Aside from narrowness of interests, the business man, from the nature of his major occupation, is apt to have short views and to distrust all others. It was once said, as superlative praise, of the late J. P. Morgan, one of the most public spirited and far-sighted business men we have had, that he “thought in ten-year periods.” Most business men think—and[Pg 20] do well to do so as business men—in one or two-year periods; the business man cares nothing for the tendency of what he is doing. This has been emphasized in the American business man by the vast extent of the natural resources with which he has had to deal and the recuperative powers of an active people in a half-settled continent. If, as he did in the northern Mississippi Valley, he can make his personal profit by ripping the forests off the face of half a dozen states in a decade, he is content to let those who come later look after themselves. Nor is he any more solicitous about the social results of his activities. Obviously, what interests the business man as a business man is a free hand to gather wealth as quickly as may be, combined with a guarantee that society shall protect him in that wealth once he has gathered it. He may steal the water resources of a dozen states but, once they are stolen, he is a defender of the Constitution and the sanctity of contract. It is not hard to understand why the United States is the most radical country in the world in its business methods and the most conservative in its political! Preoccupation with profit, again, tends to make a business man, as business man, blind to the æsthetic quality in life. A beautiful bit of scenery, such as Montauk Point, is for him merely a good site for a real-estate development; a waterfall is merely water-power. America’s most successful business man, Mr. Ford, while rolling up millions by the hundreds in profits, was content to turn out what was, perhaps, the ugliest car on the market. It was only when his profits were threatened that he turned to the consideration of beauty, and he would not have done so had it not promised profit. No sane business man in charge of a large[Pg 21] business would do so. It is much the same with the cultivation of the business man’s mind. Time is money, and anything which takes time and does not give business results is waste. But if you tell him that if he shows an interest in Keats he can probably land Smith’s account—Smith being a queer, moony guy—or that if he will go to hear the “Rheingold” he can make a hit with that chap he has long been after, the effect will be magical. Innumerable advertisements of books or teaching of foreign languages will easily illustrate what I mean.