The Moses Ike Oganization1
HIST 1302
BIG IDEAS FROM BIG BUSINESS
The 1920s in America was a decade characterized by unprecedented
success for American business. Salesmanship, advertising, consumerism,
consumer credits and all other business ideals grew by leaps and bounds. Profits
were high and became the chief incentive for businesses. By 1925, the
businessman became the most influential person in the nation. “This is a
business country,” declared Vice-president Calvin Coolidge. President Hardy’s as
well as Coolidge’s administration promoted a business government and free
enterprise became an article of faith. Edward E. Purinton’s article, “big ideas from
big business,” from which this essay is based on, illustrates popular as well as
unconventional conceptions and potentials behind great businesses. His article
was published in 1921 and contains a description of the nature and composition
of American businesses in the 1920s. Edward E. Purinton can be said to have
been impressed or overwhelmed by the business revolution that pervaded the
nation around this period, motivating him to produced an article that designates
businesses as the savior of the community. Edward E. Purinton article can be
found in the Annals of America, volume 16, pages 298-303. He tends to educate
his readers on the intrinsic aspects of business from a refined and unprejudiced
point of view. According to Purinton, well conceived, managed and conducted
businesses hold the key to mankind’s redemption and ultimate salvation.
Edward E. Purinton based his facts on personal tours and examinations of
twelve of the worlds biggest businesses. U.S. Steel Corporation; International
Harvester Company; Swift & Company; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company;
National City Bank; National Cash Register Company; Western Electric
Company; Sears, Roebuck and Company; H.J. Heinz Company; Peabody Coal
Company; Statler Hotels; Wanamaker Stores. These companies, which
represents America’s largest businesses of the 1920s, conveyed a new
conception of modern business activities. Commercial activities exploded under
The Moses Ike Oganization2
the shadows of these corporations and a new culture of consumerism was born.
One that has a significant impact on the lives and consumer adventures of the
people of America. These business organizations re-shaped society and Purinton
drew a few general conclusions regarding the best type of business house and
businessman.
“The finest game is business,” said Purinton.
Everybody is allowed to
participate. There exist an equality of opportunity but not necessarily an equality
of results. Providence determines who is worthy to wear the crown. That is to
say, one alone can determine the size and speed of one’s success, which is
likely dependent on how much hard work one put in. The soundest science is
business. All scientific observation is reduced to market survey and all
experiment is translated to action, and by action proved and disproved in the
form of profit or losses. Business is essentially a more pragmatic form of science.
The fullest education is business. Business constitutes a blend of study, work
and life. In the school of business, one teaches oneself and learns from mistakes
of real life. The fairest opportunity is business. A large business house provides
one a better, quicker chance to get ahead than anywhere else on earth. History
reflects the biographies of businessmen, how they struggled and triumphed, and
how one can. Business brings out the man in one and there is no buried talent in
a modern business organization. Edward E. Purinton pointed out these analogies
between business and several aspects of human life and beliefs.
After examining the world’s greatest business plants, Purinton found out
that a large variety of everyday lessons of popular interest can be gained from
within this business houses and from the lives of their founders. He suggested a
few. The biggest thing about big success is the price. By price, he did not mean
money alone, but time, thought, energy, economy, purpose, devotion, study,
sacrifice and patience. One can measure the potential size of one’s success by
how much one is willing to pay for it. Business also teaches that the best way to
keep customers is to make friends. Customer-based Companies like Sears
understands that one chief asset of a business is goodwill. Consumer confidence
The Moses Ike Oganization3
is essential to stay in business because only common experiences will unite the
laborer and the capitalist. Also, the pleasure of money is not in having or
spending it, but rather in getting it and giving it away. Judge Gary of U.S. steel
and John Wanamaker of Wanamaker Stores Co created organizations that
provides benefits for their employees. The heart of Julius Rosenwald is in the
schools he established for poor children and the relief work he founded among
Jews. The heart of great businessmen is in some form of philanthropy enabled
by his money.
