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Title: Dollars and Sense

Author: William Crosbie Hunter

Release date: August 27, 2007 [eBook #22418]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22418

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOLLARS AND
SENSE ***

The Author

Dollars and Sense
[Revised and Enlarged Edition]

Being Memoranda made in the School of Practical
Experience

HEREIN ARE
Golden Helps for Employer and Employee
Cheer, Courage, Help for the Weak, Weary,
Discouraged Ones who Live in
Shadowland
Cures for Worry and Fear
Backbone Instead of Wishbone
AND
Guides and Experience which will Bring Success in
Business, Happiness in Your Home, Respect of
Your Neighbors, Love of Friends, and altogether
Many Helps which will show
you how to make this life well
worth the living

By Col. Wm. C. Hunter

Price
Paper Cover, 25 cents a Copy
Cloth Bound, 50 cents a Copy Pro rata for any quantity

Published by Hunter &. Company
Oak Park, Illinois. U.S.A.

Each Chapter Separately Copyrighted in 1906
Copyrighted in Book Form, 1907
Revised and Enlarged Edition, Copyright, 1908
by
Wm. C. Hunter
All Rights Reserved

Contents
Aches and Pains100
Advertising32
Advice39
Ambition18
Anger94
Argument42

Associates61
Backbone and Wishbone108
Brains, Birth, Boodle105
Bribes120
Buying34
Catching Up93
Cigarets64
Compensation25
Competition30
Credit11
Debt103
Discontent98
Do Good108
Double Equipment109
Dressing100
Elimination46
Employees89
Enthusiasm92
Expenses35
Financing96
Fixed Charges63
Friends88
Frozen Dog Tales129
Generalists99
Get Away109
Good Fellowship67
Good for Evil65
Gossip120
Groundwork7
Grumbling60
Hard Times59
Hard Work68
Health56
Home Life77

Honesty73
Horse Sense50
Hypochondriacs122
Independence85
Initiative110
Kindness69
Lawyers19
Laxity92
Learn to Play66
Learn to Say No9
Managers51
Memory79
Monthly Dividends102
My Symphony126
Never Quit Work13
Night Work111
Obedience113
Optimism78
Our Sons117
Patience57
Pay Day114
Perspiration87
Politics123
Precedent95
Producers21
Profanity123
Promises84
Pull119
Reading40
Rule of Gold125
Salesmen71
Saving115
Selling52
Short Letters87

Sizing Up Things27
Sleep60
Specialists47
Speculation43
Stand When Selling15
Stenographers121
Success74
System124
The Boss26
The Man, Not the Plan23
The String49
Thinking75
Vacations55
Vantage Ground16
Waiting for Success116
Worry81

Dedication

The Author respectfully dedicates this book
to
the Officers and Proprietors
to
the Managers and Superintendents
to
the Buyers and Sellers
to
the Clerks and Office Men
to
the Youth seeking promotion
to

the Boy with his first job
and to
all who wish to get Happiness Health and Dollars.

Dollars and Sense

Groundwork

When you cut a melon, your friends will come with eager mouths and sit
under your shade tree and help you eat it. Few of these friends would
respond to your call for help when you were working in the hot sun raising
that melon.

Many people accept the dividends and benefits of friendship but give
you a cold shoulder when called upon for assessments of friendship.

The world is full of young men whose objective is snaps. They are
looking all the time for what they can get and not what they can give.

To forge ahead, you must give value received. You can't draw out all the
time.

The employe must do what he is paid to do and "then some," for it is this
"then some" or plus that gets your salary raised.

The employer and employe must realize that each must make profit. It is
because there are so many ingrates and so many four flushers that so few
succeed.

This book will be welcomed by those who are square, ambitious and
patient. It is not theory. It is not preaching. These chapters will be old
friends to you, and you may read a few minutes or a few hours. You may
read and re-read as often as you wish, for you will always find some new
truth impressed on you every time you read.

Keep this book, carry it with you, and you will be benefitted.

Worry and fear will fade and peace and courage will grow within you the
more you study these pages.

The writer has "been at it" for 32 years. He has had successes, failures,
joys, sorrows, and experienced the passions, the problems, the difficulties
you have experienced.

Since the age of ten years he has been upon his own resources and the 32
years since then have been years of study, working and playing, all blended
into a happy life.

The jolts, set backs, sorrows, worries, fears and discouragements are the
things which made him strong. They were experiences.

Smooth sailing doesn't bring out the stuff one is made of. It takes
shadows to make sunlight appreciated.

It takes reverses to make success. It takes hard knocks to polish you.
This is a book of experiences, not one of theories.

There is no attempt to make this a literary effort. All the writer hopes for
or cares to do is to truthfully state facts and experiences in plain language.
Study the thought rather than the expression.

It is Sense the writer wants to express rather than nonsense.

The writer is happy to say that the previous editions sold rapidly and his
friends not only read, but pass the word along.

The way to get happiness is to make others happy and the present of one
of these books to a friend or employe is a quick way to get happiness.

Let us go along together and consider some of the problems which we all
have to face in our business as well as our social life. A volume could be
written on each chapter. But volumes are tiresome and herein you will find
net values which are the result of boiling down.

So now we have the groundwork of this book. We understand each other.
Simply take these truths for their evident worth. You won't agree with the
writer in all things, of course not. If, however, you get one truth that will
help you, then you have been repaid for reading this book and the writer has
been repaid for writing it.

Learn to Say No.

Look over the history of the thousands who have failed in business, and
you will find in nearly every instance the failure was due to an inability to
say No.

People come to us under various guises and ask us to do things which in
our better judgment we had rather not do, and too many have not the
backbone to say No.

We are led to invest in mining stocks and to embark in precarious
enterprises because we cannot say No.

We endorse notes and go security for our friends, not because we want to
but because we cannot say No.

There is a class of "good fellows" who are after us to join them in
physical pleasures, the foregoing of which would be better for us physically,
financially and mentally. Too many join them because they cannot say No.

It is rarely a man goes off deliberately and gets drunk. The lone drunk is
usually the result of sorrow, sudden financial blow or a hard jolt of some
sort.

The man who gets drunk generally does so because he cannot say No
when bibulous friends press him to take a drink.

The ability to say No, to refrain from going with the crowd, to decline to
go down stream is, more than any other one thing in this life, the mark of a
strong character.

The one who can say No is going to succeed. Temporarily he may feel
ashamed; he may find it hard to withstand the jibes and jeers and criticism
of his friends for refusing to join them in things he should not do.

Our old friend—the law of compensation—comes in here, for in
proportion as a man has the ability to say No, who has the courage of his
convictions, whose duty is to his body and his family before the temptations
that surround him, so in proportion as there are few such individuals these
individuals stand out as marked successes.

The manager of one of the biggest breweries in the United States has not
tasted liquor of any kind in the last twenty years. Surely this man shows his
courage, for his action in face of his occupation is a supreme test of
backbone and ability to say No.

The embezzler does not start out to do wrong. Some friends want to
borrow money or someone needs financial aid temporarily, and, either at the
request of friends or because the individual has something he wishes to
purchase and has not the patience to wait, he borrows from the firm by
means of "the ticket in the drawer" plan. He repeats the operation frequently
until his conscience is dulled, and he gets the habit. Some day he wakes up
to find he has several tickets in the drawer, and resorts to extreme measures,
trying to beat the races, or to win money by gambling on stocks or grain.

One day he finds he is in a dickens of a fix. He sees no way out of it. He
takes more money and skips out, only to be caught later on and made to
suffer, and all this because he could not say No to temptation.

Learn to say No. Set your jaws firmly and say No. The friends who go
back on you and criticize you for saying No to the things that are hurtful to
you are unworthy of the name of friends, and you can very well get along
without them.

Friends who ask you to do the things you should not do are the very ones
who are of no service to you in time of need.

The individual who says No regardless of the flings and taunts that are
cast at him is the one who eventually makes a success.

Character counts above all things in the business world. The banker
extends credit on character oftener than we imagine. The banker knows how
to say No.

A man's credit and character are most important factors in business, and
many a man without security has attained magnificent success through
untiring energy, ability, character and courage enough to say No.

In proportion as you grow strong and unhesitating in saying No, the
temptations and opportunities to say Yes will lessen in number.

Exercise your back bone and your jaw bone, so you can say No and stick
to it.

Credit

No factor is so necessary in building up business as credit, and no factor
is so necessary in building up credit as truth.

It is comparatively easy to start credit, but the art is to keep credit.

The young business man who says "I want no credit, I buy and sell for
cash" makes a mistake. It is all right to pay promptly, but do not establish a
spot cash payment basis, for later on, when you ask credit, your creditors
will think something is wrong.

Establish a credit whether you need it or not. It is a good advertisement
and a frequent help.

Be reasonably slow in paying your bills, but positively sure that you do
pay them.

When you get a sharp or blunt letter asking for a settlement, go to your
creditor face to face, set a date when you will make a payment and keep
your agreement.

Don't be specific as to amount unless you are decidedly sure you can do
it. Be specific as to date, however, and be there or have your check there on
the date.

Suppose a man owes you $100 and you ask him for it and he says "Here
are ten dollars on account, and on next Thursday I will make another
payment, and as often as I can I will pay something until you are fully paid
up." You don't get angry at that man when you see his intentions are good
and he is doing his best.

So long as your creditor gets something every time he writes it keeps
him good natured.

It is the man who breaks promises who gets hard usage from the
creditors.

If you owe more than your present cash balance can liquidate, make a
pro rata payment all around among your creditors. Write a good square
letter saying nothing would please you more than to send a check in full,
and that this payment is made as evidence of your willingness and intention
to keep good faith.

Keep in touch personally with your creditors as far as possible. Talk to
them of your plans and prospects. Always tell the truth. Have your account
as a moral risk rather than as a Dun or Bradstreet risk.

There is sentiment in business. Creditors have hearts and they have good
impulses. They appreciate friendship and especially gratitude. Don't believe
a word of that great untruth "There is no sentiment in business."

Don't get angry when asked for money. Admit your slowness and tell
your creditor that as an offset for your present slowness you have a good
memory and a heart that appreciates, and some day your purchases will be
much larger, and those who are your friends now will certainly get the
benefit when the time comes that you do not require favors.

An honest, frank, heart to heart talk is most valuable. The credit man
keeps the truthful man in mind and his account under his protecting wing.
The credit man glories with you, and has a distinct interest in your success
when it comes.

It often happens that the small bank or small manufacturer is the best
place for the beginner to go for credit. You can get closer to the small
growing creditor than you can to the big fellow who is independent.

The big bank is cold blooded. It insists upon security and collateral. Your
account in a big bank is only an incidental detail, and the cashier is cold and

distant and blunt.

The small bank, however, gives you more time and attention, is more
interested in you and can remember you much better than the big bank.

Avoid bad associates. You can't play the races and give wine dinners and
maintain strong confidence with your creditors.

You must be worthy of the confidence reposed in you. It is your duty and
part of the contract to be reliable and truthful.

Every time a creditor gets out of sorts go to him and pay him something,
and he will quiet down.

Be grateful. Don't be afraid to express yourself freely and frequently on
this point.

When you are caught up and financially strong stick to those who stuck
by you.

Remember, credit is based on confidence in the individual rather than in
his bank account.

Don't get into nasty arguments or disputes. Give and take. Be fair. Be
square. Keep your temper. Stoop to conquer. Cut out all thoughts of
revenge.

When a house does not treat you right, curb your temper, and, as soon as
you can, get in touch with some other good house. Tell the new house
frankly why you changed.

Credit is a subsidy, and it stands the hustling business man in good stead.

Many men have started in business with a capital only of ability, hard
work, honesty and good reputation.

The use or abuse of credit determines whether a man will rise or fall.

Keep your record clean, and if later you get on the shoals your past will
stand you in good stead.

If you have been given to sharp practice or dishonesty, woe be unto you
when you fall.

Remember these things carefully. Keep in personal touch with your
creditors, keep your promises, pay on account when you cannot pay in full,
hustle, be honest, keep good company, don't gamble, don't be a sport. If you
practice these virtues, offers of aid will come to you rather than flee from
you.

Never Quit Work

The average young man makes up his mind that at fifty or sixty years of
age he will retire and take things easy for the rest of his days. The average
young man makes a great mistake. It is far better to wear out than to rust
out.

To the young man work is a drudge, a necessity to keep him alive. In
middle age work is an accepted thing and we are used to it, and feel rather
the better for having occupation.

In old age work is a necessity to keep the mind and body young.

There is scarcely a more miserable spectacle than the man of fifty or
sixty who has retired with ample fortune. He loafs around the house. Goes
from one club to another. Gets lonely. Feels blue.

He tries to kill time in the day looking forward to the meeting of his
cronies in the evening. The cronies are busy in the day time and they have
engagements and pleasures in the evening, so that our retired friend seems
to be in the way.

He finds that the anticipation of retirement was a pleasure, and that the
realization is a keen disappointment.

"There is nothing," says Carnegie, "absolutely nothing in money beyond
a competence."

When one has enough money to buy things for the home, for his family
comfort and enjoyment, when he has sufficient income to take care of
himself and his family, surplus dollars do not mean much.

The business man should prepare for his future so that if ill health
overtakes him he may have the where-with to surround himself with
comforts, travel and the best of care.

The man who enjoys pleasures of the home and friends, who trains up
young blood to take hold of the business, who travels and enjoys himself as
he goes along has the right idea.

We must learn to enjoy life now instead of waiting for tomorrow, for
tomorrow may never come.

The man who cashes in, puts his money in bonds and retires from all
work goes down hill quickly, and feels he is of no use in the world.

The farmer who moves in town to live on his income is a sorry
individual unless he has a garden and chickens, or buys and sells farms, or
occupies his time with work of some kind.

The retired, non-working farmer who has moved to town gets up in the
morning, goes to see the train come in, whittles a stick, loafs at the hotel or
store, goes to the next train, talks of his rheumatism, goes to bed at eight
o'clock, and the next day goes through the same rigmarole.

We have all seen these old codgers who have retired. They are not happy
because they have quit their life's habit of work, and are rusting out.

Occupation is the plan of nature to keep man happy, so when you have
all the money you need, have some occupation or hobby to occupy your
time.

The man who retires from any active work is merely counting the days
until he dies.

When old age comes and your body or brain won't let you do or care for
as much as you could in your younger days, then get lighter work or lighter
cares.

Keep busy if it is only raising chickens or gardening, or studying
astronomy or botany.

Keep at it as long as you can. Die in the harness instead of fading slowly
away.

Cultivate the reading habit in your younger days that it may be a pleasant
occupation when your legs and hands grow feeble with age.

When you quit work or occupation of some sort then life has no beauty
for you.

Stand When Selling

You can make your point clearer, you can talk with more force, you can
impress and convince your customer better if you stand while he is seated.

Have you ever noticed that when you are seated and the other fellow is
standing it puts you at a disadvantage? Try it some time.

Have you not noticed that if you are seated and your adversary is
standing, when you get enthusiastic and wish to combat his argument, it is
impossible for you to get in your best licks while you are seated? You
involuntarily rise when you make your strong points and are full of your
subject.

How far would a life insurance man or an advertising man get if he sat
down and leaned back and relaxed while talking to you?

You will observe that the good solicitor declines with thanks your
proffered chair. He stands up, he knows the value of standing.

By the relation between his standing and you sitting it makes him a
positive and you a negative force. He forces—you receive.

How much would an orator impress his audience if he delivered his
lecture in a sitting posture?

You cannot combat argument very well if you are sitting, nor can you
convince others as well sitting as standing.

When you call on a customer carry a busy air with you. Stand up. Talk
straight from the shoulder. Make your point and claims clear. Place your
position or proposition definitely, forcefully and quickly before your

customer. Make a good get-away when you have accomplished your
purpose.

If you don't land him the first time, get away anyway. Let him see that
your time is money, and that you appreciate that his time is money, too.

Don't visit. Gracefully and politely decline the chair that is offered; say
that your limit of time and disinclination to trespass require your stay to be
brief.

Stand. Keep busy and active. Get away quickly, and you will be
welcome next time.

The short stayer is a welcome guest. He may not land his customers as
quickly, but in the end he will land more customers, and hold them closer
and retain them longer than the tedious, visiting, social bore who sits and
sits and sits.

The Best Vantage Ground

In closing a contract or settling a dispute it makes considerable
difference whether you are in the other fellow's office or in your own.

The man in whose office the transaction takes place has the decided
advantage.

If you have a disputed bill, or if you wish to make a contract for material
or merchandise use every effort to get the other man in your office. When
you go to another office you are on the aggressive, when another man
comes to your office you are on the defensive.

It is great diplomacy to get the man you deal with to come to you instead
of going to him. In proportion as you are diplomatic you will be able to
benefit.

If you meet the other man in a club, hotel or a place outside of your
office or the other man's office, then the vantage ground is even and neither
has the best of it so far as location is concerned.

Starting from an even vantage ground the advantage shifts greatly one
way or the other according to whether you go or the other man comes.

Railroad officials, bankers and great merchants realize the importance of
having the vantage ground in their favor.

The merchant, for instance, has private rooms and regular office hours
for his buyers, and he lets the manufacturers come to him.

