HOW THEY SUCCEEDED 1: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves - Orison Swett Marden (1901) - SECRETS OF SUCCESS: Masters’ Greatest Wisdom

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How they succeeded. Life Stories of Successful Men told by
themselves by Orison Sweat Marten. Introductory note. The great interest
manifested in the life stories of successful men and women,
which have been published from time to time in the
magazine Success, has actuated their production in book form. Many

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of these sketches have been revised and rewritten, and new
ones have been added. They all contain the elements that
make men and women successful, and they are intended to
show that character, energy, and an indomitable ambition will succeed
in the world, and that in this land, where all
men are born equal and have an equal chance in life,
there is no reason for despair. I believe that the

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ideal book for youth should deal with concrete examples, for
that which is taken from real life is far more
effective than that which is culled from fancy. Character building.
Its uplifting, energizing force has been made the basic principle
of this work. To all who have aided me, I
express a great full acknowledgment, and to none more than
to those whose life stories are here related as a

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lesson to young people. Among those who have given me
special assistance in securing those life stories are mister Harry
Steele Morrison, mister j. Herbert Welch, mister Charles H. Garrett,
mister Henry Irving Dodge, and mister Jesse W. Week. I
am confident that the remarkable exhibit of successful careers made
in this book, careers based on sound business principles and honesty,

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will meet with appreciation on the part of the reading public.
Orison Sweat Marten, How They Succeeded. Life Stories of successful
Men told by themselves by Orison Sweat Martin in nineteen
o one, Chapter one. Marshall Field, his world renowned merchant,
is not easily accessible to interviews, and he seeks no

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fame for his business achievements. Yet there is no story
more significant, none more full of encouragement and inspiration for youth.
In relating it as he told it, I have removed
my own interrogations so far as possible from the interview.
I was born in Conway, Massachusetts, he said, in eighteen

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thirty five. My father's farm was among the rocks and
hills of that section, and not very fertile. All the
people were poor in those days. My father was a
man who had good judgment, and he made a success
out of the farming business. My mother was of a
more intellectual bent. Both my parents were anxious that their

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boys should amount to something in life, and their interest
and care helped me. I had but few books, scarcely
any to speak of. There was not much time for literature.
Such books as we had I made use of. I
had a leaning toward business and took up with it
as early as possible. I was naturally of a saving disposition.

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I had to be. Those were saving times. A dollar
looked very big to us boys in those days, and
as we had difficult labor in earning it, we did
not quickly spend it. I, however, determined not to remain poor.
Did you attend both school and college. I attended the

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common and high schools at home, but not long. I
had no college training. Indeed, I cannot say that I
had much of any public school education. I left home
when seventeen years of age, and of course had not
time to study closely. My first venture and trade was
made as clerk in a country store at Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

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where everything was sold, including dry goods. There I remained
for four years and picked up my first knowledge of business.
I saved my earnings and attended strictly two business and
so made those four years valuable to me. Before I
went west, my employer offered me a quarter interest in
his business if I would remain with him, even after

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I had been here. Soon several years he wrote and
offered me a third interest if I would go back.
But I was already too well placed. I was always
interested in the commercial side of life. To this I
bent my energies, and I always thought I would be
a merchant in Chicago. I entered as a clerk in
the dry goods house of Cooley, Woodsworth and Company in

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South Water Street. There was no guarantee at that time
that this place would ever become the Western metropolis. The
town had plenty of ambition and pluck, but the possibilities
of greatness were hardly visible. It is interesting to note
in this connection how closely the story of mister Field's
progress is connected with Chicago's marvelous growth. The city itself,

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in its relations to the west, was an opportunity. A parallel,
almost exact, may be drawn between the individual career and
the growth of the town. Chicago was organized in eighteen
thirty seven, two years after mister Field was born on
the far Off farm in New England, and the place
then had a population of a little more than four thousand.

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In eighteen fifty six, when mister Field, fully equipped for
a successful mercantile career, became a resident of the future
metropolis of the West, the population had grown to little
more than eighty four thousand. Mister Field's prosperity advanced with
the growth of the city. With Chicago, he was stricken
but not crushed, by the Great Fire of eighteen seventy one,

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And with Chicago he advanced again to higher achievement and
far greater prosperity than before the calamity. What were your
equipments for success when you started as a clerk here
in Chicago in eighteen fifty six, Health and ambition and
what I believed to be sound principles, answered mister Field.
And here I found that in a growing town, no

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one had to wait for promotion. Good business qualities were
promptly discovered, and men were pushed forward rapidly. After four years,
in eighteen sixty I was made a partner, and in
eighteen sixty five there was a partial reorganization, and the
firm consisted after that of mister Lighter, mister Palmer, and
myself Field Palmer and Lighter. Two years later mister Palmer withdrew,

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and until eighteen eighty one the style of the firm
was Field Lighter in Company. Mister Lighter retired in that
year and since then it has been as at present,
Marshall Field and Company. What contributed most to the great
growth of your business? I asked? To answer that question,
said mister Field, would be to review the condition of

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the West. From the time Chicago began until the fire
in eighteen seventy one, everything was coming this way, immigration, railways,
and water traffic, and Chicago was enjoying flush times. There
were things to learn about the country, and the man
who learned the quickest fared the best. For instance, the

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comparative newness of rural communities and settlements made a knowledge
of local solvency impossible. The old state banking system prevailed,
and speculation of every kind was rampant a cash basis.
The panic of eighteen fifty seven swept almost everything away
except the house I worked for, and I learned that

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the reason they survived was because they understood the nature
of the new country and did a cash business that
is they bought for cash and sold on thirty and
sixty days, instead of giving the customers, whose financial condition
you could hardly tell anything about, all the time they wanted.
When the panic came, they had no debts and little

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owing to them, and so they weathered it all right.
I learned what I consider my best lesson, and that
was to do a cash business. What were some of
the principles you applied to your business, I questioned. I
made it a point that all goods should be exactly
what they were represented to be. It was a rule
of the House that an exact scrutiny of the quality

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of all goods purchased should be maintained, and that nothing
was to induce the House to place upon the market
any line of goods at a shade of variation from
their real value. Every article sold must be regarded as warranted,
and every purchaser must be enabled to feel secure. Did
you suffer any losses or reverses during your career? No

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loss except by the fire of eighteen seventy one. It
swept away everything about three and a half millions. We were,
of course protected by insurance, which would have been sufficient
against any ordinary calamity. Of the kind. But the disaster
was so sweeping that some of the companies which had
ensured our property were blotted out, and a long time

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passed before our claims against others were settled. We managed, however,
to start again. There were no buildings of brick or
stone left standing, but there were some great shells of
horse car barns at State and twentieth Streets which were
not burned, and I hired those. We put up signs
announcing that we would continue business uninterruptedly, and then rushed

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the work of fitting things up and getting in the stock.
Did the panic of eighteen seventy three affect your business?
Not at all? We did not have any debts. May
I ask mister Fields, what you consider to have been
the turning point in your career, the point after which
there was no more danger saving the first five thousand

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dollars I ever had, when I might just as well
have spent the moderate salary. I made possession of that
sum once I had it gave me the ability to
meet opportunities that I consider the turning point. What trade
of character do you look upon as having been the
most essential in your career? Perseverance, said mister Field, but

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mister Selfridge, his most trusted lieutenant, in whose private office
we were insisted upon the addition of good judgment to this.
If I am compelled to lay cl to such traits,
added mister Fields, it is because I have tried to
practice them, and the trying has availed me much. I
have tried to make all my acts and commercial moves

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the result of definite consideration and sound judgment. There were
never any great ventures or risks. I practiced honest, slow
growing business methods and tried to back them with energy
and good system. At this point, in answer to further questions,
mister Field disclaimed having overworked in his business, although after

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the fire of seventy one he worked about eighteen hours
a day for several weeks. My fortune, however, has not
been made in that manner. I believe in reasonable hours,
but close attention during those hours. I never worked very
many hours a day. People do not work as many
hours now as they once did. The day's labor has

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shortened in the last twenty years for everyone. Qualities that
make for success What mister Field, I said, do you
consider to be the first requisite for success in life?
So far as the young beginner is concerned. The qualities
of honesty, energy, frugality, integrity are more necessary than ever today,

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and there is no success without them. They are so
often urged that they have become commonplace, but they are
really more prized than ever, and any good fortune that
comes by such methods is deserved and admirable. A college
education and business. Do you believe a college education for
the young man to be a necessity in the future,

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not for business purposes? Better training will become more and
more a necessity. The truth is, with most young men,
a college education means that, just at the time when
they should be having business principles instilled into them and
be getting themselves energetically pulled together for their life's work,
they are sent to college. Then intervenes what many a

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young man looks back on as the jolliest time of
hisas life for years of college. Often, when he comes
out of college, the young man is unfitted by this
good time to buckle down to hard work, and the
result is a failure to grasp opportunities that would have
opened the way for a successful career. As to retiring
from business, mister Field remarked, I do not believe that

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when a man no longer attends to his private business
in person. Every day he has given up interest in
affairs he may be, in fact should be doing wider
and greater work. There certainly is no pleasure in idleness.
A man, upon giving up business, does not cease laboring,
but really does or should do more. In a larger sense,

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he should interest himself in public affairs. There is no
happiness in mere dollars. After they are acquired, one can
use but a moderate amount. It is given a man
to eat so much, to wear so much, and to
have so much shelter, and more he cannot use. When
money has supplied these, its mission, so far as the

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individual is concerned, is fulfilled, and man must look further
and higher. It is only in the wider public affairs,
where money is a moving force towards the general welfare,
that the possessor of it can possibly find pleasure, And
that only in constantly doing more what I said in
your estimation is the greatest good a man can do.

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The greatest good he can do is to cultivate himself,
develop his powers, in order that he may be of
greater use to humanity. How they succeeded. Life stories of
successful men told by themselves by Orison Sweat Marten. Chapter
two Bell Telephone Talk Hints on Success by Alexander G. Bell,

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Extremely polite, always anxious to render courtesy. No one carries
great success more gracefully than Alexander G. Bell, the inventor
of the telephone. His graciousness has won many a friend,
the admiration of many more, and has smoothed many a
rugged spot in life. A night worker, when I first
went to see him, it was about eleven o'clock in

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the morning and he was in bed. The second time,
I thought I would go somewhat later. At one o'clock
in the afternoon, he was eating his breakfast, I was told,
and I had to wait some time. He came in,
apologizing profusely for keeping me waiting. When I told him
I had come to interview him in behalf of young

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people about success its underlying principles, he threw back his
large head and laughingly said, nothing succeeds like success success.
Did you say, why? That is a big subject, too
big a one. You must give me time to think
about it, and you, having planted the seed in my brain,
will have to wait for me. When I asked what

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time I should call, he said, come any time, if
it is only late. I beg in my work at
about nine or ten o'clock in the evening and continue
until four or five in the morning. Night is a
more quiet time to work, it aids thought. So when
I went to see him again, I made it a
point to be late. He cordially invited me into his studio.

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Where as we both sat on a large and comfortable sofa,
he talked long on the subject of success. The value
of this article would be greatly enhanced if I could
add his charming manner of emphasizing what he says with hands,
head and eyes, and if I could add his beautiful
distinctness of speech, due a great deal to his having

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given instruction to deaf mutes who must read the lips.
What do you think are the factors of success? I asked.
The reply was prompt and to the point, perseverance applied
to a practical end. Perseverance is the chief. But perseverance
must have some practical end, or it does not avail

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a man possessing it. A person without a practical end
in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons
fill our insane asylums. The sane perseverance that they show
in some idiotic idea, if exercised in the accomplishment of
something practicable, would no doubt bring success. Perseverance is first,

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but practicability is chief. The success of the Americans as
a nation is due to their great practicability. But often
what the world calls nonsensical becomes practical, does it not.
You were called crazy two once, were you not? There
are some things, though, that are always impracticable. Now take

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for instance, this idea of perpetual motion. Scientists have proved
that it is impossible. Yet our patent office is continually
beset by people applying for inventions on some perpetual motion machine.
So the department has adopted a rule whereby a way
working model is always required of such applicants. They cannot

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furnish one. The impossible is incapable of success. I have
heard of people dreaming inventions that is not at all impossible.
I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is
working all the time, though we do not know it
at night. It follows up what we think in the daytime.

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When I have worked a long time on one thing,
I make it a point to bring all the facts
regarding it together before I retire, and I have often
been surprised at the results. Have you not noticed that
often what was dark and perplexing to you the night
before is found to be perfectly solved the next morning.
We are thinking all the time. It is impossible not

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to think. Can everyone become an inventor? Oh? No? Not
all minds are constituted alike. Some minds are only adapted
to certain things, But as one's mind grows and one's
knowledge of the world's industries widens, it adapts itself to
such things as naturally fall to it. Upon my asking

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the relation of health to success, the professor replied, I
believe it to be a primary principle of success. Mens
sana incorporsano. A sound mind in a sound body. The
mind in a weak body produces weak ideas. A strong
body gives strength to the thought of the mind. Ill
health is due to man's artificiality of living. He lives indoors,

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he becomes, as it were, a hothouse plant. Such a
plant is never as successful as a hardy garden plant is.
An outdoor life is necessary to health and success, especially
in a youth, but is not hard study often necessary
to success, No, decidedly not. You cannot force ideas. Successful

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ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not
reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study
is put upon them. It is perseverance in the pursuit
of studies that is really wanted. Concentration of purpose Next
must come concentration of purpose and study. That is another

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thing I mean to emphasize. Concentrate all your thought upon
the work in hand. The sun's rays do not burn
until brought to a focus. I am now thinking about
flying machines. Everything in regard to them I pick out
and read. When I see a bird flying in the air,
I note its manner of flight, as I would not

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if I were not constantly thinking about artificial flight and
concentrating all my thought and observation upon it. It is
like a man who has made the acquaintance of some
new word that has been brought forcibly to his notice,
although he may have come across it many times before
and not have noticed it particularly. Man is the result
of slow growth. That is why he occupies the position

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he does. Animal life, what does a pup amount to
that has gained its growth in a few days or
weeks beside a man who only attains it in as
many years. A horse is often a grandfather before a
boy has attained his full maturity. The most successful man
in the end are those whose success is the result
of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous, that has

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attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances,
step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider,
and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation,
persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating
his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in
the greatest degree. Young American geese. If a man is

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not bound down, he is sure to succeed. He may
be bound down by environment or by doting parental petting.
In Paris, they fatten geese to create a diseased condition
of the liver. A man stands with a box of
very fire, finely prepared, and very rich food beside a
revolving stand, and as it revolves, one goose after another

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passes before him. Taking the first goose by the neck,
he clamps down its throat a large lump of the food.
Whether the goose will or no until its crop is
well stuffed out, and then he proceeds with the rest
in the same very mechanical manner. Now, I think if
those geese had to work hard for their own food,
they would digest it better and be far healthier geese.

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How many young American geese are stuffed in about the
same manner at college and at home by their rich
and fond parents. Unhelpful reading. Did everything you ever studied
help you to attain success? On the contrary, I did
not begin real study until I was over sixteen. Until
that time, my principal study was reading novels. He laughed

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heartily at my evident astonishment. They did not help me
in the least, for they did not give me an
insight to real life. It is only those things that
give one a grasp of practical affairs that are helpful.
To read novels continuously is like reading fairy stories or
Arabian nights tales. It is a butterfly existence so long

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as it lasts. But someday one is called to stern reality.
Unprepared inventions in America. You have had experience in life
in Europe and in America. Do you think the chances
for success are the same in Europe as in America.
It is harder to attain success in Europe. There is

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hardly the same appreciation of progress there is here. Appreciation
is an element of success. Encouragement is needed. My thoughts
run mostly toward inventions. In England, people are conservative. They
are well contented with the old and do not readily
adopt new ideas. Americans more quickly appreciate new inventions. Take

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an invention to an Englishman or a scot and he
will ask you all about it, and then say your
invention may be all right, but let somebody else try
it first. Take the same invention to an American, and
if it is intelligently explained, he is generally quick to
see the feasibility of it. America is an inspiration to inventors.

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It is quicker to adopt advanced ideas than England or Europe.
The most valuable inventions of this century have been made
in America the Orient. Do you think there is a
chance for Americans in the Orient. There is only a
chance for capital in trade. American labor cannot compete with
Japanese and Chinese. A Japanese coolie for the hardest kind

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of work receives the equivalent of six cents a day,
and the whole family, father, mother and children work and
contribute to the common good. A foreigner is only made
use of until they have absorbed all his useful ideas,
than he is avoided. The Japanese are ahead of us
in many things, environment and heredity. Do you think environment

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and heredity count in success? Environment? Certainly, heredity, not so
distinctly in heredity. A man may stamp out the faults
he has inherited. There is no chance for the proper
working of heredity. If selection could be carried out, a
man might owe much to heredity. But as it is

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only opposites Mary blond and light complexion, people marry brunettes
and the tall Mary the short. In our scientific societies,
men only are admitted. If women who were interested, especially
in any science, were allowed to affiliate with the men
in these societies, we might hope to see some wonderful
workings of the laws of heredity. A man, as a

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general rule, owes very little to what he is born with.
A man is what he makes of himself. Environment counts
for a great deal. A man's particular idea may have
no chance for growth or encouragement in his community. Real
success is denied that man until he finds a proper environment.

