ny serious trouble with competitors. In
the last analysis, in the competition of modern business to get the
crowd, the big success is bound to come to men in the one region of
competition where competition still has some give in it--the region of
moral originality. Other things in competition nowadays have all been
thought of except being good. Any man who can and will to-day think out
new and unlooked-for ways of being good can get ahead, in the United
States of practically everybody.

CHAPTER V

PROSPECTS OF THE BULLY

The stage properties that go with a bully change as we grow older. When
one thinks of a bully, one usually sees a picture at once in one's mind.
It is a big boy lording it over a little one, or getting him down and
sitting on him.

Everybody recognizes what is going on immediately, pitches in nobly and
beautifully, and licks the big boy.

The trouble with the bully in business has been that he is not so simple
and easy to recognize. He is apt to be more or less anonymous and
impersonal, and it is harder to hit him in the right place.

But when one thinks of it perhaps this pleasant and inspiring duty is
not so impracticable as it looks, and is presently to be attended to.

Any man who relies, in getting what he wants, on being big instead of
being right, is a bully.

Modern business is done over a wide area, with thousands of persons
looking on, and for a long time and with thousands of people coming
back. The man who relies on being big instead of being right, and who
takes advantage of his position instead of his inherent superiority, is
soon seen through. His customers go over to the enemy. A show of force
or a hold-up works very well at the moment. Being bigger may be more
showy than being right, and it may down the Little Boy, but the Little
Boy wins the crowd.

Business to-day consists in persuading crowds.

The Little Boy can prove he is right. All the bully can prove is that he
is bigger.

The Liar in Business is already going by.

Now it is the turn of the bully.

Not long ago a few advertisers in a big American city wanted unfairly
low rates for advertisements and tried to use force with the newspapers.
Three or four of the biggest shops combined and gave notice that they
would take their advertising away unless the rates came down. After a
little, they drew in a few other lines of business with them, and
suddenly one morning five or six full pages of advertisements we