(Continued from page 56.)

and finance from the fetters imposed by previous laws rather than definite constructive measures. The interpretation given for so many years to the national banking act, that it prohibited the creation of branches by national banks, is corrected in the new law by the definite provision in Section 25, that any national banking association with capital and surplus of $1,000,000 or more may apply to the Federal Reserve Board for authority to establish branches in foreign countries or in dependencies of the United States 'for the furtherance of the foreign commerce of the United States.'

"The privilege to establish foreign agencies is granted also to the federal reserve banks which are created by the new law. Whether this will be done or not will naturally depend upon the views of the Federal Reserve Board and of the directorates of the local federal reserve banks. It is not impossible that such branches might be established first at London and afterwards in one or two other financial centers, for the purpose of handling foreign bills or accepting bills drawn by the federal reserve banks in the United States."

AMERICAN FRUIT IN FOR

O

EIGN BASKETS

NE of the principal reasons why American fruit is not filling the baskets of the European consumer is because a box of California oranges or lemons, or a barrel of Oregon apples, has to be handled and rehandled seven times in transportation. From the fruit orchards of the Pacific Coast to the markets of Europe there is a stretch of 6,000 miles. A writer in The Annalist, who points out these deterrents to our foreign fruit trade, anticipates a tremendous boom in this trade with the opening of the Panama Canal. California's fruit ships, he claims, will run from port to port with unbroken cargoes. Rehandling will be practically eliminated. Our fruit will arrive in London or Paris in better condition than that which comes from Spain or Italy, or Northern Africa, Europe's present chief sources of supply.

"We have been preparing this market for some years by teaching Europeans the excellence of our fruit. It has been rather high in price, but it has sold readily because of its superior quality. Shipping all the way by water with a minimum of handling will reduce the percentage of decayed fruit. This and the lessened cost of transportation will cut the price, and our fruits will be not only better but cheaper than any on the foreign markets to-day. The growers of the Pacific Coast are all striving to enlarge the yields of their groves and orchards. The foreign markets will give them the bigger outlet for their crops that they need. It is predicted that our fruits will soon become an important item in our export balance sheet."

Goodycar No-Rim-Cut tires dropped 28 per cent. last year. Now these tires-once the high-priced tires -undersell 16 other makes.

Some makes sell nearly one-half higher. A number of makers charge for three tires about what we charge for four.

It's a rather queer situation. Goodyear tires hold top place in Tiredom. They have more prestige, more users than any other tire. They have four great features found in no rival make.

Yet 16 makes, by their extra price, assume an extra quality-a better tire than Goodyears.

There Is No Such Tire There is no better tire than Goodyears. That is self-evident. A better tire would outsell Goodyears. Men would quickly find it out.

Higher prices mean smaller output, ancient methods or equipment, or a larger profit. They mean that Goodyear prices dropped so fast and far that others could not follow. Our multiplied output, our new equipment, our efficient methods did it. In no other factory could equal tires be built at the Goodyear cost.

And

3

we last year pared our profits down to 61⁄2 per cent. Those are the reasons -and the only reasons-for those many higher prices.

Exclusive Features

These four features can be found in Goodyear tires alone. They have won hundreds of thousands of users -saved millions of dollars in upkeep. And not an extra-price tire offers one of them.

Our No-Rim-Cut feature which completely ends rim-cutting in the only faultless way.

Our "On-Air" cure, which saves the countless blow-outs due to wrinkled fabric. This one extra process adds to our tire cost $1,500 daily.

Our rubber rivets-hundreds of which are formed in each tire to combat tread separation.

All-Weather treads-our tough, double-thick anti-skid. So flat and smooth that it runs like a plain tread, but it grasps wet roads with deep, sharp resistless grips.

. AKRON, OHIO

Τ

Don't pay more for tires which lack these features. Almost any dealer, if you ask him, will give you Goodyear tires

Akron, Ohio Mexico City, Mexico

Dealers Everywhere

A Great Future For American Fruit.