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America is a good environment for young men. It breathes
the very spirit of success. I noticed at once when
I first came to this country, how the people were
all striving for success and helping others to attain success.
It is an inspiration you cannot help feeling. America is
the land of success. Professor Bell's life story. Alexander Graham

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Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March third, eighteen forty seven.
His father, Alexander Melville Bell, now in Washington, d C.
Was a distinguished Scottish educator and the inventor of a
system of visible speech, which he has successfully taught to
deaf mutes. His grandfather, Alexander Bell, became well known by

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the invention of a man method of removing impediments of speech.
The younger Bell received his education at the Edinburgh High
School and University, and in eighteen sixty seven he entered
the University of London. Then, in his twenty third year,
his health failing from overstudy, he came with his father
to Canada, as he expressed it, to die later he

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settled in the United States, becoming first a teacher of
deaf mutes and subsequently professor of vocal physiology in Boston University.
In eighteen sixty seven, he first began to study the
problem of conveying articulate sound by electric currents, which he
pursued during his leisure time. After nine long years of
research and experiment, he completed the first telephone early in

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eighteen seventy six, when it was exhibited at the Centennial
Exposition and pronounced the wonder of wonders in electric telegraphy.
This was the judgment of scientific men who were in
a position to judge, and not of the world at large.
People regarded it only as a novelty, as a curious
scientific toy, and most business men doubted that it would

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ever prove a useful factor in the daily life of
the world and the untold blessing to mankind it has
since become. All this skepticism he had to overcome. A
new art was to be taught to the world, a
new industry created, business and social methods revolutionized. I will
make the world hear it. It does speak, cried Sir

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William Thompson, with fervid enthusiasm, and Bell's father in law added,
I will make the world hear it in less than
a quarter of a century. It is conveying thought in
every civilized tongue, Japan being the first country outside of
the United States to adopt it. In the first eight
years of its existence, the Bell Telephone Company declared dividends

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to the extent of four million dollars, and the great
sums of money the company earns for its stockholders is
a subject of current comment and wonder. Some fierce contests
have been weighed the priority of his invention, but mister
Bell has been triumphant in every case. He has become
very wealthy from his invention. He has a beautiful winter

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residence in Washington, fitted up with a laboratory and all
sorts of electrical conveniences, mostly of his own invention. His
summer residence is at Cambridge, Massachusetts. His wife, Mabel, the
daughter of the late Gardiner G. Hubbard, is a deaf
mute of whose education he had charged when she was
a child. Mister Bell, with one of his beautiful daughters,

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recently made a visit to Japan. The Order of the
Rising Star, the highest order in the gift of the
Japanese Emperor was bestowed upon him. He is greatly impressed
by the character of the people, believing them capable of
much greater advancement. Mister Bell is the inventor of the photophone,
aiming to transmit speech by a vibratory beam of light.

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He has given much time and study to problems of
multiplex telegraphy and to efforts to record speech by photographing
the vibrations of a jet of water. Few inventors have
derived as much satisfaction and happiness from their achievements as
mister Bell. In this respect, his success has been ideal
and an impressive contrast with the experience of Charles Goodyear,

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the man who made India rubber useful, and of some
other well known inventors whose services to mankind brought no
substantial reward to themselves. Mister Bell is in no wise
spoiled by his good fortune, but is the same unpretending
person today that he was before the telephone made him
wealthy and famous. How they succeeded? Life stories of successful

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men told by themselves by Orison Sweat Martin in nineteen
o one, Chapter three, Helen Gould, Why the American people
like Helen Gould. Miss Helen Gould has won a place
for herself in the hearts of Americans, such as few
people of great wealth ever gain. A strong character, common sense,

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and high ideals have made her respected by all, while
her munificence and kindness have won for her the love
of many. Upon my arrival at her Terrytown home, I
was made to feel that I was welcome, and everyone
who enters her presence feels the same. The grand mansion,
standing high on the hills overlooking the Hudson, has a
homelike appearance. Chickens play around the little stone cottage at

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the grand entrance, and the grounds are not unlike those
of any other country house, with trees in abundance and
beautiful lawns. There are large beds of flowers, and in
the gardens all the summer vegetables were growing. Miss Gould
takes a very great interest in her famous greenhouses, the gardens,
the flowers, and the chickens, for she is a home

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loving woman. It is a common thing to see her
in the grounds, digging and raking and planting like some
farmer's girl. That is one reason why her neighbors all
like her. She seems so unconcoc of her wealth and station,
a face full of character. When I entered Lyndhurst, she
came forward to meet me in the pleasantest way imaginable.

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Her face is not exactly beautiful, but has a great
deal of character written upon it, and it is very attractive.
She held out her hand for me to shake in
the good old fashioned way, and then we sat down
in the wide hall to talk. Miss Gould was dressed
very simply. Her gown was of dark cloth, clothes fitting,
and her skirt hung several inches above the ground, for

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she is a believer in short skirts for walking. Her
entire costume was very becoming. She never over dresses, and
her garments are neat and naturally of excellent quality. Her
ambitions and aims. In the conversation that followed, I was
permitted to learn much of her ambitions and aims. She

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is ambitious to leave an impression on the world by
good deeds well done, and this ambition is gratified to
the utmost. She is modest about her work. I cannot
find that I am doing much at all, she said,
when there is so very much to be done, I
suppose I shouldn't expect to be able to do everything,
but I sometimes feel that I want to nevertheless a

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most charming charity. One of her most charming charities is
Woody Crest, two miles from Lyndhurst, a haven of delight
where some two score waives are received at a time
for a two weeks visit. Years before Miss Gould's name
became associated throughout the country with charity, she was doing
her part in trying to make a world happier. Every

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summer she was hostess to scores of poor children who
were guests at one of the two Gould summer homes.
Little people with pinched wan faces and crippled children from
the tenements were taken to that home and entertained. They
came in relays, a new company, arriving once in two weeks.
The number of children thus given a taste of heaven
on earth, being limited only by the capacity of the

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Gould residence. This was her first, and I am told
her favorite charity, Little Children Do Things Naturally. It was
when a child that Helen Gould commenced the work that
has given her name a sacred significance. When a little girl,
she could see the less fortunate little girls passing the
great gould home on Fifth Avenue, and she pitied them

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and loved them, and from her own allowance, administered to
their comfort. My father always encouraged me in charitable work,
she writes a friend, How much the American people owe
to that encouragement. A frown from that father, idolized as
he was by his daughter, would have frosted and killed
that budding philanthropy, which has made a great fortune, a

(33:43):
fountain of joy, and carried sunshine into many lives. Woody
Crest is a Sylvan paradise, a nobly wooded hill towering
above the sumptuous green of Westchester, a place with wild
flowers and winding drives, and at its crest a solid
mansion built of the native rock. One can look out
from its luxuriant lawns to the majestic Hudson, or turn

(34:05):
aside into the shadiest of nooks among the trees. What
a place for the RESTful breezes to fan the tired
brows from the tenements. Do the little folks enjoy it?
Ask them, and their eyes will sparkle with gladness for answer.
Ask those two who are awaiting their turn in hot
New York, and watch the eagerness of their anticipation. For

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two long and happy weeks, they become as joyous as
mortals are ever permitted to be. Miss Gould has a
personal oversight of the place, and by her frequent visits
makes friends with the wee visitors, who look upon her
as a combination of angel and fairy godmother. Every day,
a wagonet drawn by two horses takes the children in

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relays for long drives into the country. Amusements are provided,
and some of those who remain for an entire season
at Woody Crest are instructed in different branches. Twice a month.
Some of the older boys set the type for a
little magazine, which is devoted to Woodycrest matters. There are
several portable cottages erected there, one for the sick, one

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for servants sleeping rooms, and a third for a laundry.
And the munificent hostess of these children of the needy
gets her reward in eyes made bright, in cheeks made
ruddy in the God bless you that falls from the
lips of grateful parents all winter long. Instead of closing
Woody Crest and waiting for the summer sunshine to bring

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about a return of her charitable opportunities. Miss Gould has
kept the place running at full expense. During the winter,
she herself occupies her town residence. Ordinarily she would not
keep Woody Crest open longer than Thanksgiving Day, but in
the past winter fifteen small boys were entertained for six months.
Six of these were cripples and nine were sound of limb.

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Though it required many servants, I am told that the
little guests were given as much consideration as the same
number of grown people would have received. They had nurses
and physicians for those who needed them, governesses and instructors
for those who were well. Her practical sympathy for the
less favored. When one day I was privileged to meet

(36:15):
Miss Gould at Woody Crest, I saw a hundred children
scattered around the lawn in front of a stately mansion.
It had been an afternoon of labor and anxiety on
her part, for she felt the responsibility of entertaining in
caring for so many little ones. As she finally cooled
herself on the piazza and looked at her little charges
romping around on the lawn, I asked her if she

(36:36):
thought any of the little ones before her would ever
make their mark in the world. That's hard to say,
she replied, after a moment's hesitation. But no one can
tell what may be in children until they have grown
up and developed. But the hardest thing to me is
to see genius struggling under obstacles and in surroundings that
would discourage almost anybody. I do not see, for my part,

(37:00):
how any child from the poorest tenements could ever grow
up and develop into strong, successful men or women. Many
of them, of course, have no gifts or endowments to
do this, But even if they had, the surroundings are
enough to stifle every spark of ambition in them. It
is a mystery to me how they can preserve such
bright and eager faces. What would we do if we

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were brought up in such environments. I know I should
never be able to survive it, and would never succeed
in rising above my surroundings. And it is harder on
the girls than the boys. The boys can go forth
into the world and probably secure a position which in
time will bring them different companionship and surroundings. But the
poor girls have so few opportunities. They must drudge and

(37:46):
drag along for the bare necessities of life. My heart
aches sometimes for them, and I wish I had the
power to lighten the burdens of everyone. The hardest thing,
I suppose is to see real ability fighting against with
no one to help and encourage. Yes, that seems the worst,
and I think we all ought to make it possible

(38:07):
for such ones to get a little encouragement and help.
When a boy is deserving of credit, it should be
given unstintedly. It goes a long way toward making him
more hopeful for the future. We don't, as a rule,
receive enough encouragement in this world, certainly not the poor.
Everybody seems so busy and intent upon making his own

(38:29):
way in the world that he forgets to drop a
word of cheer for those who have not been so
fortunate by birth or surroundings. One note for four paragraphs preceding,
I am indebted to George Ethelbert Walsh, whose interview was
published in the Boston Transcript October twelfth, nineteen hundred. For
a number of years, Miss Gould has supported certain beds

(38:51):
in the Baby's Shelter in connection with the Church of
the Holy Communion, New York and the Wayside day Nursery
near Bellevue Hospital. Has always found in her a good friend.
Once a year she makes a tour through the day
nurseries of New York, noting the special needs of each
and often sending money or materials for meeting those needs.

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Personal attention to an unselfish service. Her charities, says mister
Walsh in the article above cited, are probably the most
practical on record. She does not go slumming, as so
many fashionable girls do, but she does go and investigate
personal charities herself and apply the medicine as she thinks best.

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She puts herself out in more ways to relieve distress
around than she would to accommodate her wealthiest friend. Not
only has she always pitted the sufferers in the world
less fortunate than herself, but she has always had a
great desire to help those struggling for a living in
practical ways to get along. It is this side of
her noble work that stands out most conspicuously. Today the

(39:55):
public realizes for the first time that this young woman,
who first came into actual fame at the the time
of our war with Spain, has been supporting and encouraging
young people in different parts of the country for years past.
These protegees are all worthy of her patronage, and they
have been sought out by her. Not one has ever
approached Miss Gould for help, and in fact, such an

(40:16):
introduction would undoubtedly operate against her inclination to help them.
She has discovered them, and then, through considerable tact and discretion,
obtained from them their ambitious desires and hopes. Through equally
good tact and sense, she has then placed them in
positions where they could work out their own destinies without
feeling that they were accepting charity. This is distinctly what

(40:38):
Miss Gould wishes to avoid in helping her little protegees.
She does not offer them charity or do anything to
make them dependent upon her. If it can be helped
by her money and influence, she obtains for them positions
which will give them every chance in the world to
rise and develop talents which she thinks she has discovered
in them. Some of her proteges continues, mister Walsh have

(41:00):
been sent away to schools and colleges. One of the
easiest ways to accomplish this is to offer a scholarship
in some institution and then place her young protegee in
such a position. That he or she can win it,
and in this way have for years of tuition free fully.
A dozen different scholars are now enjoying the benefits of
Miss Gould's kindness in this and other respects. For others

(41:23):
have been enabled to attend art schools, and two are
studying music under the best teachers through the instrumentality of
this young woman. Two of these scholars were literally rescued
from the tenement dregs of New York, and they showed
such aptitude for study and work that Miss Gould undertook
to give them a fair start in the world. Unusual aptitude, brightness,

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or kindness on the part of children always attract Miss Gould,
and she has become the patron saint of more than
a hundred. When her name is mentioned, they show their
interest and concern, not by looks of awe and fear,
but of eagerness and happiness. Those of their numb who
have been lifted from their low estate and put in
high positions to carve out a life of success through

(42:05):
their common patron saint bring back stories of her kindness
and consideration that make the children look upon her as
they would the Madonna. But she is a youthful Madonna,
and the very idea of posing as such even before
the poor and ignorant of her little friends would amuse her. Nevertheless,
that is the nearest that one can interpret their ideas

(42:25):
concerning her. Miss Gould's beneficiaries have been sometimes aided in
obtaining the most advanced schooling in the land, and she
visits with equal interest the industrial classes of Berea and
the favored students of the College Beautiful. Her views upon education.
Miss Gould is well educated and a graduate of a

(42:45):
law school. I tried to ascertain her views regarding the
education of young women of today and what careers they
should follow. This is one of her particular hobbies, and
many are the young girls she has helped to attain
to a better and more satis factory life. I believe
most earnestly in education for women, she said, not necessarily

(43:06):
the higher education about which we hear so much, but
a good common school education. As the years pass, girls
are obliged to make their own way in the world
more and more, and to do so they must have
good schooling. And what particular career do you think most
desirable for young women? Oh As to careers, there are

(43:27):
many that young women follow nowadays. I think if I
had my own way to make, I should fit myself
to be a private secretary. That is a position which
attracts nearly every young woman. But to fill it she
must study hard and learn, and then work hard to
keep the place. Then there are openings for young women
in the fields of legitimate business. Women know as much

(43:51):
about money affairs as men, only most of them have
not had much experience in that field. There are hundreds
of things that a woman can do the evil of idleness.
But I don't think it matters much what a girl does,
so long as she is active and doesn't allow herself
to stagnate. There's nothing, to my mind so pathetic as

(44:12):
a girl who thinks she can't do anything and is
of no use to the world her patriotism. The late
Admiral Phillip He of the Texas in the Santiago Fight
regarded Miss Gould as an angel, and the sailors of
the Brooklyn Navy Yard fairly worship her. A hustling y M. C.
Chap Frank Smith by name, started a little club house

(44:35):
for jack Ashore near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Miss Gould
heard of this club and visited it. At a glance
she grasped the meaning, and on her return home she
wrote a letter in a check for fifty thousand dollars.
And there sprang from that letter in check a handsome
building in which there are sixty beds, a library, a
pipe organ, a smoking room, and a restaurant. Do you

(44:58):
wonder that that the jack adore her, and that the
gale that sweeps over the ship out in the open
sea is often freighted with the melody of her name.
When I visited Cuba and Puerto Rico, says Congressman Charles B.
Landis of Indiana, to whom I am greatly indebted in
preparing this article. I talked with officers and privates everywhere
along the journey, visited camps and hospitals, in cities and

(45:21):
isolated towns, and everywhere it seemed that the sickness and
suffering and heart yearning of the American soldier had been
anticipated by Helen Gould. Voices that quivered and eyes that
moistened at the mention of the name of this young
American girl were one continuous tribute to her heart and work.
She cannot fully realize how far reaching have been her efforts.

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A business man looks for results. What impressed me most
with Miss Gould's work was the visible, tangible results. Every
dollar spent by her seemed to go straight as a
cannonball to some mark. Miss Gould has a business head
and is not hysterical in her work. She gives, but
follows the gift and sees that it goes to the spot.

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She has studied results and knows which charity pays a
premium in smiles and tears and joy and better life,
and very little of her money will be wasted in
impracticable schemes. She has a happy faculty of getting an
actual touch with conditions, realizing that she cannot hit an
object near at hand by aiming at a star. Miss

(46:27):
Gould's practical business sense was beautifully exemplified at Montauku Point,
hundreds of soldiers from the hospitals in Cuba and Porto
Rico were suddenly unloaded. There. Elsewhere were government supplies, tents
and cots and rations. But there the six soldiers were
without shelter, were hungry, had no medicine, and were sleeping

(46:48):
on the ground. Why because of red tape, this young
lady appeared in person and amazed the strutters in shoulder
straps and the slaves to discipline, by having the six
soldier boys made comfortable on army cots, placed in army tents,
and fed on army rations. And this too without any requisition.