Stop a moment and look over your own experience, and you will recall
numerous instances where it has been to your advantage to close a deal in

your own office.

There is nothing in what we have written in this series of talks that has
less theory in it than this particular chapter.

There is no point we have made more surely proven by experience.

The army that attacks the enemy in the enemy's country has the odds
against it, as all wars have proven. Men fight best at home on their own
vantage ground.

Whether you are buying or selling try to close the deal in your own place
of business.

If you have travelers on the road let it be part of their business and duty
to invite and persuade customers to call at your place of business when they
are in town.

Ambition

A man without ambition had better content himself with learning a trade.
A good mechanic is fairly sure of three dollars a day, and fifty-two weeks'
employment in the year.

The mechanic does not have many worries. He does not have notes to
meet at the bank. He does not have to face the ingratitude of employes and
petty jealousies, for he has no employes working for him.

He lays down his tools when the bell rings and goes home to his family.
His ambition is to have a good place to sleep, plenty to eat, money enough
to buy clothing for his family and to send his children to school, and extra
spending money enough over his fixed charges to allow him to take his
family to the circus when it comes to town.

Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates taking
chances.

Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at this
statement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successful
business man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in more
money than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is a gambler.
The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase his earnings is
not a gambler.

We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaper we
can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble.

Any man with two hands and ordinary health can earn a livelihood, but
the ambitious man wants to make a name for himself and to make a success
in business, so he works harder than he would do if his problem were only

the obtaining of money enough to buy the things necessary for his
existence.

The moment a man loses ambition, his progress, so far as business
advancement is concerned, ceases.

Nearly every successful business today is successful because the
proprietors, in the infancy of the business, were filled with ambition which
made them work hard.

We are all familiar with the successful business man who loses his
ambition. It is an absolute certainty that as soon as a man loses ambition his
business falls off, unless he makes it an object to take care of the ambitious
young men in his employ, so that they may keep up the pace of progress he
established.

Lawyers

Keep in touch with a lawyer, but don't take his advice on business
matters.

A lawyer should be like a dictionary—a place of reference.

Lawyers by the very nature of their vocation have much to do with
concerns who are in trouble, and with firms who are poorly managed.

Lawyers know law first and business second; the business man knows
business first and law second.

The advice of one successful business man is worth the advice of
twenty-three lawyers on a matter of business.

Use the lawyer to keep you out of trouble. Let him see your contracts
and the papers and agreements pertaining to leases, sales, purchases,
royalties, and all documents which may from their nature be brought into
court as evidence. These things are the ones on which to take the lawyer's
advice.

When you are pushed into a corner and must fight, then get the best
lawyer, for in a fight in court, like a fight in the prize ring, the best trained
and equipped man usually wins.

It's more often the best lawyer wins than the best side of the case.

Legal struggles seldom pay. Law suits take up time and money, and the
result, even if in your favor, seldom offsets the time, money and worry you
have expended.

The good lawyer keeps you from fighting. Many lawyers, however, are
grafters, and they advise fight, for they win whether you do or not.

Settle disputes even if you are imposed on. There is little satisfaction in
getting a judgment for one hundred dollars, when your lawyers fees are fifty
dollars and you have expended two hundred dollars' worth of time and
worry over the case.

Ask your lawyer's advice on the legal status of your operations, and not
on business propositions.

If you are a success in business that is an evidence, generally speaking,
that your judgment is good.

You can get all the advice you want for nothing. If you state a case and
lay out a proposed plan, and then ask your friends' advice on the subject,
you can safely count that nine out of ten will say that your proposition is all
right as outlined by you.

These friends figure that you have given the plan much thought and
study, and it is much simpler for them to coincide with your opinion than to
take an opposite view.

Honestly between ourselves we must admit that when we seek advice we
generally do it only for the purpose of having our own opinions confirmed,
and, if our friends do not agree with us, we say they are prejudiced.

Lawyers don't see the smooth, systematic, well balanced side of
business, and their knowledge is all negative instead of positive on business
matters.

If you have an important move in mind, map out the plan carefully, lay
the plan out in detail, be conservative in your estimate of prospective
profits, and always make a liberal allowance for cost over the figures you
have prepared, and deduct a liberal percentage from the receipts you
anticipate. Be very conservative in matters of figures, and then some.

The building you propose to put up will cost far more than your architect
tells you. You know this in advance, and you make an allowance for extras,
but when the bills all come in you will find that in addition to the estimated
cost and the extras which you have figured on, there will be something else
to pay.

The sales of a business you propose to embark in will be less than you or
your manager figure they will be.

Always allow for enthusiasm and imagination in the matter of
prospective receipts.

When your plans are all in shape show the documents, contracts and
agreements to your lawyer, and get his legal, but not his personal, advice.

You must be the doctor of your own business.

Remember, a lawyer knows law, and a business man knows business.

Be a Producer

Employes are divided into two classes—the kind that makes profits and
the kind that is on the expense side of the ledger.

The young man who has the foresight and ability to get on the selling
side, the side that brings profit to the house, has the decided advantage over
the young man who is on the expense side.

Book-keepers, stock-keepers, clerks and all other expense employes are
paid far lower salaries than the salesmen and buyers, those who produce
results.

In the newspaper business the editor with his college education has
practically attained his limit of progress when he is 40 years old. He may
get from $20.00 to $80.00 or even $100.00 a week as editor.

The young man in the advertising department may get from $50.00 to
$200.00 a week. He is a producer of tangible results; the editor produces
theoretical results.

In every business the man who sells things, who brings in the profits, is
the man who gets the best pay.

The boss will grudgingly give a dollar a week increase to the book-
keeper. He only thinks what it would cost him to replace the book-keeper.

The producer gets his increases in $5.00 and $10.00 a week jumps.

The expense employe is in competition with the great army of the
unemployed, and there are multitudes who will work for less money than
the man who is holding his job on the expense side.

The producer, on the other hand, knows how much profit he is bringing
into his house, and if those profits are steadily increasing he may be sure his
salary will increase proportionately. If it does not he can always get another
position by laying the facts and figures before some more enterprising
house.

The producer is seldom out of a situation. If for any reason he is out of
employment temporarily he can go to a good house and work on
commission, or get a small drawing account, and at three or six months talk
salary on actual showing made.

The shrewd business man won't let profits slip away if he can help it, so
the real producer sits in a pretty good seat. He has only to show what he can
do and he will be paid accordingly.

The expense man's only stock in trade is faithfulness, neatness and
amount of detail he can handle. He has little lee-way in the matter of salary,
for thousands are faithful, thousands are neat and thousands can perform
great amounts of detail.

The young man just out of school should have for his ideal that he shall
be a producer first and a proprietor later on. To this end he should equip
himself by spending four or five years acquainting himself thoroughly with
all the phases and departments of the business and learning the facts about
the manufacture of the goods he expects to sell eventually. All this
understanding and preparation will be of great service when he is a
salesman, and greater service when he is a proprietor.

The writer started wholly dependent upon his own exertions for a
livelihood at fourteen years of age. At fifteen he learned shorthand by
evening study. At sixteen he attended to the correspondence and mail order
department for his employer. At eighteen he was getting $8.00 a week in
cash for his services, and many times that amount in valued experience.

"One day he got a blank application for a $75.00 clerkship in the Post
Office. At that time appointments were made by political pull and not
through the civil service. The writer took the blank to a relative, who was

the leading politician of the State. He asked for the endorsement of this
senator and received this advice: "Young man, my signature to this sheet
would get you the job, but if you were my son I would not let you take the
place. I will give you some advice, which is this—never take a political,
railroad or bank job. In all these callings you are in competition with
thousands of others. The compensation is small, the chance to better your
position is remote, and you are a machine. If you want to make a success of
life be a producer, learn to sell things."

This advice was acted on, and the writer remembers it as the turning
point in his career.

It is a sad thing to see the old man working for $40.00 or $50.00 a month
who in the past drew $3,000 or $4,000 a year. Such men were expense men
and not producers.

Moves on the checker board of business are made quickly. The man with
silver hair may be an accountant or confidential man drawing a good salary.
Something happens, his firm goes out of business or sells out, and our old
friend is left without a position. He has been used to the comforts and
associations a good salary allows, and now he finds himself out of a place
and faces the necessity of starting over again, and his competitors are young
and active men ready for the battle of life.

The old man out of a job goes around amongst his friends. The friend
can do nothing but gives him a letter of recommendation. He is passed
along from one to another until he is foot-sore and heart sick and weary of it
all.

He winds up as a sleeping car conductor, or gets a position as floor
walker or clerk at the inquiry desk.

The producer, be he ever so old or ever so often out of a job, can catch
on again. He gets his job on results and not sympathy.

Business men are on the lookout for producers.

Young man, learn to be a producer.

The Man—Not the Plan

We are prone to give credit to the plan as being the thing that makes a
successful business. It is not the plan, it is the man behind the plan that is
responsible for the success.

The man who has a well-defined ideal, who hews to the line, who
eliminates all deterrent influences, who concentrates his energy on his ideal,
who bends his efforts towards the one thing is pretty sure to accomplish his
purpose.

We often see a man make a marked success in a field that others have
considered barren.

Take a small town, for instance, where there are many retail stores. The
people of the town will tell the prospective merchant that the town is
already overcrowded with stores, that none of the stores seem to be making
more than a bare living, and that it would be impossible for another store to
make a success, on account of the already overcrowded conditions, yet the
right man comes along and starts a store in that town and makes a marked
success.

If the plan were the making of success, all an enterprising business man
would have to do would be to pick out some plan which was successful and
then imitate it.

The great ocean of business has many derelicts on it as a result of
copying plans. It is a part of the law of compensation that the man who
originates a plan and carries it to successful conclusion has a patent on his
business. This patent is his individuality and good business equipment. The
man who steals his plan physically is unable to steal the mental end.

Since men have recorded facts in the shape of history, we find that men
have made successes of plans and businesses that have been discarded by
their predecessors as played-out plans.

When a plan is presented to you do not calculate the outcome by the
plan, but by the man.

Two banks may start side by side with exactly the same office furniture
and exactly the same business operations. They use the same kind of
money; they make loans on lands or on securities. The operations of these
two banks may be as closely identical as possible, yet within ten years one
bank will have considerable surplus and the other may be out of business.

If the plan were the measure of success these two banks should fare
equally well, but the fact that they differed so materially is in itself evidence
that the success is determined by the individuals and not the plan.

The illustration of a bank may be carried into other lines, merchandising,
manufacturing or railroading.

Compensation

The law of Compensation is—you pay for what you get, or you get what
you pay for.

This law says if a horse can run fast it can't pull a good load and vice
versa.

This law says a horse cannot go fast far.

It says that for every sorrow there is a joy, for every positive there is a
negative.

Where evil exists there is some good to offset it, says compensation.

The law of compensation is the measure optimists use, and in nearly
every chapter we have written in this series, compensation will be found as
a ground-work.

You can't get away from nor violate this rule of compensation.

It is not new, it is as old as creation itself.

Centuries ago it was expressed this way: "Whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap."

Too many try to ignore this great rule, they try to get something for
nothing.

You may eat first and pay afterwards, or you may pay first and eat
afterwards.

You may play the butterfly; sip life's sweets and sow your wild oats now,
but pay day will come and may be you will be unable to pay.

You may spend your income now and suffer want later on.

You may work hard now and play as you go along. You may have
happiness each day you live; you can make life worth living if you work.

Happiness is compensation for work; no work, no happiness.

You may have what you want, but, you must pay for it.

Millions cost happiness and often cost health too.

The dinner is properly balanced when it has sweets as well as
substantials. The sensible person finds the dinner is better if the sweets
come after the substantials.

To violate the law of compensation is to eat the sweets first and then the
substantials, and by this law the substantials do not taste good when they
are eaten after the sweets.

The man who procrastinates is violating the law of compensation. When
you see your duty attend to it at once.

The Boss

By the boss we mean the active proprietor, the executive head, the owner
of the business. He is sometimes called the "old man."

The success of an institution depends largely upon the example set by
the boss.

If the boss is careless in little things, if he is sharp in his practice, if he
does mean acts, he may rely upon it his employes will copy him, and later
on, when some blow strikes the business, he will find it has happened
through the practices of the employes who got their cues from the boss.

Kindness wins kindness; love wins love. If the boss is generous and
charitable, if he sets a good example, he will have an esprit de corps among
his employes that is of incalculable value.

There is not one chance in a thousand for the boss to make a success
unless he has risen to the position of boss, and climbed and earned his
position through steady progress.

The boss must know how to do the things he hires others to do.

The boss who can show an employe his error in a kindly manner and
point out a better method, leaves a good feeling in the heart of that
employe.

The boss who shows his heart to the employe and is concerned in the
things not necessarily business will be repaid a thousand-fold in loyalty and
willingness on the part of the employe.

Employes deeply appreciate consideration, and especially the little
kindnesses which are not what might be called business practice.

The boss should not be too far aloof; he should be just head and
shoulders above those working under him; he should be just far enough
above that he stands out as a commander.

He should be willing to grant an audience to an employe and should
work with him.

The boss should say we rather than I. He should talk with the employes
and not down to them. He should make each individual under him feel that
he is part of the institution and an element in its success.

Remember this—employes watch the boss and they copy him. Where
you find hard working employes you will find a hard working boss.

The boss cannot run the whole business himself; he is dependent upon
willing hands, and, in order to get willing hands, he must have willing

hands himself.

If the boss is alert and discovers wastes and leaks in his business, the
employes will discover them too, and the business will receive double
benefit.

Sizing Up Things

One of the most necessary as well as beneficial practices a man can have
is to take fifteen minutes to an hour each day and devote the time to sizing
up things, to planning the day's work for the morrow, to threshing the wheat
from the chaff, to reviewing the accomplishments of the day.

Sizing up things can only be well done in solitude.

The benefits of sizing up things in solitude are so great it is a wonder
more has not been written on the subject.

Plants grow in darkness, yet the common understanding is they grow in
sunshine. The sunshine is absolutely necessary for the growth of the plant,
but the real growth is done in the quiet darkness.

A man's brain develops in solitude, yet bustle and crowds and business
activity are as necessary to the man as sunshine is to the plant.

The real brain and moral growth takes place in solitude.

Here again we must remember the law of compensation, for if a plant
had all sunshine and no shadow, and if a man had all hustle and bustle and
no solitude, it would be like a machine without a governor; the man and the
plant would run so fast something would have to give way.

On the other hand compensation says that if a man is too much in
solitude, or the plant too much in darkness, they will wither and die.

Man has always had strong admiration for the strong individual, whether
bird, beast, fish, plant or human.

There are two kinds of birds, the kind that lives in flocks, like the
blackbird and the wild duck, and the kind that lives by itself, like the eagle.
Amongst birds the eagle is chosen as an emblem for the flag, and never the
duck or blackbird.

Amongst beasts there are two classes, the herd kind like sheep, and the
strong individual, like the lion. The lion is the symbol of strength and
courage, the sheep the symbol of innocence and simplicity. The lion appears
on coat of arms but not the sheep.

In the fish family there are two classes, the kind that lives in schools, like
the mackerel, and the kind that lives by itself, like the whale.

When first the savage drew a rude picture of a fish on his hut it was a
whale, and not a mackerel.

We do not find the mackerel's picture excepting at the fish dealers and on
the menu, and then only because the mackerel is good to eat.

Among trees the one that attains great proportions and beautiful
symmetry is yonder giant oak or elm that grows in the open. It needs room
to breathe and grow. It grows better if it is segregated from the crowded
forest. The giant tree is not the one that grows in the dense forest.

There are two kinds of men, the kind that lives in the herd and the kind
that has strong individuality that needs room to grow. The herd man exists
in infinitely greater numbers than the individual man.

We cannot imagine Lincoln, Bismarck, Webster, Clay, Edison or
Burbank living in the herd, or spending their time in the boulevard cafes.

The man who lives in a herd, who is ever present where the lights are
bright, where gaiety abounds, where excitement reigns, where feasting is
present, soon gets himself into the habit of cultivating this excitement. He is
never happy when alone.

The brain never sleeps and something must occupy it. The herd man fills
his brain with frivolous things, he seeks constant excitement. He is like the
plant always in the sun, he burns himself out.

The great man with the individuality is great because he has always
spent plenty of tune by himself, sizing up things in solitude. Sizing up
things makes the brain grow and makes it stronger.

The universities of this country tend in a great measure to produce the
herd man. The students dress alike. All have the same mannerisms, all have
the same tilt to their hats, and all the same turned up trousers. They feed at
certain restaurants and crowd in flocks. Very few college men learn the
benefits of sizing up things in solitude until in after years.

On the other hand the student in the school of practical experience does
not copy his fellow students. That is why in this great practical experience
school we find Lincolns, Edisons, Jim Hills and Carnegies. Those men have
to wrestle with the problems for themselves. They had to size up things in
solitude instead of reading the sizing up from text books, as is done in the
regular university.

Every man before retiring at night, or even during the day, should take a
few minutes to himself and carefully analyze the doings of the day.

He should weigh the positive and negative acts, the good and the bad,
the wise and the foolish, the right and the wrong impulses, the gain and loss
in achievement. He should strike a balance, and if he sees that the bad,
deterrent and backward things in the lead he should resolve to get a move
on himself.

