ction with the Standard Oil
Company. It was my good fortune to help to bring together the
efficient men who are the controlling forces of the organization and
to work hand in hand with them for many years, but it is they who have
done the hard tasks.

The great majority of my associations were made so many years ago,
that I have reached the age when hardly a month goes by (sometimes I
think hardly a week) that I am not called upon to send some message of
consolation to a family with whom we have been connected, and who have
met with some fresh bereavement. Only recently I counted up the names
of the early associates who have passed away. Before I had finished,
I found the list numbered some sixty or more. They were faithful and
earnest friends; we had worked together through many difficulties, and
had gone through many severe trials together. We had discussed and
argued and hammered away at questions until we came to agree, and it
has always been a happiness to me to feel that we had been frank and
aboveboard with each other. Without this, business associates cannot
get the best out of their work.

It is not always the easiest of tasks to induce strong, forceful men
to agree. It has always been our policy to hear patiently and discuss
frankly until the last shred of evidence is on the table, before
trying to reach a conclusion and to decide finally upon a course of
action. In working with so many partners, the conservative ones are
apt to be in the majority, and this is no doubt a desirable thing when
the mere momentum of a large concern is certain to carry it forward.
The men who have been very successful are correspondingly
conservative, since they have much to lose in case of disaster. But
fortunately there are also the aggressive and more daring ones, and
they are usually the youngest in the company, perhaps few in number,
but impetuous and convincing. They want to accomplish things and to
move quickly, and they don't mind any amount of work or
responsibility. I remember in particular an experience when the
conservative influence met the progressive--shall I say?--or the
daring side. At all events, this was the side I represented in this
case.

ARGUMENTS VERSUS CAPITAL

One of my partners, who had successfully built up a large and
prosperous business, was resisting with all his force a plan that some
of us favoured, to make some large improvements. The cost of extending
the operations of this enterprise was