(47:09):
She grasped a situation, cut the ropes of theory in
introduced practice from her own purse. She provided nurses and dainties,
and bundled up scores of soldier boys and sent them
to her beautiful villa on the Hudson. The camp rang
with this refrain, You're the angel of the camp, Helen Gould.
In the sun rays, in the damp, on the weary,

(47:31):
weary tramp to our darkness. You're a lamp, Helen Gould.
Thoughts of home and gentle things, Helen Gould, to the camp.
Your coming brings all the place with music rings at
the rustle of your wings. Helen Gould, Our Helen. On
the day of the Dewey Parade in New York, Miss
Gould was in front of her house on a platform

(47:52):
she had erected for the small children of certain asylums.
Mayor Van Wick told Admiral Dewey who she was, and
the adb Momoral stood up in his carriage and bowed
to her three times. Then the word went down the
line that Miss Gould was there, and every company saluted
her as it passed. But it was when a body
of young recruits stopped for a moment before her door

(48:14):
that the real excitement began. She shan't marry a foreign prince,
they cried, tossing their hats and stamping their feet. She's Helen,
are Helen, and she shall not marry a foreign prince America.
Miss Gould's patriotism is very real and intense, and is
not confined to times of war. Two years ago, she

(48:36):
caused fifty thousand copies of the national Hymn America to
be printed and distributed among the pupils of the public
schools of New York. I believe everyone should know that
him and sing it, she declared. If he sings no other,
I would like to have the children sing it into
their very souls till it becomes a part of them.
She strongly favors patriotic services in the churches on the

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Sunday preceding the fourth of July, when she would like
to hear such airs as America, Hail Columbia, and the
star spangled banner, and see the sacred edifices draped in red,
white and blue unherlded benefactions. Miss Gould has a strong
prejudice against letting her many gifts and charities be known,

(49:20):
and even her dearest friends never know what Helen's doing now.
Of course, her great public charities, as when she gives
a hundred thousand dollars at a time, are heralded. Her
recent gift of that sum to the Government for National
Defense has made her name beloved throughout the land. But
had she been able, she would have kept that secret. Also,

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the place Helen Gould now holds in the love and
esteem of the Republic exemplifies how quickly the nation's heart
responds to the touch of gentleness, and how easy it
is for wealth to conquer and rise triumphant, if only
it be seasoned with common sense and sympathy. I will
not attempt to specify the numerous projects of cheroy that
have been given life and vigor by Miss Gould. I

(50:03):
know her gifts in recent years have passed the million
dollar mark. It seems so easy to do things for others,
said Miss Gould recently. It is easy to do good
if the doing is natural and without thought of self glorification.
Miss Gould's views upon how to make the most of
wealth are well set forth in her admirable letter to

(50:24):
Doctor Lewis Kloppsch as published in the Christian Herald. The
Christian idea that wealth is a stewardship or trust, and
not to be used for one's personal pleasure alone, but
for the welfare of others certainly seems the noblest and
those who have more money or broader culture owe a
debt to those who have had fewer opportunities. And there

(50:45):
are so many ways one can help children, the sick
and the aged especially have claims on our attention, and
the forms of work for them are numerous, from kindergartens,
day nurseries, and industrial schools to homes and hospitals. Our
institutions for higher education require gifts in order to do
their best work, for the tuition fees do not cover

(51:07):
the expense of the advantages offered. And certainly such societies
as those in our churches, and the Young Woman's Christian
Association and the Young Men's Christian Association deserve our hearty
co operation. The earnest workers who so nobly and lovingly
give their lives to promote the welfare of others, give
far more than though they had simply made gifts of money.

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So those who cannot afford to give largely need not
feel discouraged on that account. After all, sympathy and good
will may be a greater force than wealth, and we
can all extend to others a kindly feeling in courteous
consideration that will make life sweeter and better. Sometimes it
seems to me we do not sufficiently realize the good

(51:47):
that is done by money that is used in the
different industries, in giving employment to great numbers of people
under the direction of clever men and women. And surely
it takes more ability, perseverance, and time to successfully manage
such an enter prize than to merely make gifts. Her personality,
Miss Gould's life at Terrytown is an ideal one. She

(52:08):
runs down to the city at frequent intervals to attend
to business affairs, but she lives at Lyndhurst. She entertains
but few visitors, and in turn visits but seldom. The
management of her property, to which she gives close attention,
makes no inconsiderable call upon her time. I have no
time for society, she said, and indeed I do not

(52:31):
care for it at all. It is very well for
those who like it. Would you have an idea of
her personality? If so, replies Landis, you will think of
a good young woman in your own town, who loves
her parents and her home, who is devoted to the church,
who thinks of the poor on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas,
whose face is bright and manner unaffected, whose dress is

(52:53):
elegant in its simplicity, who takes an interest in all things,
from politics to religion, whom children love and day laborers
greet by reverently lifting the hat, and who, if she
were graduated from a home, seminary or college, would receive
a bouquet from every boy in town. If you can
think of such a young woman, and nearly every community

(53:14):
has won, and ninety nine times out of a hundred
she is poor, you have a fair idea of the
impression made on a plain man from a country town
by miss Gould. Helen Miller Gould is just at the
threshold of her beautiful career. What a promise is there
in her life and work for the coming century. She
has pledged a hall of fame for the campus of

(53:35):
the New York University, overlooking the Harlem River. It will
have tablets for the names of fifty distinguished Americans, and
proud will be the descendants of those whose names are
inscribed thereon. The Human Heart is the tablet upon which
Miss Gould has inscribed her name, and her hall of
fame is as broad and high as the republic itself.

(53:56):
How They succeeded? Life stories of successful men told by
themselves by Orison Sweat Martin in nineteen o one, Chapter four,
Philip D. Armor, Philip D. Armore's Business Career. I met
mister Armour in the quiet of the Armor Institute, his
great philanthropic school for young men and women. He was

(54:19):
very courteous, and there was no delay. He took my
hand with a firm grasp, reading with his steady gaze
such of my characteristics as interested him, and saying at
the same time, well, sir, in stating my desire to
learn such lessons from his business career as might be
helpful to young men. I inquired whether the average American

(54:40):
boy of to day has equally as good a chance
to succeed in the world as he had when he
began life. Every bit and better. The affairs of life
are larger, there are greater things to do. There was
never before such a demand for able men. Were the
conditions surrounding your youth especially difficult? No, they were those

(55:03):
common to every small New York town. In eighteen thirty two,
I was born at Stockbridge in Madison County. Our family
had its roots in Scotland. My father's ancestors were the Robertsons,
Watson's and MacGregor's of Scotland. My mother came of the
Puritans who settled in Connecticut. Doctor Gunsaliz says, I ventured

(55:26):
that all these streams of heredity set toward business affairs,
Perhaps so I liked trading well. My father was reasonably
prosperous and independent for those times. My mother had been
a school teacher. There were six boys, and of course
such a household had to be managed with the strictest
economy in those days. My mother thought it her duty

(55:49):
to bring to our home some of the rigid discipline
of the school room. We were all trained to work together,
and everything was done as systematically as possible. Had you
access to any books, yes, the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress and
a History of the United states. It is said of
the latter by those closest to mister Armour, that it

(56:10):
was as full of shouting Americanism as anything ever written,
and that mister Armour's whole nature is yet colored by
its stout American prejudices. Also that it was read and
re read by the Armor children. Though of this the
great Merchant did not speak. Were you always of a
robust constitution? I asked, yes, sir, all our boys were.

(56:34):
We were stout enough to be bathed in an ice
cold spring out of doors when at home there were
no bath tubs and warm water arrangements in those days.
We had to be strong. My father was a stern scotchman,
and when he laid his plans, they were carried out.
When he set us boys to work, we worked. It

(56:55):
was our mother who insisted on keeping us all at
school and who looked after our educational needs, while our
father saw to it that we had plenty of good
hard work on the farm. How did you enjoy that
sort of life, I asked, well enough, but not much
more than any boy does. Boys are always more or
less afraid of hard work. The truth is, I have heard,

(57:19):
but not from mister Armor, that when he attended the
district school. He was as full of pranks and capers
as the best, and that he traded jack knives in
summer and bob sleds in winter. Young armor was often
to be found in the winter coasting down the long
hill near the schoolhouse. Later he had a brief term
of schooling at the Casanova Seminary, footing it to California.

(57:43):
When did you leave the farm for a mercantile life,
I asked. I was a clerk in a store in
Stockbridge for two years after I was seventeen, but was
engaged with the farm more or less and wanted to
get out of that life. I was a little over
seventeen years old when the California gold excitement of eighteen
forty nine reached our town. Wonderful tales were told of

(58:06):
gold already found and the prospects for more on the
Pacific coast. I brooded over the difference between tossing hay
in the hot sun and digging up gold by handfuls,
until one day I threw down my pitchfork and went
over to the house and told mother that I had
quit that kind of work. People with plenty of money
could sail around Cape Horn in those days, but I

(58:27):
had no money to spare, and so decided to walk
across the country. That is, we were carried part of
the way by rail and walked the rest. I persuaded
one of the neighbors boys, Calvin Gilbert, to go along
with me, and we started. I provided myself with an
old carpet sack into which to put my clothes. I

(58:48):
bought a new pair of boots, and when we had
gone as far as we could on canals and wagons,
I bought two oxen. With these we managed for a while,
but eventually reached California. Afoot. Young Armor suffered a severe
illness on the journey and was nursed by his companion, Gilbert,
who gathered herbs and steeped them for his friend's use,

(59:09):
and once rode thirty miles in the rain to get
a doctor. When they reached California, he fell in with
Edward Crkin, a miner, who nursed him back to health.
The manner in which he remembered these men gives keen
satisfaction to the friends of the great merchant, Did you
have any money when you arrived at the gold fields?

(59:29):
Scarcely any? I struck right out though, and found a
place where I could dig, and I struck pay dirt
in a little time. Did you work entirely alone? No?
It was not long before I met mister Crorkin at
a little mining camp called Virginia. He had the next
claim to mine, and we became partners. After a little while,

(59:52):
he went away, but came back in a year. We
then bought in together. The way we ran things was
turn Crrkan would cook one week and I the next,
and then we would have a clean up every Sunday morning.
We baked our own bread and kept a few hens,
which kept us supplied with eggs. There was a man

(01:00:13):
named Chapin who had a little store in the village,
and we would take our gold dust there and trade
it for groceries. The ditch. Did you discover much gold,
I asked, Oh. I worked with pretty good success, nothing startling.
I didn't waste much and tried to live carefully. I

(01:00:34):
also studied the business opportunities around and persuaded some of
my friends to join me in buying and developing a ditch,
a kind of aqueduct to convey water to diggers and washers.
That proved more profitable than digging for gold, and at
the end of the year the others sold out to me,
took their earnings and went home. I stayed and bought

(01:00:54):
up several other water powers, until in eighteen fifty six
I thought I had enough, and so I sold out
and came east. How much had you made altogether? About
four thousand dollars. This was when mister Armor was twenty
four years old. His capital for beginning to do business,
he enters the grain market. Did you return to Stockbridge

(01:01:19):
a little while? But my ambition set in another direction.
I had been studying the methods then used for moving
the vast and growing food products of the West, such
as grain and cattle, and I believed that I could
improve them and make money. The idea and the field
interested me, and I decided to enter it. My standing
was good, and I raised the money and bought what

(01:01:41):
was then the largest elevator in Milwaukee. This put me
in contact with the movement of grain. At that time.
John Plankington had been established in Milwaukee a number of years,
and in partnership with Frederick Leyden, had built up a
good port packing concern. I bought in with those gentlemen
and so came in contact with the work I liked.

(01:02:03):
One of my brothers, Hermann, had established himself in Chicago
some time before in the grain commission business. I got
him to turn it over to the care of another brother, Joseph,
so that he might go to New York as a
member of the new firm of which I was a partner.
It was important that the Milwaukee and Chicago houses should
be able to ship to a house of their own

(01:02:24):
in New York, that is, to themselves. Risks were avoided
in this way, and we were certain of obtaining all
that the ever changing markets could offer us. When did
you begin to build up your Chicago interests? They were
really begun before the war by my brother Hermann, when
he went to New York. For us. We began adding

(01:02:45):
a small packing house to the Chicago Commission branch. It
gradually grew with the growth of the West. Mister Armore's
acute perception of the commercial conditions for building up a
great business? Is there any one thing that accounts for
the immense growth of the packing industry? Here, I asked,
system and the growth of the West did it? Things

(01:03:08):
were changing at startling rates in those days. The West
was growing fast. Its great areas of production offered good
profits to men who would handle and ship the products.
Railway lines were reaching out in new directions or increasing
their capacities and lowering their rates of transportation. These changes

(01:03:29):
and the growth of the country made the creation of
a food gathering and delivering system necessary. Other things helped.
At that time eighteen sixty three, a great many could
see that the war was going to terminate favorably for
the Union. Farming operations had been enlarged by the war
demand and war prices. The state banking system had been

(01:03:50):
done away with, and we had a uniform currency available everywhere,
so that exchanges between the East and the West had
become greatly simplified. Nothing more was needed than a steady
watchfulness of the markets by competent men in continuous telegraphic
communication with each other, and who knew the legitimate demand
and supply, in order to sell all products quickly and

(01:04:11):
with profit. System and good measure. Do you believe that
system does so much? I ventured system and good measure
give a measure heaped full and running over, and success
is certain. That is what it means to be the
intelligent servants of a great public need. We believed in

(01:04:33):
thoughtfully adopting every attainable improvement, mechanical or otherwise in the
methods and appliances for handling every pound of grain or flesh.
Right liberality and right economy will do everything where a
public need is being served. Then two our methods improved
all the time. There was a time when many parts

(01:04:56):
of cattle were wasted, and the health of the city
injured by the refuse. Now by adopting the best known methods,
nothing is wasted, and buttons, fertilizers, glue, and other things
are made cheaper and better for the world in general
out of material that was before a waste and a menace.
I believe in finding out the truth about all things,

(01:05:17):
the very latest truth or discovery, and applying it. You
attribute nothing to good fortune. Nothing. Certainly the word came
well from a man whose energy, integrity, and business ability
made more money out of a ditch than other men
were making out of rich placers in the gold region.
The turning point, May I ask what you consider the

(01:05:39):
turning point of your career the time when I began
to save the money I earned at the gold fields. Truth,
what trait do you consider most essential in young men truth.
Let them get that. Young men talk about getting capital
to work with. Let them get truth on board, and

(01:06:00):
capital follows. It's easy enough to get that. A great
orator and a great charity. Did you always desire to
follow a commercial rather than a professional life? Not always.
I have no talent in any other direction, but I
should have liked to be a great orator. Mister Armer

(01:06:20):
would say no more on this subject, but his admiration
for oratory has been demonstrated in a remarkable way. It
was after a Sunday morning discourse by the splendid order
doctor Gunsalis at Plymouth Church, Chicago, in which the latter
had set forth his views on the subject of educating children,
that mister Armor came forward and said, you believe in

(01:06:42):
those ideas of yours? Do you? I certainly do, said
Doctor Gunsalis, And would you carry them out if you
had the opportunity? I would, well, sir, said mister Armer.
If you will give me five years of your time,
I will give you the money. But to carry out
my ideas would take a million dollars, exclaimed Gunsals. I

(01:07:06):
have made a little money in my time, returned mister Armor,
and so the famous Armor Institute of Technology, to which
its founder has already given sums aggregating two million, eight
hundred thousand dollars, was associated with mister Armore's love of oratory.
One of his lieutenants says that Jarrett Smith, the old abolitionist,

(01:07:26):
was Armore's boyhood's hero, and that to day mister Armer
will go far to hear a good speaker, often remarking
that he would have preferred to be a great order
rather than a great capitalist ease in his work. There
is no need to ask you, I continued, whether you
believe in constant hard labor. I should not call it hard.

(01:07:47):
I believe in close application. Of course, while laboring over
work is not necessary to success. Every man should have
plenty of rest. I have you must rise early to
be at your office at half past seven, Yes, but
I go to bed early. I am not burning the

(01:08:07):
candle at both ends. The enormous energy of this man,
who is too modest to discuss it, is displayed in
the most normal manner, though he sits all day at
a desk which has direct cable connection with London, Liverpool,
Calcutta and other great centers of trade with which he
is in constant connection, though he has at his hand
long distance telephone connection with New York, New Orleans, and

(01:08:31):
San Francisco, and direct wires from his room to almost
all parts of the world, conveying messages in short sentences
upon subjects which involve the moving of vast amounts of
stock and cereals, and the exchange of millions in money.
He is not seemingly an overworked man. The great subjects
to which he gives calm undivided attention from early morning

(01:08:53):
until evening are laid aside with the ease with which
one dofts his raiment, and outside of his office that
cares way of upon him no more, his mind takes
up new and simpler things. What do you do, I
inquired after your hard day's work? Think about it? Not
at all. I drive, take up home subjects, and never

(01:09:15):
think of the office until I return to it. Your
sleep is never disturbed, not at all. A business king.
And yet the business which this man forgets when he
gathers children about him and moves in his simple home circle,
amounts in one year to over one hundred million dollar
worth of food products manufactured and distributed. The hogs killed

(01:09:37):
one million seven hundred and fifty thousand, the cattle one million,
eighty thousand, the sheep six hundred and twenty five thousand.
Eleven thousand men are constantly employed, and the wages paid
them are over five million, five hundred thousand dollars. The
railway cars owned and moving about all parts of the
country four thousand, the wagons of many kinds and of

(01:09:59):
large number, drawn by seven hundred and fifty horses. The
glue factory, employing seven hundred and fifty hands, makes over
twelve million pounds of glue. In his private office, it
is he who takes care of all the general affairs
of this immense world of industry. And yet at half
past four he is done, and the whole subject is
comfortably off his mind. Training youth for business. Do you

(01:10:24):
believe in inherited abilities? Or that any boy can be
taught and trained and made a great enable man. I
recognize inherited ability, some people have it, and only in
a certain direction. But I think men can be taught
and trained so that they become much better and more
useful than they would be otherwise. Some boys require more

(01:10:45):
training in teaching than others. There is prosperity for every
one according to his ability. What would you do with
those who are naturally less competent than others? Train them
and give them work according to their ability. I believe
that life is all right, and that this difference which
nature makes is all right. Everything is good and is

(01:11:07):
coming out satisfactorily, and we ought to make the most
of conditions and try to use and improve everything. The
work needed is here, and everyone should set about doing it.
When asked if he thought the chances for young men
as good to day as they were when he was young, yes,
he said, I think so. The world is changing every

(01:11:28):
day and new fields are constantly opening. We have new ideas,
new inventions, new methods of manufacture, and new ways to
day everywhere. There is plenty of room for any man
who can do anything well. The electrical field is a
wonderful one. There are other things equally good, and the
right man is never at a loss for an opportunity,

(01:11:51):
provided he has some ability and good sense to start with,
is thrifty, honest, and economical. There is no reason why
any young man should not accumulate money and attained so
called success in life. When asked to what qualities he
attributed his own success, mister Armer said, I think that
thrift and economy had much to do with it. I

(01:12:12):
owe much to my mother's training and to a good
line of Scotch ancestors who have always been thrifty and economical.
As to my business education, I never had any. I am,
in fact a good deal like Topsy. I just growed.
My success has been largely a matter of organization. I
have always made it a point to surround myself with

(01:12:34):
good men. I take them when they are young and
keep them just as long as I can. Nearly all
of the men I now have have grown up with me.
Many of them have worked with me for twenty years.
They have started in at low wages and have been
advanced until they have reached the highest positions. Mister Armer
thinks that most men who accumulate a large amount of

(01:12:57):
money inherited the money making instinct. The power of making
and accumulating money, he says, is as much a natural
gift as are those of a singer or an artist.
The germs of the power to make money must be
in the mind. Take, for instance, the people we have
working with us. I can get millions of good bookkeepers

