When I was asked to speak about the relation of the business man to public affairs, it occurred to me that the subject should be touched upon at some central part of American history. In the shaping of our institutions, no period is more important than the years 1775 to 1797. And few will discount the contributions which were then made by Washington. The stamp of his influence appears at every significant point.

Imagine for a moment that the present war should prove to be the Armageddon of our civilization. What would the Utopian Historical Society, meeting a thousand years hence, consider the chief contributions of our era, which has lasted now for nearly three milleniums? The Greeks, it would probably be decided, arrived at a perfection in sculpturing never before equaled, nor since surpassed. The Italians were consummate painters, German composers were greater than those of any other nation. The English were able to boast two, perhaps three or four, of the greatest poets the world had ever known. Americans developed the art of business administration to such a degree that it was viewed with wonder by the rest of the world.

One of the precious nursery tales of business tells of a poor boy who became Lord Mayor of London Town.

The number of historians who have touched upon the Morrill Tariff in 1861 is equaled only by the variety of ways in which they have interpreted it. Such a complex subject obviously cannot be treated definitively in the two documents that are presented in this note. On the other hand, it does seem reasonable that these two documents may prove of interest to every student of tariff history and hold a warning for all historians: that the simplified interpretation of our economic development in terms of sections or large economic groups frequently is not borne out by factual evidence. Indeed, most careful historians will agree that it is impossible to dismiss a major tariff law with a generalization like “this section was for it, and that section was against it.”

A small bundle of miscellaneous bits of old business material has recently come to the Baker Library through the courtesy of Dr. Frank S. Churchill of Bass River, Massachusetts.

The readers of the Bulletin are already acquainted with the Genoese cartularia, the bulky volumes in which mediaeval notaries of Genoa copied their notarial instruments. Those notarial records are a mirror of life in mediaeval Genoa. Notaries were called upon to record international treaties, state decrees, and local regulations; they recorded business transactions, which were all made in a notary's presence, ranging from large transactions involving considerable sums of money to small ones of a few pence; and, besides, notaries wrote out and copied in their books promises, agreements, or contracts of a most intimate and personal kind.

The Editor takes pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of an entire file of the Bulletin, which came some months ago as a gift from Mr. F. C. Ayres, a former executive secretary of the Society.

Much has been written of the financing and development of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. There is little information available regarding the investment policies and types of investments made by the “Big Four” subsequent to the eompletion of the Central Pacific. Stuart Daggett, in his book The History of the Southern Pacific, makes the statement that it is doubtful whether the history of the construction companies will ever be told. It has been my good fortune to acquire for the Library of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University 279 ledgers, journals, and minute books, 42 transfer cases of correspondence, and 150 drawers of vouchers, all dealing with subsidiary companies. In general, these records show how Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker continued the investment of the large sums accruing to them upon the completion and successful operation of the Central Pacific.

Our members have recently received, as a gift from the Business Historical Society, the Harvard Co-operative Society, and the author, a copy of Harvard Co-operative Society, Past and Present, 1882-1942, by Professor N. S. B. Gras. The book was written to make known the facts of the Co-operative Society's experience as a business enterprise. It will no doubt have interest to many beyond the officers, directors, and members of the Harvard Co-operative Society as a record of an experience of over sixty years of cooperative business effort. The book reveals how thin is the line dividing the so-called co-operative and the ordinary private business unit.

The Baker Library of Harvard University received during the past year an unidentified New York ship chandler's daybooks covering roughly the years 1811-15. These books depict some aspects of the work of a small concern in this line of trade, a trade which was typical of the numerous ports in the old and new worlds in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The old adage about an “ill wind” should have a qualifying phrase, at least as far as library acquisition is concerned. In order that libraries or historical institutions may benefit from others' adversities, it is essential that they have a friend in the neighborhood of the cyclone or other trouble-making wind. The Baker Library of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration was fortunate in having such a friend in Mr. Paul D. Babson.

Constructing our railroads and operating them has been a work of magnificent and challenging proportions. Railroads presented our first great administrative task in business, and the task came upon us with a rapidity that in many respects overwhelmed us. It was pressed upon us by needs and opportunities on the side both of service and of profits.

It might well be asked whether any other country in the world, unless it be Russia since 1918, has had such a big administrative task in the field of the economic thrust upon it with so little preparation.

One of the most intriguing figures in the history of business is the traveling merchant. He was the key figure in the business life of the ancient and the mediæval town. He bought goods in one market which he carried by pack horse, camel, or ship to sell in another, thus serving as a traveling wholesaler. Here today, he was gone tomorrow; even his court of law was known as the “dusty-footed court.”

The first meeting of the New Bridge Oyster Company is recorded in the minutes dated February 6, 1863:

At a meeting of inhabitants of New Bridge and vicinity held at the house of Nelson H. Smith for the purpose of Forming a Company for the planting of Oysters.

The organization was a community venture. Comparison of the names of the participants with those inscribed on a contemporary land map reveals that about one-third of the realty owners in the community—farmers, a few fishermen, the owner of the net factory, and the local physician—purchased stock and participated in the company's organization and supervision. During the last year of the known existence of this enterprise, 1867-68, shareholders from neighboring villages became involved in the business.