The man who goes along without this sizing up things in solitude is like
the merchant who keeps no record, who pays his bills from the cash drawer
and takes what is left for profit. He will still be running a little shop in
twenty years, while his competitor who sized things up each day will be in
the wholesale business or will have retired with a competency.

Try this sizing up things for two weeks, and the benefits you will receive
will be so manifest it will need no further suggestion to make you keep up
the practice.

Competition

The saying is "competition is the life of trade," and this saying is true, or
it would not have endured so long.

If it were not for competition we should be living in the woods in a state
of savagery.

Ages ago all men and women led the simple life. Their chief vocation
was idleness. When the weather was hot the man sat in the shade; as the
sunshine crept to him he moved into the shade again. In winter he reversed
the process.

When our savage ancestor felt a pain in his stomach, his simple instinct
showed him that if he put things in his mouth and swallowed them the pain
in the stomach would leave.

This low browed man's whole object in life was to keep from having
those hunger pains, and the only energy he expended was in hustling for
food and in protecting his food from the other savages.

One day a man observed that the beasts lived on each other, so he
conceived the idea that it would be good for him to live on other animals.
That it would be easier than digging roots and gathering herbs, so this man
caught and ate slow-moving animals. He used a club to do the killing.

Along about here competition began, for another man learned to throw a
club and kill his game. Then another competitor discovered that a round
stone was a more effective weapon than a club.

These hairy forbears of ours lived in caves until competition led up to
the building of huts.

One day a savage discovered that while the skins of animals were hard to
eat, they nevertheless made a good body covering. Another discovered that
if the skins were tied about him it left his arms free to act. This man was the
first tailor. He punched holes in the skin and tied the rude garment together
with strips of skin. This first tailor was quite an important man among his
fellows on account of his great discovery.

Some of these wild men were fleet of foot and had well developed
cunning. They became expert hunters. On the other hand some of the less
active, by the law of compensation, became more expert tailors, so trade
was formed. The hunter killed enough for himself and the tailor, while the
tailor made clothes for both of them.

In these days the woodsman lived on animals and the plainsman on
vegetables mostly. So the woodsman traded skin clothing with the
plainsman for grains and herbs, and this marked the birth of commerce.

Then dugouts and canoes were built, and thus our ancestors crossed
lakes and seas and developed maritime commerce.

From away back in those dark ages up to the present time competition
has stimulated mankind and spurred him on towards better conditions. The
whole human race has benefited by each improvement which competition
has brought about.

We have in mind a certain mail order house that up to 1894 had things its
own way. Then it sold two to three million dollars worth of merchandise
annually. A competitor came into the field, stirred things up, and now the
old mail order house is doing eight to ten times as much business per
annum as they did before they had the competition.

In the matter of competition we must early learn not to worry over
competition, but to derive as much good from it as possible.

If a competitor does something better than you do, do not kick or protest,
but jump into the band wagon and do the thing as well or better than he
does it.

Price cutting is the simplest and most common phase of competition, but
a better way to get advantage over your competitor is to improve your
business by cutting off wastes and leaks, and reducing fixed and fancy
charges so you can give your customers more quality and more quantity for
the money.

In proportion as you increase the value you give for a dollar, just so you
will find it easier to get the dollar.

Do not regard competition as hurtful to your business, but rather look
upon it as a pace-maker for you.

If you had ten experts working for you studying how to improve your
business you would certainly get benefit from it, but probably not enough
benefit to offset the great cost of hiring these ten experts.

On the other hand, if you have ten competitors who are sitting up nights
studying how to improve their businesses, you can get the benefit of their
experience without it costing you anything.

The world is big and there is room for all, but old compensation says the
prizes are given to the fittest.

If you are a laggard, if you are on the defensive instead of on the
aggressive, get busy, wake up, do it now.

Advertising

Good advertising is good publicity. Advertising is the thing that makes
your trade increase.

Everything you do in connection with your business and every act of
yours outside of your business is an advertisement.

Reputation is an advertisement, so is honesty, politeness,
correspondence, methods, catalogues, circulars and salesmen. Neatness is
an advertisement, and so is promptness, thoroughness. And then there is
another kind of advertising which is your statement in the newspaper. This
is the printed kind of advertising, and this kind of advertising is the most
common, in fact, when we suggest that you should advertise, it immediately
comes to your mind that advertising is space in the newspaper.

Keep in mind, however, when we speak of advertising we refer to
everything in connection with your business that makes an impression upon
the public or the prospective buyer.

Some of the old timers refrain from printed advertising in newspapers,
saying that the best advertisement is merit. Merit is a good advertisement,
but it is mighty slow in its action.

If the inventor of the typewriter planned and built the machine in his
barn without letting anyone know about it, if he kept absolutely quiet about
his doings, relying on the fact that the typewriter had merit, it would never
be known to the public unless he told about it. If the inventor of the
typewriter waited for merit alone as the vehicle for acquainting the world
with the merits of the typewriter, the world would never know of it, unless,
perhaps, a fire inspector or an health officer accidently stumbled across the
machine while inspecting the premises.

If the inventor waited for intrinsic merit to sell his goods, he would find
that months and years would elapse before he could develop his business
into profitable proportions.

If you have a good thing you must tell about it. Telling makes selling.
Telling is advertising.

Professional men hold up their hands in horror when you suggest
advertising to them. They tell you they don't believe in advertising, that it is
not ethical, that it is not dignified. Doctors and lawyers are most notable in
this respect. One of the first things of their code of ethics is "Thou shalt not
advertise." They mean paid newspaper advertising. The man who originated
this idea evidently did not have the money to pay for any, and it was a case
of sour grapes.

Let us look into this matter of ethics and see whether the doctor and the
lawyer really believe what they say about this matter of advertising.

It is a rare spectacle to find a lawyer who will not gladly give an
interview to a newspaper reporter during some important trial.

The doctor gladly avails himself of the opportunity to read a paper
before a medical society, and he sees to it that this paper is published in a
medical journal later on.

Professional men belong to clubs, take part in public affairs, speak
before people, work on committees, and actively take part in anything that
will bring them in the limelight of publicity. They do this advertising
themselves, yet they say they do not believe in advertising.

Uncle Sam builds war ships, equips his soldiers splendidly, conducts his
business affairs with high grade talent, all this that the United States may be
well advertised among our sister nations.

Advertising is absolutely essential to successful business. Not printed
advertising alone but all kinds of advertising. The quality, the price, your
aggressiveness, everything in your business is an advertisement, either a

good advertisement or a bad one. It behooves you to see the advertising you
do, whatever kind it may be, is of the good kind.

If you expect to remain in business a long time your advertisements must
be good. Keep in mind that methods are advertisements.

One bad move, which is a bad advertisement for you, calls for two or
more good moves or good advertisements.

Have everything, every detail of your business carry a good
advertisement, that is, have it help your business.

Have every employe pulling on the same center tugs and have them all
face forward, and your vehicle will move forward.

Buying

The buyer derives much information and much shrewdness by carefully
watching the seller's methods.

Some buyers seem to think that bull-dozing tactics, cute lies and irritable
manners make the seller humble, weak-kneed and non-combative. This is a
great mistake.

The best buyer is first a gentleman. He keeps his word, he is patient and
he knows his business thoroughly.

The buyer gains much by being open and above board with the seller.
Let the seller know that your success consists in getting as much value as
you can for the money, and that your continuous trade will result only
through fair treatment.

Let the seller understand that the better he treats you in the matter of
price and quality the better you will be able to treat your customers, and the
longer you will be able to deal with the seller.

The moment a buyer shows bull-dozing methods, the seller is
antagonized, and his object then is to soak the buyer.

The buyer who keeps his temper and goes at the matter philosophically
is the one who wins out.

The buyer should explain to the seller that the seller can get the best of
him once and may be twice, but not more than that.

The main thing for the buyer to possess is a most thorough knowledge of
the goods he buys. Learn who makes the goods and where they are made,

and get at the factory cost.

Then learn whose factories have the best reputation, and whose are the
best fitted and established to make the goods you buy.

Remember you can afford to investigate. When you find a factory over-
sold you will find that factory more independent. When you find a factory
short of orders you will find them eager for your trade, and the chances are
you can do much better with this factory than with the one that is behind on
its orders.

Don't get excited, don't hurry. Speak gently. Know your ground.
Cultivate a reputation for fairness rather than smoothness. Laxity and
indifference in buying means that you are allowing wastes and leaks to
creep in your business, and that you are placing a handicap on your
traveling salesman, for goods well bought are half sold.

Expenses

If you get confidential with Mr. Bradstreet or Mr. Dun so that they will
give you access to the inside history of the commercial concerns which
have failed in business, you will quickly discover that in the majority of
cases the cause of the failure was "too much expense."

It has become quite a common saying in speaking of failures that "the
expenses ate up the profits."

Our friends Mr. Dun and Mr. Bradstreet tell us that there is about one
concern in fifty which succeeds in business. If you will look at the
successes you will find out that the proprietors were good buyers as well as
good sellers but that the particular point that made them successful was
their ability to make careful analysis in the matter of expenses.

The business man should have his expenses divided into as many
classifications as possible. His payroll should be separated into various
departments, office, salesmen, workmen, accounting, and so on; through all
the items of expense the division should be made as finely as possible.

The proprietor should have a statement each week on his desk showing
how every cent was expended. These items should be summarized monthly,
and constant reference made to the items of expense in comparison with
items of expense for the previous month, as well as items of expense for the
same month of the previous year.

One of the pit-falls in nearly every business is "general expense" or
"sundry expense." This department is a catchall for a lot of items, and it
hides a lot of leaks and wastes in business.

You can't divide your expense items too minutely. The finer the
divisions, the easier you can detect a waste of money.

The business man who has a statement of both receipts and expenses is
in the position of the first engineer of an ocean steamer; he does not seem to
be doing much and does not worry unless something goes wrong, then he
shows his training and ability to mend breaks and repair weak places.

If the business man analyzes his sources of income into several divisions
the same as he does his items of expense, he will find it an easy matter to
correct errors that creep in the business. He does not have to worry about
those items of expense which show minus, nor about those items of receipts
which show plus.

With a finely divided sheet of both expenses and receipts you can
quickly determine where the profit is coming from and where the leaks
appear.

If an expense item shows plus, you can run down that item and see
reasons for it and endeavor to bring down that expense. If a receipt item
shows minus, you can run down that item and endeavor to increase the
receipts.

The writer has a little printed card on his check book and it reads "Drive
the axe into expenses." It is a constant reminder to stop the wastes.

The only real success that comes to the business man is the profits at the
end of the year, that is, the amount of money he makes net.

It is easier to increase profits by cutting the expenses in many cases than
it is to increase profits by increasing sales. And here let us remark that on
this subject, as well as all the other subjects we are writing about in this
series of articles, we have in mind the matter of common sense, temperate
action. Extremes carry things too far. You must not cut the expenses beyond
the point where it seriously interferes with the sales.

If you are interested in this matter of expense, and you certainly should
be, take up your items of expense for last month or last year, go over the
cost of help, the cost of raw material and the cost of manufacturing; go over
each branch of your expenses, analyze the items carefully, look into every
point thoroughly, and we will guarantee that at the end of your analysis you
will see where you can save a respectable sum in the operation of your
business. In going into this matter of expense, do not take all the items at
once, but take each item up separately and go through it thoroughly.

Do not assume that you are paying too much for everything, but use
good sense and good judgment and see that you get your money's worth.
Take the item of wages. Look over the individuals in your employ, and you
will see a place, for instance, where two persons can do the work three are
now doing. Remember, it is generally true that where two persons are
engaged in handling a certain department and they are overworked, the
tendency is to give them additional help. When this is done you will find
thenceforth all three are busy. In other words, each of the two persons who
were formerly overworked ease up and do less work the moment the third
person is given as assistant. You have noticed that where you put three
employes to do the work formerly done by two, it is almost impossible—if
you take the employe's word—to get two employes to do the work after
three have been doing it.

The work should push the employe. The employer should get full
capacity of his employes.

Look over your pay roll and make up your mind that here and there you
are going to employes and ask them to help you save money, and at the
same time you will let them earn more money for themselves. You will find
that this plan works admirably.

For instance, if you have three employes getting $10.00 a week each; go
to the two who do the most work and say to them: "If you can do the work
of this department with one less employe I will give you each $3.00 a week
more." In this way you will pay two employes $13.00 a week instead of
three employes $10.00 a week each. This will save you $4.00 on that

particular part of your payroll. If you save proportionately all through your
payroll it will make a decided profit in itself.

Saving can also be made in the payroll by taking one of the heads of the
department into your confidence and letting out the work to him by
contract, offering to give him one-half, or one-third or one-quarter of the
amount he can save in his department.

It is surprising to see how different his argument will be when his pocket
is affected. For instance, in the past he explained to you that his department
is behind in its work because he has not enough help.

He has been asking for more help right along, but never asked that some
of the help be laid off.

If, on the other hand, you say to him you will give him one-third of what
he can save in the matter of wages in his department, you will instantly
notice that his whole argument and attitude change. He discovers that he
has ability to pick out employes who do the most work, and lets out the
four-flushers and idlers.

Remember, that as a rule the best paid employes are the cheapest. You
can well afford to pay the heads of your departments more wages if they
can save you more money.

A manufacturer should divide the number of completed articles done per
day or per week by the amount of wages paid, and find out what the wage
item is in each department per article.

Suppose that under your present system it costs you eighty cents in
wages per article in Department A, sixty cents per article in Department B,
etc. Explain to the foreman of Department A that it is now costing you
eighty cents per article for wages in his department, and to the foreman of
Department B that wages are costing you sixty cents per article in his
department. Tell these employes you will give them one-third or one-half of
whatever they can save in their departments. You will find Department A
will cost you from seventy to seventy-five cents per article thereafter, and

Department B from fifty to fifty-five cents per article, and in the meantime
the foreman of the department is making more money for you, and likewise
making more money for himself, than under the old system.

This matter of expense is most important, and should have the most
serious attention of the proprietor.

Advice

One of the things most frequently asked for and yet one seldom made
use of, is advice. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the man who comes to
you for advice as a matter of fact really wants to have his own opinion
confirmed.

Do not go around with a pocket full of advice offering it to everyone. If
you advise a man to change his habits or manner of life he will resent your
proffered aid. The best way to give advice is to take another fellow for
example and hit your friend through the illustration of the other fellow. Let
him discover the point himself rather than let it appear that you are telling
him the thing.

The matter of advice is a very hard thing to properly understand. You
advise another to do a certain thing, forgetting in the meanwhile, that if you
were in his position your view-point would be his and not your own. You
play your strong qualities against his weak ones.

It is easy enough for you to advise a drunkard not to drink, but difficult
for you to understand his view point on the subject if you are not a drinking
man yourself.

Giving advice usually comes about because we see a weakness in others.
The opposite of this weakness is a feature in our own make-up.

The business man who is constantly asking advice is advertising the fact
of his uncertainty of his own actions. Your great problems must be decided
by yourself.

The one thing that separates the sheep from the goats, and success from
failure, is the ability to analyze, study and weigh problems for yourself, and

to make decisions for yourself.

The law of compensation comes in here again, for in proportion as you
have self-reliance and good judgment your success will be measured.

You may rely upon it that if you go about seeking advice, you will get
two kinds of advice—First: the advice that concurs with your own
preference or decision; and, second, the kind that is in opposition to your
views. You accept the first kind because it tickles your vanity, and you
throw aside the second, saying the advice is prejudiced.

Don't ask advice. Size up and weigh the problem yourself and use your
own best judgment.

Reading

The business man who goes along day by day without taking on any
responsibilities or without tackling more difficult problems, finds he does
not progress.

The man who gets into a rut and reads light, frothy literature all the time
—the kind that is pleasing to the imagination, the kind that leaves no
permanent impression—does not progress mentally.

Reading should be like eating, we should have the dessert as well as the
substantials. It would be a great mistake to eat dessert alone, and it is
certainly a mistake to read light, frothy reading matter alone.

One of the prime requisites to a successful career is concentration of
thought. Few things will dissipate thought as much as over-reading of
newspapers.

The newspaper starts in with the first page, and by the time you have
finished the last column oh the last page you may have read a hundred
articles, each one of these articles touching on a different line of thought.
The daily newspaper contains climaxes of all kinds. Each article is a distinct
change of thought. The daily newspaper gives us statistics, sorrow, laughter,
crime, passion, death, lies, humor, and so on all through the gamut of the
scale of human experience.

The man who craves the newspaper soon finds his line of thought
frequently interrupted, side-stepped, drawn, cut off and dispersed.

Abundant evidences are at hand where the book reader acquired the
daily newspaper habit and reads the daily to such an extent that it is

impossible for him to read books thereafter. He has broken his continuity of
thought, and when this happens book reading is impossible.

Everyone should read two or three or more books at a time. One should
be an interesting book, whether history, story or comedy, so long as it is
well written and along lines that will hold one's interest. One should read
one book after another of this sort as a dessert for his dinner, as it were, but
along with it he should eat substantial food in the nature of substantial
reading.

Do not read yourself to sleep at night over a light novel. Read your novel
for an hour or so; then take up your old philosopher or scientist and read a
page, or as much as necessary to find some thought clearly expressed so
that it will be burned into your mind. That thought will remain and will be
of service to you in years to come.

