lEr1 , ,nw,Ti
tWpJMIlli'U'JP iWW
l.JJSt -,
ESw,
.
-Pr- r "rb; j i- -t-fp P -i
G
U
0
f t
EVENING LBDGER-PHIL,ADBLPHIA tfBIDAY, APBITJ ,23, 1915:
i
! tk . IVillll . . I tfsur r
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
CANNOT DO IT ALL
We heartily favor the movement for a great unified Chamber of
Commerce in this city.
We believe that such an organization will bring results of great
and permanent value.
There are. however, certain facts which should not be overlooked.
We speak from some experience.
Through our representatives in many cities we have had exceptional opportunity to watch, the
work of commercial bodies particularly in industrial cities where many of our advertisers are located,
such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Rochester. In several cities we are represented hi the trade
organizations, and this series of advertisements is the work of one of our staff who was a salaried
official of the Boston Chamber of Commerce for the three years during which it was reorganized and
k reached its present position as the largest in the United States.
A Chamber of Commerce can never take the place of individual enterprise.
It cannot make unprogressive business men prosperous.
Its true function lies in
(1) Improving internal conditions which affect the opportunity to grow.
(2) Influencing external conditions which bear on the local situation.
' (3) Indirectly advertising the city through making it a better city.
(4) Putting the spark of enthusiasm into the individual citizen. '
And the last is almost the most important.
A Chamber of Commerce is not primarily an agency for "booming" a community. Small un
known towns just getting started, cities which depend on tourist trade, or cities which have some
special inducements such as real estate opportunities these occasionally make publicity the chief
purpose of their trade organizations.
But it may be taken as an axiom that a great, well -developed metropolis like Philadelphia
is not subject to that sort of exploitation.
And a Chamber of Commerce, even if it spent $100,000 a year entirely in advertising- the city,
would fail on such a platform.
The business men of Philadelphia must not look to the Chamber of Commerce to serve them
individually, to do lor them the business promotion that they ought to be doing for themselves.
Their duty is to bury their prejudices, to forget precedent, to lay aside selfish ambitions and
to get into the Chamber of Commerce and go to work for the good of the whole city of which
they are but one part.
Then, simultaneously, but as an entirely separate activity, they should redouble their efforts
to develop their own businesses by their own energy, their own enthusiasm, and by modern methods
of "selling.
''' If Onifi
m
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA
r
fjt