Just why having a garden-wall, speaking one’s native tongue correctly, or being able to discriminate in matters of art or literature should be the Gallic equivalent of “high hat” would puzzle a Frenchman, but so it often is in the land of the free. And no one knows his way about the land of the free better than the business man. The pressure may vary with his position and the kind of business he is in, but in general he will soon discover that in any business where personal contact is a factor, the people with whom he deals and upon whose good will he has to lean will insist upon his not being too different from themselves. In Greenwich Village a man may wear a flowing tie and a Spanish hat, but it would be suicidal for a bond broker. One has to conform or one is lost. Our two most successful business men are perhaps John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. Rockefeller says it is a “religious duty” to make as much money as you can, and Ford has informed us that “history is bunk.” The one standard of success in business—and perhaps its stark and easily grasped simplicity is what attracts many Americans—is the amount of money you make[Pg 213] from it. There are no foolish nuances. Most Americans are business men. Whatever ideals they may have had in college, and to a considerable extent whatever manners they may have inherited or acquired, they begin to shed, unless their niche is an unusually sheltered one, when the real nature of the excoriating modern business competition dawns upon them. Little by little as they “learn the game” they conform to their customers or associates. VI