Read daily newspapers scantily. Read items concerning the business you
are engaged in. Read the doings of Congress and the important events of the
day. Go over the head-lines, if need be, and eliminate all those shocking
stories of crime and sordid influence. Do not let yourself get into the habit
of reading the details of horrible crimes and bad impulses and criminal acts.
Skip over all the details of hangings and murders. They are weeds in the
mind that choke up the beautiful flowers of thought.

Remember, everything you read depresses or elevates, and in proportion
as you accustom yourself to read substantial matter so in proportion you
will progress in this world, and have a flood of thoughts at your command
when requirements come upon you calling for clean-cut expressions.

You will write better letters, you will converse better, you will enjoy
social intercourse better if you read helpful reading matter from books and
read newspapers very sparingly.

Argument

Not once in a thousand times will one man convince another in an
argument, and the benefits you get if you do convince the other fellow will
not compensate you for the waste of energy expended on the other nine
hundred and ninety-nine times when your efforts failed.

You convince a man against his will and he is of the same opinion still.

There is a mighty lot of difference between argument and reason. You
may accomplish more by dividing your case into one or two good reasons
and telling your adversary that you will not argue the case, but you will let
him look at these reasons, and when he takes it up logically you will have
no fear of his conclusion, for truth must triumph.

While argument itself is a footless proposition, it is infinitely more so if
your argument is with those of less mental calibre than your own, for by the
law of compensation, in proportion as a man is ignorant, he makes up in
perversity and lack of analytical ability.

Do not stoop to contend with those who have no standing, mentally,
morally or physically. It is a waste of time.

If it is your purpose to change a man's opinion, do not try to do it by
argument. Study the ground carefully. State your points with preciseness,
make careful analysis of every phase of the situation, take up the matter
point by point. Start with your adversary by getting on ground on which
you both will agree. Take up the points on which there can be little chance
for differences of opinion. You will find the other man will get in the habit
of agreeing with your propositions and that his antagonism weakens. State
facts that are right and truthful, and are so plain that the truth will be self-
evident.

After you have made several propositions on which the other man agrees
with you wholly, then make a proposition that is ninety per cent. his way
and ten per cent. your way. Gradually increase that ten per cent. until you
swing him around so that he sees the truth. He then imagines that he has
made the deduction himself.

Remember, you can swing the biggest ship around by a steady, slow,
gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser would produce
no effect whatever on the ship.

The man who wishes to convert another to his way of thinking must be a
diplomat if he is successful. Do not get excited, keep cool and collected, be
sure of your ground, be positive in your assertions, make the whole matter
clear, and use good judgment, sound reason and clear logic.

Speculation

You are playing against odds when you speculate.

The only man who has a sure thing on the Board of Trade or Stock
Exchange or the race track is the man with the "Wienerwurst" privilege.

The successful business man some day wakes up to the fact that his bills
are paid, and that he has surplus money. This surplus money should be used
for investment purposes and not for speculation. Of course, it is hard to
draw the line where investment leaves off and speculation begins.

When you speculate on margins you are like the fellow holding on a
bear's tail as it runs around a tree—if you lose your hold the bear will get
you.

The man who makes an investment, buying stocks or real estate and
paying cash for them does not have to worry about the market. Prices may
be up or down, but the man who has paid for what he has bought will sleep
well.

You can't beat the speculation game. The only ones who make a success,
and their success is ephemeral, are those who make speculation their whole
occupation. The professional speculator is merely a high grade gambler, and
he always winds up a loser.

Go to the Stock Exchange or the Board of Trade and you will see at
either place a half a dozen old fellows hanging around. They are all men
who have seen better days. A little inquiry and diplomacy on your part will
bring forth the fact that these men were once prominent figures on 'Change.

When you have more money than you need in your business buy good
farm lands out west, or good timber lands. No man ever bought good farm
land or good timber land at the prevailing market price and lost money
eventually. Of course, at different seasons of the year the price of land may
go down a little temporarily, but the moment a good crop comes in, the
price goes up again.

With good clear farm land you can always go to the nearest bank and
borrow from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of its value.

Real estate is the true basis of wealth, and if you want to play a sure
game, buy land that produces things.

When you buy vacant property in a large city, it is mere speculation. The
land does not bring in any remuneration, and you are simply betting that the
prices will increase.

Every large city has abundant instances of vacant property that is not
worth as much now as it was ten or twenty years ago. Real estate booms
come in cycles. Prices go up and men get the fever and buy vacant property.
The boom explodes, property goes down and you can't get your money
back. The chances are you have bought the property on two or three years'
time, and it certainly is paying for a white elephant when you are paying for
land that is worth less than what it cost you. You cannot get out, however,
because the original payment has already been made, and your only hope is
to save something on your investment.

Notwithstanding the fact that certain business sections and certain
residence sections in any city steadily increase in price, yet the average real
estate in the city increases by very slow percentage. The same amount of
money, put out in mortgages, with the interest added and compounded, will
develop wealth greater than the average vacant property investment, for
where one lot soars up to a high price there are a hundred that don't increase
at all, and the picking out of the lot that is going to increase in value is as
hard as picking out the horse that is going to win the race. It is because the

vacant city property has only speculative value that the business man should
not touch it.

Buy farm property that you can rent. It will bring you interest on your
money right along, and the tendency of farm land is and always has been
steadily forward.

Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, was a speculator who made millions in the
street-car system. He was thoroughly familiar with Hydraulics, and he
soaked the stocks as full of water as possible and then unloaded on the
investors who speculated in street-car stocks. These speculators are now
holding the bag. When Mr. Yerkes closed out his holdings in Chicago he
granted an interview, and one truth he uttered in that interview has ever
been remembered by the writer. It is so valuable an expression coming from
such a successful speculator that we are going to give it to you. It is as
follows: "I have never known a business man to successfully speculate in
grains or stocks for two years."

The business man who is watching the ticker or calling up the Stock
Exchange every day, who takes little flyers, is skating on mighty thin ice.

When you buy farms you are exchanging your money for the most
certain thing in the world, for the basis of all wealth is land, and money
simply represents the things which come out of the land. The things that
grow on the land are exchanged for gold, and the gold is exchanged for
things that come out of the land. The Government exchanges the gold for
pieces of paper called money, which in reality means that you can exchange
these pieces of paper for gold, and you can exchange the gold for the things
that come out of and grow upon the land.

The stock broker may not like this chapter because the more speculation
the more he benefits. He gets a rake-off every time a man buys and every
time a man sells. He plays a sure thing. He is like the man with the
Wienerwurst privilege.

Don't Speculate. Invest.

Elimination

One of the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to
operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences
and all things that fret him.

Do not look for trouble. Do not concern yourself too much over
disagreeable things over which you have no control.

Do not build up an intricate system in your business. Have simplicity
your ideal. Eliminate all useless moves. If you have disturbing influences in
your institution, such as an employe who is continually causing friction,
eliminate that employe. The man who causes friction is pulling back on the
forward impulses of your business, and he is holding back one or more men
who are trying to help you forward.

Get rid of useless things that take your time or cause you worry.

Remember that as you grow successful people will come to you under
various excuses to get your aid financially or morally. They want you to go
into new companies. The officers of the Club to which you belong will ask
you to be a director. You will be invited to dinners, asked to speak, asked to
do a thousand and one things, and in proportion as you accede to these
demands you will find the demands increasing until finally you have little
time to attend to your own affairs or to attend to your family.

Have as your center idea—elimination. Everything that takes your time
from your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength.

Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfits you
for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that is not
necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain.

The Specialist

When this nation of ours was born nearly every one was a generalist.

The merchant sold a general line of merchandise. The doctor was also a
farmer and a horse trader. In those days there were very few specialists.

As time passed some of the wiser individuals turned specialist and
succeeded.

The doctor who is a generalist cannot excel in any one branch of
medicine, or compete with the specialist who devotes all his time and study
and practice towards one point and towards the treatment of a specific
ailment. The merchant who sells everything cannot compete with the man
who makes it his business to sell one class of goods. This is an age of
specialists, and what we considered a specialist twenty-five years ago is
only a generalist from the present standpoint. The specialist of twenty-five
years ago has been divided again and again. The best doctor today is one
who doctors the eye alone, the stomach alone, or the nerves alone. He can
do more for you and knows more of your case in five minutes' observation
than the generalist would in three months.

With the keen competition of these days it is necessary for the individual
to be a specialist in business.

Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should
be a generalist.

Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, little of
electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little of advertising, little of
anything else. It is because individuals have made a speciality of one thing,

because they have concentrated their energies and their brain power on one
thing that the world has progressed.

Recreation is for relaxation, and the business man should see to it that he
gets the full benefit of recreation. If he carries specialism into recreation,
recreation is spoiled, for the moment a man is a specialist in recreation he
strives to excel, and this striving to excel is hard work, and that is the same
thing he is doing in business.

The business man who plays billiards and no other game doubtless will
play a better game than the generalist who indulges in all sorts of games
and recreations, but the man who makes a specialty of billiards finds his
powers centered on this game of billiards. He puts his thought on it and
wishes to excel, he wishes to make a record, and billiards then become
business.

This striving to excel in a game brings forth the same gambling instinct
manifested in business. It is his "I will." The business man who plays a
good game of billiards some day meets his superior, and the superior is the
individual who does nothing but play billiards.

If a man tries to be a specialist in billiards and a specialist in business,
even though both callings commence with "B," he will find that a division
of effort is a division of results, and he will not be a success in either
business or billiards. In proportion as he excels in billiards he will be
lacking in business, and vice versa.

We remember the story of a young friend of Herbert Spencer who joined
the great philosopher in a game of billiards. The young man played a most
excellent game. When they had finished Spencer remarked: "Young man,
your education has been greatly neglected, you play billiards too well."

Be a specialist in business and a generalist in pleasure. Play billiards,
swim, ride, play golf and indulge in all athletic sports and so long as you get
uniform pleasure and recreation from these things you are doing right, you
are helping your mind and developing your body and letting your brain rest,

so that it may be keen and a greater help in your specialty, which is
business.

The world needs specialists, and it needs specialists in recreation as well
as business, but the man who tries to be a specialist in business as well as a
specialist in recreation will fail in both, or, at least, his success will be only
moderate.

It is necessary for life's scheme that we have individuals who have
steady incomes so that they do not require to enter the strenuous business
life. It is necessary to have such individuals, so that they may devote
themselves to being specialists in recreation, otherwise the sports would die
out.

If you go in for sport do not expect you can compete with anybody who
goes in for sport exclusively. You can't win in two callings or occupations.

The String

There is a string to every proposition, and it behooves you to look out for
the string before acceding to the requests that are made of you.

When a stranger comes and offers to do things for you, to let you in on
the ground floor, or assures you that he is working for your interest, you
may be sure there is a string to his proposition, and the string is that, as a
matter of fact, it is himself instead of you he is looking out for.

Don't bite at the chance that is offered you to get something for nothing.
The biggest kind of a string is always in such a proposition.

Remember this, that people are selfish. Each man looks out for his own
interest, and even if he is protecting your interest, it is because his own
interest will be better conserved by looking out for yours.

Don't decide on important matters too quickly. Don't get tied up in big
contracts with strangers until you have found every strand of the string.

Don't be too suspicious but hunt for the string. It pays to be very
conservative on all matters in which others are interested.

Sometimes the string in the proposition is legitimate and the other fellow
may be more interested than you are, but it certainly behooves you to see
what this string is and to understand exactly where the end of the string is
tied.

Don't draw up in your shell and look upon every man with a proposition
as trying to take advantage of you, but put down this as a truth—There is a
string to every proposition, and you must find that string before you close
the deal.

Horse Sense

Just how the expression "horse sense" came into use is not known, but
the meaning of the combination means good reason, old fashioned logic,
simple analysis and actual truth, and the basing of your actions upon simple
things rather than complex things.

The man who uses horse sense in his transactions gets along further and
faster than the man who uses selfishness and smartness.

To be possessed of horse sense is a most valuable asset. It is something
you can use every day of your life.

Horse sense is really one of the things that makes up the law of
compensation. The law of compensation itself is the quintessence of horse
sense.

Luck is the gambling chance, and horse sense is the investment and
security chance.

The man with horse sense may not go as far in a day as the man with
luck, but he will progress more days and go further eventually than the
lucky man.

Horse sense is one of the most valuable things in the business world, and
it is one of the rarest things. It is so valuable because it is so rare.

In the business world today the men who are doing great things are the
men who have horse sense. We call these men wonderful and look upon
their accomplishments as the result of some mysterious, wonder-working
power that they possess. Wonder workers are only flashes in the pan.

Do not hire your employes on account of your preference for a certain
color hair or certain colored eyes. Do not hire your employes on account of
their physical appearance, or on account of their ability to dress in the
height of fashion. Get down to their net worth. Find out how much horse
sense they have. Hire employes, as far as possible, who are blessed with old
fashioned horse sense.

The Manager

The good manager is one who commands respect, not through his
authority but because those under him appreciate that he has more ability
and experience than they have.

The selection of a good manager is very important, for the success of
one's business depends upon its management. The proprietor cannot do all
the things himself, and he must rely upon his lieutenants.

Give a certain class of work to ten girls. Put them in a room by
themselves with no one in authority. Come back next day and you will find
that there is one girl who is laying out the work for the others. There is
something in this girl that makes her a natural manager, and there is a
certain instinct amongst the rest of the girls that makes them acknowledge
this one girl as their superior, and the one to go to for advice. This natural
leadership is the quality the manager should possess.

Above all, the manager, like the boss, must know how to do things he
hires others to do, and the things we have said concerning the boss is
likewise true of the manager, for the manager is the next step below the
boss. The successful boss would not have obtained his present position if he
had not been a good manager previously.

Let the manager read thoroughly our chapter on the boss if he has
ambition to be boss some day.

The mistake frequently made by the manager is to take credit himself for
the work done by those under him, for such a manager may be sure that
sooner or later his position in this respect will be found out, and to his
surprise he will find that the employe who has been doing the things for
which he has taken credit will take the manager's place. Employes are quick

to detect this spirit in the manager. They see that their own efforts are not
known to the boss, and it makes them indifferent, because they see no
appreciation for what they are doing. On the other hand, if the manager says
a good word to the boss concerning an employe who has shown marked
ability, it redounds to the manager's credit that he is liberal enough to give
credit where it properly belongs.

Truth will out as sure as the sun will shine, and the manager cannot
conceal his subordinates' abilities and pass them off as his own for any
length of time.

The good manager will say a kind word to the boss about the employe, if
he is the right sort. It makes an employe feel confidence in the manager
when he knows that the manager is appreciative and ready to tell his
superior of good things in the employe's favor. The manager who is bad
tempered, suspicious and tries to take credit that does not belong to him is
only holding his position temporarily, and some day he will be let out of the
institution for which he is working, and will find himself forced to the
extremity of getting a place somewhere else back in the ranks from which
he had temporarily risen.

Selling

Time was when the best salesman was the one who could tell the biggest
lies, drink the most whiskey and show his customers the liveliest time.

Today the best salesman is distinguished by the following attributes:
Truth, trustworthiness, together with a fine knowledge of the goods he is
selling.

The man who sells goods must be prepared to hear from nearly every
man that his price is too high. If the buyers would always tell the truth, then
the salesman who sold the most goods would simply be the one who
actually sold at the lowest price.

Price does not mean anything. Price is high or low only when quality is
taken into consideration.

The man who sells merchandise, or advertising, for instance, must be
thoroughly acquainted himself with the thing he sells. He must be reliable,
he must give good measure, he must keep his word.

We hear a good deal about the live-wire, rapid-fire salesman, who goes
out on his initial trip and comes back with a bagful of orders. It must be
remembered that ever and always there is the law of compensation to take
into consideration. The salesman who bags a lot of orders on the first trip
does not get so many the second time. He has colored his picture too highly
on the first trip. He has made too many side promises, too many mis-
statements, and the customer finds out he cannot be believed, and this
smooth article of a salesman is not as welcome in the buyer's office the
second trip.

On the other hand and in strict accordance with the law of compensation,
the salesman who tells the truth, who moves quickly, who does what he
agrees to and knows what he is talking about, who talks convincingly and
attends strictly to business will eventually succeed.

The great house of Marshall Field & Co. of Chicago have operated along
the line of fairness, good treatment and willingness to right a wrong and
correct a mistake quickly. Marshall Field had horse sense when he
inaugurated his business.

Wonder workers who start out with a burst of speed and smash records in
the matter of selling will still be salesmen at fifty years of age, for you can't
go fast far.

Those wonder workers change frequently. They flit from house to house.
They work because they need the money to have a good time with, and as
soon as they get the money they proceed to have a good time until their
little pile runs out, and then they get another job. Business men know this
wonder worker well. Go into any wholesale house and you will find them.
They are living in the past and relating their conquests. They never speak of
the present but always of the past. They have done things they can't do
again. The good salesman is doing things now better than he has done in the
past.