(01:13:18):
or accountants, but not more than one out of five hundred.
In all of those I have employed, has made a
great success as an organizer or trader. Mister Armour is
a great believer in young men and young brains. He
never discharges a man if he can possibly avoid it.
If the man is not doing good work where he is,
he puts him in some other department, but never discharges

(01:13:41):
him if he can find him other work. He will, not, however,
tolerate in temperance, laziness, or getting into debt. Some time ago,
a policeman entered his office. In answer to mister Armore's question,
what do you want here? He replied, I want to
garnish you one of your men's wages for debt. Indeed,

(01:14:01):
said mister Armor. And who is the man? Asking the
officer into his private room he sent for the debtor?
How long have you been in debt, asked mister Armor.
The clerk replied that he had been behind for twenty
years and could not seem to catch up. But you
get a good salary, don't you. Yes, but I can't
get out of debt. But you must get out or

(01:14:24):
you must leave here, said mister Armor. How much do
you owe the clerk then gave the amount, which was
less than a thousand dollars. Well, said mister Armer, handing
him a check. There is enough to pay all your debts,
and if I hear of you again getting into debt,
you will have to leave. The clerk paid his debts
and remodeled his life on a cash basis, prompt to

(01:14:48):
act in illustration of mister Armore's aptitude for doing business
and his energy. It is related that when in eighteen
ninety three, local forces planned to defeat him in the
grain market, and every one was crying that at last
the great Goliath had met his David. He was all energy.
He had ordered immense quantities of wheat. The opposition had

(01:15:09):
shrewdly secured every available place of storage, and rejoiced that
the great packer, having no place to store his property,
would suffer immense loss and must capitulate. He foresaw the
fray and its dangers, and going over on Goose Island,
bought property at any price and began the construction of
immense elevators. The town was placarded with the truth that

(01:15:32):
any one could get work at Armor's elevators. No one
believed they could be done in time. But three shifts
of men, working night and day, often under the direct
supervision of the millionaire, gradually forced the work ahead, and
when on the appointed day the great grain ships began
to arrive, the opposition realized failure. The vessels began to

(01:15:53):
pour the contents of their immense holds into these granaries,
and the fight was over. Foresight. The foresight that sent
him to New York in eighteen sixty four to sell pork,
brought him back from Europe in eighteen ninety, three months
before the impending panic was dreamed of by other merchants.
It is told of him that he called all his

(01:16:14):
head men to New York and announced to them, gentlemen,
there's going to be financial trouble soon. Why, mister Armer,
they said, you must be mistaken. Things were never better.
You have been ill and are suddenly apprehensive. Oh no,
he said, I'm not. There is going to be trouble,

(01:16:36):
and he gave as his reason certain conditions which existed
in nearly all countries, which none of those present had
thought of. Now, said he to the first of his
many lieutenants, how much will you need to run your
department until next year? The headman named his need. The
others were asked, each in turn the same question, And

(01:16:56):
when all were through, he counted up, and, turning to
the company, said, gentlemen, go back and borrow all you
need in Chicago on my credit. Use my name for
all it will bring in the way of loans. Fore
Armed against panic, the lieutenants returned, and the name of
Armour was strained to its utmost limit. When all had

(01:17:18):
been borrowed, the financial flurry suddenly loomed up, but it
did not worry the Great Packer. In his vaults were
eight million dollars in gold. All who had loaned him
at interest then hurried to his doors, fearing that he
also was imperiled. They found him supplied with ready money
and able to compel them to wait until the stipulated

(01:17:39):
time of payment, or to force them to abandon their
claims of interest for their money, and so tied him
over the unhappy period. It was a master stroke and
made the name of the Great Packer a power in
the world of finance. Some secrets of success. Do you
consider your financial decisions, which you make quickly to be
brilliant intuitions? I asked, I never did anything worth doing

(01:18:04):
by accident, nor did anything I have come that way. No,
I never decide anything without knowing the conditions of the market,
and never begin unless satisfied. Concerning the conclusion not everyone
could do that, I said, I cannot do everything. Every
man can do something, and there is plenty to do.

(01:18:24):
Never more than now. The problems to be solved are
greater now than ever before. Never was there more need
of able men. I am looking for trained men all
the time. More money is being offered for them everywhere
than formerly. Do you consider that happiness consists in labor alone?
It consists in doing something for others. If you give

(01:18:48):
the world better material, better measure, better opportunities for living respectably,
there is happiness in that. You cannot give the world
anything without labor, And there is no satisfaction in any
thing but such labor as looks toward doing this and
does it. How they succeeded. Life stories of successful men
told by themselves by Orison Sweat Marten in nineteen o one,

(01:19:13):
Chapter five, Mary E. Proctor, What Miss Mary E. Proctor
did to popularize astronomy. You can never know what your
possibilities are, said Miss Proctor, till you have put yourself
to the test. There are many many women who longed
to do something and could succeed if they would only
banish their doubts and plunge in. For example, I was

(01:19:37):
not at all sure that I could interest audiences with
talks on astronomy, but in eighteen ninety three I began,
and since then have given between four and five hundred lectures.
Miss Proctor is so busy spreading knowledge of the beauties
and marvels of the heavens that she was at home
in New York for only a two days interval between
tours when she consented to talk to me about her work.

(01:20:00):
This talk showed such enthusiasm and wholesol devotion to the
theme that it is easy to understand Miss Proctor's success
as a lecturer. Although she is physically diminutive and is
very domestic in her tastes, audiences are appreciative. I am
always nervous in going before an audience, she said, but
there is so much I want to tell them that

(01:20:21):
I have no time at all to think of myself.
I find that if the lecturer is really interested in
the subject, those who come to listen usually are. And
it is certainly true as I have learned by going
upon the platform tired out from a long journey, that
you cannot expect enthusiasm in your audience unless you are
enthusiastic yourself. But I think that audiences are very responsive

(01:20:43):
and appreciative of intelligent efforts to interest them. And therefore
I am sure that if a woman possesses or can
acquire a thorough knowledge of some practical popular subject, and
has enthusiasm and a fair knowledge of human nature, she
can attain success on the lecture platform. The field is
broad and far from overcrowded, and it yields bountifully to

(01:21:05):
those who are willing to toil and wait. There is
Miss Roberts, for instance, who commands large audiences for her
lectures on music, and missus Lemka, who has been remarkably
successful in her practical talks on cooking, and Mary ye Booth,
who gives wonderfully instructive and entertaining lectures on the revelations
of the microscope. And Miss Verie, who takes audiences of

(01:21:27):
children on most delightful and profitable imaginary trips to places
of importance. Lectures to children, children, by the way, are
my most satisfactory audiences. Grown up people never become so absorbed.
It is the greatest pleasure of my lecturing to talk
to the little tots and watch them drink it all in. Indeed,

(01:21:49):
I prepared my very first lecture for children, but didn't
deliver it. That episode marked the beginning of my career
as a lecturer. Do you ask me to tell you
about it? My father, Richard and Proctor, wrote, as you know,
many books on popular astronomy when I was a girl.
I did not read them very carefully. My education at

(01:22:11):
South Kensington, London following a musical and artistic direction. In fact,
I was ambitious to become a painter. But when my
father died in eighteen eighty eight, I found comfort in
reading his books all over again, and as he had
drilled me to write for his periodical knowledge, I began
to write articles on astronomy for any one who would

(01:22:32):
accept them. One day in the spring of eighteen ninety three,
I received a letter from Missus Potter Palmer asking me
if I would talk to an audience of children in
the Children's building at the World's Fair. The idea of
lecturing was new to me, but I decided that I
would try at any rate, and so I took great
pains to prepare a talk that I thought the children

(01:22:53):
would understand and be interested in. But when I reached
the building, I found an audience not of children, but
of men and women. There was hardly a child in
all the assembled five hundred people. It would never do
to give them the childish talk I had prepared. And
as it was my first attempt to talk from a platform,
you can imagine my state of mind. I was determined, however,

(01:23:17):
that my first effort should not be a fiasco. So
I stepped out upon the platform and talked about the
things that had most interested me in my father's books
and conversations. A lesson in lecturing. I have lectured a
great many times since then, but my first lecture was
the most trying. I am now glad that things happened
as they did, for that experience taught me a valuable lesson.

(01:23:40):
I learned not to commit my talks to memory, but
merely to have the topics and facts and general arrangement
of the lecture well in mind. By this method, I
can change and adapt myself to my audience at any time,
and I often have to do this. I am able
to feel intuitively whether I have gained my listener's sympathy
and interest, and when I feel that I have not,

(01:24:02):
I immediately take another tack. Another great advantage of not
committing what you are going to say to memory word
for word is the added color and animation and spontaneity
which the conversational tone and manner gives the lecture. The stereopticon,
my stereopticon pictures of the heavenly bodies are of great
help to me. They naturally add much to the interest,

(01:24:25):
and are really a revelation to most of my audiences,
for the reason that they show things that can never
be seen with the naked eye. How my father would
have delighted in them, and how effectively he would have
used them. But celestial photography had not been made practical
at the time of his death. It is indeed quite
a new art, although its general principles are very simple.

(01:24:48):
A special lens and photographic plate are adjusted in the telescope,
and the plate is exposed as in an ordinary camera,
except that the exposure is much longer. It usually continues
for about four hours. The greater the length of time,
the greater being the number of stars that will be
seen in the photograph. After the developing, these stars appear

(01:25:09):
as mere specks on the plate. That they are so
small is not surprising, for most of them are stars
that are never seen by the eye alone. When the
photograph is enlarged by the stereopticon, the result is like
looking at a considerable portion of the heavens through a
powerful telescope. The children utter exclamations of delight when they

(01:25:29):
see the pictures. The children dear imaginative little souls. It
is my ambition to devote more and more of my
time to them, and finally talk can write for them altogether.
They are greatly impressed with the new world and the
skies which is open to them, and I like to
think that these early impressions will give them an understanding
and appreciation of the wonders of astronomy that will always

(01:25:50):
be a pleasure to them. Stories from star Land for
the Children, my first book, Stories from Starland, was written.
I tried to weave into it poetical and romantic ideas
that appealed to the imaginative mind of the child and
quicken the interest without any sacrifice of accuracy in the
facts with which I deal I wrote the book in

(01:26:12):
a week. The publisher came to me one Saturday and
told me that he would like a children's book on astronomy.
I devoted all my days to it till the following
Saturday night, and on Monday morning took the completed manuscript
to the publishing house. They seemed very much surprised that
it should be finished so soon, but as a matter

(01:26:32):
of fact, it was not much more than the manual
labor of writing out the manuscript that I did in
that week. The little book itself is the result of
ten years thought and study. It is much the same
with my lectures. I deliver them in a hasty, conversational tone,
and they seem, as one of my listeners told me recently,
to beat just off hand chats. But in reality I

(01:26:56):
devote a great deal of labor to them, and then
constantly adding new facts and new ideas concentration of attention.
I learned very soon after I began my work that
I must give myself up to it absolutely. If I
were to achieve success, there could be no side issues,
nothing else to absorb any of my energy or take

(01:27:17):
any of my thought or time. One of the first
things I did was to take a thorough course in singing.
For the purpose of acquiring complete control of my voice.
I put aside all social functions of which I am
rather fond, and have since devoted my days and nights
to astronomy. Not that I work at night, except when
I lecture. I rest and retire early, so that in

(01:27:38):
the morning I may have the spirit and enthusiasm necessary
to do good work. Enthusiasm, it seems to me, is
an important factor in success. It combats discouragement, makes work
a pleasure, and sacrifice is easier. A great many women
fail in special fields of endeavor, who might succeed if
they were willing to sacrifice something and would not let

(01:28:00):
the distractions creep in. There is more in a woman's
life to divert her attention from a single purpose than
in a man's. But if the woman has chosen some
line of effort that is worthy to be called life work,
and if refusing to be drawn aside, she keeps her
eyes steadfastly upon the goal, I believe that she is
almost certain to achieve success. How they succeeded Life stories

(01:28:24):
of successful men told by themselves by Orison Sweat Martin
in nineteen o one, Chapter six, President Sherman of Cornell University.
The boyhood experience of President Sherman of Cornell University. At
ten years of age, he was a country lad on
a backwoods farm on Prince Edward Island. At thirteen, he

(01:28:46):
had become a clerk in a country store at a
salary of thirty dollars a year. At eighteen, he was
a college student, supporting himself by working in the evenings
as a bookkeeper. At twenty he had won a scholarship
in the University of London in competition with all other
Canadian students. At twenty five, he was Professor of Philosophy

(01:29:08):
Acadia College, Nova Scotia. At thirty eight he was appointed
President of Cornell University. At forty four he was Chairman
of President McKinley's Special Commission to the Philippines. In this
summary is epitomized the career of Jacob Gould Sherman. It
is a romance of real life such as is not

(01:29:29):
unfamiliar in America. Mister Sherman's career differs from that of
some other self made men. However, instead of heaping up
millions upon millions, he has applied his talents to winning
the intellectual prizes of life. And has made his way
unaided to the front rank of the leaders in thought
and learning in this country. His career is a source

(01:29:50):
of inspiration to all poor boys who have their own
way to make in the world, for he has won
his present honors by his own unaided efforts. President Sherman
says of his early life, it is impossible for the
boy of to day, no matter in what part of
the country he is brought up, to appreciate the life
of Prince Edward Island as it was forty years ago.

(01:30:12):
At that time, it had neither railroads, nor daily newspapers,
nor any of the dozen other things that are the
merest commonplaces nowadays, even to the boys of the country districts.
I did not see a railroad until late in my teens.
I was never inside of a theater until after I
was twenty. The only newspaper that came to my father's

(01:30:33):
house was a little provincial weekly. The only books the
house contained were a few standard works, such as the Bible,
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Fox's Book of Martyrs, and a few
others of that class. Remember too, that this was not
back at the beginning of the century, but little more
than a generation ago. For I was born in the

(01:30:53):
year eighteen fifty four. My father had cleared away the
land on which our house stood. He was a poor man,
but no poorer than his neighbors. No amount of land
and no amount of work could yield much more than
the necessaries of life. In that time and place. There
were eight children in our family, and there was work

(01:31:14):
for all of us, a long tramp to school. Our
parents were anxious to have their children acquire at least
an elementary education, and so summer and winter we tramped
a mile and a half that lay between our house
and the district school, and the snow often fell to
the depth of five or six feet on the island,
and sometimes, when it was at its worst, our father

(01:31:36):
would drive us all to school in a big sleigh,
But no weather was bad enough to keep us away.
That would be looked upon as a poor kind of
school nowadays, I suppose the scholars were of all ages,
and everything from May b c. To the Rule of
three was taught by the one teacher. But whatever may

(01:31:58):
have been its deficiencies, the work of the school was thorough.
The teacher was an old fashioned drill master, and whatever
he drove into our heads. He put there to stay.
I went to this school until I was thirteen, and
by that time I had learned to read and write,
and spell and figure with considerable accuracy. At the age
of thirteen, I left home. I had formed no definite

(01:32:21):
plans for the future. I merely wanted to get into
a village and to earn some money. My father got
me a place in the nearest town, Summerside, a village
of about one thousand inhabitants. For my first year's work,
I was to receive thirty dollars and my board. Think
of that, young men of today, thirty dollars a year

(01:32:42):
for working from seven in the morning until ten at night.
But I was glad to get the place. It was
a start in the world, and the little village was
like a city to my country eyes. He always supported
himself from the time I began working in the store
until today, I have always supported myself, and during all

(01:33:02):
the years of my boyhood, I never received a penny
that I did not earn myself. At the end of
my first year, I went to a larger store in
the same town, where I was to receive sixty dollars
a year. And my board. I kept this place for
two years, and then I gave it up against the
wishes of my employer, because I had made up my
mind that I wanted to get a better education. I

(01:33:24):
determined to go to college. I did not know how
I was going to do this, except that it must
be by my own efforts. I had saved about eighty
dollars from my store keeping, and that was all the
money I had in the world. Out of a hundred
and fifty dollars, the only cash he received as his
first earnings. During three years, young Sherman had saved eighty dollars.