HE California lemon, we learn, is steadily pushing the Sicilian fruit off the American market. The opening of the Canal will eventually kill the New York market for Sicilian lemons. "Not only that, but the American lemon will compete with the Sicilian even in the Italian markets when the shipments can be made all the way by water." Methods of handling oranges have been brought to a high stage of efficiency in the California groves during recent years. Decay in transit has been reduced materially. Much of the improvement in the handling of the citronous fruits is

(1585)

61

due to the careful studies of experts of the United States Government. Only the difficulties of transportation, we are informed, have kept American fruits from conquering European markets.

"It is this incessant care that has made the American orange famous wherever it has been introduced. In England the only complaint has been that the supply was insufficient. There has been no objection to the rather high price-9 to 12 cents each for the California seedless or navel orange.

"The apple growers of the Pacific Northwest are quite as careful with their product as the orange and lemon producers of Southern California. It is this capacity for taking infinite pains that has

Patents, Trade Marks, Copyrights

MSS. SUCCESSFULLY PLACED Difficult and rejected cases specially solicited. No misleading in

Criticised, Revised, Typed. Send for leaflet L. References: Edwin Markham and others. Established 1890. UNITED LITERARY PRESS, 123 5th Ave., New York

ducements made to secure business. Over 30 years' active practice. Personal attention guaranteed. Write for terms-Book

free. Address, E. G. SIGGERS, Patent Lawyer, Suite 20, N. U. Building, Washington, D. C.

IMPORTANT! When notifying CURRENT OPINION of a change in address, subscribers should give both the old and the new address. This notice should reach us about two weeks before the change is to take effect.

put American fruit where it is on the foreign markets, and it is this same patience and thoroness that will place it beyond competition abroad when the long overland journey and the consequent rehandling are eliminated."

F

One Hundred Million Pounds of Prunes.

RUIT-GROWING is rapidly becoming one of the most important national industries. Our total fruit exports, says the writer in The Annalist, came to nearly $33,000,000 in 1913. Our export lemon trade has grown from practically nothing to $400,000 in two years. The average export of apples amounts to $11,417,000 per annum; oranges, $3,300,000; of prunes "that great staple dainty of the unwealthy"-we are now exporting not far from 100,000,000 pounds a year, an item of more than $5,500,000 annually. If the significance of these figures is grasped, the writer points out, it can easily be understood what a tremendous benefit the opening of the Canal will prove to the fruit industry of the Pacific Coast. The great distance to Europe, he says, is no deterrent to commerce, even in perishable products, if the excessive number of transshipments is eliminated.

"With the narrowing of the cattle ranges and the scant widening of the grain acreage, America is becoming more and more dependent on its fruit supply. Twenty years ago a failure of the fruit crops would not have been really serious; to-day it would be a calamity.

"Fruit makes up the largest single item of transcontinental tonnage. With the opening of the Panama Canal undoubtedly a large proportion of these overland shipments will be diverted to the all-water route, but how much is as yet impossible to conjecture. This change in the paths of transportation will not affect Florida to any great extent. Florida ranks next to California in the production of oranges and lemons, and finds a ready market in the country along the Northern Atlantic seaboard and as far west as the Mississippi. In the latter region Florida and California compete on almost an equal footing.

"When a woman, without anger or other marked emotion, asks you a question and looks straight into your eyes while you answer her, you can ordinarily rest assured that your answer-no matter what it is-will not materially affect her heartbeats. But if she cloaks with their lids or turns away her eyes, the meanwhile manifesting absorbed interest in her fan, it's a pretty safe bet that her question has a well-defined purpose and that she awaits your answer with some degree of eagerness and suspense. There is a substantial equivalent for this in the conduct of the average buyer. If a buyer looks searchingly at you and asks a pertinent question, such as the lowest price you can make him, the chances are that he is merely accumulating statistics for his card file. But if he toys with a paper knife and looks out of the window when he asks his question, the probabilities are that you have succeeded in getting pretty close to the last lap of a sale."

