ckly lose any proper
conception of what their own proportions are. Therefore, these local
centers of enthusiasm may be local centers of mistake if they are not
very wisely guided and if they do not themselves realize their relations
to the other centers of enthusiasm and of advancement.

The advantage about a Chamber of Commerce of the United States is that
there is only one way to boost the United States, and that is by seeing
to it that the conditions under which business is done throughout the
whole country are the best possible conditions. There cannot be any
disproportion about that. If you draw your sap and your vitality from
all quarters, then the more sap and vitality there is in you the more
there is in the commonwealth as a whole, and every time you lift at all
you lift the whole level of manufacturing and mercantile enterprise.
Moreover, the advantage of it is that you cannot boost the United States
in that way without understanding the United States. You learn a great
deal. I agreed with a colleague of mine in the Cabinet the other day
that we had never attended in our lives before a school to compare with
that we were now attending for the purpose of gaining a liberal
education.

Of course, I learn a great many things that are not so, but the
interesting thing about that is this: Things that are not so do not
match. If you hear enough of them, you see there is no pattern whatever;
it is a crazy quilt. Whereas, the truth always matches, piece by piece,
with other parts of the truth. No man can lie consistently, and he
cannot lie about everything if he talks to you long. I would guarantee
that if enough liars talked to you, you would get the truth; because the
parts that they did not invent would match one another, and the parts
that they did invent would _not_ match one another. Talk long enough,
therefore, and see the connections clearly enough, and you can patch
together the case as a whole. I had somewhat that experience about
Mexico, and that was about the only way in which I learned anything that
was true about it. For there had been vivid imaginations and many
special interests which depicted things as they wished me to believe
them to be.

Seriously, the task of this body is to match all the facts of business
throughout the country and to see the vast and consistent pattern of it.
That is the reason I think you are to be congratulated upon the fact
that you cannot do this thing without common couns