(01:33:46):
This he invested in the beginnings of an education. When
I told my employer of my plan, he tried to
dissuade me from it. He pointed out the difficulties in
the way of my going to college and offered to
double my pay if I would stay in the store.
The turning point of his life. That was the turning
point in my life. On one side was the certainty

(01:34:08):
of one hundred and twenty dollars a year and the
prospect of promotion as fast as I deserved it. Remember
what one hundred and twenty dollars meant in Prince Edward
Island and to a poor boy who had never possessed
such a sum in his life. On the other side
was my hope of obtaining an education. I knew that
it involved hard work and self denial, and there was

(01:34:30):
the possibility of failure in the end, but my mind
was made up. I would not turn back. I need
not say that I do not regret that early decision,
although I think that I should have made a successful storekeeper.
With my eighty dollars capital, I began to attend the
village high school to get my preparation for college. I

(01:34:51):
had only one year to do it in my money
would not last longer than that. I recited in Latin,
Greek and Algebra, all on the same day, and for
the next forty weeks I studied harder than I ever
had before or have since. At the end of the year,
I entered the competitive examination for a scholarship in Prince
of Wales College at Charlottetown on the Island. I had

(01:35:15):
small hope of winning it. My preparation had been so
hasty and incomplete. But when the result was announced, I
found that I had not only won the scholarship for
my county, but stood first of all the competitors on
the island. The scholarship I had one amounted to only
sixty dollars a year. It seems little enough, but I

(01:35:35):
can say now, after nearly thirty years, that the winning
of it was the greatest success I have ever had.
I have had other rewards which to most persons would
seem immeasurably greater, But with this difference, that first success
was essential. Without it, I could not have gone on.
The others I could have done without if it had
been necessary. For two years, young Sherman attended Prince of

(01:35:59):
Waislles College. He lived on his scholarship and what he
could earn by keeping books for one of the town storekeepers,
spending less than one hundred dollars during the entire college year. Afterwards,
he taught a country school for a year, and then
went to Acadia College in Nova Scotia to complete his
college course. A splendid college record. One of mister Sherman's

(01:36:22):
fellow students in Acadia says that he was remarkable, chiefly
for taking every prize to which he was eligible. In
his senior year, he learned of a scholarship in the
University of London, to be competed for by the students
of Canadian colleges. The scholarship paid five hundred dollars a
year for three years. The young student in Acadia was

(01:36:43):
ambitious to continue his studies in England and saw in
this offer his opportunity. He tried the examination and won
the prize. During the three years in the University of London,
mister Sherman became deeply interested in the study of philosophy
and decided that he had found in it his life work.
He was eager to go to Germany and study under

(01:37:04):
the great leaders of philosophic thought. A way was opened
for him through the offer of the Hibbert Society in London,
the prize being a traveling fellowship with two thousand dollars
a year. The honor men of the great English universities
like Oxford and Cambridge were among the competitors, but the
poor country boy from Prince Edward Island was again successful,

(01:37:25):
greatly to the surprise of the others. At the end
of his course in Germany, mister Sherman, then a doctor
of philosophy, returned to Acadia College to become a teacher. There.
Soon afterwards, he was called to Dalhousie University at Halifax,
Nova Scotia. In eighteen eighty six, when a chair of
philosophy was established at Cornell, President White, who once met

(01:37:49):
the brilliant young Canadian, called him to that position. Two
years later, doctor Sherman became dean of the Sage School
of Philosophy at Cornell, and in eighteen ninety two, when
the President's chair became vacant, he was placed at the
head of the great university. At that time he was
only thirty eight years of age. President Sherman is a

(01:38:10):
man of great intellectual power and an inspiring presence. Though
one of the youngest college presidents in the country, he
is one of the most successful, and under his leadership
Cornell has been very prosperous. He is deeply interested in
all the affairs of young men, and especially those who,
as he did, must make their own way in the world.

(01:38:31):
He said the other day, though I am no longer
engaged directly in teaching, I should think my work of
failure if I did not feel that my influence on
the young men with whom I come in contact is
as direct and helpful as that of a teacher. Could
be how they succeeded. Life stories of successful men told
by themselves by Orison Sweat Martin in nineteen o one,

(01:38:56):
Chapter seven, John Wannamaker. The Story of John Wannamaker Iron,
a plain, two story dwelling on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
The future Merchant Prince was born July eleventh, eighteen thirty seven.
His parents were Americans in humble station, his mother being
of that sturdy Pennsylvania Dutch stock which has no parallel

(01:39:18):
except the Scotch for ruggedness. His father, a hard working man,
owned a brickyard in the close vicinity of the family residence.
Little John earned his first money seven big copper cents
by assisting his father. He was too small to do much,
but turned the bricks every morning as they lay drying
in the summer sun. As he grew older and stronger,

(01:39:41):
the boy was given harder tasks around the brickyard. He
went to school a little, not much, and he assisted
his mother in the house a great deal. His father
died when John was fourteen, and this changed the whole
course of his life. He abandoned the brickyard and secured
a place in a book store owned by bar Berkley
Lippincott on Market Street, Philadelphia, at a salary of one

(01:40:04):
dollar and twenty five cents a week. It was a
four mile walk from his home to his place of business. Cheerfully,
he trudged this distance morning and night, purchasing an apple
or a roll each noon for luncheon, and giving his mother.
All the money that he saved. He used to deny
himself every comfort, and the only other money that he

(01:40:24):
ever spent was on books for his mother. This seems
to have been the boy's chief source of pleasure at
that period. Even today, he says of his mother, her
smile was a bit of heaven, and it never faded
out of her face till her dying day. Missus Wanamaker
lived to see her son famous and wealthy. His capital

(01:40:45):
at fourteen, John Wanamaker, the boy had no single thing
in all his surroundings to give him an advantage over
any one of hundreds of other boys in the city
of Philadelphia. Indeed, there were hundreds and hundreds of other
boys of his own age for whom anyone would have
felt safe in prophesying a more notable career. His capital

(01:41:05):
was not in money. Very few boys in all that
great city had less money than John Wannamaker, and comparatively
few families of average position, but were better off in
the way of worldly goods. John Wannamaker's capital that stood
him in such good stead in after life, comprised good health,
good habits, a clean mind, thrift in money matters, and

(01:41:27):
tireless devotion to whatever he thought to be duty. People
who were well acquainted with John Wannamaker when he was
a book publisher's boy say that he was exceptionally promising
as a boy, that he was studious as well as
attentive to business. He did not take kindly to rough
play or do much playing of any kind. He was
earnest in his work, unusually earnest for a boy, and

(01:41:50):
he was saving of his money. When a little later
he went to a Market street clothing house and asked
for a place, he had no difficulty in getting it,
nor had he any trouble in holding it, and here
he could earn twenty five cents a week more wages
Tower Hall clothing store. Men who worked with him in
the Tower Hall Clothing Store say that he was always bright, willing, accommodating,

(01:42:14):
and very seldom out of temper His effort was to
be first at the store in the morning, and he
was very likely to be one of the last, if
not the last, at the store in the evening if
there was an errand he was always prompt and glad
to do it. And so the store people liked him,
and the proprietor liked him. And when he began to

(01:42:35):
sell clothing, the customers liked him. He was considerate of
their interests. He did not try to force undesirable goods
upon them. He treated them so that when they came again,
they would be apt to ask where is John? His
ambition and power as an organizer? At sixteen, Colonel Bennett,

(01:42:55):
the proprietor of Tower Hall, said of him at this
time John was certainly the most ambitious boy I ever saw.
I used to take him to lunch with me, and
he used to tell me how he was going to
be a great merchant. He was very much interested in
a temperance cause, and had not been with me long
before he persuaded most of the employees in the store

(01:43:15):
to join the temperance society to which he belonged. He
was always organizing something. He seemed to be a natural
born organizer. This faculty is largely accountable for his great
success in after life. The y m C. A young
Wannamaker's religious principles were always at the forefront in whatever

(01:43:36):
he did. His interest in Sunday school work and his
skill as an organizer became well known. And so earnestly
did he engage in the work of the Young Men's
Christian Association that he was appointed the first salaried secretary
of the Philadelphia branch at one thousand dollars a year.
Never since has a secretary enrolled so many members in

(01:43:58):
the same space of time. He passed seven years in
this arduous work oak Hall. He saved his money and
at twenty four formed a partnership with his brother in
law Nathan Brown, and opened Oak Hall Clothing Store in
April eighteen sixty one. Their united capital was only three thousand,

(01:44:18):
five hundred dollars, Yet Wanamaker's capital of popular good will
was very great. He was already a great power in
the city. I can never forget the impression made upon
my mind after he had been in business but a
few months, when I visited his Bethany Sunday School, established
in one of the most unpromising sections of the city,
which had become already a factor for good with one

(01:44:40):
of the largest enrollments in the world, and he was
foremost in every form of philanthropic work. It was because
of his great capacity to do business that Wanamaker had
been able to boom the young Men's Christian Association work.
He knew how to do it, and he could boom
a Sunday school or anything else that he took hold of.

(01:45:02):
He had a head built for business, whatever the business
might be, and as for Oak Hall, he knew just
what to do with it. The first thing he did
was to multiply his working capital by getting the best
help obtainable for running the store. At the very outset,
John Wanamaker did what almost any other business man would
have stood agast at. He chose the best man he

(01:45:25):
knew as a salesman in the clothing business in Philadelphia,
the man of the most winning personality who could attract trade,
and agreed to pay him one thousand, three hundred and
fifty dollars for a year, one third of the entire
capital of the new concern. It has been a prime
principle with this merchant prince, not only to deal fairly
with his employees, but to make it an object for

(01:45:46):
them to earn money for him and to stand by him.
Capacity has been the first demand. He engaged the very
best men to be had. There are today dozens of
men in his employee who receive larger salaries than are
paid to care cabinet ministers. All the employees of the
thirteenth Street store, which he occupied in eighteen seventy seven,

(01:46:07):
participate in a yearly division of profits. Their share at
the end of the first year amounted to one hundred
nine thousand, four hundred and thirty nine dollars and sixty
eight cents. His relation to customers, a considerable portion of
the trade of the new store came from people in
the country districts mister Wanamaker had a way of getting

(01:46:28):
close to them and gaining their good will. He understood
human nature. He put his customer at ease. He showed
interest in the things that interested the farmer. An old
employee of the firm says John used to put a
lot of chestnuts in his pocket along in the fall
and winter, and when he had one of these countrymen
in tow, he'd slip a few of the nuts into

(01:46:50):
the visitor's hand, and both would go munching about the store.
Wanamaker was the first to introduce the one price system
into the clothing trade. It was the universal rule in
those days in the clothing trade not to mark the
prices plainly on the goods that were for sale. Within
rather liberal bounds, the salesman got what he could from

(01:47:11):
the customer. Mister Wanamaker, after a time, instituted at oak
Hall the plan of but one price and that plainly marked.
In doing this he followed the queue of Stuart, who
was the first merchant in the country to introduce it
into the dry goods business. The Great Wanamaker Store of
eighteen seventy seven went much further. He announced that those

(01:47:33):
who bought goods of him were to be satisfied with
what they bought, or have their money back to the
old mercantile houses of the city. This seemed like committing
business suicide. It was also unheard of that special effort
should be made to add to the comfort of visitors,
to make them welcome, whether they cared to buy or not,
to induce them to look upon the store as a

(01:47:54):
meeting place, a rendezvous, a resting place, a sort of
city home. Almost. The merchant's organizing faculty was so great
that General Grant once remarked to George W. Childs that
Wanamaker would have been a great general if his lot
had been that of army service. Wanamaker used to buy
goods of Stuart, and the New York Merchant remarked to

(01:48:16):
a friend, if young Wanamaker lives, he will be a
greater merchant than I ever was. Some time in recent
years since Wanamaker bought the Stuart Store, he said to
Frank G. Carpenter, A. T. Stuart was a genius. I
have been surprised again and again as I have gone
through the Broadway and Tenth Street building to find what

(01:48:37):
a knowledge he had of the needs of a mercantile establishment.
Mister Stuart put up a building which is to day,
I believe, better arranged than any of the modern structures.
He seemed to know just what was needed. I met
him often when I was a young man. I have
reason to think that he took a liking to me.
One day, I remember I was in his woolen department

(01:49:01):
buying some stuffs for my store here when he came
up to me and asked if I would be in
the store for fifteen minutes longer. I replied that I would.
At the end of fifteen minutes, he returned and handed
me a slip of paper, saying, young man, I understand
that you have a mission school in Philadelphia. Used that
for it. Before I could reply, he had left. I

(01:49:24):
looked down at the slip of paper. It was a
check for one thousand dollars. Wanna Maker Early showed himself
the peer of the greatest merchants. He created the combination
or department store. He lifted the retail clothing business to
a higher plane than it had ever before reached. In
ten years from the time he began to do business

(01:49:45):
for himself, he had absorbed the space of forty five
other tenants and become the leading merchant of his native city.
Four years later, he had purchased for four hundred and
fifty thousand dollars the freight depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
covering the entire square where his present great store is located.
The firm name became simply John Wannamaker. His lieutenants and

(01:50:08):
business partners therein are his son, Thomas B. Wannamaker and
Robert c Ogden. Their two Philadelphia establishments alone do a
business of between thirty million dollars and forty million dollars annually.
Mister Wannamaker's private fortune is one of the most substantial
in America attention to details. Yet in all these years

(01:50:30):
he has been early and late at the store, as
he was when a boy. He has always seen to
it that customers have prompt and careful attention. He early
made the rule that if a sale was missed, a
written reason must be rendered by the salesman. There was
no haphazard business in that store, nothing of the happy
go lucky style. Each man must be alert, wide, awake, attentive,

(01:50:54):
or there was no place for him. At oak Hall,
the most rigid economy has been always a part of
the system. It is told of him that in the
earlier days of oak Hall, he used to gather up
the short pieces of string that came in on parcels,
make them into a bunch, and see that they were
used when bundles were to be tied. He also had

(01:51:15):
a habit of smoothing out old newspapers and seeing that
they were used as wrappers for such things as did
not require a better grade. Of paper. The story has
been often related of the first day's business at the
original store in sixty one, when Wannamaker delivered the sales
by wheeling a push cart advertising. The first day's business

(01:51:36):
made a cash profit of thirty eight dollars, and the
whole sum was invested in one advertisement in the next
day's Inquirer. His advertising methods were unique. He paid for
the best talent he could get in this line. Philadelphia
woke one morning to find W and B in the
form of six inch square posters stuck up all over

(01:51:56):
the town. There was not another letter, no hint, just
W and B. Such things are common enough now, But
then the whole city was soon talking and wondering what
this sign meant. After a few days, a second poster
modestly stated that Wanamaker and Brown had begun to sell
clothing at Oak Hall. Before long, there were great signs,

(01:52:18):
each one hundred feet in length, painted on special fences
built in a dozen places about the city, particularly near
the railroad stations. These told of the new firm and
were the first of a class that is now seen
all over the country. Afterwards, balloons more than twenty feet
high were sent up and a suit of clothes was

(01:52:40):
given to each person who brought one of them back.
Whole counties were stirred up by the balloons. It was
grand advertising, imitated since by all sorts of people. When
the balloon idea struck the oak Hall management, it was
quickly found that the only way to get these airships
was to make them. And so on the roof of
the store the cotton cloth was cut and oiled and

(01:53:02):
put together. Being well built and tied very tightly at
the neck, they made long flights, and some of them
were used over and over again. In one instance, a
balloon remained for more than six months in a cranberry swamp,
and when the great bag was discovered slowly swaying in
the breeze among the bushes, the frightened jersey Men thought

(01:53:23):
they had come upon an elephant, or maybe a survivor
of the mastodons. This made more advertising of the very
best kind for the clothing store, the kind that excites interested,
complimentary talk, seizing opportunities. Genius consists in taking advantage of
opportunities quite as much as in making them. Here was

(01:53:44):
a young man doing things in an advertising way, regardless
of the custom of the business world, and with a
wonderful knowledge of human nature, he took common sense advantage
of opportunities that were open to everybody. Soon after the
balloon experience, Tally Oak coaching began to be a Philadelphia
fad of the very exclusives. Immediately afterwards, a crack coach

(01:54:06):
was secured and six large and spirited horses were used
instead of four, and Oak Hall employees, dressed in the
style of the most ultra coaching set, traversed the country
in every direction, scattering advertising matter to the music of
the horn. Sometimes they would be a week on a trip.
No wonder oak Hall flourished. It was kept in the

(01:54:28):
very front of the procession all the time. A little
later in the yachting season, the whole town was attracted
and amused by processions and scatterings of men, each wearing
a wider body frame that supported a thin staff from
which waved a wooden bridgee or pointed flag, reminding them
of Oak Hall. Nearly two hundred of these prototypes of
the Sandwich Man were often out at one time. But

(01:54:52):
it was not only in the quick catching of a
novel advertising thought that the new house was making history.
In newspaper advertising. It was even further in advance. The
statements of store news were crisp and unhackneyed, and the
first artistic illustrations ever put into advertisements were used there.
So high was the grade of this picture work that

(01:55:13):
art schools regularly clipped the illustrations as models, and the
world famous Shakespearean scholar, doctor Horace Howard Furness, treasured the
original sketches of the Seven Ages as among the most
interesting in his unique collection, Push and Persistence. The chief reason,
said mister Wannamaker, upon one occasion, that everybody is not

(01:55:34):
successful is the fact that they have not enough persistency.
I always advise young men who write me on the
subject to do one thing well, throwing all their energies
into it. To his employees, he once said, we are
very foolish people if we shut our ears and eyes
to what other people are doing. I often pick up
things from strangers as you go along, pick up suggestions

(01:55:58):
here and there, jot them down and send them along.
Even writing them down helps to concentrate your mind on
that part of the work. You need not be afraid
of overstepping the mark. The more we push each other,
the better to what mister Wannamaker, do you attribute your
great success in reply to this question? When asked, he

(01:56:19):
replied to thinking, toiling, trying, and trusting in God. A
serene confidence in a guiding power has always been one
of the Wannamaker characteristics. He is always calm under the
greatest stress. He never loses his head. In one physical particular,
mister Wanamaker is very remarkable. He can work continually for

(01:56:42):
a long time without sleep and without evidence of strain,
and make up for it by a good rest afterwards.
When upon one occasion he was asked to name the
essentials of success, he replied curtly. I might write a
volume trying to tell you how to succeed. One way
is to not be above taking a hint from a master.

(01:57:02):
I don't care to tell why I succeeded, because I
object to talking about myself. It isn't modest. A feature
of his make up that has contributed largely to his
success is his ability to concentrate his thoughts. No matter
how trivial the subject brought before him, He takes it
up with the appearance of one who has nothing else
on his mind. His views on business, when asked whether

(01:57:26):
the small tradesman has any show to day against the
great department stores. He said, all of the great stores
were small at one time. Small stores will keep on
developing into big ones. You wouldn't expect a man to
put an iron band about his business in order to
prevent expansion, would you? There are, according to statistics, a

(01:57:48):
greater number of prosperous small stores in the city than
ever before. What better proof do you want? The department
store is a natural product, evolved from conditions that exist
as a result of fixed trade laws. Executive capacity, combined
with command of capital, finds opportunity in these conditions, which

(01:58:08):
are harmonious with the irresistible determination of the producer to
meet the consumer directly and of merchandise to find distribution
along the lines of least resistance. Reduced prices stimulate consumption
and increase employment, and it is sound opinion that the
increased employment created by the department stores goes to women
without curtailing that of men. In general. It may be

(01:58:30):
stated that large retail stores have shortened the hours of labor,
and by systematic discipline, have made it lighter. The small
store is harder upon the salesperson and clerk. The effects
upon the character and capacity of the employees are good.
A well ordered modern retail store is the means of
education in spelling, writing, English language system and method. Thus

(01:58:55):
it becomes to the ambitious and serious employees, in a
small way, a universe in which character is broadened by
intelligent instruction practically applied. When asked if a man with
means but no experience would be safe in embarking in
a mercantile business, he replied quickly. A man can't drive
a horse who has never seen one. No, a man

(01:59:17):
must have training, must know how to buy and sell.
Only experience teaches that. I have heard people marvel at
the unbroken upward course of mister Wanamaker's career and lament
that they so often make mistakes. But hear him who
does not make mistakes. Why if I were to think
only of the mistakes I have made, I should be miserable. Indeed,

(01:59:41):
I have heard it said a hundred times that mister
Wanamaker started when success was easy. Here is what he
says himself about it. I think I could succeed as
well now as in the past. It seems to me
that the conditions of today are even more favorable to
success than when I was a boy. There are better
facilities for doing business, and more business to be done.

