210 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN
increased their own profits by helping their customers, the
retailers of this country, to put the Model Stock principles
to work in their stores. We have seen that when the Model
Stock Plan is utilized in a store, it inevitably reaches back
to eliminate wastes in factories producing goods for this store.
It cannot, then, be dismissed with any such general state-
ment as that it applies only to retail stores. To be sure, it
was originally worked out in a retail store which over the
years has attained the largest sales of any store of its kind
in the whole world. But it has proved itself as a way to
greater total profits in a great many concerns which hardly
touch retailing at any point. Wherever it has been intelii-
gently and completely applied, it has yielded larger returns
in money, and it has increased the safety of the business.
The Model Stock Plan is applicable to all kinds of busi-
nesses. Its application is far wider than we think possible
until we have made a careful analysis. For instance, it
seems a far cry from retail stores to transatlantic steamship
travel. Yet the Model Stock Plan has been the means of
putting the transatlantic steamship lines’ passenger traffic
on a money-making basis after it had been suffering heavy
losses for years.
The steerage transportation of immigrants from Europe
to the United States had been the bread and butter of the
ship lines for many decades. The fare was low—at one time
as low as $30 or $40. Steerage quarters were crowded on the
west-bound passage, and this revenue was the major source
of passenger profits. But when the immigration restriction
laws went into effect, this revenue was largely cut off, and
most of the previous profit showings were changed into
losses.
In my study of international trade relations, I had con-
cluded that the greatest hindrance among the American
people to a more cordial attitude toward Europe was that
so few Americans had ever been to Europe. If a larger
proportion of the American voters could visit Europe, this
would be a distinct.step toward attaining a better compre-
hension of European conditions which would be basically