"I was on the point of being wafted out of my chair and out of my mind like thistledown when I noticed that great beads of perspiration were breaking out on this salesman's forehead. It was a chilly morning and the steam wasn't on in the directors' room. In spite of his easy and ingenuous manner this salesman was using the last ounce in him. After all, he was only a salesman-a very good salesman but a very human and commencing to be a very sweaty one. spell was broken, and I commenced to ask him questions. When he seemed to be approaching a climax in his argument, I interrupted him with a question and made him answer it before he proceeded. At the first question he looked annoyed, at the second he stammered, and at the fifth he commenced to gather up his

papers.

The

SECRETS OF SALESMANSHIP

ARCO WAND

VACUUM CLEANER

all large cities.

Write Department C-2

816-822

S. Michigan Ave. Chicago

"There you have it. Don't let a salesman pull off his sales-talk exactly the way he has it planned; spoil his climaxes just as a piping voice from the gallery sometimes spoils an intense and convincing dramatic situation on the stage. But don't ask obvious questions, because a good salesman is usually ready for them. . .

"When a buyer is up against a good salesman, he should break up the salesman's attack at frequent intervals. Interrupting the salesman by asking noncommittal questions is one way; another is to check the salesman on any line of talk that does not interest the buyer. If a buyer, like a judge in speaking to a lawyer, will say 'Mr. Salesman, pass on from that point to any other you care to present,' he will ordinarily throw the salesman out of his stride and strip off the artifices of salesmanship."

63

SUPERSTITIONS OF WALL

B

STREET

ANKERS, investment dealers, and Stock Exchange men, dealing with cold hard facts every day of their lives, are seldom the victims of the superstitions that are current in more emotional professions.

Yet a new set of superstitions has grown up in Wall Street and other financial districts of the United States, according to a financial writer in the New York Evening Post. The cynical and hard-headed business man is often unaware of those superstitions that aid him psychologically to put through daring deals, this writer points out, but take one of them off his guard and tell him your belief in lucky coins, hoodoos, blue Mondays and black Fridays, in the virtue of the number seven and the

F

ANNING,

The Joke-He Never Thought of B.V. D. mopping and grimacing, "Phew! how hot," won't keep you cool, when the sun grills. B. V. D. will. It lifts a burden from your body and weight from your mind. You forget the heat, because you're too busy "enjoying life"-lounging, dancing, a game of golf, a bout at tennis, watching a baseball Remember that all "Athletic" Underwear is not B. V. D. For your own welfare, fix the B. V. D. Red Woven Label in your mind and make the salesman show it to you. That positively safeguards you. On every B. V. D. garment is sewed

game.

mischief of the number thirteen possesses. Soon he will reply in kind: "The trader is not at all a rarity who carries in his pocket a trinket of some sort, which is his amulet. Intrinsically it may be worth a dime; to the owner it is priceless. Not long ago an eminently successful floor trader died; of all his possessions, the one most sought as a keepsake by his fellow traders was an old silver dollar which had been his pocket piece all through his Stock Exchange career. To that dollar was not attributed the successful trader's wits and judgment, but it was the embodiment of his luck, and as such his inheritor made it a precious possession.

"Some speculators begin a week with a trade in their pet stock. Precisely as certain shop-keepers will accept no payment from the first buyer who appears on Monday morning, they think this will ward off evil and bring good fortune. It is strange and at the same time pathetic, that certain individuals should have lost positions and friends because of a whispered suggestion that they themselves were hoodoos. A feeling that an evil power attached itself to those so reckless as to enter into business dealings with them has on a number of occasions made it impossible for really able men to secure permanent employment."