The permanently successful salesman does not cut much of a figure in
the matter of dress. He is not as handsome as the wonder worker. In fact, he
may be physically uncouth, but he has a heart under his rough exterior. The
customers he mingles with have confidence in him. They know he will do
what he promises, and finally this man is the one who builds up a good
trade and at fifty years of age he has a place of his own, sends salesmen on
the road, and his house does a good business because his policy permeates
the institution, and the customers have confidence in the house because he
is at the head of it, and they are familiar with his methods and practice.

Some buyers seem to think that it is necessary for them to give the
impression to the seller that they are buying at lower prices than the seller

quotes. The wonder worker tries to make each customer believe that he is
buying at the lowest price. The common sense salesman does not resort to
such tactics.

The average buyer does not concern himself so much about being able to
buy cheaper as he does to feel sure that his competitor does not get better
treatment than he does.

In the matter of selling there is no one thing that ultimately proves so
successful as the one price plan. By that we mean the same price to all who
purchase the same quantity or the same amount in a given time.

The more elastic and variable your prices, the more ingenuity required to
keep these cut prices from getting into the hands of your customers. This
matter of cutting prices causes no end of worry. In proportion as you
indulge in cutting prices, so in proportion you will receive an increased
number of cut price offers.

Let it be known that your prices are subject to reduction at the hands of a
smooth buyer, and the news will travel fast.

Let it be known that you don't cut prices, and that news will gain
currency in the trade, and you will not have cut prices offered you.

There is something in the matter of selling beyond dollars and cents, and
that is dollars and sense.

Remember this, when you sell goods you are also selling reputation. If
your goods are bad your reputation will be bad too. You can't have a good
reputation and sell bad goods and make a permanent success.

Remember, every sale you make is an advertisement.

Remember, you can take advantage of the buyer once or twice, but if you
want to hold his trade you must be fair with him.

Smooth tactics that bring in present money react and lose trade for you
later on.

Vacations

Every man owes it to himself and to his family to take a vacation each
year.

Vacate means to get out or away from, and if you take your so called
vacation by a trip to another city and spend your time in the whirl of
industry, you are not helping yourself, you are not taking a vacation.
Neither are you resting your mind and body if you go to a swell summer
resort where white duck trousers in the day and full dress in the evening is
the rule.

The real vacation you get is when you take yourself away from the
business marts of trade, and go to a place where you can get your feet on
good old mother earth. Go where fences are unknown, where there are no
"keep off the grass" signs, climb the hills, walk through the forests, fill your
lungs with good ozone, say to yourself "all these beautiful things are mine."

Nature has arranged it so that the poorest man in the world can get the
most priceless things as easily as the multi-millionaire. The four most
precious things in the world are good air, good food, good water and good
health. Money cannot buy any one of these things. The man with millions
cannot get any better air, or more nourishing food, or purer water, or better
health than can the poor man.

The man who goes to the big woods for his vacation, who lives out of
doors, who gets near to nature, is putting by a reserve in his constitution and
brain that he will draw upon for the remainder of the year. Such vacations
will clear the cobwebs from your brain. It will give you ability to do greater
things, and make you see the beautiful side of life.

A man should not depend wholly on his two or three weeks in the
woods, however. He should take a little vacation every day. He should
arrange to get some benefit for his brain and body in each twenty-four
hours. He should take a few moments each day and devote it to mental and
physical relaxation. And, above all, he can get a good vacation every
twenty-four hours if he sleeps properly.

Our good friend Grizzly Pete, of Frozen Dog, understands the real
vacation when he says.

Mighty pleasin' sport, you bet, sittin' on a rock;
Beats a store or office an' workin' by a clock.
Clears away the cobwebs from your weary brain;
Gives you inspiration; makes you a man again.

There ain't no medicine I know for the appetite
Like a summer mornin', waitin' fer a bite.
Lazy summer days are here—ain't you kind o' wishin'
That you had your old clothes on, an' was settin here a-fishin'?

Health

There is no misfortune, no real hard luck except sickness and poor
health.

If you find your health is becoming impaired, change your methods and
vocation. Change before it is too late. A stitch in time saves nine times nine
in matters of health.

Get plenty of exercise, good air, good water, sleep with your windows
open in winter as well as summer, walk over two miles every day. Avoid
worry. Do good deeds. Help others. Eliminate evil thoughts and deterrent
influences.

If your health is impaired, forsake dollars if necessary and make health
your first concern.

Dollars are worth having, but sense is infinitely better to be possessed of.

If your health will not permit you to get dollars and cents, then make it
your object to get health and sense.

Rockefeller would give his millions if he could have the health of nearly
any of the thousand of employes who work for him. A good stomach is
rather to be chosen than great riches.

Patience

Supposin' fish don't bite at first,
What are you goin' to do?
Throw down your pole, chuck out your bait,
An' say your fishin's through?
You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,
An' fish, an' fish, an' wait
Until you've ketched a basketful
Or used up all your bait.

Suppose success don't come at first,
What are you goin' to do?
Throw up the sponge and kick yourself?
An' growl, an' fret, an' stew?
You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,
An' bait, an' bait agin,
Until success will bite your hook,
For grit is sure to win.

Patient effort and hard work each day, properly directed, will surely
bring success.

Failure comes to those who grow weary in the struggle, and to those who
overwork themselves and overtax their abilities.

Such persons hope that by large sacrifices of sleep and happiness, and by
extra application and hard work, they will build for themselves fortune, that
they may be happy at some future time. They make a great mistake in this
respect.

Divide your energies so that each individual day is successful, no matter
how much the success may be.

It is the men who are doing little things today who will be picked out to
do great things tomorrow.

And while you are making a little success each day, be sure that your
heart sings while your hands work.

Men who can do things are discovered. They need not push themselves
to the front. Good men are scarce, and the great successful business men of
today are the ones who know how to do the work that they are hiring
employes to do. Talent in this direction will surely attract the attention of
your superiors.

Learn to master the details of your business yourself. Use conscientious
effort and painstaking effort. Make a round-up each night of what you have
done during the day. See wherein you have been in error and wherein you
could have improved the day's work and you will be better fitted for
tomorrow's duties. After closing your day's business, devote a part of the
evening to your family and friends, and a part of it to some good book.

It is not the clock that strikes the loudest that keeps the best time. The
expensive chronometer works steadily along doing its work well and
faithfully. It does not attract as much attention as the gilt clock with its
sweet chimes, but men who know things are aware that the chronometer has
the more real merit. Have the chronometer for your ideal and not the fancy
clock, for true merit will certainly receive due reward.

We should all have some ideal which we hope to attain tomorrow, but let
us remember that the way to reach the ideal tomorrow is to make today
successful.

Patience is a virtue few of us are possessed of, but the story of every
successful business has written on every page of its history patience and
perseverance.

Do not get discouraged if your rate of progress each day is not as much
as you hoped for, but, so long as you are going forward and are patient, you
may be sure that you are gaining.

Hard Times

Hard times follow good times with unerring regularity and certainty; this
is in perfect accordance with the rule of compensation.

In good times we should prepare ourselves and erect strong guards
around our business, so that when hard times come we may find ourselves
able to go through the troublous times.

If prosperity ran on unchecked, the ordinary, well-established business
would soon be a thing of the past, for people would speculate instead of
work.

When the manufacturer has his bills paid and finds a surplus in the bank,
that surplus is likely to be turned into speculation. When everyone
speculates values rise, and continue to rise until prices reach fictitious
altitudes, and then comes about the cashing in. It so happens that the
cashing in is a general movement, and when this happens hard times
quickly follow.

The successful business man should keep his money where it is get-at-
able, and when hard times come and the prices go away down to low water
mark, then he should buy. Later on prosperity will return, as sure as the sun
will rise, and the things bought during the hard times will greatly increase
in value.

Hard times and prosperity rotate several times in a man's business career.

Hard times are necessary to the general scheme, for with continuous
prosperity business would increase to such a momentum that there is no
telling what the results would be.

In times of prosperity you must make preparations for the hard times that
are sure to come. If your pumps are greater than your leaks, your craft won't
sink when the storm of adversity and hard times breaks across your ship.

Sleep

No one can do his best work if his mind is wool gathering. If an employe
is thinking about the races, he is cheating his boss, for he cannot give him
his best service. If the employe is in the habit of being up late nights, he
cannot concentrate his mind nor bring out the best there is in him. Nothing
is so good for the hard worker, nothing will stand him in such good stead,
as plenty of sleep.

Go to bed early. Get lots of sleep every night and you will be ready and
strong for the fray of the morrow. If you get plenty of sleep you are far
ahead of your fellow employe who does not get enough sleep.

Sleep smooths out the wrinkles, builds up a storage battery in you and
gives you confidence in yourself. You hold your head higher, your step is
more elastic, your eyes are clearer, your mind works better, and your
stomach does its full duty if you have taken plenty of time for sleep, for
sleep is the plan of nature to restore the mind and the body.

Lack of sleep means wilful waste of your energies and a dulling of your
abilities.

Business men pay for ability, keenness, alertness and capacity, and in
proportion as you limit these qualifications by lack of sleep, so in
proportion will your salary be kept down.

Grumbling

Grumbling kills friends. The business man who is ever grumbling and
growling about things makes a blue atmosphere about him. People
somehow or other seem to prefer a rosy atmosphere to a blue.

There is no good in grumbling. It gains nothing. Grumbling is an
evidence that you have not sized things up correctly. That you are laboring
under a delusion; that you are looking at the world through blue glasses,
that you are not making proper estimates of other people.

Grumbling is an advertisement to the world that you are not well
balanced. Grumbling won't help things a bit. The more you indulge in the
habit the more firmly it becomes fixed upon you, and later you will find it
almost impossible to shake it off. The grumbler grows to be a pessimist; he
says disagreeable things; he makes his friends feel ill at ease. The grumbler
gradually loses his acquaintances and even his close friends.

If you are starting on the grumbling path, pull yourself together and cut
the habit quick and short. Grumbling and indigestion go hand in hand. If
you have indigestion, square yourself against it, make up your mind you
will not indulge yourself and vent your ill feelings in grumbling.

If you can start out each day with a resolve not to grumble you will find
the proposition not difficult. The first two or three hours of the day is the
time when your resistance is called into play. There is no better antidote or
cure for the poisonous grumbling disposition than the following, which has
been for many years a pet sermonette of the writer: Be pleasant in the
morning until ten o'clock, the rest of the day will take care of itself.

Associates

"Birds of a feather flock together." "A man is known by the company he
keeps." "Like begets like." "We are creatures of environment."

All these truthful sayings have been preserved as proverbs simply
because they are simon pure truths.

The matter of associates is most important for the business man or
employe to consider. The young man who spends his time in gambling,
drinking or dissipation cannot do his best work. He can no more hide these
practices than the clouds can obscure the sun permanently, for evil, as well
as truth, is sure to come out.

One of the best attributes a man can possess is character. Character gives
him credit at the bank, it gives him a standing among men. If the employe
ever expects to be a boss he must have character, and he must associate with
men of ideas who will be helpful to him.

A man will never improve his game of billiards if he always associates
and plays with an inferior. He may satisfy himself for the time being that he
is a big toad in a little puddle, but if he plays with a poorer player than he is
he is bound to retrograde.

The only way we can advance is to surround ourselves and associate
with uplifting influences and healthful individuals. Our eyes should be
turned forward and not backward.

It will make several seconds difference in the speed of a horse whether
he is running against a horse he can beat or running against a horse that can
beat him. Race horse men have reduced this truth to actual practice. They

have what is called a pace maker. When they want a horse to trot fast they
mount a boy on a running horse just ahead of the trotter.

If a man associates with his inferiors, the association will surely keep
him from progressing.

If you want to make money, if you want to progress in the business
world, go where money is being made and mix with people who are making
money.

No man is naturally bad. No man gives himself over to criminal acts or
hurtful habits solely upon his own instincts. These actions and habits come
about through associations.

Go to the criminal court any day and you will see evidences of the man
who is pulled down on account of his associates.

Mix with your superiors in matters of business and morals and you will
unconsciously absorb qualities and ideas that will push you to the front.

Hitch your wagon to a star. Aim high. Pick out ideals in business, and
eliminate from your path all deterrent influences. There is no hold-back like
harmful associations. You will be judged by the company you keep.

Old dog Tray was really a good dog, but he suffered because of his
propensity to associate with bad dogs.

Fixed Charges

Fixed charges are sums you have to pay out regularly, week after week,
or year after year. When you buy materials and supplies, when you lease
property or hire employes, or pay interest on borrowed money all such
things are fixed charges, and it calls for the best there is in a man to keep
these fixed charges down as low as possible. When you buy a single item,
such as a desk or a chair or a waste basket, do not lose a lot of valuable time
trying to save too much on those articles.

When you go to New York once a year, do not stay at a second class
hotel for the several days you are in New York, when by the expenditure of
fifty cents a day more you could stop at a good hotel.

It is false economy to spend five dollars' worth of time to save fifty
cents.

When you are buying single articles that are not fixed charges you have a
little more leeway in the matter of price than when you are buying things
that come under the head of fixed charges.

In the matter of fixed charges the penny you save on the unit assumes
vast proportions in the many multiples.

Some men will deny themselves a respectable desk because they can buy
a cheaper one for ten dollars less, and this same person will lose a thousand
dollars through laxity in buying things that come under the head of fixed
charges.

If you buy one lead pencil never mind whether the price is five or ten
cents, but if you buy great gross lots every few weeks you can afford to be
very circumspect and painstaking in the matter of price.

If you are buying a shirt, fifty cents one way or the other does not make
much difference, but if you are in the furnishing goods business and buying
thousands of shirts at a time, twenty-five cents a dozen means quite a lot.

The matter of stationery and printing comes under the head of fixed
charges. If you are buying letter paper for your personal use and you require
but three or four hundred sheets in the course of a year, don't bother very
much about the price per quire. The stationery you use in your business,
which you buy in large quantities, you should be careful of. Plain,
respectable, good quality letter paper is the kind used by successful
concerns. The fancy-colored, freakish paper is nearly always used by the
four-flusher in business. He is trying to put on a good front. He uses hand
made paper and hand made envelopes. All the get-rich-quick people use
fancy, high-priced stationery.

The successful house uses a good quality of linen or bond paper, and a
medium grade, regular stock size envelope. Envelopes are thrown away;
letters are saved. That is why an envelope does not require to be as good
quality as the letter. It is the letter and what you put on the letter that cuts
the ice.

Fixed charges usually hide a lot of little leaks. Stop them. Many little
leaks make a big aggregate in the course of a year, and there is no place
where these leaks start as easily as in the matter of fixed charges.

Cigarets

We cannot call to mind a single instance where the habitual cigaret
smoker got to the top of the ladder and held his position. We see heads of
large establishments smoke cigarets, but the habit was acquired after the
position was attained.

The cigaret smoker suffers from lapses of memory, his nerves are
shattered, his judgment is not good, he forgets things and is irritable. He
cannot hope to compete with the clear-brained individual who does not
smoke cigarets.

It is not the cigaret itself that does the harm, it is the smoke inhaled into
the delicate lung tissue. This smoke covers the lungs with yellow nicotine,
carbon and poisonous gases.

Some men smoke pipes because they wish to escape the criticism to
which the cigaret smoker is subject. The pipe smoker who inhales does
himself more injury than the cigaret smoker who inhales, because the pipe
smoker takes in more smoke.

Go to the medical college dissecting room and see the lungs of a man
who inhaled smoke, and you will quit the habit if you have been guilty.

Don't burn your lungs with cigaret smoke, or pipe smoke either.

The fight to get to the front is hard enough anyway, and if you want to
win, do not poison your blood with tobacco smoke.

Return Good For Evil

One of the first laws was "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but
as time went on and man developed mentally his animal instincts were
subordinated and the law was changed, and the new law was this: "return
good for evil."

Nearly every man who has an injury done him tries to repay the injury.
He must either repay it with good or with evil. If he repays it with evil he
does not get satisfaction. If he repays it with good he gets happiness. It is
certain that payment of evil with good can satisfy a man who is looking for
revenge, while it has always been a question whether there is any
satisfaction in paying evil with evil.

If a man does you a mean turn he is expecting you will repay him in like
manner. He guards himself against this. He is ready for your revenge, but if
you repay him with good you attack him in a weak spot and make him feel
like thirty cents, and this is all the revenge you can ask for.

It is all right to get square with a man who does you a wrong, and the
best way to get square is by doing him a good turn.

You should keep mental ledger accounts with all of your friends and all
your enemies. When a person does you an injury, debit him until you have a
chance to credit his account with some good turn; when you credit his
account be sure you overpay what you are owing him, so you will have a
balance coming to your credit.

We have been taught to return good for evil, but we have heard the
saying so many times that few of us pay any attention to it.

It's worth while testing, this rule of returning good for evil. The next
time someone harms you, repay him by doing him a kindness, and see if
you don't feel happier, and at the same time get all the satisfaction you are
looking for. It matters not whether the person to whom you have done a
kindness appreciates it; you have been benefited and received happiness by
your own act, for virtue is its own reward.

The man who returns good for evil, has the satisfaction of the man who
has on clean underwear, the world may not know it but he does, and that is
all that is necessary.

Learn to Play

Nature has given us many positives and negatives. It has given us the
ability to work hard, and it has given us the ability to play hard. Work while
you work and play while you play. The man who is successful is the man
who works hard during business hours, and then goes home and leaves his
office behind him and takes up play.

