Edison and Commercial Availability

A man less shrewd might have raved against "the unappreciative public," but not Edison. On the contrary, he made the decision upon which his later remarkable achievements in large measure depend, viz., his inventive faculties henceforth were to be devoted only to things for which there was a genuine demand.

"The point in which I am different from most inventors," said Mr. Edison not long since, "is that I have, besides the usual inventor's make-up, the bump of practicality as a sort of appendix, the sense of the business or money value of an invention. Oh, no, I didn't have it naturally. It was pounded into me by some pretty hard knocks. Most inventors who have an idea never stop to think whether their invention will be salable when they get it made. Unless a man has plenty of money to throw away, he will find that making inventions is about the costliest amusement he can find. Commercial availability is the first thing to consider."

Reflection Performs an Essential Service

Success in the conduct of business requires sound, cautious judgment. No man can get on, of course, without alertness of mind, the power to think of things to do. But there is no man who can carry the responsibility of building a business, or directing the work of other men unless he has a shrewd sense of what it is safe, wise, and profitable to do.

The man of phenomenal creative power, therefore, requires an extremely heavy balance wheel. Such a balance wheel, the machine of analysis and trained judgment, is reflection. Under its control the native impulse to act upon whatever idea may have captivated the mind is to some extent checked and thrown back upon itself. Selective thinking ensues; in consequence of its searching tests numberless ideas of inferior

worth are sternly subordinated or weeded entirely from the mind so that the most practical may hold sway.

Andrew Carnegie on Business Judgment

The business man might of course put all his ideas into operation as they were first conceived and try them out by the test of actual experience. Experience, though valuable, is proverbially a dear teacher, and her charge ought to be anticipated rather than recklessly incurred in testing impracticable ideas. Such ideas can no more produce profits than figs can grow upon thistles. Their ultimate end is disaster, and the chief purpose of reflection is to restrict such disaster to the mental world; to have done there with impractical ideas, rather than have them externalized as costly mistakes in brick and mortar, steel girders or long-term contracts.

"Those who fail may say that this or that man had great advantages, the fates were propitious, the conditions were favorable to him. Now, there is very little in this," declares Andrew Carnegie; "one man lands in the middle of a stream which he tries to jump, and is swept away, and another tries the same feat, and lands upon the other side.

"Examine these two men.

"You will find that the one who failed, lacked judgment; he had not trained himself; could not jump; he took the chances. He was like the young lady who was asked if she could play the violin; she said she 'did not know, she had never tried.' Now, the other man who jumped the stream had carefully trained himself; he knew about how far he could jump, and there was one thing 'dead sure' with him. He knew he could, at any rate, jump and try again. He had shown. judgment."

Because among the numerous projects available it selects those most likely to succeed, reflection constitutes a wonderful short-cut to results.

The "Sure Thing" Delusion

The selection of projects most likely to succeed, while essential, does not satisfy the cupidity of the simple-minded expecting the discovery of a highly profitable "sure thing." These persons are beset by a vain delusion. Changing conditions in business, as every man who makes money sooner or later comes to recognize, while they provide the profit-seeker with opportunity, afford him no real guarantee that his ventures will prove successful. Should he take hold, he incurs risk.

Since prices do fluctuate, what is easier than to buy low and sell high, and thereby reap a fortune? Nothing, so runs the amateur's opinion. And he has no difficulty in pointing out what would have been had he dealt in wheat or copper or stocks. In actual practice, price changes prove difficult to forecast and have entailed disaster incessantly to the unskilled operator.

Inventions have brought wealth to their respective inventors in only a very small percentage of cases, while millions of dollars are squandered in the promotion of devices which are complete failures from the business standpoint. Neither do improved methods of production represent certain gain, since continual outlays for experiment and installation are involved and competition is thereby sharpened. Nor does the exploitation of natural resources guarantee gain with no possibility of loss. In the more highly speculative ventures, such as gold-mining, it is questionable if more wealth has not been wasted in non-paying mines than has been secured from rich strikes.

The Risks of Business

In short, whatever be the source of profits utilized, risk characterizes every business enterprise. "It is often a heartbreaking undertaking," observes John D. Rockefeller, "to

convince men that the perfect occasion which would lead to the perfect opportunity would never come even if they waited until the crack o' doom." The wise executive recognizes risk as a factor which can never be avoided and, instead of deceiving himself with the idea of a "sure thing," he accepts each venture as a chance whose hazard is to be guarded against and reduced by deliberate, systematic thought.

The existence of risk means nothing more than that certain essential factors are shrouded in uncertainty. Its systematic reduction calls for a mind able to carve its way into this maze and lay bare the factors at issue.

This power and the habit of anaylsis was developed to a high degree in Abraham Lincoln and its possession was undoubtedly the chief cause of his astonishing advancement.

His mind (we are told by W. H. Herndon, who was for many years Lincoln's law partner) ran back behind facts, principles, and all things to their origin and first cause to that point where forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop in the street and analyze a machine. Clocks, omnibuses, languages, paddle-wheels, and idioms never escaped his observation and analysis. Before he could form an idea of anything, before he would express his opinion on a subject, he must know its origin and history in substance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know it inside and outside, upside and downside. He was remorseless in his analysis of facts and principles. When all these exhaustive. processes had been gone through with he could form an idea and express it; but no sooner. He had no faith in, and no respect for, say-so's, come though they might from tradition or authority. Thus everything had to run through the crucible, and be tested by the fires of his analytic mind; and when at last he did speak, his utterances rang out with the clear and keen ring of gold upon the counters of the understanding.

The Problem-Solving Type of Mind

This power which Lincoln cultivated so zealously of thinking things out thoroughly, the average man perhaps

envies, yet seldom will he subject himself to the discipline required for making it his own. Although popularly termed thinking animals, hardly any of us really like to think; whenever possible we all dodge the task. Nevertheless, the guidance of the large-scale modern enterprise raises problems which only persistent thought can solve and it is to be noticed that the executives who under the new régime advance themselves into captaincies of industry have not dodged the task. These men in business exhibit the same problem-solving type of mind as did Lincoln in politics.

In his thirst for information, E. H. Harriman dug deep into the inner workings of his railroads, studied rates, towns, territories, bridges, locomotives, rails, ties, and men. Charles Mellen, when unexpectedly appointed railroad superintendent, proceeded to make his home in the switchyards, baggage cars, and roundhouses, counseling with switchmen, trainmen, engineers, firemen, and roundhouse foremen, and in general putting in eighteen to twenty hours' intensive study daily. So insatiable in analyzing the Great Northern's prospects was James J. Hill that his knowledge of its territory became almost that of a stage-driver. While other men were regarding the idea of a transcontinental railroad as entirely chimerical, Collis P. Huntington proposed that a definite survey be made, and supplied a large portion of the funds required. When Grover Cleveland accepted the trusteeship of the reorganized Equitable Life Assurance Society he studied the matter in his thorough, painstaking way until, as one of the young life insurance presidents used to say, "the old man knew more about insurance than any of us." Convinced years ago that science was to play an important rôle in steel-making, Charles Schwab says: "In my own house I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know. Although I had received no technical education,