businessmen” had become convinced of the need for closer relations between business and
government in the task of competing against “foreign trade rivals” and advocated for something
akin to the German model: “A new commercial organization is now proposed...[with] the hearty
endorsement of the Department of Commerce and Labor.” This body would be able to pass on
to much larger business audiences the information gathered by the government about trade
conditions around the world.
Nagel’s address to the New York Chamber of Commerce
perfectly captures his vision of a new activist state with an organized business community
supporting it. While recognizing the traditional concerns about excessive executive power, he
makes the argument that new economic conditions warrant greater government intervention:
It goes without saying that in times of agitation and unprecedented growth the demand
upon executive power is always great....Conservation of resources, natural and human,
embraces many of them; the demand for the regulation and protection of development,
industrial and otherwise, embraces the rest. Together with these we have traditional
questions; we have political adjustments to make; we have to determine for ourselves
what is the meaning of the dual system of government, and we have to learn to recognize
the limitation of the states and the obligations of the nation. We have to say to ourselves
that many of our commercial interests have grown out of proportion to any state control
or state protection and call aloud for national government...Everywhere we are passing
from the passive to the active state. We were mere watchmen; we have become real
builders. In the face of such problems we need the united support of the entire people
and of every section...the President’s appeal is for that kind of a union.
The newly-developed Commerce Department sought a broad business advisory
association in order to assist with its own political goals of expanding Congressional support.
Thus Werking writes that the Chamber “owes its origin chiefly to the initiative of government
Convention