The same writer further illustrates the strange superstitions of Wall Street by instancing the case of a certain young man who aspired to be a curb broker, but who happened to be badly cross-eyed. Few brokers would trade with him, claiming that misfortune lay in those eyes. The cross-eyed man was forced to choose another profession. Again:

"Furniture of a failed Wall Street house is never bought outright by another firm, nor are its vacated offices occupied until the blight of that firm's presence has had opportunity to disappear. Old offices and old furniture are not readily abandoned by successful firms, because years of luck have been imparted in them. Several large office buildings down-town have no thirteenth floor; fourteen follows twelve in the count, as the elevator ascends. For at least one of these buildings the omission was not efficacious; the realty company operating it failed last year. As for Friday the thirteenth, Stock Exchange traders are losing faith in that day's blighting influence. Three times in the past twelvemonth has Friday fallen on the thirteenth; each time the solemn warning was pronounced, and each time stock-market prices advanced."

Thus it would seem that the wide prevalence of business superstitions would support President Wilson's recently reported theory of "psychological causes" for business depression or prosperity. "Nothing is more dangerous for business than uncertainty," he declared; and according to our writer, business superstitions may inspire a confidence and daring in Wall Street that might otherwise be missing.

65

WHO IS TO RUN OUR RAILROADS IN THE FUTURE?

Ο

NE of the salient features of Mr. Charles S. Mellen's sensational testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission last month was the advocacy of a government railway monopoly. Mr. Mellen did not hesitate to predict such a monopoly of all the railways of the United States if private monopoly over large areas is not soon established under governmental control. An unscrupulous head of a large railroad corporation might carry out any plan he desired, testified Mr. Mellen, confessing his dread of placing such power in the hands of a single man. "I think people well may be alarmed at the sort of a power that a man might exercise if he were so disposed. From my experience with men that I have met holding those positions, very few of them would be disposed to do anything out of the way, but there is a suspicion attached to a 20 man who has power that he may be sometimes provoked to use it, and it is against the suspicion that the body politic revolts. To my mind, there has to be monopoly in order to get efficiency and economy, and that monopoly is Ebound to be the United States Government." As an ideal, comments the Springfield Republican, this is intelligible and may even be realized, "perhaps all the sooner because of the methods employed by Messrs. Morgan and Mel= len to establish a private monopoly in New England." In his testimony Mr. Mellen admitted that he was working toward that end "perhaps unconsciously" as the head of the New Haven system. The New York Journal of Commerce wants to know just what is meant by monopoly and by "control" or regulation:

"There is a wide distinction between Government regulation, or Government 'control' in its proper sense, and Government ownership. They ought not to be associated together in the public mind as in the least akin. To deprive this vast system of transportation, or any important member of it, of the incentives to enterprize and energy, to economy and efficiency, to progress and improvement, which spring from private ownership and interest and the alertness and ambition which pertain thereto, would be to subject it to the creeping paralysis of political incompetency and corruption."

THE RAILROAD PROBLEM

drastic railroad legislation than conditions warrant, since only a small minority of our railroads have been thus mismanaged. What are the remedies, it asks, for mismanagement? It answers as follows:

"The remedies are: First, a public sentiment that will hold directors of large corporations up to the performance of their duties as directors; second, a proper sense of honor and responsibility among men of large affairs that will prevent them from accepting directorships when they do not intend to perform the duties of them and will cause them to perform the duties when they do accept them; third, public regulation of railway financing. The Hadley commission recommended the kind of legislation which should be passed. Certainly, when railroads can be Mellenized there is need either for new

legislation or the enforcement of existing laws or both. The great danger is that the disclosures regarding the conduct of the Mellens, the Yoakums and the rest of their ilk will cause the passage of more radical legislation than the conditions justify. If excessively drastic legislation shall be passed we trust that there will be no hypocritical wailing from Wall Street about ignorant public hostility toward railways and about the public being misled by demagogs.

"The buccaneers in Wall Street and the fools and cowards in Wall Street who let the buccaneers work their wills are the chief authors of such legislation."