A man should devote a part of each day to recreation, to outdoor
exercise, to frivolity and to frollicking with his children at home. If he does
not care to play, worry will take the place of play.

Worry and hard work together will kill a man. Work and play will make
him live.

No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. These brains
of ours are always busy, and we should be careful what we give the brain to
act upon.

If we work hard all day, the tendency is that in the evening the brain
revolves the things that have been going through it during the day. A review
of these thoughts produces worry, especially if our occupation has been a
strenuous one and if things have not been to our liking. When we devote
ourselves to play, then worry and brain rack will be absent all the time we
are playing. Play was made to rest the brain. Your sleep will be better if you
have indulged in recreation, and your mind will be clearer the next
morning.

Good Fellowship

Call a man a fellow and he will resent it, call him a good fellow and he
feels complimented.

The good fellow is ever found where pleasures abound. He shines at the
dinner. His knowledge of mixed drinks is a revelation.

The good fellow spends his time where the glasses clink, where the
horses run, and where the revelers congregate. His earnings go for dinners,
bottles and shows, and while these occupy his mind he imagines he is
having a good time, that his actions evidence "good fellowship."

Go to the clubs and you will see the "good fellow." He is spoken of by
all the other "good fellows" as a "good fellow." And they are all good
fellows together.

Some day the good fellow is taken sick and dies. He has not a cent to his
name, and the other good fellows take up a collection to bury him. The only
persons at the funeral are the other good fellows, and the only requiem he
receives is "Well, he was a good fellow."

The good fellow at fifty is working for the good business man. The good
fellow is like the butterfly, and sips life's pleasures, and shows off his fancy
colors, living for today only.

The successful man is like the ant, he works and puts something away
each day, where he can get at it in the future.

When winter comes with its chilling blasts, the butterfly has nothing in
reserve and it starves to death, while the ant keeps himself alive on the
product of his own labor.

Some day the good fellow finds himself in need. He goes to other good
fellows, but they can't help him because they are in the same boat
themselves. Then our good fellow grows pessimistic, and finds out too late
that it does not pay to be a good fellow.

Good fellows don't get good jobs very often. When they do get them
they don't hold them very long.

It is a mighty poor recommendation to be referred to as a good fellow.
People seem to think that the words "good fellow" cover a multitude of sins,
and when a man has done wrong, or makes a mistake, or uses bad
judgment, the other good fellows try to excuse his faults by saying—"Well,
he is a good fellow, anyhow."

The good fellow bursts upon us with his halo about him. As time passes
the halo dims and the good fellow peters out.

The good fellow who is so popular at the Club today is found tomorrow
trying to eke out an existence selling books and life insurance to other good
fellows.

There is nothing in good fellowship that can be negotiated at the bank.
The credit man of the wholesale house does not give credit on good
fellowship.

Hard Work

It is a mistaken idea that hard work kills men. Hard work never killed a
man. It is the improper care of oneself when he is not working that does the
damage.

The more a man does with his brain the less his hands will have to do.
The better a man's reasoning and common sense are, the more successful he
will be. It requires hard work these days to keep up in the race.

You cannot make a success unless you work hard. Hard work will be
much easier if you keep worry out of it.

Hard work brings success, but to do hard work, the machinery must be in
good order. You must keep your constitution up, you must have plenty of
sleep and you must learn to eat and breathe properly.

No story of success has ever been truly written that did not depict hard
work in every line.

Success comes by inches, not by leaps or bounds. Success is the pushing
forward each day by hard work.

Burn the candle at one end only and you replace each day what you have
burned, by rest, sleep and recreation. By burning the candle at one end only
and replacing it fully each day, your candle will not burn out.

Kindness

"A little word in kindness spoken,
A motion or a tear,
Has often healed the heart that's broken
And made a friend sincere."

There's nothing in business that pays so well as kindness. A man may
spend his money, and in proportion as he spends it he reduces his principal.
With kindness the matter is different, for in proportion as you spend
kindness your principal increases.

Lincoln said "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a
gallon of vinegar."

Kindness is beautiful. It brings round you many persons who are ready
to say kind words to you. This subtle, potent influence of having lots of
friends to help you by their actions and showing their hearts is a great
blessing. It is surprising that people know so little of the value of kindness.

The word "gentleman" is really a compound word, meaning gentle-man,
and these words together in their simplicity are the true definition of the
word gentleman.

Kindness means gentleness. No man is a gentleman who is not kind.

People are glad to recognize goodness and kindness in an individual. No
one can act the part if he is not sincere. We must cultivate kindness, if there
is little of it in our makeup. We must take an inventory of our qualities, and
if the weeds of mean impulses are crowding out the delicate flowers of
kindness, we should pull out those weeds and give the flowers a chance to
grow.

Lincoln was a kind man, kindness was his chief delight, and his
examples of kindness have been of untold benefit to millions of people. You
remember he said, "When they lay me away let it be said of me that as I
traveled along life's road I have always endeavored to pull up a thistle and
plant a rose in its stead."

Life at best is short, and the only things we really get out of life are
happiness, health and love. Money cannot buy these things.

The trouble with many business men is that they imagine good examples
and kindness have no place in business. They think the time to be kind is
after they have attained success financially. They think the time to show
kindness is outside of business hours.

The real way to be happy is to do the thing now, live each day for itself.
Get kindness in each day.

The man who is grave, austere, the man who tries to skin the other
fellow, who devotes all his energies to money-making alone, finds as the
years go by and he has attained his goal, but that he does not know how to
enjoy himself.

There are three periods in a man's life—the future, the now and the past.
When we attain old age our life is largely made up of reminiscences, or
looking back over the past. If our past life has been one of struggle, worry
and getting the best of the other fellow, then there is little happiness in
looking back over such a life.

The true philosopher does the thing now, he lives each day. He puts
kindness into his action, and when he grows old, he can look back through a
life that was pleasant as he lived it, and pleasanter now in living it over
again.

One of the Greek philosophers expresses the following beautiful
thought: "If there is any good deed I can do, or kindness I can show, let me
do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

The trouble is that some of us keep our kindnesses, or rather the
expression of it, until it is too late.

We should remember—"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and
tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with
sweetness, speak approvingly cheerful words while their ears can hear
them; the kind things you mean to say when they are gone say before they
go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send to brighten and
sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster
boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection which
they intend to lay over my dead body, I would rather they would bring them
out in my weary and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed
and cheered by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin
without a flower and a funeral without an eulogy, than a life without the
sweetness of love and sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends
beforehand for their burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the
troubled spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over life's
weary way."

The Salesman

Selling goods or soliciting requires careful study. The salesman who
makes the greatest success in the long run is the man who has practiced
truth and established himself in the confidence of his customers.

The whirlwind makes a good showing on the start, but, by the law of
compensation, what a man gains in speed he loses in power.

Some customers are slow to open up and extend their confidence to a
salesman. Others make up their minds quickly and express their
preferences.

A great deal of preliminary work can be avoided if the salesman is
tactful on the start. First impressions are lasting, and a salesman should
study carefully his first appearance. He should be neatly but not flashily
dressed. He should be a gentleman above all things. The gentleman dresses
so that later we can not accurately describe the clothes he wore. It is the
flashily dressed salesman we can describe later on, for his clothes are so out
of the ordinary that they are remarkable in this respect. The flashily dressed
salesman is remembered by his clothes rather than by his personality.

The solicitor should never smoke in the presence of the customer on first
acquaintance. The matter of smoking in a customer's presence has
prejudiced many a man against a salesman who has this practice. Business
men have prejudices, and to some smoking is highly obnoxious. Under no
circumstances smoke in a customer's presence unless the customer is
smoking, or until at least you are well acquainted with him, and have
received his permission to smoke.

Times without number the writer has left his half-finished cigar in the
hall-way before entering the customer's presence.

Story telling is like a two-edged sword; sometimes it helps and
sometimes it is a distinct disadvantage to tell stories. You must know when
to tell stories, and, above all, do not tell stories to your customer that he
could not repeat in his home.

Above all things, the salesman must know his man. If the customer gives
evidence that he is fond of a story, then remember a good story and tell it to
him. No salesman ever made a distinct hit by telling vulgar stories. While a
customer may laugh, he forms an opinion of you that is not complimentary,
and, if you are always telling stories that you would not repeat where
women were present, the customer forms a very low estimate of your
character.

The facts are the world is full of good stories, and good stories help your
case, while vulgar stories hurt it.

Drinking is another method used by many salesmen to gain favor with a
customer, and what we have said about vulgar stories may be applied to the
matter of drinking.

Years ago it was a general practice to take the customer out and get him
half seas over before trying to sell him.

The customers who are most susceptible to influence through whiskey
are the ones who are most likely later on to cause you trouble, either
through failure in business or through their preference for some other
individual who can outdo you in the matter of drinking.

You must get your customer by the heart and not by the stomach. You
must make your customer believe in you.

In these days the business man likes to deal with a salesman who is
business from the start. He only buys goods because he expects to make
money on them, and the sooner the transaction is over, the sooner he can
turn his attention to other matters.

The best advertising solicitors and best salesmen are those who get
business on business grounds and through their knowledge of their
business, rather than through their ability to tell stories, order dinners and
drink liquor.

The good salesman studies the other side of the question. He acquaints
himself with the method used by the customer in disposing of his goods. He
does not talk his own side of the case all the time. He works with the
customer, tries to give him good advice and shows an interest in the
customer's business. Such a salesman gets close to the customer, and retains
his patronage long after the good fellow has passed away.

Be wise, be patient, and above all things, acquaint yourself thoroughly
with the goods you are selling. Know more about them than your customer
does. Live up to your obligations. Keep your appointments. Study your
customers' welfare. Help them when opportunity offers.

The life insurance solicitor who gets the most turn-downs is the one who
writes the most policies, because the fact he gets so many turn-downs is
owing to the fact that he has seen so many people.

Hard work, cheerfulness, honesty, patience, sobriety and knowledge of
good goods will make a man a successful salesman.

Honesty

Under this caption we are expected to say "Honesty is the best policy."
This expression is as old as the hills, and if it were not good it would not
have obtained so long, for honesty certainly is the best policy.

Many a man in business practices absolute honesty and integrity,
because honesty is the simplest and best method he knows of for doing
business.

No man can succeed permanently, who is dishonest in his practices. The
successful business man is the one who practices honesty in all actions and
dealings during his business experience.

Honesty begets honesty. The man who is honest in his dealings with his
fellowman has a subsidy which money cannot buy. He gets honest
treatment at the hands of others.

The merchant who cuts a bolt of silk in the middle and puts different
prices on each piece, may figure he is making money by his action, but
retribution is sure to follow.

Honesty is a slow road to wealth, but, in accordance with the law of
compensation, in proportion as the business built up on honesty is slow, so
in proportion will it last longer.

Honesty is the best advertisement a man can have in his business.

Success

If after the employe strikes a balance each day, he finds that he is
moving forward, then he is on the road to success. And so it is with the
business man, only the proportions are greater.

One cent put at four per cent. interest per annum nineteen hundred years
ago, with interest added to the principal every twenty-five years, would
represent today more money than there is in the world. It would have taken
twenty-five years before the original investment of one cent was doubled.

If a man had started that plan his grandchildren would have said the
scheme was no good because it was too slow.

The boy goes to school regularly and shows little advance in his
mentality if you measure from day to day, but the boy is gaining every day.
He is going ahead slowly but certainly.

The gambler and the foolish man like success to come quickly and with
great strides. It is because there are many foolish men and gamblers that the
get-rich-quick fake thrives.

The man who gets rich suddenly usually indulges in such sports as
lighting cigars with ten dollar bills, and his wind-up is in the pauper's grave.

No man knows the true value of money unless he has worked for it. The
man who has earned his dollars through the penny route knows the value of
the penny, and he gets mighty good value when he spends a dollar.

The man who walks steadily in one direction does not appear to be
making much progress. The ship on the ocean seems to be standing still.
When night comes the man who has been walking steadily has disappeared,

and the ship that seemed to be standing still has vanished beyond the
horizon.

The law of compensation says, The more haste the less speed, and so in
the matter of success, we must not feel discouraged because the speed at
which we are traveling forward does not seem noticeable when compared
with the rapid pace of some of our friends.

Be not impatient. Learn to wait. Be a good stayer. Do not let the success
of the get-rich-quick creature deter you from your resolve to move forward
slowly. You will get there in the long run.

And when your hair is silvered and cares rest easily upon your shoulders,
the long road you have traveled will be a source of infinite satisfaction to
you. Your retrospection will be pleasant, and the very things that were hard
in your youth, are sources of satisfaction to you in your old age.

Do not use the yard measure in counting your progress, but use the inch
rule that has fine fractions on it.

Thinking

"I did not think" is an excuse offered by many. Thinking is the thing in
business.

The trunk railroad, the trans-Atlantic cable, the steam engine, the electric
light, the wireless telegraph, the very republic in which we are living, came
about through thinking.

Every man should take from five to fifty minutes each day to divorce his
mind from the strenuous activity surrounding him, and devote that time to
thought, and good will come out of it.

The brain is like a muscle, it must be exercised or it becomes flabby.

Cultivate concentration of thought; study your sphere of usefulness; cut
out the weeds that grow in your brain; get out of the mental rut you are in;
stop drifting; keep your brain healthily active.

Men are paid either for what they think or for what their muscles do.
Man's muscles have a limit; he can move just so much matter by physical
force. But his capacity from a mental standpoint is unlimited.

The world offers golden prizes to the man who thinks. Therefore we
should cultivate our brains and make them expand. The brain is like a plant.
If you nourish and cultivate it and care for it, it will grow too.

Excitement, striving for pleasures, indulging in reading light, frothy
literature, excessive daily newspaper reading are all weeds and thought
killers.

Don't act on impulses. The get-rich-quick man or the fake mine promoter
says, "Buy today, the price goes up tomorrow." These fakirs don't want you
to think. Thinking is an enemy to their persuasive arguments. If you think,
and think rightly, the fakir does not get you.

When you get a nasty letter don't answer it right away. Think it over.
Think carefully. If your thoughts of revenge are so strong that you cannot
calm yourself down, then write a letter and express yourself in the fullest
degree. Leave the letter on your desk. Do not look at it for three hours. Then
when you look at it you will instantly determine to tear it up, because in the
meantime you have been thinking.

Thoughts expressed on paper have a different sound than if they are
uttered verbally, therefore you should think carefully when you write.

Cultivate poise, calmness, and practice careful thought before you speak
or write.

In proportion as you master difficult problems through thought, your
brain will be ready for greater conquests.

Here are some things to think about during these times when business is
so good.

These prosperous times are dangerous times. In times of prosperity we
build up false idols, and raise our hopes and ambitions beyond the safety
point.

Prosperity makes most of us careless. We don't give our business the
careful consideration we should. We run to extremes during prosperous
times.

We should make the most of prosperity while it is here. We should enjoy
it to the fullest, but we should remember that for every high tide there is a
low ebb.

Prosperity should enable us to put away a reserve for the hard times.

We should be careful that prosperity does not turn our heads or cause us
to lose our vigilance.

Home Life

After all we say and do, the real pleasure of this world comes from the
home. The gilded palaces we see in our travels abroad are beautiful to look
upon presently, but later on they serve their purpose to make a contrast with
the sweet simplicity of home.

When you go home, cut business out, and let play and sociability and
love occupy your time.

A married man should be in partnership with his wife. The man being
fitted with sturdier physique, with strong ability to combat, should take up
the heavy burden of business, for those are the things he can do the best.
The wife should take up the home part of the duties of the firm, and when
evening falls each member of the firm should try to lessen or take away the
cares to which the other has been subject during the day.

The best place in the world is the home, and in proportion as home life is
unsatisfactory or uncongenial, so in proportion are the Clubs filled with
dissatisfied and unhappy men. If you want to hear pessimistic talks on home
life, talk with those derelicts who spend most of their time at the Clubs.

Learn to make much of little things. Learn that smiles and good humor in
the home bring happiness, and iron out the frowns and check the mean
impulses arising within us. Be pleasant every morning until ten o'clock, and
the rest of the day will take care of itself. Start out in the morning right and
happiness will be home at night.

There is nothing in your old age that will be such a comfort to you as
retrospection, or looking back over a long life of happiness in the home.
The happy little incidents which today seem trivial will be remembered in
the future, and a thousand and one occurrences which are happening in the

home are being put away in the store-house of memory, later to be called
upon and enjoyed again.

In the evening of life when you and your silver-haired partner sit before
the fire place, when you have retired from active participation in your
respective branches of the business, which is bread winning on the part of
the man and bread making on the part of the woman, then you will have a
happiness and satisfaction which all the gold in the world could not buy.
The pleasures of the old who have had happy homes during their lives are
the greatest pleasures in the world.

The sunset of your life will not be beautiful unless your home life was
pleasant during your day of work.

Optimism

The man who is an optimist may be laboring under a delusion, but
certain it is that he is happy while under the delusion.

Every man should have ideals. He should see the beauty and good in
things. He may not accomplish his ideals, but the anticipation and working
out of them is a mighty pleasant vocation.

The pessimist is always unhappy, and when no definite thing is before
him to worry about, the very fact that there is nothing to worry about makes
him unhappy.

