Evening Star Newspaper, April 30, 1929, Page 45

THE EVENING STAR,” WASHINGTON,” D.” 0 TUESDAY, APRID %0, T9%9. ¢ THOUSAND MEN looked over a thousand walls! That was back in 1912. It was before parcel post and a graduated in- come tax . . the day of the five-cent loaf, livery stables and isolated business. Every business and industry had its Great Wall of China, and lived within it! Coal knew little about lumber. Lumber didn’t worry about steel. Steel was, oblivious to corn. Corn had no thought for cotton. And cotton had no interest in coal. The man who sold shoes in Chicago wouldn’t believe that his business might feel the effect of automotive volume in Detroit, might rise or fa} with the fruit industry in California, migh't be measured by the ups and downs of Kansas wheat. Then a thousand business leaders met in Washington. They looked out, over and beyomd their walls. They saw that business had common interests, common problems, common duties to each other .. and to the public, They founded the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. That was seventeen years ago. Since then, American business has come to realize the full value of cooperation. The American business man has come to sec the benefits that result when once a year he can step out of his own office and listen to what is being said in the offices of the most alert business men in the country. He has learned to lift his eyes from the pile of papers on his own desk and to take long, illuminating looks at what is happening on the desks of men in other branches of industry. All this in seventeen years. Today, in Washington, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States is holding its Seventeenth Annual Meeting. Three thousand men . . representing ‘every branch of - industry in 4/l sections of the country and from abroad .« are meeting together for the common good. For five days these men will talk over . . the business problems of the nation. Under the general topic of “The Growing Responsibilities of Business,” they will move toward the elimination of obstacles to industrial progress, toward the removal of barriers to an ever- quickening industrial machinery . . in the ultimate perfection of which will lay the foundation for continued national pros- perity. ? For five days, they will dig into the diversified problems of manufacture, finance, distribution, foreign commerce, com- munication, transportation, civic development, organization ser- vice, natural resources production. . They will work together for the common good .. to chart a course in the air, over the land, across the water, in our factories, on our farms, throughout 4/l the branches of industry, that will aid in bringing business more surely, more safely, more wisely to its ultimate goal. And the findings and conclusions, the achievements of this business congress, will dramatically index the sign posts’along the road to business prosperity for 1929. and work over ) A thousand men looked over a thousand walls . -in Washington For five days three thousand men. Back in 1912, such work needed an interpreter. Nation’s Business, official publication of the National Chamber, was estab- lished to fill that need. Nation’s Business has been built on the faith that a2 magazine was needed .. and wanted .. to carry the story of an industrial progress never before known in the history of man- kind. And its dramatic growth and acceptance by American business is a living justification of that faith. In seventeen years, Nation’s Business has sprouted from a four-page pamphlet with less than a thousand readers to a full- fledged magazine with more than 300,000 regular subscribers. Each year, as an extra dividend to its subscribers and avail- able at cost for distribution among non-readers, Nation’s Business prints its Extra Edition. Not a dry, dull, dusty record of eco- nomic proceedings .. but a moving, vitally important and complete picture of the Annual Meeting. ; There are 900,000 business men in America today who are represented, but unable to be present themselves, this week in Washington. These men are interested in and will be affected by the things that are said and accomplished here. It is for them that the 1929 Extra Edition of Nation’s Business is now being prepared. It is to them that it will carry the mes- sage of the 17th Annual Meeting. And it is because of them that it automatically becomes a business document of first and per- manent importance. 'NATION’S BUSINESS PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT WASHINGTON BY 'MERLE THORPE, Editor ' THE UNITED STATES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE