Speech

BUSINESS - EDUCATION DAY Address by Delos C. Johns President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis On the BUSINESS - EDUCATION DAY PROGRAM Beaumont High School Auditorium St. Louis, Missouri Wednesday morning, April 29, 1953 Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis BUSINESS -»EDUCATION DAY I am indeed pleased to be here for the purpose of helping to launch this cooperative program which brings together for mutual benefit and advantage the high schools and representative units of business in Metropolitan St. Louis. The pleasure I take in being here is enhanced by the fact that I am always re laxed and comfortable in the company of teachers. My father made his entire career in the service of the public schools of Missouri. Though he spent 40 years or thereabouts acting principally as a school administrator, he nevertheless managed to keep his hand in at classroom work and until the day of his retirement taught at least one high school course. Thus my feeling of being at home among teachers has, I think, a natural and understandable background. In the few minutes at my disposal this morning I am challenged to demon strate an ability to be brief and concise. Considering my rearing in a pedagogic atmosphere and my subsequent training and experience in the law, that may be something of a chore. In order to guard against utter failure and to discipline my inclination toward prolixity, I have had to set some thoughts down on paper. If I had a choice of many places in which to participate in the activities of a Business - Education Day, I could think of nowhere better than St. Louis. A joint program of this kind draws its strength and derives its merits from the strength and merits of the cooperating institutions. The program for this April 29, 1953, in St. Louis was conceived and will be carried out under condi tions which augur its success. The sound strength and merit of our schools, public, private, and parochial, insure maximum contribution from that side. The presence of this great audience of teachers and the fact that you are available for this day of experience and study are sufficient evidence of that. On the business Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 2 - side, this community offers one of the finest cross sections of business and industry to be found anywhere. I have characterized it as "one of the finest cross sections1' not alone because of its otitstanding diversification, but also - and perhaps more - because it is to the credit of the great majority of St. Louis business executives that they typify the new era of enlightened, democratic, public-spirited business management, which is to be sharply contrasted with the regime of autocratic tycoons existing in this country a half century ago. Thus the makings of a good and profitable day are here. The rest is up to us. The objectives of this day.s activities, as 1 conceive them, are the ex change of information and the promotion of mutual understanding. If I were to supply added emphasis in the foregoing statement, I would underscore the words "exchange.1 and "mutual" in an attempt to highlight the bi-lateral nature of this undertaking. Let us examine separately its two complementary parts. Though it is a fascinating story, there is no need to relate to this audience the record of improvement in our material standard of living which has occurred since the turn of the century. Suffice it to say that, despite need for further im provement in certain places and among certain groups of our people, the rest of the world at once admires and envies the general level of our living and the extent to which we are able to satisfy our material wants. Today it is not my purpose to memorialize the genius of American business for advancements in technology, or for the development of multifarious facilities of mass production and distribution, but rather to cast the spotlight for a moment on some of the aspects of our business scene which reflect change in attitudes toward human resources and the problems of human relations. Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 3 - Among the most conspicuous changes in the American business scene during recent decades is the emergence of what may be called professional management composed of men and women technically and specially trained for the roles they will play in the businesses which employ their talents. No longer is it necessary for the business executive to be the owner of the business which he runs, and, as you know, ownership and management are frequently lodged in different groups. Thus management has become an identifiable calling - some like to refer to it as a profession. It embraces many of the sciences and arts, and in varying combinations. There are unique uses for engineers, lawyers, researchers in many fields, economists, accountants, personnel specialists, and a host of other specialties. But in American business of the middle twentieth century the management which does not include a decent understanding of the characteristics of the human resources which it employs and the problems of human relations which these resources spawn - that management, no matter how high its technical competence otherwise, is precariously balanced, to say the least, on the brink of inadequacy. Happily there are relatively few such manage ments, and they are not expected to be found in a group cooperating in the planning and execution of the activities of a Business - Education Day. The fact that so many business men are willing, even eager, to give their time and energy to the organization of Business - Education Day programs and activities must not be written off as mere advertising or sales promotion. Its meaning is far deeper and more significant than that. The problems of human relations which business management recognizes are not only those arising out of the employment of human services. They involve, also, those which are Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 4 - revealed by the knowledge that a successful business can neither afford nor dare to abstract itself from community activities and other activities for the promotion of the general welfare. Evidences of self dedication to the public interest by business organizations and business executives are so numerous and well known as to need no description beyond passing reference, for instance, to such things as the Community Chest, schools, hospitals, and other voluntarily financed and managed institutions and enterprises. These things - and tBeir number is legion - are unique in the American business scene. They are astounding in their cumulative proportions. Think for a moment how many essential things in this and every other community would grind to a stop and how indispensable services would come to a halt if businesses and business men should withdraw their voluntary contributions of funds, time and effort. This high sensitivity on the part of business to the needs of the community for the common good and the efforts of business men to carry their share and more of the burden have been aptly described by a current writer as a kind of voluntary collective action - a sort of collectivism far more powerful and effec tive than Marxist collectivism could ever be. It is one of the most heartening phenomena in the whole picture of contemporary American life. It is partly philanthropic, born of a high sense of moral and spiritual responsibility; it is also, but doubtless secondarily, the result of clear-headed thinking which leads to the protective conclusion that the whole is composed of its parts and that a weak part impairs the vitality of the whole. To the teachers in this audience, I commend to your attention today not only the intricate machines, involved processes, and complicated business organi zations which you will observe. I suggest that you search not only for contributions Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 5 - to the elevation and maintenance of a progressively higher material standard of living, but also for those contributions to the art of living together which are the self-assumed responsibilities of your hosts for the day. Though I realize that this audience is composed predominantly of those on the education side of today's program, I would like to aim a few words at my colleagues on the business side. It was the late President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, I believe, who had a favorite speech in which he described two ancient civilizations, both rich and flourishing in their days: Greece, which still lives so vividly in our memories because its brilliant, turbulent life even yet touches and influences our contemporary civilization in so many ways; and Carthage, whose memory is now dim, whose imprint on our civilization is nearly nil. Greece, as Dr. Lowell would point out, had a civilization which combined commercial pursuits with a profound interest in learning, philosophy, and the arts; while Carthage was purely commercial, with little respect for learning, philosophy, and the arts. Against such a background Dr. Lowell would emblazon the question, HIs America in danger of becoming a Carthage?11 and upon that foundation he would build, with his inimitable eloquence, a dissertation upon the great and growing importance of our educational institutions. I have said that the activities of this Business - Education Day are a bilateral undertaking. By that I meant that the benefits and the gain are not all on one side. While it is to be earnestly hoped that those of you on the education side will find at the end of the day that you have gained in comprehension and understanding of the business side, it is no less to be hoped that we on the business Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - 6 - side will have added to our appreciation of the importance and problems of education. Through such endeavors as this it is not too much to expect that the establishment and maintenance of two-way lines of communication may help to implement the feeling of common interest and mutual objectives which differing economic and cultural groups will discover that they possess when acquaintance, friendship, and understanding are improved. If we are to preserve a strong, free America for ourselves, our children, and our children's children, we must knit our various economic and cultural groups closer together; we must attain a singleness of purpose for the common good; we must never forget that the things of the mind, the heart, and the soul are no less important than material things. For these ends a continuing alliance of business and education - a succession of Business - Education Days - is an unbeatable combination. Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Delos C. Johns (1953, April 28). Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19530429_johns

@misc{wtfs_speech_19530429_johns,
  author = {Delos C. Johns},
  title = {Speech},
  year = {1953},
  month = {Apr},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19530429_johns},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}