(02:00:04):
Information in the shape of books and newspapers is now
in the reach of all, and the young man has
two opportunities where he formerly had one. We are much
more afraid of combinations of capital than we have any
reason for being. Competition regulates everything of that kind. No
organization can make immense profits for any length of time

(02:00:24):
without its field soon swarming with competitors. It requires brain
and muscle to manage any kind of business, and the
same elements which have produced business success in the past
will produce it now and will always produce it. Public service,
with the exception of his term of service as Postmaster
General of the United States in President Harrison's cabinet, a

(02:00:46):
service which was marked by great executive ability in the
institution of many reforms, mister Wannamaker has devoted his attention
almost entirely to his business and his church work. Yet
as a citizen he has always taken a most positive
course in opposition to the evils that threaten society. He
has been forever prompted by his religious convictions to pursue vice.

(02:01:07):
Either in it dive, or in municipal, state or national life.
He hates a barroom, but he hates a treasury looter
far more fiercely. His idea of Christian duty was evidently
derived from the scene wherein the Master took a scourge
and drove the corrupt traders and officeholders out of the temple.
It is vigorous, it is militant, but it makes enemies. Consequently,

(02:01:31):
mister Wanamaker is not without persistent maligners, getting himself well
hated by the worst men in the community. Invest in yourself.
Mister Wanamaker's views of what life is for are well
expressed in the following excerpt from one of his addresses
to young men. In the course of his address, he
related that he was once called upon to invest in

(02:01:52):
an expedition to recover Spanish mahogany and doubloons from the
Spanish main, which for half a century had lain under
the rolling waves in sunken frigates. But young men, he continued,
I know of better expeditions than this ride at home.
Deep down under the sea of neglect and ignorance and discouragement,
near your own feet lie treasures untold, and you can

(02:02:15):
have them all for your own by earnest watch and
faithful study and proper care. Let us not be content
to mine the most coal, make the largest locomotives, and
weave the largest quantities of carpets. But amid the sounds
of the pick, the blows of the hammer, the rattle
of the looms, and the roar of the machinery, take
care that the immortal mechanism of God's own hand, the mind,

(02:02:37):
is still full trained for the highest and noblest service.
This is the most enduring kind of property to acquire,
a property of soul which no disaster can wreck or ruin.
Whatever may be the changes that shall sweep over our
fair land, no power can ever take away from you
your investments in knowledge at home. Like all other magnetic

(02:02:58):
and forceful men, mister Wanamaker is striking in appearance, strong
rather than handsome. He has a full round head, a
broad forehead, a strong nose, heavy lidded eyes that flash
with energy, heavy jaws that denote strength of will, and
tightly closed lips that just droop at the corners, giving
an ever present touch of sedateness. His face is as

(02:03:20):
smooth as a boy's and as mobile as an actor's,
and when lighted up in discussion, it beams with expression.
He wears a hat that is only six and seven
eighths in size, but is almost completely circular in form.
He is almost six feet tall and finely built, and
all his motions have in them the springiness of health.

(02:03:41):
Nobody ever saw him dressed in any other color than black,
with a black necktie under a turned down collar, but
he always looks as trim as if he were just
out of the hands of both tailor and barber. It
is his delight to pass much time at his country
seat in Jenkintown. He is fond of the field that
in the river, the trees and flowers, and all the

(02:04:02):
growths with which God has beautified the earth. His house
is a homelike structure with wide piazzas, standing upon the
crest of a hill in the midst of a noble lawn.
A big rosary and orchid house stand near by. The
before breakfast ramble of the proprietor is finished in the
flower garden, and every guest is laden with floral trophies.

(02:04:25):
Mister Wanamaker was married while he was the secretary of
the y MCA, to one whom he met at a
church service, and who has been in full sympathy with
his religious activities. He has been for forty years superintendent
of the Bethany Sunday School in Philadelphia. He began with
two teachers and twenty seven pupils, and at the recent
anniversary reported a school of four thousand, five hundred, a

(02:04:48):
church with three thousand, seven hundred members, five hundred having
been added during the past year, several branches and scores
of department organizations. John Wanamaker says today that his his
business success is due to his religious training. He is,
first of all a Christian. The lesson of such a
life should be precious to every young man. It teaches

(02:05:11):
the value of untiring effort, of economy, of common sense
applied to common business. I know of no career in
this country that offers more encouragement to young people. It
shows what persistence it can do. It shows what intelligent,
well directed, tireless effort can do. And it proves that
a man may devote himself to helping others, to the

(02:05:32):
Sunday School, to the church, to broad philanthropy, and still
be wonderfully successful in a business way. How they succeeded
life stories of successful men told by themselves by Orison
Sweat Marten, Chapter eight. Giving up five thousand dollars a
year to become a sculptor. My life queried f Wellington Ruckstool,

(02:05:56):
one of the foremost sculptors of America, as we sat
in his studio looking up at his huge figure of force.
When did I begin to sculpture? As a child, I
was forever whittling, But I did not have dreams then
of becoming a sculptor. It was not till I was
thirty two years of age, and love. Disappointment in my

(02:06:16):
first love played a prominent part. But as a boy,
mister Ruckstool, I was a poet. Every sculptor or artist
is necessarily a poet. I was always reaching out and
seeking the beautiful. My father was a foreman in a
Saint Louis machine shop. He came to this country in

(02:06:36):
a sailing ship from Alsace by way of the Gulf
to Saint Louis when I was but six years old.
He was a very pious man and a deacon in
a church. One time, Moody and Sankee came to town,
and my father made me attend the meetings. I think
he hoped that I would become a minister. Between the
ages of fourteen and nineteen, I worked in a photographic

(02:06:58):
supply store, wrote one one hundred poems, and read incessantly.
I enlarged a view of the statue of Nelson in
Trafalgar Square, London into a plaster sketch ten times as
large as the picture. But still I did not know
my path. I began the study of philosophy and kept
up my reading for ten years. My friends thought I

(02:07:19):
would become a literary man. I wrote for the papers
and belonged to a prominent literary club. I tried to
analyze myself. I am a man, I said, but what
am I good for? What am I to make of
this life? I drifted from one position to another. Every
one was sorry to part with my services, for I

(02:07:41):
always did my duties as well as they could be done.
When I was twenty five years of age, the girl
to whom I was attached was forced by her mother
to marry a wealthy man. She died a year afterwards,
and I pulled up stakes and started on a haphazard,
reckless career. I went to Colorado, drifted into Arizona, prospected

(02:08:02):
mined and worked on a ranch. I went to California
and at one time thought of shipping for China. My
experiences would fill a book. Again, I reached Saint Louis.
For a year, I could not find a thing to
do and became desperate. And you had done nothing at
art so far, I asked. At that time, I saw

(02:08:26):
a clay sketch. I said to myself, I can do
as well as that, and I copied it. My second
sketch admitted me to the Saint Louis Sketch Club. I
told my friends that I would be a sculptor. They
laughed and ridiculed me. I had secured a position in
a store and at odd times worked at what I

(02:08:46):
had always loved but had only half realized it. Notices
appeared in the papers about me, for I was popular
in the community. I entered the competition for a statue
of General Frank ark Blair. I received the first prize,
but when the committee discovered that I was only a
bill clerk in a store, they argued that I was
not competent to carry out the work. Although I was

(02:09:09):
given the first prize model and the one hundred and
fifty dollars accompanying it. But that inspired you. Yes, But
my father and mother put every obstacle in the way possible.
I was driven from room to room. I was not
even allowed to work in the attic here, mister Ruxtill laughed.
You see what genius has to contend with. I was

(02:09:32):
advanced in position in the store till I became assistant
manager at two thousand dollars a year. When I told
the proprietor that I had decided to be a sculptor,
he gazed at me in blank astonishment. A sculptor, he
queried incredulously, and made a few very discouraging remarks, emphasized
with dashes. Why, young man, are you going to throw

(02:09:54):
up the chance of a lifetime. I will give you
five thousand dollars a year and promote you to be
manager if you will remain with me. But I had
found my life's work, said mister Ruxtool, turning to me.
I knew it would be a struggle through poverty till
I attained fame. But I was confident in myself, which
is half of the battle. And you went abroad, yes,

(02:10:18):
with but two hundred and fifty dollars, he replied. I
traveled through Europe for five months and visited the French Salon.
I said to myself, I can do that and that,
and my confidence grew. But there was some work that
completely beat me. I returned to America penniless, but with
a greater insight into art. I determined that I would

(02:10:42):
retrace my steps to Paris and study there for three years,
and thought that would be sufficient to fully develop me.
My family and friends laughed me to scorn, and I
was discouraged by every one. In four months in Saint Louis,
I secured seven orders for busts at two hundred dollars
each to be done after my return from France. That

(02:11:04):
shows that some persons had confidence in me and in
my talent. Oh the student life in Paris, how I
look back with pleasure upon those struggling yet happy days.
In two months I started on my female figure of
Evening in the Nude, that is now in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. I finished it in nine months and

(02:11:25):
positively sweat blood in my work. I sent it to
the salon and went to Italy. When I returned to Paris,
I saw my name in the paper with honorable mention.
I suppose you can realize my feelings. I experienced the
first flush of victory. I brought it to America and
exposed it in Saint Louis. Strange to say, I rose

(02:11:48):
in the estimation of even my family. My father actually
congratulated me. A wealthy man in Saint Louis gave me
three thousand dollars to have my evening put into marble.
I returned with it to Paris, and in a month
and a quarter it was exhibited in the salon at
the World's Fair at Chicago. It had the place of

(02:12:09):
honor and received one of the eleven Grand Medals given
to American sculptors. In eighteen ninety two I came to
New York. This Statue of Force will be erected with
my Statue of Wisdom on the New Court of Appeals
in New York. We gazed at it, seated and clothed
in partial armor of the old Roman type, and holding

(02:12:30):
a sword across its knees. The great muscles spoke of
strength and force, and yet with it all there was
an almost benign look upon the military visage. There is
force and real action therewithal, although there is repose. I
said in admiration, Oh, said mister Ruxtool. That's it, and
that is what it is so hard to get. That

(02:12:53):
is what every sculptor strives for. And unless he attains it,
his work, from my point of view, is worth worthless.
There must be life in a statue. It must almost
breathe in repose. There must be dormant action that speaks
for itself. Is most of your work done under inspiration?
I asked? There is nothing and a great deal in

(02:13:16):
so called inspiration. I firmly believe that we mortals are
merely tools mediums at work here on earth. I peg
away and bend all my energies to my task. I
simply accomplish nothing. Suddenly, after considerable preparatory toil, the mist
clears away. I see things clearly. Everything is outlined for me.

(02:13:39):
I believe there is a conscious and a subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind is the one that does original work.
It cannot be affected by the mind that is conscious
to all our petty environments. When the conscious mind is
loth and silenced, the subconscious one begins to work that
I call inspiration. Are you ever discouraged? I asked, out

(02:14:02):
of curiosity, continually replied mister Ruckstool, looking down at his
hands soiled with the working clay. Some days I will
be satisfied with what I have done. It will strike
me as simply fine. I will be as happy as
a bird, and leave simply joyous the following morning, when

(02:14:23):
the cloths are removed, I look at my previous toil
and consider it vile. I ask myself, are you a
sculptor or not? Do you think that you ever will
be one? Do you consider that art? So it is.
Till your task is accomplished, you are your own critic,
and are continually distressed at your inability to create your ideals.

(02:14:46):
Mister f Wellington Ruckstool is forty six years of age,
neither short nor tall, a brilliant man with wonderful powers
of endurance. For his work is more exacting and tedious
than is generally supposed. I have simply worked on month
and a quarter on that statue, he said. Certain work
dissatisfied me, and I obliterated it. I have raised that

(02:15:08):
head three times. My eyes get weary and I become
physically tired. On such occasions I sit down and smoke
a little to distract my thoughts and to clear my mind.
Then my sub conscious mind comes into play again, he
concluded with a smile. Mister Ruxtall's best known works are
Mercury Teasing the Eagle of Jupiter, which is of bronze

(02:15:32):
nine feet high, which he made in Paris, a seven
foot statue of Solon directed in the Congressional Library at Washington,
busts of Franklin, Gerda and Macaulay on the front of
the same library, and the eleven foot statue of Bronze
of Victory for the Jamaica Soldiers and Sailors Monument. In competition,
he won the contract for an equestrian statue of General

(02:15:54):
John F. Hartroft, ex Governor of Pennsylvania, which he also
made in Paris. It is considered the finest piece of
work of its kind in America. Besides this labour, he
has made a number of medallions and busts, and with
the completion of his statue of Force, he will have
made a wonderful record. Art was in me as a child,

(02:16:15):
he said, I was discouraged whenever it beckoned me, but
finally claimed me. I surrendered a good position to follow it,
whether it led through a thorny road or not. A
sculptor is an artist, a musician, a poet, a writer,
a dramatist, to throw action, breath, and life, music, and
a soul into his creation. I can pick up an

(02:16:36):
instrument and learn it instantly. I can sing and act,
so I am in touch with the sympathies of the
beings that I endeavor to create. You will find most
sculptors and artists of my composite nature. There said mister Ruckstool,
and he stretched out his arm with his palm downward,
and moved it through the air as he gazed into distance.

(02:16:57):
You strive to create the imagination of your mind, and
it comes to you as if sent from another world.
You strive that is the way to success. How they succeeded.
Life stories of successful men told by themselves by Orison
Sweat Marten, Chapter nine, Darius Ogden Mills Questions and Answers

(02:17:20):
Business Pointers by Darius Ogden Mills. Mister Mills was born
in Western New York in eighteen twenty five. He has
been a leading financier for fifty years in California and
in New York. He is connected with the management of
eighteen important business and philanthropic corporations in New York City.

(02:17:41):
What is your idea, mister Mills, of a successful life.
If a boot black does all the good he possibly
can for his fellow men, his life has been just
as successful as that of the millionaire who helps thousands work. What,
mister Mills, do you consider the keynote of success? Work?
He replied quickly and emphatically. Work develops all the good

(02:18:05):
there is in a man, Idleness all the evil. Work
sharpens all his faculties and makes him thrifty. Idleness makes
him lazy and a spendthrift. Work surrounds a man with
those whose habits are industrious and honest. In such society,
a weak man develops strength, and a strong man is
made stronger. Idleness, on the other hand, is apt to

(02:18:27):
throw a man into the company of men whose object
in life is usually the pursuit of unwholesome and demoralizing
diversions self dependence to. What formative influence do you attribute
your material success, mister Mills, I asked, I was taught
very early that I would have to depend entirely upon myself,

(02:18:48):
that my future lay in my own hands. I had
that for a start, and it was a good one.
I didn't waste any time thinking about succession to wealth,
which so often acts as a drag upon young men.
Many persons waste the best years of their lives waiting
for dead men's shoes, and when they get them, find
them entirely too big to wear gracefully, simply because they

(02:19:11):
have not developed themselves to wear them. As a rule,
the small inheritance, which to a boy would seem large,
has a tendency to lessen his efforts, and is a
great damage to him in the way of acquiring the
habits necessary to success habit of thrift. No one can
acquire a fortune unless he makes a start, and the

(02:19:32):
habit of thrift, which he learns in saving his first
hundred dollars, is of an estimable value Later on. It
is not the money, but the habit which counts. There
is no one so helpless as a man who is broke,
no matter how capable he may be, And there is
no habit so detrimental to his reputation among business men
as that of borrowing small sums of money. This cannot

(02:19:55):
be too emphatically impressed upon young men expensive habit bits smoking.
Another thing is that none but the wealthy and very
few of them can afford the indulgence of expensive habits.
How much less then can a man with only a
few dollars in his pocket. More young men are ruined
by the expense of smoking than in any other way.

(02:20:17):
The money thus laid out would make them independent in
many cases, or at least would give them a good start.
A young man should be warned by the melancholy example
of those who have been ruined by smoke and avoided
forming an independent business judgment? What marked traits, mister Mills,
have the influential men with whom you have been associated

(02:20:39):
possessed which most impressed you a habit of thinking and
acting for themselves? No end If people are ruined by
taking the advice of others. This may answer temporarily, but
in the long run it is sure to be disastrous.
Any man who has an ability to judge for himself
would better get a comfortable clerkship somewhere, letting some one

(02:21:00):
of more ambition and ability do the thinking necessary to
run the business. The multiplication of opportunities t o day
in America, are the opportunities for making money as numerous
to day as they were when you started in business? Yes,
the progress of science and invention has increased the opportunities
a thousandfold, and a man can find them wherever he

(02:21:22):
seeks them. In the United States, in particular, it has
caused the field of employment of labor of all kinds
to expand enormously, thus creating opportunities which never existed before.
It is no longer necessary for a man to go
to foreign countries or distant parts of his own country
to make money. Opportunities come to him in every quarter.

