The Neutral

There is known to me a prominent business house that by the very force
of its directness and worth has incurred the enmity of many rivals. In
fact, there is a very general conspiracy on hand to put the institution
down and out. In talking with a young man employed by this house, he
yawned and said, "Oh, in this quarrel I am neutral."

"But you get your bread and butter from this firm, and in a matter where
the very life of the institution is concerned, I do not see how you can
be a neutral."

And he changed the subject.

I think that if I enlisted in the Japanese army I would not be a
neutral.

Business is a fight--a continual struggle--just as life is. Man has
reached his present degree of development through struggle. Struggle
there must be and always will be. The struggle began as purely physical;
as man evolved it shifted ground to the mental, psychic, and the
spiritual, with a few dashes of cave-man proclivities still left. But
depend upon it, the struggle will always be--life is activity. And when
it gets to be a struggle in well-doing, it will still be a struggle.
When inertia gets the better of you it is time to telephone to the
undertaker.

The only real neutral in this game of life is a dead one.