Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MISCELLANEOUS 597
Let me call your attention to the fact that there is a
great difference between a desire and a purpose. There is a
great difference between a wish and a will. Why, you know
the old saying — I don't know who said it — "Never wear
your wishbone where your backbone ought to be." That
is the keynote of the development of character in men or
in organizations, and this organization saw that very early.
What did it
do?
The first thing it did, by some process or other— and I
would be too personal and would be regarded too much as
retaliating upon your courteous toastmaster, if I were more
personal about it — by some process there awoke in the
association a civic conscience, and it has developed enormously.
It is hard to find a simile that fits it in dignity and
worth. The Association of Commerce early came to see
that the affairs of this world perhaps were not everybody's
business because if everybody's business is nobody's business
the Association of Commerce declined to accept the
conclusion, and decided right
then and there that anything
that was not distinctly anybody else's business was its
business, and from that time it has been its business.
In the ver>' beginning this was foreshadowed, but it has
come on in recent years, particularly in the last year or two,
to the point where the Association of Commerce does not
hesitate to take cognizance of any public question whether
it is distinctly a commercial question or not ; any question
which affects, as Mr. WTieeler puts it, the shareholders of
this corporation, becomes the object of scrutiny and analysis
and dealing with by the Association of Commerce in some
fit and taking way.
Such a thing as this has never happened before to this
extent and with these results in any civic body that ever
existed. The result of it is that the Association of Commerce
has determined for itself a status and a position
in this community, the influence and importance of which
can not be measured.