(02:21:44):
There is hardly a point in the country so obscure
that it has not felt the revolutionizing influence of commercial enterprise.
Probably railroads and electricity are the chief instruments in this respect.
Other industries follow closely in their wake. Where one's best
chance is the knowledge of men, in what part of

(02:22:04):
the country do you think the best chances for young
men may be found. The best place for a young
man to make money is the town in which he
was born and educated. There he learns all about everybody,
and everybody learns about him. This is to his advantage
if he bears a good character, and to the advantage
of his townspeople if he bears a bad one. While

(02:22:26):
a young man is growing up, he unconsciously absorbs a
vast deal of knowledge of people and affairs, which would
be equal to money if he only has the judgment
to avail himself of it. A knowledge of men is
the prime secret of business success. Upon reflection, how absurd
it is for a man to leave a town where
he knows everything everybody and go to some distant point

(02:22:48):
where he doesn't know anything about anybody or anything, and
expect to begin on an equal footing with the people there,
who are thoroughly acquainted the bottom of the latter. What lesson,
mister Mills, do you consider it most needful for young
men to learn the lesson of humility, not in the
sense of being servile or undignified, but in that of

(02:23:09):
paying due respect to men who are their superiors. In
the way of experience, knowledge, and position. Such a lesson
is akin to that of discipline. Members of the royal
families of Europe are put in subordinate positions in the
navies or armies of their respective countries in order that
they may receive the training necessary to qualify them to
take command. They must first know how to obey if

(02:23:32):
they would control others. In this country, it is customary
for the sons of the presidents of great railroads or
other companies, to begin at the bottom of the latter
and work their way up, step by step, just the
same as any other boy in the employ of the corporation.
This course has become imperatively necessary in the United States,
where each great business has become a profession in itself.

(02:23:56):
Most of the big machine shops number among their employees
scions of old families, who carry dinner pails and work
with files or lathes the same as any one else.
Such shoulder to shoulder experience is invaluable to a man
who is destined to command, because he not only masters
the trade technically, but learns all about the man he
works with, and qualifies himself to grapple with labor questions

(02:24:19):
which may arise. There is no end of conspicuous examples
of the wisdom of this system in America. There are
also many instances of disaster to great industrial concerns due
to the inexperience or the lack of tact of men
placed suddenly in control the beneficent use of capital. Upon
this point, mister Mills said, a man can, in the

(02:24:42):
accumulation of a fortune, be just as great a benefactor
of mankind, as in the distribution of it. In organizing
a great industry, one opens up fields of employment for
a multitude of people who might otherwise be practically helpless,
giving them not only a chance to earn a living
for themselves and their families, but also to lay by
a competency for old age. All honest sober men, if

(02:25:05):
they have half a chance, can do that, But only
a small percentage can ever become rich. Now the rich man,
having acquired his wealth, knows better how to manage it
than those under him would, and having actual possession, he
has the power to hold the community of his employees
and their interests together and prevent disintegration, which means disaster.

(02:25:26):
So much oftener to the employee than to the employer.
The wholesome discipline of earning and spending. What is the
responsibility of wealth, mister Mills. A man must learn not
to think too much of money. It should be considered
as a means and not an end, and the love
for it should never be permitted to so warp a

(02:25:46):
man's mind as to destroy his interest in progressive ideas.
Making money is an education, and the wide experience thus
acquired teaches a man discrimination in both men and projects
where money is under consideration. Very few men who make
their own money use it carelessly. Most good projects that
fail owe their failure to bad business management, rather than

(02:26:09):
to lack of intrinsic merit. An inventor may have a
very good thing and plenty of capital may be enlisted,
but if a man not acquainted with the peculiar line,
or one who is not a good salesman or financier,
be employed as manager, the result is disastrous. A man
should spend his money in a way that tends to
advance the best interests of society in the country he

(02:26:30):
lives in, or in his own neighborhood. At least. There
is only one thing that is a greater harm to
the community than a rich spendthrift, and that is a
miser personal A word about cheap hotels. How did you
happen to establish the system of hotels which bears your name,
mister Mills, I have been looking around for several years

(02:26:51):
to find something to do that would be for the
good of the community. My mind was largely on other matters,
but it occurred to me that the hotel project was
the best, and I immediately went to work at it.
My purpose was to do the work on so large
a scale that it would be appreciated and spread all
over the country. For as the sources of education extend,

(02:27:11):
we find more and more need of assisting men who
have a disposition for decency and good citizenship. The mechanic
is well paid, and the man who has learned to
labor is much more independent than he who is prepared
for a profession, or a scientific career, or other objects
in life that call for higher education. Clerks commencing at
small salaries need good surroundings and economy to give themselves

(02:27:34):
a start. Such are the men for whom the hotels
were established, How they succeeded. Life stories of successful men
told by themselves by Orison Sweat Marten, Chapter ten, Nordica,
What it costs to become a Queen of Song. Of
the internationally famous singers, none is a greater favorite than

(02:27:57):
Madame Lillian Nordica. She has had honors heaped upon her
by every music loving country. Milan, Saint Petersburg, Paris, London,
and New York in turn accepted her jewel cases filled
with bracelets, necklaces, tierras, and diadems of gold and precious
stones attest the unaffected sincerity of her admirers in all

(02:28:21):
the great music centers of the world. She enjoys, in addition,
the distinction of being one of the first two American
women to attain to international fame as a singer in
grand opera. Madame Nordica I met on appointment at the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where she kindly detailed for me the
difficulties she encountered at the outset. Distinction in the field

(02:28:42):
of art is earned. It is not thrust upon anyone.
The material for a great voice may be born in
a person, it is, in fact, but the making of
it into a great voice is a work of the
most laborious character. In some countries the atmosphere is not
very favorable to beginners. Almost any of the greater European

(02:29:02):
nations is probably better in this respect than the United States.
Not much better, however, because nearly all depends upon strength
of character, determination, and the will to work. If a
girl has these, she will rise as high in the
end anywhere. Madame Nordica came of New England stock, being
born at Farmington, Maine and reared in Boston. Her parents

(02:29:27):
bearing the name Norton possessed no musical talent. Their opinion
of music, said Madam, was that it is an airy,
inviting art of the devil, used to tempt men's feet
to stray from the solemn path of right. They believed
music as a vocation to be nearly as reprehensible as
a stage career, and for the latter they had no tolerance. Whatever.

(02:29:49):
I must be just though, and own that they did
make an exception in the case of church music. Else
I should never have received the slightest encouragement in my aspirations.
They considered music in churches to be permissible, even laudable.
So when I displayed some ability as a singer, I
was allowed to use it in behalf of religion. And
I did. I joined the church choir and sang hymns

(02:30:11):
about the house almost constantly. But I needed a world
of training. I had no conception of what work lay
ahead of anyone who contemplates singing perfectly. I had no
idea of how high I might go myself. All I
knew was that I could sing, and that I would
win my way with my voice if I could. How

(02:30:32):
did you accomplish it by devoting all my time all
my thought and all my energy to that one object.
I devoured church music all I could get hold of.
I practiced new and difficult compositions all the time I
could spare. I became a very good church singer, so
much so that when there were church concerts or important

(02:30:53):
religious ceremonies, I was always in demand. Then there began
to be a social demand for my ability, and later
a public demand in the way of concerts. At first
I ignored all but church singing. My ambition ran higher
than concert singing, and I knew my parents would not consent.

(02:31:13):
I persuaded them to let me have my voice trained.
This was not very difficult, because my church singing, as
it had improved, became a source of considerable profit, and
they saw even greater results for me in the large
churches and in the religious field. So I went to
a teacher of vocal culture, Professor John O'Neill, one of

(02:31:33):
the instructors in the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston.
He was a fine old teacher, a man with the
highest ideals concerning music, and of the sternest and most
exacting method. He made me feel at first that the
world was mine if I would work, hard work, was
his constant cry. There must be no play, no training

(02:31:56):
for lower forms of public entertainment, know anything but steady
and practice. I must work and perfect myself in private,
and then suddenly appear unheralded in the highest class of
opera and take the world by storm. It was a
fine fancy, but it would not have been possible. O'Neill
was a fine musician. Under him, I studied the physiology

(02:32:18):
of the voice and practiced singing oratorios. I also took
up Italian, familiarizing myself with the language with all the
songs in Endless Arius. In fact, I made myself as
perfect an Italian as possible. In three years I have
been greatly improved. Mister O'Neill, however, employed methods of making

(02:32:40):
me work which discouraged me. He was a man who
would magnify and storm over the slightest error, and make
light of or ignore the sincerest achievements. He put his
grade of perfection so high that I began to consider
it unattainable and lost heart. Finally I gave it up
and rested awhile, uncertain of everything. After I had thought

(02:33:02):
awhile and regained some confidence, I came to New York
to see Madame Merritsek. She was not only a teacher
but also a singer, quite famous in her day, and
she thoroughly knew the world of music. She considered my
voice to be of the right quality for the highest
grade of operatic success, and gave me hope that with
a little more training, I could begin my career. She

(02:33:25):
not only did that, but also set me to studying
the great operas Lucia and the others, and introduced me
to the American musical celebrities. Together we heard whatever was
worth hearing in New York. When the renowned Brignola came
to New York, she took me to the Everett House
where he was stopping and introduced me. They were good friends,

(02:33:47):
and after gaining his opinion on the character of my voice,
she had him play Faust. That was a wonderful thing
for me to hear the great Brignola. It fired my ambition.
As I listened, I felt that I could also be great,
and that people some day might listen to me as
enraptured as I then was by him. It t put

(02:34:08):
new fire into me and caused me to fairly toil
over my studies. I would have given up all my
hours if only I had been allowed or requested. So
it went until after several years of study, Madame Merritsek
thought I was getting pretty well along and might venture
some important public singing. We talked about different ways of

(02:34:29):
appearing in what I would sing, and so on, until
finally Gilmore's band came to Madison Square Garden. He was
in the heyday of his success then and carried important
soloists with him. Madame Merrotzk decided that she would take
me to see him and get his opinion, and so
one day, toward the very last of his Madison Square engagement,

(02:34:50):
we went to see him. Madame Merritsek was on good
terms with him also. I remember that she took me
in one morning when he was rehearsing. I saw a stout,
kindly genial looking man who was engaged in tapping for attention,
calling certain individuals to notice certain points, and generally fluttering
around over a dozen odds and ends. Madame Meritsek talked

(02:35:14):
with him a little while and then called his attention
to me. He looked toward me, thinks she can sing, eh, yes, yes, well,
all right, let her. Come right along. Then he called
to me, come right along, now, step right up here
on the stage. Yes, yes, Now what can you sing?

(02:35:39):
I told him I could sing almost anything in oratorio
or opera if he so wished. He said, well, well,
have a little from both. Now what shall it be.
I shall never forget his kindly way. He was like
a good father, gentle and reassuring, and seemed really pleased
to have me there and to hear me. I went

(02:36:01):
up on the platform and told him that I would
begin with let the Bright seraph him, and he called
the orchestra to order and had them accompany me. I
was slightly nervous at first, but recovered my equanimity and
sang up to my full limit of power. When I
was through, he remarked, very good, very good, And now
what else I next sang an aria from somnambula. He

(02:36:26):
did not hesitate to express his approval, which was always
very good, very good. Now what you want to do,
he said, is to get some roses in your cheeks
and come along and sing for me. After that he
continued his conference with Madame Merritsek, and then we went
away together. I was traveling on air when I left.

(02:36:49):
I can assure you his company was famous. Its engagement
had been most successful. Madam Popenheim was singing with it,
and there were other famous men. There were only two
more concerts to conclude his New York engagement, but he
had told Madame Merritsech that if I chose to come
and sing on these occasions, he would be glad to

(02:37:10):
have me. I was more than glad of the opportunity
and agreed to go. We arranged with him by letter,
and when the evening came, I sang My work, made
a distinct impression on the audience, and pleased mister Gilmore wonderfully.
After the second night, when all was over, he came
to me and said, now, my dear, of course there

(02:37:32):
is no more concert this summer, but I am going
west in the fall. Now, how would you like to
go along? I told him that I would like to
go very much if it could be arranged, And after
some negotiation, he agreed to pay the expenses of my
mother and myself and give me one hundred dollars a
week besides. I accepted, and when the Western tour began

(02:37:55):
we went along. I gained thorough control of my nerves
upon that tour and learned something of audiences and of
what constitutes distinguished stage presents. I studied all the time,
and with the broadening influence of travel, gained a great deal.
At the end of the tour, my voice was more
under my control than ever before, and I was a

(02:38:16):
better singer all around. You did not begin with grand
opera after all, No, I did not. It was not
a perfect conclusion of my dreams, but it was a
great deal. My old instructor, mister O'Neill took it worse
than I did. He regarded my ambitions as having all
come to naught. I remember that he wrote me a

(02:38:39):
letter in which he thus called me to account after
all my training, my advice that you should come to
this a whole lifetime of ambition and years of the
hardest study consumed to fit you to go on the
road with a brass band. Po I pocketed the sarcasm
in the best of humor, because I was sure of
my dear old teachers unwavering faith in me, and knew

(02:39:02):
that he wrote only for my own good. Still, I
felt that I was doing wisely in getting before the public,
and so decided to wait quietly and see if time
would not justify me. When the season was over, mister
Gilmore came to me again. He was the most kindly
man I ever knew. His manner was as gentle, and

(02:39:23):
his heart as good as could be. I am going
to Europe, he said, I am going to London and
Paris and Vienna and Rome and all the other big cities.
There will be a fine chance for you to see
all those places. And let Europeans hear you. They appreciate
good singers. Now, little girl, do you want to come.

(02:39:44):
If you do, you can. I talked it over with
my mother and Madame Merritsech and decided to go. And
so the next season we were in Europe. We gave
seventy eight concerts in England and France. We opened the
Trick Cadero at Paris, and mine was the first voice
of any kind to sing there. This European tour of

(02:40:06):
the American band was a great and successful venture. American
musicians still recall the furore which it created and the
prestige which it gained at home. Mister Gilmore was proud
of his leading soloists in Paris, where the great audiences
went wild over my singing. He came to praise me
personally in unmeasured terms. My dear, he said, you are

(02:40:29):
going to be a great singer. You are going to
be crowned in your own country. Yet, mark my words,
they are going to put diamonds on your brow. Madame
Nordica had good occasion to recall this in eighteen ninety eight,
many years after, when her enthusiastic New York admirers crowned
her with a diamond tiara as a tribute of their

(02:40:50):
admiration and appreciation. It was at the time when Gilmour
was at the height of his Paris engagement that his
agent ran off with his funds and left the old
band master almost stranded. Despite his sincere trouble, he retained
his imperturbable good nature and came out of it successfully.
He came to me one morning, smiling good naturedly as usual.

(02:41:13):
After greeting me and inquiring after my health, he said,
my dear child, you have saved some little money on
this tour. I told him I had. Now I would
like to borrow that little from you. I was very
much surprised at the request, for he said nothing whatever
of his loss. Still he had been so uniformly kind

(02:41:34):
and generous, and had won our confidence and regard so
wholly that I could not hesitate. I turned over nearly
all I had, and he gathered it up and went away,
simply thanking me. Of course I heard of the defalcation
later it became generally known. Our salaries went right on, however,

(02:41:55):
and in a few months the whole thing had been
quite forgotten. When he came to me one morning with
money ready in his hand, to pay you what I
owe you, my dear, He said, Oh yes, I said,
so and so much, naming the amount. Here it is,
he said, and handing me a roll of bills, he

(02:42:15):
went away. Of course I did not count it until
a little later, but when I did, I found just
double the amount I had named, and no persuasion would
ever induce him to accept a penny of it back
When did you part with Gilmore? At the end of
that tour, he determined to return to America, and I
had decided to spend some of my earnings on further

(02:42:37):
study in Italy. Accordingly, I went to Milan to the
singing teacher San Giovanni. On arriving there, I visited the
old teacher and stated my object. I said that I
wanted to sing in grand opera. Why don't you sing
in grand opera? He answered, let me hear your voice.

(02:42:58):
I sang an Aria from Lucia, and when I was through,
he said dryly, you want to sing in grand opera? Yes, well,
why don't you I need training? Nonsense, he answered, We
will attend to that. You need a few months to
practice Italian methods, that is all. So I spent three

(02:43:21):
months with him. After much preparation, I made my debut
as Violetta in Verdi's opera La Traviata at the Teatro
Grande in Brescia. The details of Madame Nordica's Italian appearance
are very interesting. Her success was instantaneous. Her fame went
up and down the land and across the water to

(02:43:43):
her home. She next sang in Buno's Faust at Geneva,
and soon afterwards appeared at Navarro singing Alice in Meyerbeer's Roberto,
the enthusiastic and delighted subscribers, presenting her with a handsome
set of rubies and pearls. After that, she was engaged
to sing at the Russian capital, and accordingly went to

(02:44:03):
Saint Petersburg, where in October eighteen eighty one she made
her debut as La Felina in Mignon. There also, her
success was great. She was the favorite of the society
of the court and received pleasant attentions from every quarter.
Presents were made her and inducements for her continued presence

(02:44:23):
until two winters had passed. Then she decided to revisit
France and Paris. This was her crowning triumph. I wanted
to sing in grand opera at Paris, she said to me.
I wanted to know that I could appear successfully in
that grand place. I counted my achievements nothing until I
could do that, and did you Yes. In July eighteen

(02:44:49):
eighty two, I appeared there. This was her greatest triumph.
In the part of Marguerite. She took the house by storm,
and one from the composer the highest encomia. Subsequently, she
appeared with equal success as awfully, having been specially prepared
for both these roles by the respective composers, Charles Guno

(02:45:10):
and Ambrose Thomas. You should have been satisfied after that,
I said, I was, She answered, so thoroughly was I
satisfied that soon Afterwards, I gave up my career and
was married. For two years. I remained away from the public,
but after that time, my husband having died, I decided

(02:45:31):
to return. I made my first appearance at the Burton
Theater in London and was doing well enough when Colonel
Mapleson came to me. He was going to produce grand opera.
In fact, he was going to open Covent Garden, which
had been closed for a long time, with a big company.
He was another interesting character. I found him to be

(02:45:51):
generous and kind hearted and happy spirited as any one
could be. When he came to me, it was in
the most friendly manner. I'm going to open Covent Garden,
he said, Now here is your chance to sing there.
All the great singers have appeared there. Patty Gerster, Nielsen Titiens.