Founders of great businesses around this time also proved that age is
noting to a live man. John H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register
Company was already in his middle age before he started his company in the
early 1920s. Purpose is the main virtue. A businessman is young until he dies.
Great men like J. Pierpont Morgan, James J. Hill, Henry Ford, Walt Mason and
many others didn’t really get going until past forty. Edward E. Purinton also
proclaimed the business industry as the ultimate savior of the society. The
decade of the 1920s in America witnessed a decadence of morality and increase
in criminal activities. Now the perpetrators of these acts had nothing doing.
Purinton argued that putting everybody to work and teaching them how to do it
well, takes way the chief components of wrongdoing. Crime and irresponsible
acts are abetted by the consciousness of idleness and loneliness. Always busy,
Thomas A. Edison once said that he never had time to break a moral law. By mid
1920s, the brightest and coolest spots in the community were generally the
community houses and centers built and maintained by this great American
businesses. Happiness for a human lies in his work and nowhere else.
Well, not all study and analysis is completely perfect from a critical point of
view. American businesses at that time had undeniable huge beneficial impacts
but not without some shortcomings. But one fact is clear; its positives outweigh
its negatives. Though it would amount to prejudice if one totally ignore the bad
conducts that were present within the business environment. Earlier in the 20th
century, business tycoons were regarded as robber barons. The economy
concentrated in the hands of a few, as this tycoons tried to monopolize the
The Moses Ike Oganization4
market system. Market prices were purely profit-oriented and greed provided
enough incentive for prices to skyrocket. The business industry flourished at the
expense of the people. A society of consumers bore the burden. Woodrow
Wilson’s Clayton anti-trust act of 1914, which made efforts to eradicate some of
these practices, further exposed this truth. There was also an unfair exploitation
of workers, resulting in the growth of organized labor. All these do not reflect
salvation as illustrated by Edward E. Purinton. The painting of the business
industry as an agent of social redemption is clearly falsified by this accounts.
Critics at this time would say that Edward E. Purinton was clearly delusional.
They would argue that he portrays a perfect opposite of reality, very far from the
truth.
Purinton’s article possesses great truth in content. Even though he did not
discuss the demerits of a business world in the 1920s, his reflections were quite
legitimate. The industrial explosion of the 1920s was fueled by American’s ideal
of rugged individualism. Individuals who worked hard and made good use of their
talents succeeded. These group headed the business revolution. Men like
Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan were purely entrepreneurs. Men who
reformed society and generated wealth for themselves and also for their
employees. The workers and their families constituted the society and so the
wealth of businesses trickled down on them. Everybody benefitted but not
entirely equally. But the more work, idea, skills and entrepreneurship one put to
the table, the more wealth one make. This phenomenon is embodied in the
theory of Social Darwinism as popularized by Herbert Spencer. Surely, the weak
and unproductive is left behind but that is justified. The idea of social mobility
states that anyone who studies hard, works hard, saves, invest in an enterprise
or make good use of one’s talent can get ahead. This notion tends to eliminate
class-consciousness, as everyone now posses sole responsibility of one’s
success. This is true and was proven by the founders of the big businesses that
emerged in the 1920s
The birth and growth of modern business activities and its implications opened
The Moses Ike Oganization5
up all kinds of opportunities. Past incompetence was replaced by new ideas and
creativity. Fired with zeal, men became born-crusaders with the task of exploring
all corners of commerce for the purpose of profit and reforming communities. The
playing field is leveled. Adam Smith’s philosophy of free market is truly a working
concept. The streets of Manhattan, New York wouldn’t have been filled with
skyscrapers today if not for the big businesses that sprang up in the 1920s. As
bright lights of new industries pierced through major cities in the Roaring 20s, the
foundations of future America was laid. America as a commercial power was reborn. Big ideas from big businesses re-invented new ways of life. America
transformed from a sermonizing and theorizing country to a doing, thinking and
having country. This is evident in today’s modern commercial society. And just as
Edward E. Purinton puts it, “Business is the savior of the community.”