular advantages during such periods, as competitive bidding for its hire becomes more and more keen. As the increased demand raises the prices of labor, workers become more and more independent, labor unions and "walk |