INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP 337Cooperation is said to be the most important word in the English
language. It plays an important part in the affairs of the home, in the
relationship of men and women, parents and children. It plays an im-
portant part in the affairs of state. So important is this principle of
Cooperation that no leader can become powerful or last long who does
not understand and apply it in their Leadership.
Lack of Cooperation has destroyed more business enterprises than
have all other causes combined. In my twenty-five years of active busi-
ness experience and observation, I have witnessed the destruction of
all manner of business enterprises because of dissension and lack of
application of this principle of Cooperation. In the practice of law
I have observed the destruction of homes, and divorce cases without
end, as a result of the lack of Cooperation between man and wife. In
the study of the histories of nations it becomes alarmingly obvious
that lack of cooperative effort has been a curse to the human race
throughout the ages.
Turn back the pages of these histories and study them and you will
learn a lesson in Cooperation that will impress itself indelibly on your
mind for ages and ages to come.
You are paying, and your children and your children's children will
continue to pay for the cost of waging wars, because nations have not
yet learned that a part of the world cannot suffer without damage and
suffering to the whole world.
This same rule applies, with telling effect, in the conduct of mod-
ern business and industry. When any industry becomes disorganized
and torn asunder by strikes and other forms of disagreement, both the
employers and employees suffer irreparable loss. But the damage does
not stop here; this loss becomes a burden to the public and takes on
the form of higher prices and scarcity of the necessities of life. In the
final analysis it becomes obvious that the evils of government and of
industry have grown out of lack of Cooperation.