(02:46:12):
Now it's your turn come and sing. How about terms,
I asked, terms? He exclaimed, terms. Don't let such little
details stand in your way. What is money compared to this?
Ignore money, Think of the honor of the memories of
the place, of what people think of it. And then

(02:46:35):
he waved his arms dramatically. Yet we came to terms
not wholly sacrificial. On my part, and the season began.
Covent Garden had not been opened for a long time.
It was in the spring of the year, cold and damp.
There was a crowded house, though, because fashion accompanied the
Prince of Wales there. He came night after night and

(02:46:58):
heard the opera through with an over coat on. It
was no pleasant task for me or healthy either, but
the Lord has blessed me with a sound constitution. I
sang my parts as they should be sung, some in
bare arms and shoulders, with too little clothing for such
a temperature. I nearly froze. But it was Covent Garden
and a great London audience, and so I bore up

(02:47:21):
under it. Things went on this way very successfully until
Sir Augustus Harris took Drury Lane and decided to produce
grand opera. He started in opposition to Colonel Maplesn, and
so Covent Garden had to be given up. Mister Harris
had more money, more prestige with society, and Colonel Mapleson
could not live under the division of patronage. When I

(02:47:43):
saw the situation, I called on the new manager and
talked with him concerning the next season. He was very
proud and very condescending, and made sure to show his
indifference to me. He told me all about the brilliant
season he was planning, gave me a list of the
great names he in tended to charm with, and wound
up by saying he would call on me in case

(02:48:04):
of need, but thought he had all the celebrities he
could use, but would let me know. Of course, I
did not like that, but I knew I could rest awhile,
and so was not much disturbed. The time for the
opening of the season arrived. The papers were full of
accounts of the occasion, and there were plenty of remarks
concerning my non appearance. Then Ida was produced, and I

(02:48:27):
read the criticisms of it with interest. She was indispensable
in Ida. The same afternoon a message came for me,
Would I come, and would I do so? And so
I would, and did I sang Ida, and then other parts,
and gradually all the parts but one which I had
longed to try but had not yet had the opportunity

(02:48:49):
given to me. I was very successful, and Sir Augustus
was very friendly. The summer after that season, I visited e.
M S where the Duresques were. One day they said,
we are going to Beirut to hear the music. Don't
you want to go along? I thought it over and
decided that I did. My mother and I packed up

(02:49:11):
and departed. When I got there and saw those splendid performances,
I was entranced. It was perfectly beautiful. Everything was arranged
after an ideal fashion. I had a great desire to
sing there and boasted to my mother that I would.
When I came away, I was fully determined to carry

(02:49:31):
it out. Could you speak German? Not at all? I began, though,
at once, to study it, and when I could talk
it sufficiently, I went to Beirut and saw Madame Wagner.
The kindness of Frau Wagner. Did you find her the
imperious old lady? She is said to be? Not at all?

(02:49:53):
She welcomed me most heartily, and when I told her
that I had come to see if I could not
sing there, she seemed much pleased. She treated me like
a daughter, explained all that she was trying to do,
and gave me a world of encouragement. Finally, I arranged
to sing and create Elsa after my own idea of it.
During the season following the one then approaching. Meanwhile, I

(02:50:16):
came to New York to fulfill my contract for the
season of eighteen ninety four to eighteen ninety five. While
doing that, I made a study of Wagner's and indeed
of all German music, and when the season was over,
went back and sang it. Madame Nordica has found her
work very exacting. For it, she has needed a good physique,

(02:50:38):
her manner of study sometimes calling for an extraordinary mental strain.
I remember once during my season under Augustus Harris, that
he gave a garden party one Sunday, to which several
of his company were invited, myself included. When the afternoon
was well along, he came to me and said, did
you ever sing Valencia in the Huguenots? I told him

(02:51:01):
I had not. Do you think you could learn the
music and sing it by next Saturday night? I felt
a little appalled at the question, but ventured to say
that I could. I knew that hard work would do it.
Then do, he replied, for I must have you sing it.
The Duresques Jean and Edouard were near at the time

(02:51:22):
and offered to assist me try it, they said, and
so I agreed. We began rehearsals almost without study. The
very next day, both the douresques prompting me, and by
Friday they had me letter perfect and ready to go on.
Since the time seemed so peculiarly short, they feared for me,
and during the performance stationed themselves one in either wing

(02:51:46):
to reassure me. Whenever I approached near to either side
of the stage, it was always to hear their repeated
be calm whispered so loud that the audience could almost
hear it. Yet I sang easily, never thinking of failure
musical talent of American girls. Let me ask you one thing,
I said, has America good musical material as much as

(02:52:10):
any other country and more? I should think the higher
average of intelligence here should yield a greater percentage of
musical intelligence. Then there ought to be a number of
American women who can do good work of a high order.
There ought to be, but it is a question whether
there will be. They are not cut out for the
work which it requires to develop a good voice. I

(02:52:33):
have noticed that young women seem to underestimate the cost
of distinction. It means more than most of them are
prepared to give. And when they face the exactions of art,
they falter and drop out. Hence we have many middle
class singers, but few really powerful ones. What are these exactions?
You speak of? Time, money, and loss of friends, of pleasure.

(02:52:57):
To be a great singer means first to be a
great student. To be a great student means that you
have no time for balls and parties, very little for friends,
and less for carriage rides and pleasant strolls. All that
is really left is a shortened allowance of sleep, of
time for meals, and time for exercise. The price of fame,

(02:53:20):
permanent recognition, which cannot be taken away from you, is
acquired only by a lifetime of most earnest labor. People
are never internationally recognized until they have reached middle life.
Many persons gain notoriety young, but that goes as quickly
as it comes. All true success is founded on real accomplishment,

(02:53:40):
acquired with difficulty. Many young people have genius, but they
need training for valuable service. The world gives very little
recognition for a great deal of labor paid in. And
when I earn a thousand dollars for a half hour's singing,
sometimes it does not nearly average up for all the years,
and for the labor much more difficult, which I can
contributed without recompense. How they succeeded Life stories of successful

(02:54:06):
men told by themselves by oars in Sweat Marten, chapter eleven,
how William Dean Howells worked to secure a foothold. I
in answer to my question what constitutes success in life?
Mister Howells replied that everything is open to the beginner
who has sufficient energy, perseverance, and brains. A young man

(02:54:28):
stands at the parting of two ways, he added, and
can take his path this way, or that it is
comparatively easy. Then, with good judgment, youth is certainly the
greatest advantage which life supplies. Upon my inquiring about his
early life, he replied, I was born in a little
southeastern Ohio village, Martin's Ferry, which had little of what

(02:54:50):
people deem advantages in schools, railroads, or population. I am
not sure, however, that compensation was not had in other things.
As to any special talent for literary composition, mister Howells
remarked that he came of a reading race which had
always loved literature in a way, and that it was
his inclination to read. Upon this, I ventured to ask,

(02:55:14):
would you say that with a leaning toward a special study,
and good health, a fair start, and perseverance, any one
can attain to distinction. That is a probability. Only you
may be sure that distinction will not come without those qualities.
The only way to succeed is to have them, although
having them will not necessarily guarantee distinction. I can only

(02:55:37):
say that I began with a lofty ideal. My own
youth was not specially marked by advantages. There were none,
unless you can call a small bookcase full of books,
which my home contained an advantage. The printing office was
my school from a very early date. My father thoroughly

(02:55:57):
believed in it, and he had his belief as to work,
which he illustrated. As soon as we were old enough
to learn the trade. He followed. We could go to
school and study, or we could go into the printing
office and work, with perhaps an equal chance of learning.
But we could not be idle. And you chose the
printing office. Not wholly, as I recall it. I went

(02:56:18):
to and fro between the schoolhouse and the printing office.
When I tired of one, I was promptly given the other.
As the world goes now we were poor. My father's
income was never above twelve hundred a year, and his
family was large, but nobody was rich. Then we lived
in the simple fashion of that time and place. My

(02:56:40):
reading somehow went on pretty constantly, no doubt, my love
for it won me a chance to devote time to it.
The length varied, with varying times. Sometimes I read but little.
There were so many years of work, of over work, indeed,
which falls to the lot of many, that I should
I'd be ashamed to speak of it, except in accounting

(02:57:02):
for the fact of my little reading. My father had
sold his paper in Hamilton and bought an interest in
another at Dayton, and at that time we were all
straining our utmost to help pay for it. In that period,
very few hours were given to literature. My daily tasks
began so early and ended so late that I had
little time even if I had the spirit for reading.

(02:57:25):
Sometimes I had to sit up until midnight waiting for
telegraphic news, and be up again at dawn to deliver
the papers, working afterwards at the case. But that was
only for a few years. Acquiring a literary style, When
did you find time to seriously apply yourself to literature.
I think I did so before I really had the time.

(02:57:48):
Literary aspirations were stirred in me by the great authors
whom I successively discovered, and I was perpetually imitating the
writings of these, modeling some composition of my own after theirs,
but never willing to do. You attribute your style to
the composite influence of these various models, No doubt they
had their effect as a whole, but individually I was

(02:58:10):
freed from the last by each succeeding author, until at
length I came to understand that I must be like
myself and no other. Had you any conveniences for literary
research beyond the bookcase in your home, if you mean
a place to work, I had a narrow little space
under the stairs. There was a desk pushed back against

(02:58:30):
the wall, which the irregular ceiling sloped down to meet
behind it, and at my left was a window which
gave a good light on the writing leaf of my desk.
This was my workshop for six or seven years, and
it was not at all a bad one. It seemed,
for a while so very simple and easy to come
home in the middle of the afternoon, when my task

(02:58:51):
at the printing office was done, and sit down to
my books in my little study, which I did not
finally leave until the family were all in bed. My
father had a des sited bent for literature, and when
I began to show a liking for it, he was
eager to direct my choice. This finally changed to merely
recommending books, and eventually I was left to my own judgment,

(02:59:12):
a perplexed and sorrowfully mistaken judgment at times, in what
manner did you manage to read the works of all
your favorite authors? My hours in the printing office began
at seven and ended at six, with an hour at
noon for dinner, which I used for putting down such
verses as had come to me in the morning. As
soon as supper was over, I got out my manuscripts

(02:59:35):
and sawed and filed and hammered away at my blessed poems,
which were little less than imitations, until nine, when I
went regularly to bed, to rise again at five. Sometimes
the foreman gave me an afternoon off on Saturday, which
I devoted to literature. As I questioned further, it was said,
as I recall it, my father had secured one of

(02:59:56):
those legislative clerkships in eighteen fifty eight, which used to
fall sometimes to deserving country editors, and together we managed
and carried out a scheme for corresponding with some city papers.
Going to Columbus, the state capital. We furnished a daily
letter giving an account of the legislative proceedings, which I
mainly wrote from the material he helped me to gather.

(03:00:18):
The letters found favor, and my father withdrew from the
work holy these letters I furnished during two years. At
the end of the first winter, a Cincinnati paper offered
me the city editorship, but one night's round with the
reporters at the police station satisfied me that I was
not meant for that kind of work. I then returned

(03:00:38):
home for the summer and spent my time in reading
and in sending off poems, which regularly came back. I
worked in my father's printing office, but as soon as
my task was done, went home to my books and
worked away at them until supper. Then a German bookbinder,
with whom I was endeavoring to read Heine in the original,
met me in my father's editorial room, and with a

(03:01:00):
couple of candles on the table between us and our
Heine and the Dictionary before us. We read until we
were both tired out. As to the influence of this
constant writing in constant study, mister Howells remarked, it was
not without its immediate use. I learned how to choose
between words after a study of their fitness, And though

(03:01:21):
I often employed them decoratively and with no vital sense
of their qualities, still in mere decoration, they had to
be chosen intelligently, and after some thought about their structure
and meaning. I could not imitate great writers without imitating
their method, which was to the last degree intelligent. They
knew what they were doing, and although I did not

(03:01:42):
always know what I was doing, they made me wish
to know and ashamed of not knowing. The result was beneficial.
Mister Howells then spoke of his astonishment when one day
he was at work as usual in the printing office
at home, upon being invited to take a place upon
a Republican newspaper at Columbus, the capital, where he was
given charge of the news department. This included the literary

(03:02:05):
notices and book reviews, to which at once he gave
his prime attention. When did you begin to contribute to
the literature of the day. If you mean when did
I begin to attempt to contribute, I should need to
fix an early date, for I early had experienced with
rejected manuscripts. One of my pieces, upon the familiar theme

(03:02:26):
of spring, was the first thing I ever had in print.
My father offered it to the editor of the paper
I worked on in Columbus, where we were then living,
and I first knew what he had done when, with
mingled shame and pride, I saw it in the journal.
In the tumult of my emotions, I promised myself that
if I ever got through that experience safely, I would

(03:02:46):
never suffer anything else of mine to be published. But
it was not long before I offered the editor a
poem myself, When did you publish your first story? My
next venture was a story in the Marvel manner, which
it was my fortune to carry into print. I did
not really write it, but composed it rather in type.

(03:03:06):
At the case, it was not altogether imitated for mac Marvel,
for I drew upon the easier art of Dickens at times,
and helped myself out in places with bold parodies of
bleak House. It was all very well at the beginning,
but I had not reckoned with the future sufficiently to
start with any clear ending in my mind, And as
I went on, I began to find myself more and

(03:03:28):
more in doubt about it. My material gave out, my
incidents failed me, the characters wavered and threatened to perish
in my hands. To crown my misery, there grew up
an impatience with the story among its readers, and this
found its way to me one day when I overheard
an old farmer who came in for his paper say
that he did not think that story amounted to much.

(03:03:51):
I did not think so either, but it was deadly
to have it put into words. And how I escaped
the moral effect of a stroke I do not know.
Somehow I managed to bring the wretched thing to a
close and to live it slowly down the fate following collaboration.
My next contribution to literature was jointly with John Jay Piatt,

(03:04:12):
the poet who had worked with me as a boy
in the printing office at Columbus. We met in Columbus,
where I was then an editor, and we made our
first literary venture together, in a volume entitled Poems of
Two Friends. The volume became instantly and lastingly, unknown to fame.
Though West waited, as it always does, to hear what

(03:04:33):
the East should say, the East said nothing, and two
thirds of the small edition of five hundred copies came
back upon the publisher's hands. This did not deter me, however,
from contributing to the periodicals, which from time to time
accepted my efforts. I remained as an editor in Columbus
until eighteen sixty one, when I was appointed consul at Venice.

(03:04:57):
I really wanted to go to Germany that I might
carry forward my studies in German literature, and I first
applied for the consulate at Munich. The powers at Washington
thought it quite the same thing to offer me Rome,
but I found that the income of the Roman consulate
would not give me a living, and I was forced
to decline it. Then the President's private secretaries, mister John

(03:05:18):
Nicolay and mister John Hay, who did not know me
except as a young Westerner who had written poems in
the Atlantic Monthly, asked me how I would like Venice,
promising that the salary would be put up to one
thousand dollars a year. It was really put up to
one thousand, five hundred dollars, and I accepted. I had
four years of nearly uninterrupted leisure at Venice. Was it

(03:05:41):
easier when you returned from Venice? Not at all. On
my return to America, my literary life took such form
that most of my reading was done for review. I
wrote at first a good many of the lighter criticisms
in At a Nation, And then I went to Boston
to become assistant editor of the Atlanteantic Monthly, where I
wrote the literary notices for that periodical for four or

(03:06:04):
five years. Then I became editor until eighteen eighty one,
and I have had some sort of close relation with
magazines ever since. Would you say that all literary success
is very difficult to achieve? I ventured all that is enduring,
It seems to me ours is in age when fame
comes quickly. Speaking of quickly made reputations, said mister Howells meditatively,

(03:06:30):
did you ever hear of Alexander Smith? He was a
poet who, in the fifties was proclaimed immortal by the
critics and ranked with Shakespeare. I myself read him with
an ecstasy, which, when I look over his work to day,
seems ridiculous. His poem Life Drama was heralded as an
epic and set alongside of Paradise Lost. I cannot tell

(03:06:54):
how we all came out of this craze, but the
reading world is very susceptible to such lunacies. He is
not the only third rate poet who has been thus
apathetized before and since. You might have envied his great success,
as I certainly did. But it was not success after all,
And I am sure that real success is always difficult

(03:07:14):
to achieve my literary experience. Do you believe that success
comes to those who have a special bent or taste
which they cultivate by hard work. I can only answer
that out of my literary experience. For my own part,
I believe I have never got any good from a
book that I did not read merely because I wanted

(03:07:35):
to read it. I think this may be applied to
anything a person does. The book I know, which you
read from a sense of duty, or because for any
reason you must, is apt to yield you little. This
I think is also true of everything. And the endeavor
that does one good and lasting good is the endeavor
one makes with pleasure. Labor done in another spirit will

(03:07:59):
serve in a way, But pleasurable labor brings on the whole,
I think the greatest reward. Referring again to his early years,
it was remarked a definite literary ambition grew up in me,
and in the long reveries of the afternoon when I
was distributing my case in the printing office, I fashioned
a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. I should

(03:08:21):
be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in
those preposterous deliriums. But I realized now that such dreams
are nerving and sustain one in an otherwise barren struggle.
Were you ever tempted and willing to abandon your object
of a literary life for something else? I was once.
My first and only essay aside from literature, was in

(03:08:44):
the realm of law. It was arranged with a United
States Senator that I should study law in his office.
I tried it a month, but almost from the first
day I yearned to return to my books. I had
not only to go back to literature, but to the
printing office, and I gladly chose to do it, a
step I never regretted as to a happy life. It

(03:09:06):
was said by mister Howells at the close of our interview.
I have come to see life not as the chase
of a forever impossible personal happiness, but as a field
for endeavor toward the happiness of the whole human family.
There is no other success I know, indeed, of nothing
more subtly satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the

(03:09:27):
real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does
not come with money, nor does it flow from a
fine physical state. It cannot be bought, but it is
the keenest joy after all, and the dweller's truest and
best reward.

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HOW THEY SUCCEEDED 1: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves - Orison Swett Marden (1901)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}HOW THEY SUCCEEDED 1: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves - Orison Swett Marden (1901)