hey were not coined by
Burns the genius, but repeated from the mouths of plain men and women
by Burns the reporter. It is so with all literature that lives.

Mingle with the people, therefore; be one of them. Who are you that
you should not be one of them? Who is any one that he should not be
one of the people? Their common thought is necessarily higher and
better than the thought of any man. This is mathematical.

And the people, too, are young, eternally young. They are the source
of all power, not politically speaking now, but ethnically, even
commercially, speaking. The successful manager of any business will
tell you that he takes as careful an inventory of public opinion as he
does of the material items of his merchandise. A capable merchant told
me that he makes it a point to mingle with the crowds.

"Not," said he, "to hear what they have to say, for you catch only a
scrap or a sentence here and there; but to go up against them. Somehow
or other you get their drift that way. Anyhow I am conscious that this
helps me to understand what the people need and want. There is such a
thing as commercial instinct; and contact with the people keeps this
fresh and true."

We have come to that state of enlightenment where the people want to
know not only that they are getting the best goods or best service,
but that the business which supplies either is run all right. Who can
doubt that in the universal mind there is a question as to the moral
element in American business?

This is nothing but the composite conscience of the American people
demanding that American business shall not only be conducted ably, but
also that it shall be conducted honestly. It is a force which you must
take into account. It will be a glorious asset for you if you will pay
enough attention to it to understand it.

But you must mingle with the people yourself in order to comprehend
this source of power. Do not sit alone in your room and read about the
people; that is no way to learn about them.

Remember that no workable constitution was ever written exclusively by
scholars. Recall the ordinance for the government of Carolina devised
by the philosopher Locke. It failed; yet it reads well. Time and again
theorists with highest purpose and broadest book wisdom have
formulated laws for the good of mankind which would not work.

Most statutes that live and operate have had their origins among men
of the soil as well as men of the study. The poi