The pessimist says "Business is not half as good as it would be if it was
twice as good as it is." The optimist says "Business is twice as good as it
would be if it was only half as good as it is."

Grizzly Pete, of Frozen Dog, Idaho, is an optimist, and Webb Grubb, of
the same town, is a pessimist. A short time ago they had a big rain storm in
Frozen Dog. Webb Grubb kicked about the rain. Grizzly Pete, all wreathed
in smiles, said "Rain is a mighty good thing to lay the dust." A few days
later the sun came out oppressively warm. Webb Grubb kicked about the
warm weather. Grizzly Pete, again all smiles, said "Hot weather and
sunshine are mighty good things to dry the mud."

The pessimist goes about with a dark lantern peering into out-of-the-way
places, ever looking for meanness and things to find fault about.

The optimist goes about in the bright sunlight looking for the beautiful
things, and sees more things by the aid of the great sunshine than the
pessimist can find with his little dark lantern.

The optimist rises in the morning with gladness in his heart, sunshine in
his face and smiles upon his lips. The mere privilege of living and enjoying
nature is a priceless satisfaction to him. He gets good out of life every
moment he lives. He is a man to be envied, if envy is ever allowable.

The pessimist warps his mind and his physique, and his influence on
others is decidedly bad.

The optimist raises the average of the world by his presence, the
pessimist lowers the average.

The optimist is in the majority, however, and the world is growing better.

Learn to see beauty in the small things. Study nature. Watch the
processes of plant life and animal life. Surround yourself with helpful
influences; books, music, friends.

There is no investment a man can make that yields such unbounded
returns as optimism.

Optimism cannot be bought with money. It is as free as the air we
breathe. That is why poor people generally are optimists.

Memory

The man whose memory allows him to play four games of chess
blindfolded is good for nothing else.

Book-keepers who can name every folio page and every customer's
balance are good for little else.

There is nothing in mental gymnastics from the dollar standpoint.

The good lawyer or the good business man does not rely on his memory,
but rather his ability to find out things and get at results.

If you remember only the customers who are slow pay or shaky, it will
be a lot easier than to remember the names of all the customers who pay
promptly.

If your wife wants you to get something down town tomorrow, write her
request on a little piece of paper, roll it up in a ball, put it in your pocket
with your loose change. Forget the incident, let the paper do the memory
act.

Next day when you reach in your pocket for change you will find the
little ball with the reminder on it.

If there is something you want to attend to at home, drop yourself a
postal card.

Carry a little pad of paper in your pocket. Write down the little things
you are to do. Don't store your mind with these temporary matters. Let the
tab remember for you.

Let your mind be like a sieve, and have the meshes coarse enough to
keep in the big things and let the little things go through.

Have your business figures written down, your comparative sales,
increases or losses. Study the written figures. Have system. Do things
methodically. Don't trust to your memory. If the thing you see or hear is
worth keeping, write it down on the little tab.

The orator who commits his speech to memory is in a sorry plight if he
forgets a sentence.

If you are to speak at a dinner, lay out your plan, divide your topic into
several parts. Jot down the catch lines, and just before you speak look over
the ticket. Charge your brain with the points or ideas and build the words
around them.

Don't remember things with verbatim correctness. Remember the
skeleton thought, the idea.

When you quote a price or figure, jot it down. Confirm the verbal
statement by a written memorandum.

Memory is a bad servant sometimes. You remember a thing one way and
the other fellow remembers it another way. You are both honest, but one of
you is wrong. If you had made a memorandum in duplicate or jotted down
the figures, what trouble it would have saved you.

Where dollars are concerned it is good sense to trust to a written memo.,
and not to any mental memo.

No use to cram your brain with transient things, when lead pencils and
paper are so cheap and so easily obtainable.

The employe who trusts to his memory hurts the business, and after he
quits a lot of misunderstandings will come up.

Insist on your employes making memorandums of things and prices, for
when the employe goes he takes his memory with him. If he has a
memorandum you know the facts.

Worry

Nothing will prevent effective work like worry. If you are given to
introspection and worry, and allow these things to go unchecked, they
become habits with you, and while your sleep, in a measure, is an antidote
for worry, yet the more worry you have the less soundly you will sleep, and
consequently the less effective sleep will be in correcting the injury caused
by worry.

Sunshine and darkness cannot be present at the same time, for in nature
one of the first rules we find is that no two objects can occupy the same
place at the same time. No matter how much one is given to the worry
habit, he experiences reflex moments when he does not worry. Some of our
pessimistic friends who are given to the worry habit say it is impossible for
them not to worry. You are thinking of what you are reading, and if your
mind is interested in it you are not worrying while you are reading these
articles, and this shows that if you are interested in reading there is little
chance for worry to get in; for your mind is occupied.

Men have tried all sorts of things to escape worry. Some of them
frequent places where gaiety and mirth abound, so that they are for the time
being banishing worry, but in proportion as these things keep one from
worrying, the reaction is stronger when it does come, and the individual
who tries to escape worry by going the pace and occupying his time with
light things, suffers more keenly from worry when it does come. Some men
turn to drink to kill worry. Many a man imagines while he is drunk and his
brain is clogged with alcohol that he is the happiest man in the world, and
some of them go to the extent of imagining their finances are in a
flourishing condition. The alcohol fills the brain with fancy pictures, and for
the time being the mind forgets to worry. When the alcohol wears away the
brain takes up the worry again in an increased degree.

To kill worry by the active process is like trying to cure rheumatism by
external application. The only thing you do is to stop the pain temporarily.
The best way to cure rheumatism is to go at it through the blood. Eradicate
the uric acid from the system, and then the rheumatism will disappear. The
best way to cure worry is not by local applications, but by getting at the root
of things. Eliminate as far as possible the things which cause worry.
Remember that as long as you live there will come things across your path
that are not to your liking. You should be philosophical, and make the best
of things that are about you. Look at the bright side rather than the dark.

There are only two things in the world to worry about. First—the things
we can control or change; second, the things over which we have no
control. Now, it is manifestly useless to worry over the first kind; for we
can correct the thing and there will be nothing to worry about.

It is manifestly useless to worry over the things we cannot control, for, as
set down in the second proposition, we cannot change the things. It
therefore behooves us to eliminate from our calculations the second kind of
worry, for no amount of worry can possibly change that kind. We must
therefore confine our attention to the first kind, the kind we can change, and
when we have changed the thing there is no cause to worry.

Nothing helps a man's health so much as contrasts in climate or habits.
When the doctor tells you it is necessary to go to California or Arizona, or
some other distant point, he knows that fifty per cent. of the good you will
get by the change is from the water, air, sunshine and surroundings, and the
other fifty per cent. of the good you will get is because you have been taken
away from the very things that have been causing you worry. If you can't
get contrasts by trips to other distant points, you can get the contrasts right
where you live. If your mind is occupied in the day with deep thinking and
hard business problems, you should occupy your evening with something
that will contrast with it. Take up some light literature, play with your
children, or work at some hobby in which you are interested.

The trouble with those who worry most is that they have worked
themselves up to such a frenzied state they can't read anything excepting

startling newspaper articles and freakish, frothy books.

The man with rheumatism cannot cure himself in a day, neither can the
man with the worry habit eradicate worry from his make-up in a day or so.

The man who worries should make up his mind he is going to read and
get interested in the reading. Let him set apart ten minutes the first day, and
agree that he will devote those ten minutes honestly, intently to the subject
before him. The next day he can add a minute or two, and so on until he can
read one or two hours at a time. Finally, the wrinkles will be ironed out and
the horizon will be brightened.

As we are, so is the world to us. The most familiar objects change their
aspect with every change of the soul. When you worry, everything is
distorted, everything appears unnatural, the world looks dark, our friends
seem far off. The jokes we hear fall flat. We indulge ourselves in
pessimism.

When the whole matter is summed up philosophically, there is no bad
luck in the world except sickness. All other so-called hard luck is simply
temporary. If you lose your money, don't worry about it, make some more.
If you lose a friend, don't worry; show him his mistake. If you lose an
opportunity, do not worry; be ready for the next one.

Life is short. The end of life is death. What's the use of worrying.

Worry is like drink. The more you give it the more it fastens on you.

Cultivate a cheerful disposition. Mix with people who are cheerful. Do
not allow the garden of your mind to grow up with worry weeds.

Occupation kills worry. If your mind is filled with uplifting work or
brain training it will have little time to worry.

Promises

A business man may be rated as worth a million, but if he breaks his
promises regarding payments or fulfillments of contracts, he will find later
on those who deal with him will insist upon cash transactions.

Keeping promises is the basis of credit. Let it be said of you that you
always keep your promise; that you have never been known to break your
word, and you will need little persuasion to get the credit man's O.K.

If you purchase for cash right along, some day you can ask for and will
receive a small credit, if you promise to make your payments on a certain
date. If you keep your promise you can repeat the operation. Later on you
will be given larger credit, because you have been keeping your promises.
You can increase your credit step by step to amazing proportions if your
promises are always kept.

The business world places much confidence in promises. The note in the
bank is a written evidence of the promise. The note says on the face of it "I
promise to pay." The Government of the United States issues bank notes on
the face of which is a promise.

When you make promises as regards dates, jot down the promise in your
memorandum book. Whatever you do, keep that promise. The man who
breaks his promise in little things will break them in greater ones.

When you make a promise to meet a man it is just the same as promising
to pay a man money. In either instance you are in the man's debt, and the
obligation is not cancelled until the debt is paid. In other words, until the
promise is fulfilled.

Just so sure as the sun sets, the man who habitually breaks his promises
will surely break his business.

Independence

It seems to be the rule rather than the exception that the moment a
business man attains success he grows independent.

There is no such thing as independence within the full meaning of the
word. Every creature in the world is dependent more or less.

The man who takes delight in his so-called independence and forces it to
the front, soon receives knocks.

The constant tapping and knocking hurts anyone. Boosts beat knocks.
The man who has a reputation for being independent never gets boosts.

Some business men forget the obligations they are under. They forget the
help that was extended to them in time gone by. They furnish up a fine
mahogany office, with an outer room, and outside of this another room with
an information desk. They cultivate coldness and independence. They make
it difficult for their friends to see them. They put a lot of red tape around
their business, and by these acts they get out of touch with the pulse of the
business. They look at things through colored glasses. Their judgment gets
warped.

In proportion as a man cultivates independence and autocratic ideas, just
so in proportion is he nearing the brink over which many have fallen to
destruction. When an independent man has a fall, his enemies glory and
loud are the shouts that arise from them, and if we listen closely we will
hear the multitude say: "Serves him right."

There is nothing like democracy in business. By this it must not be
understood that the head of the concern is to see every pedler, or every life
insurance agent. But if the business man is accessible, and greets you with a

glad hand, and in the pleasant manner turns you over to the proper
department head, you go away from the office satisfied, and you give this
man a boost instead of a knock.

The late P. D. Armour was a good example of the point we are making,
he did not waste time in social visits during business hours, but anyone who
had business with the Armour Institution could get an interview with Mr.
Armour. It has often been remarked by business men that they would rather
have a turn-down from Mr. Armour than an order from some of the other
houses, for Mr. Armour always made one feel good.

No one can be independent. The larger one's business is the more the
proprietor is dependent on those around him.

It takes many months to build a sky scraper, yet a wrecking company can
tear a sky scraper to the ground in a few days, and so it is with a man's
reputation. It takes years to get good credit in the commercial world, but if
success spoils a man and makes him independent, he has created enemies,
and there is no telling where these enemies will get in their work. It is like
the worms eating through the bottom of a ship. Some day the craft goes
down because of the silent attacks made in it, which were not visible from
the surface.

Some day the independent man is surprised to have the bank call him in
and insist that he take up his loans. He is astonished; he does not know why
this sudden change has happened, but like as not some secret enemy in the
bank, or some secret competitor who has a friend in the bank, has gotten in
his work, and then this independent man finds out how really dependent he
is.

The safer a man is from attacks, the safer his business is from the
financial standpoint, and the more generous this man should be in his
consideration for others.

No man can afford to be independent. Men who have built up their
business slowly are not the ones whose heads are turned and who affect this
independent air. The independent man is nearly always the newly rich or the

suddenly successful business man, and the moment he sets himself up as
independent he is made the target for an army of enemies who are waiting
for a chance to injure him.

Short Letters

Most business men make much ado about nothing in the matter of
correspondence. They use a wilderness of words to express themselves.
They write at such length that the original meaning runs into so many by-
lanes that the meaning is lost.

The man who writes long letters usually deals out high sounding phrases
and customary paragraphs such as he has picked up through his perusal of
others' letters.

The average business man seems to glory more in his ability to use
euphonious sentences than to talk to the point.

Letters should be like telegrams, they should be short and to the point, so
there will be no misunderstanding on the part of the recipient.

There is one business man that we have been in close touch with for over
fifteen years. We have heard from him an average of once a week, and in all
that time he has never written a letter of over twenty-five lines. Our records
show there is no customer with whom we had so much business dealings
and so little misunderstanding as this one.

Write short letters. Use small words. Don't be blunt, but be short.

Perspiration

No matter what one's aspirations may be, success will not come without
perspiration. It is well this is so, otherwise success would not be
appreciated. That which a man earns by perspiration he appreciates and
knows how to enjoy.

If success were something that could be drawn by chance, like a prize,
success would not be worth anything.

The measure of any valuable thing, or condition, or relationship is the
amount of work, energy, trouble and sacrifice that has been expended to
obtain it.

None is to be more pitied than the rich idle-born, who have every
comfort around them. They do not know that perspiration must be added to
aspiration before they get success.

Friends

How little the average business man understands this word "friends."

In everyday conversation we hear one man say to another "Mr. Blank is
a friend of mine."

As a matter of fact the word acquaintance could be substituted in ninety-
nine cases out of a hundred where the word friend is used.

Real friends are few and far between. A real friend is never determined
until a test has been made, and this test is usually troublous times, adversity
or the loss of a loved one.

When afflictions come to our families, or reverses come to our business,
when the dark clouds hang over us, when stormy seas are about to swamp
us, when we need help, then is the time we find who are our true friends.
When such calls for friendship arrive it is surprising to see how we have
been mistaken in individuals. Those upon whom we counted most shrug
their shoulders, draw their skirts about them and give us good advice, while
those whom we had never counted as friends come to the front and lend
helping hands.

The word friend has been greatly abused. Around places of gaiety, where
drinks and good fellowship abound, we frequently hear the word friend, but
in the time of trouble those who pose as friends will not help us, and the
few who would help us cannot because they have squandered their
substance and have not the ability to help us. A friend in need is a friend
indeed.

There is no relationship more sacred than friendship.

Friendship carries with it love. The true friend is not one made in a
hurry. There is no friend like the old one with whom you went birdnesting
in your youth, the friend that has plodded along life's road with you
shoulder to shoulder.

When you have a friend who has proven himself such, never let up so
long as you live in your evidences of gratitude for the kindness he has
shown you. Repay him with interest for his good offices, and let your
actions towards him ever be a source of happiness and pleasure to him.

Nothing is so much appreciated between friends as gratitude, and
nothing will kill friendship like ingratitude.

Genuine friendship is such a rare jewel that when you have a positive
demonstration of it, let it be your great concern that you will do nothing to
mar this friendship, for broken friendship is a source of grief to both friends
so long as they live.

Employes

The success of any business depends upon the hearty cooperation of the
employes.

We have often heard that a corporation has no soul. A corporation
probably has no soul but most of us forget that the officers of the
corporation have souls and hearts, and in proportion as the individual at the
head of a corporation or private enterprise treats his employes just so he
will be repaid.

We are paid back what we pay out. If we are harsh and mean to others,
ever suspicious, ever looking for evil motives, those who work for us will
be suspicious of us and look for evil motives behind our every act.

The employer who shows consideration, cultivates respect and sets a
good example will find it pays from a monetary standpoint, as well as in the
satisfaction he has in knowing that he is doing the right thing.

Lincoln said "A house divided against itself must fall." If the employes
of an institution spend their time in wrangling and quarreling, it means a
divided house, and the house will certainly suffer.

Set a good example to your employes. Take them into your confidence.
Recognize ability. Advance worthy ones, and you will find everyone from
the office boy to the officer pulling on the rope in the same direction, and
you will get full measure of ability from everyone who works for you.

It is impossible to suddenly get a perfect working force. A good
organization comes through the process of evolution and elimination.

Whenever an employe does all he is hired to do and a little more, that
employe is in a position to occupy a place of greater responsibility.

If an employe is a sluggard or a four-flusher, he may be sure these things
will be found out and he cannot hope for advancement.

Employes should remember that the most successful institution is the
one whose managers are developed from the rank and file. The best houses
do not hire high class help from other concerns. The most successful men
are those who started in at the bottom of the ladder, and by perseverance
and pluck and aptitude they climbed the ladder until they reached the top.

Employes should remember that the most difficult problem the employer
has to solve is that of good employes.

A small want ad. in the metropolitan daily will bring an army of cheap
help. The market is full of cheap help, but good employes that are worth
over $2,000 a year are very scarce. The high priced employes are generally
the best money makers of the institution, for they are selling their brains
rather than their hands. The hands are limited, the brains are not.

