=Exercise 277=
=Books that will Suggest Topics for Talks=
BOLTON, S. K., Successful Women.
CHAMBERLAIN, J. F., How We Travel.
DRYSDALE, W., Helps for Ambitious Boys; Helps for
Ambitious Girls.
FOWLER, N. C., Practical Salesmanship; Starting in
Life.
HALE, E. E., What Career?
HIGINBOTHAM, H. N., The Making of a Merchant.
LASELLE, M. A. and WILEY, K. E., Vocations for Girls.
LUNDGREN, CHARLES, The New Salesmanship.
LYDE, L. W., Man and his Markets.
MALLON, I. A. S., The Business Girl.
MANSON, G. J., Ready for Business.
MARSDEN, O. S., The Secret of Achievement; The Young
Man Entering Business.
MITTEN, G. E., The Book of the Railway.
MOODY, W. D., Men Who Sell Things.
REED, _et al._, Careers for the Coming Men.
ROCHELEAU, W. F., Transportation.
ROLLINS, F. W., What can a Young Man do?
STOCKWELL, H. G., Essential Elements of Business
Character.
STODDARD, W. O., Men of Business.
THE VOCATION BUREAU, Boston, Vocations for Boys.
(Pamphlets on _The Grocer_, _The Machinist_, _The
Architect_, _etc._)
WHITE, S. J., Business Openings for Girls.
=Exercise 278=
Write the following from dictation:
1
Transportation is a great business as well as
manufacturing or farming. History tells us that very
early people did not have a settled home, but, when
the grass began to give out in one part of the
country, several members of the community, perhaps
whole tribes, took their belongings on their backs and
sought for a new place to settle. It is reasonable to
suppose that they wished to keep up some sort of
intercourse with their friends. At once difficulties
arose, since hostile tribes lived between them and
their old home. It was a brave man, indeed, who
ventured to encounter the dangers of the trip between
the settlements. Such a set of men arose in the
peddlers, who set out alone or in caravans with
articles of produce or manufacture and braved the
dangers even of a desert to exchange what they carried
for the produce of the old home. This is the earliest
form of transportation. Compare this simple form with
the modern railroad, steamship, and express service.
2
CAPTURING THE LATIN AMERICAN TRADE
No empty iteration of the Monroe doctrine, no
reservation of canal privileges, will capture the
trade of Latin America. This will be accomplished only
by efforts to produce and to sell those countries the
kind of goods that they want; measured, labeled, and
packed their way; offered in the language that they
understand; and, moreover, sold at attractive prices.
Our consuls abroad report that in all these essentials
American dealers are deficient and that British,
French, and German manufacturers fill the South
American markets.
To these rivals must be added another, for, in spite
of old South American prejudices against Spain and
Spanish goods, the Spaniards are quietly regaining
their footing in those republics of whose trade a
century ago the home country enjoyed the monopoly. Her
advantages, we know, are a common language and
familiarity with the ways of life and the tastes of
the buyers. Spain produces just the kind of wine,
olive oil, and canned goods that South America wants;
she turns out the kind of paper, the patterns of
cotton goods, the styles of tools and implements, the
clothing, shoes, and weapons used in Latin America;
and the result is that she gets the trade. One-sixth,
at least, of her entire exports goes to her former
possessions.
3
South Africa has been successfully operating an
agricultural parcel post. By its instrumentality gold,
diamonds, minerals, wool, feathers, saddlery, boots
and shoes, confectionery, fruit, plants, seed, butter
and eggs suitably packed, and other farm products are
transported, and the producer and consumer have been
brought together. From the report of the Department of
Posts and Telegraphs we learn that the scheme has
worked well, is a recognized and popular feature of
the postal system, and is entirely feasible. The
sparse settlements and widely scattered population
have not operated to bar its success, as was feared at
the time of its introduction.
4
The duty of applying the remedy for wrecks rests,
primarily, with the railroad managers. And what is the
remedy, and how is it to be applied? It would seem
that there can be but one answer: there must be stern
discipline for taking risks. There must be thorough
instruction as to what risks are and how to avoid
them, just such instruction as the "safety first"
movement is leading up to, but extended to every man
in every department of every road. In addition, the
promise that no engineman will be censured for losing
or not making up time or for not running fast when it
is not considered safe to do so must be changed to the
positive, unequivocal statement that there will be a
substantial penalty for every case of running fast
when it is not safe to do so.--_Railway Age Gazette._
5
More and more attention, each year, is being given by
the railroad managers to the locating of new kinds of
industry along their lines. The roads in the West and
the South nearly all have efficient industrial
departments, land departments, or immigration
departments. Their men seek out new industries, meet
the steamers to tempt immigrants into their region,
arrange for the purchase or rental of lands, and get
together reports of the soil, the products, and the
advantages of any desired location. Perhaps the
greatest effort, however, is bent upon the location of
new factories along the route. In one year one
southern railroad induced more than seven hundred men
to establish industries along its lines, after the
railroads had made complete and painstaking
investigation of all the conditions that would
confront the prospective manufacturers.