: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 11 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen by Hubbard Elbert - Great Britain Biography; United States Biography; Businessmen Biography; France Biography

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ROBERT OWEN JAMES OLIVER STEPHEN GIRARD MAYER A. ROTHSCHILD PHILIP D. ARMOUR JOHN J. ASTOR PETER COOPER ANDREW CARNEGIE GEORGE PEABODY A. T. STEWART H. H. ROGERS JAMES J. HILL

ROBERT OWEN

I have always expended to the last shilling my surplus wealth in promoting this great and good cause of industrial betterment. The right-reverend prelate is greatly deceived when he says that I have squandered my wealth in profligacy and luxury. I have never expended a pound in either; all my habits are habits of temperance in all things, and I challenge the right-reverend prelate and all his abettors to prove the contrary, and I will give him and them the means of following me through every stage and month of my life.

In Germany, the land of philosophy, when the savants sail into a sea of doubt, some one sets up the cry, "Back to Kant!"

In America, when professed democracy grows ambitious and evolves a lust for power, men say, "Back to Jefferson!"

In business, when employer forgets employee and both forget their better manhood, we say, "Back to Robert Owen!"

We will not go back to Robert Owen: we will go on to Robert Owen, for his philosophy is still in the vanguard.

Robert Owen was a businessman. His first intent was to attain a practical success. He produced the article, and sold it at a profit.

In this operation of taking raw material and manufacturing it into forms of use and beauty--from the time the seed was planted in the ground on up to the consumer who purchased the finished fabric and wove it--Owen believed that all should profit--all should be made happier by every transaction.

That is to say, Robert Owen believed that a business transaction where both sides do not make money is immoral.

There is a legal maxim still cited in the courts--"Caveat emptor"--let the buyer beware.

For this maxim Robert Owen had no respect. He scorned the thought of selling a man something the man did not want, or of selling an article for anything except exactly what it was, or of exacting a price for it, by hook or crook, beyond its value.

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