Employes, there are golden opportunities before you. Disregard the
clock. Bend your energies toward doing your work well. The advancement
will be sure to follow.

The trouble with many employes is that their minds are filled with
outside matters of a frivolous nature.

In every large city there are thousands of dude employes, the kind who
wear high collars, the kind who spend all their salary for clothes.

The dude employe stands in his own light. He wears a higher priced tie
than the boss; he is immaculately neat; he looks like a fashion plate, but at
the same time his tailor bill is not paid, he is owing money right and left. He
spends his evenings in the cafes, and at odd moments during the day he
dodges out to look over the racing form and smoke a cigaret. This dude

employe sits up late at night. He spends his salary, and more too, in the gay
life. He is tired next morning when he comes down.

The dude employe who wears a high collar is not the one that knuckles
down to hard work. Perspiration and high collars do not go well together.
The dude employe does not like perspiration, so he sees to it that he does
not exert himself enough to perspire.

Employes should remember that very truthful axiom: "The employe who
never does more than he is paid for is never paid for more than he does."

The employe should remember that the boss takes large chances in hiring
help, for there is not one employe out of ten that is a good investment. The
employes should remember that it is necessary for the boss to make a good
margin of profit on each employe, else he could not maintain his business.

Every employe who studies how much he can do is a help to an
employer. Every employe who sees how little he can do is a hold-back to
the institution.

Employes should remember that prosperity goes in cycles, that it is but
three generations from shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve.

Over ninety per cent. of the bosses today started in and worked their way
up from the ground. The young man who inherits a partnership in his
father's business really has a handicap on him, and is not as likely to
succeed as an employe who starts in at the bottom of the ladder.

Employes should remember that responsibilities only come to those
whose shoulders are broad enough to bear them, and when additional
responsibility comes to an employe that employe should look upon the
responsibility as a distinct advantage to him, for it gives him an opportunity
to show the stuff he is made of.

Laxity

When young men start in business their thoughts are all prospective.
They look forward to the time when they will attain success. They work
hard. They put enthusiasm and long hours into their business. As years pass
they attain success and cash in this world's goods. They buy beautiful
homes and surround themselves with luxury. They indulge in high living.
They have country places. They take things easy. They sit back in their
chairs and imagine their business will go on forever because they are so
well established.

The hard worker is entitled to slacken up a little as success comes to
him, but the moment his energies commence to wane, he should see to it
that he gets the right sort of young material in the institution to keep up the
enthusiasm and hard work which he himself has had.

In the very nature of things it is impossible for a man to keep up his
youthful pace in his mature age, for, as we have frequently observed, you
can't go fast far.

One of the principal elements in Marshall Field's success was that he got
enthusiastic, hard workers around him. The moment he saw signs of laxity
in any of these individuals, he let them out and got new material.

Laxity means loss of power, and with loss of power the machine does
not do as good work.

Laxity in business is a waste.

Enthusiasm

In these days of keen competition and wonderful activity it is necessary
for the business man to have enthusiasm. If he lacks in this, his business
will be at a stand-still, while his enthusiastic competitor goes forward.

Enthusiasm should not be carried to an extreme any more than any other
good thing should be carried to an extreme, but at that it is better to be over-
enthusiastic than not enthusiastic enough. No one can be truly enthusiastic
who does not believe in his business. Enthusiasm is a form of advertising. It
shows the people you deal with that there is something going on and that
you believe in your own medicine.

Catching Up

Nearly every one in this business world seems to be engaged in the
occupation of "catching up." Nearly everyone is a little behind in the matter
of finances.

As soon as one gets across the stream and is on dry land and has his bills
all paid, then he takes on new responsibilities and goes deeper in debt.

It is a very hard game, this catching up. The game of existence is very
easy to play when you are caught up.

We have tramped through the forests of the great West, and we have
invariably found that the pace-makers or leaders are the least tired at night,
while the followers or those who are behind trying to catch up, are the ones
who are most fatigued.

Some people are habitually behind "with their hauling," as the
Missourians say. No matter how their salaries may increase they are
proportionately behind with their hauling all the time. When an employe
gets $50.00 a month he is owing $75.00, he is working hard at the catching-
up game all the time. He figures that if he only got $75.00 a month, he
could apply the $25.00 extra and could catch up in three months. The theory
is all right but the practice is not, for when this individual gets $75.00 a
month, instead of applying that $25.00 extra to catching up, he finds that he
wants better neckties and better underwear, and makes greater expenditures
all along the line, so instead of wiping out that $75.00 debt he had when
earning $50.00 a month, he finds himself $150.00 in debt on his $75.00
salary.

This catching up has a bad influence. It worries the individual; he does
not do his best work.

When you have all your bills paid and a surplus of $500 in the bank,
your head is higher, your chest is broader, your backbone stiffer, and you
have a confidence that helps you take on greater responsibilities.

To be in debt is to be under obligations to your friends, and it kills off
those strong qualities which you naturally possess but which warp when
you are catching up. The man who is catching up cringes instead of
standing erect, he is suppliant instead of dominant. He is disturbed by little
things, and in the meantime the catching up process is tearing down his
nervous system.

Get caught up with your hauling. Whatever your income is, save a
percentage of it. Do not mistake us in thinking that we are preaching the old
sermon of the savings bank, which is, save your pennies and the dollars will
take care of themselves, for our friend Grizzly Pete of Frozen Dog, Idaho,
says: "Save your pennies, the dollars will be blown in by your heirs."

No man gets rich through mere saving, but it is the training the man gets
in saving the pennies that gives him a good idea of values of things and
shows him the importance of having a reserve.

If the boss is extravagant in little things, the employe multiplies the
extravagance.

If you are always catching up while you are an employe you will always
be catching up while you are boss. If you are always saving and putting by
a reserve while you are an employe, you will be doing the same thing when
you are a boss. The principle is the same. It is merely a question of figures.

Do not take on financial responsibilities until you see your way clear to
meet the responsibilities, and in addition to meeting them, see to it that you
have made an allowance for good measure.

Catching up calls for double effort and double work.

Anger

In proportion as a man is wise, he controls his anger.

Centuries ago the following truth was written: "Whom the gods would
destroy they first make angry," and in the same era there was also given us
another truth: "A soft answer turneth away wrath."

A man's judgment gets twisted, his ground becomes insecure and his
point of vantage weakens when he becomes angry.

The man who keeps calm when the other fellow gets angry has infinitely
the best of the matter.

Let the other fellow fret and stew and get red in the face, but you keep
calm and you will win the fight every time.

Control yourself, change the subject, and absent yourself when anger
shows.

Cultivate poise, refrain from lowering yourself to the methods of the
ignorant, which is anger. By keeping your temper when your adversary gets
angry you thereby show your superiority, and your adversary instinctively
feels you are a bigger man than he is.

A cool head is wonderful capital for an employer or an employe.

Don't mistake coolness and poise for submissiveness and servility. Don't
let people impose on you and take advantage of your good nature.

State your position in cool, well-weighed words, and carry conviction
with them by your manner.

It takes two to make a quarrel. Whenever anger is present, do not be one
of the two.

Precedent

Precedent has caused many failures. We refuse to make a bold move and
inaugurate a new system because we hate to break away from the methods
established by successful predecessors.

We say "Let well enough alone." We forget that times change, and that
conditions which made our competitors successful, may not now exist.

If you have the precedent habit it is an admission that you have not the
brains to originate, and you are trying to take advantage of another's brains.

You remember the old fable of the lion and the jackass. The jackass was
browsing on thistles in the desert. It took all his time to gather enough of
the scanty vegetation to keep him alive. One day the jackass noticed the
lion comfortably eating a lamb, whereupon he said "That's the scheme for
me. I will do the same trick as Mr. Lion," and forth-with the jackass found a
dead lion and covered himself with the lion's skin, hoping that with the
lion's skin he would appear as a lion and thus be able to catch game in large
portions, and relieve himself of this slow monotonous, hard work he had
been used to. The jackass sallied forth, but he could not catch a lamb. He
had copied the lion so far as physical appearances were concerned, but he
did not have the brains of the lion, and he failed.

There are hundreds of wealthy business concerns today who are slowly
dying from dry rot because they have not the nerve to break away from the
precedent that built up their businesses. They let sentiment outweigh
common sense. They maintain the same old lines and follow the same
policy because that policy years before things made them successful.

Many manufacturers continue to advertise in publications which have
long since lost their advertising value. These manufacturers have the habit,

and on account of precedent they are afraid to break away. They do not
recognize that since they started there are dozens of newer, brighter and
better publications than the ones they are using.

Columbus, Marconi, Edison, Stevenson, Newton, Fulton, and hundreds
of other originators would never have succeeded if they had followed
precedent. They required strong courage to break away from accepted
methods. Each of these men was told in so many words that the thing never
had been done, and consequently could not be done.

Business men who throw aside precedent are more apt to succeed, for by
throwing aside precedent they show they have originality instead of the
ability to copy.

Financing

A financier and a general are much the same thing. The financier makes
the dollars do the work at the best place, and the general does the same
thing with his soldiers. The financier with plenty of money in the bank and
the general with plenty of soldiers at his command are alike. They give the
order and the thing is done, for they have the material to do the thing with.
The difference between the good financier and the bad financier is like the
difference between the good general and the bad one, the difference being
that the good one makes a little go a long way, and gets the best results from
the little under his command.

The cause of many failures is due to bad financing instead of bad
business. The trouble is few business men know exactly "where they are
at."

A detailed statement should be kept of all obligations. The business man
should get along as far as possible without giving notes, and when he does
give notes he should see to it that the notes are taken up when due.

The business man who overstocks shows he is a bad financier. The man
who buys too much on possibilities makes a mistake.

As you go along this year you should make statistics of the receipts and
expenses by the day, week, month and year. With these figures you can
make up a budget of your receipts and expenses for the coming year with
reasonable correctness.

Keep your resources well in hand. Buy often rather than buy in large
quantities.

If you are owing money to the bank, have your plans arranged so that
you can realize on your assets quickly.

The good general always plans his campaign to be ready for attack that
may come through unexpected sources. The good financier is always ready
for an attack on his finances.

The concerns from whom one buys may be prosperous. The bank with
whom one deals may be flourishing, and yet without warning something
happens and you are suddenly called upon to liquidate your indebtedness.
You should be prepared for this sudden call.

Financing is an art, and you will never be a good financier unless you
have had perplexing problems to solve. In order to solve problems you must
have the pro and con, in other words, the details of your receipts and
expenses. These figures should be put down plainly, with elaborate detail, if
necessary, so you may count on your figures and make your plans
accordingly. Preparing for emergencies is one of the first things the
financier should understand.

Discontent

While in another part of this book we show that ambition is one of the
things that makes success, yet it must not be forgotten that discontent is
another great factor in bringing about success.

When the young man quits school he has life before him and has
ambition to succeed. It is not particularly necessary that we find out what
his ambition is to start him on the right path. Let the young man get started
at any thing. If he is ambitious and has ability in him to manage a business
he will get there finally.

He may get started in the wrong line and this will make him
discontented. The discontent will cause him to try another tack, and so long
as discontent makes him change he will finally get into the right line by the
process of eliminating those callings which make him discontented.

Time after time we find in reading the stories of successful business men
that they have floundered around in the beginning of their career from one
business or calling to another. Discontented with each of them they changed
and changed and changed until they finally struck the thing best suited to
them, and all the changes they made in the past were distinctly beneficial
because of the experience they obtained.

If it were not for discontent many of the leaders in the business world
today would still be on the farm or clerking in a country store.

Keep busy, young man, do the first thing that comes handy. Change your
job if you are discontented, for no one can do his best work if his heart is
not in it. When discontent causes you to change frequently you may be sure
that some day you will strike your gait, and then ambition will fire you to
stick at it.

When you get on the right track and are not discontented you have struck
it right.

The Generalist

The chapter on "The Specialist" is almost inseparable from this chapter.
One is the positive, the other the negative. What we have said about the
specialist we could repeat by taking the opposite of the question for the
generalist.

This one point, however, we wish to make clear, even at the risk of
repetition. Do not be a generalist in business. If you divide your efforts your
results will surely be divided. The business man who goes in many outside
ventures will not get along as far in the matter of wealth as the man who
does one thing well.

We hear about "The jack of all trades," but the aftermath of the jack of
all trades is "master of none."

Only one concern in fifty succeeds in business, therefore it calls for your
best efforts if you wish to succeed. It calls for a singleness of purpose.

If you make more money than is necessary in your business put out the
money in some form of investment that will require little of your attention.
Buy mortgages or real estate. Get stuff that you can put in the green box in
the safety deposit vault and not have to worry about.

The stockbroker has a lot of unwritten history about the business man
who divides his energies between his office and the ticker. The business
man who is trying to make more progress than his competitor in business
and at the same time trying to beat out the stock market is dividing his
energies, and between the two occupations he is likely to fail. Be a
generalist in pleasure and recreation, but not in business.

Our Aches and Pains

When we work hard with our body all day our backs ache and our
muscles ache. This is all right, for Nature has given us sweet refreshing
slumber to drive away the aches and pains so that on the morrow we are
ready for the fray.

In proportion as we have endured these backaches and pains and are
patient in our occupation, the aches will lessen until finally we have laid up
a store of energy so that the aches will not bother us.

The backaches and muscle-aches and headaches we have, when they
come from honest work performed for the benefit of those we love, are
sweet aches and pains. They represent sacrifice, these aches and pains do,
and sacrifice brings happiness. The only way to be truly happy is to do
something for somebody, and doing something for somebody is making a
sacrifice for somebody.

The aches and pains we have endured in performing labor for those we
love is the best evidence of genuine sacrifice.

We gladly suffer when our efforts are appreciated, and when those for
whom we work are grateful, but there is one pain that never lessens, and it
is the pain that kills. That pain is a heartache, and the heartache comes from
ingratitude.

After we have endured backaches and headaches for those we love and
find the effort has not been appreciated, then comes the heartache, and that
is the ache that kills.

Whenever anyone does something for you, your first concern should be
to show appreciation.

Gratitude is one of the most priceless gems in nature's collection. There
is nothing lower on the face of the earth than an ingrate and a snake's belly.

Dressing

Many persons look upon the good dresser, and think that good dressing
is an evidence of success. In dressing, as in everything else, the extremes
should be avoided. The man who is temperate has the right idea. A man
must be temperate in dressing as in all other things.

We have all seen the solicitor and the business man who look like a
fashion plate or tailor's model. Each day he appears with a different suit. He
wears the latest ties, the latest shoes, and appears in the height of fashion.
This extra dresser is a four-flusher, for he is trying to appear as something
that he is not. Grizzly Pete says "It ain't what's on a man but what's in him
that counts."

In proportion as a man's character or mental training is lacking, he often
tries to make up for it in dress. With some it is a case of ninety per cent.
dress and ten per cent. man, and with others ninety per cent. man and ten
per cent. dress.

In trying to find a word of cheer for the good dresser, the writer vainly
endeavored to recall some successful business man who had climbed the
ladder step by step through a period of years, during which he was always
dressed in the height of fashion. We recall to mind several extreme dressers
who are possessed of millions, but these millions were the result of accident
or inheritance rather than ability. We cannot remember any instance of a
plodder who started in with nothing and made his millions who during the
operation dressed in extremes.

We have an autographed photograph of Marshall Field, and we venture
to say that there are fifty men in Field's store more expensively dressed than
Marshall Field was at the time this picture was taken, shortly before his

death. Not that Marshall Field was poorly dressed, but that he was dressed
like a gentleman. A gentleman does not wear extreme collars, extreme
neckties, extreme coats. Marshall Field's clothes fitted him well, the goods
were of splendid quality, but of modest design. Marshall Field was ninety
per cent. man and ten per cent. dress.

When a man recognizes he has not the ability to make a name for
himself on account of his brains, he resorts to dress in order to give him
distinction.

The ability to dress in the extreme of fashion is an advertisement to the
world that dress is your specialty, and if you are a specialist in dress you
will not be a specialist in business.

Declare Monthly Dividends

Make it a rule to declare dividends every month. We venture to say to the
business man that you are meeting all your fixed charges, paying your rent
and employes, paying for postage stamps, lights, taxes and all other fixed
charges. When the Government put a two cent tax on your checks you paid
that tax. You certainly can add one more fixed charge to your business, and
that fixed charge should be a percentage of your cash receipts.

It is usually a difficult thing to draw your profits out of your business in
a lump at the end of the year, but if you draw your profits out in monthly
installments, you can do so without any burden.

The business man should figure what percentage of his cash receipts is
profit, and this percentage should be deducted every month, less a little
leeway to make the matter easier. Make the percentage a fixed charge and
put this money away in a special account as a reserve fund if you do not
wish to draw the dividends out of your business. If you have this reserve
fund drawn out in monthly installments, you are ready for attack if your
creditors call on you suddenly.

If you have a snug little sum in a separate bank as a reserve sufficient to
withstand any attacks on your business, your step will be more elastic, you
will have more confidence in yourself, you will have less worry than if you
are keeping your nose to the grindstone and have no reserve.

There is some amount between a dollar a week and a thousand dollars a
week which you can draw out of your business without affecting it. If you
make this a fixed charge you will take care of it, and you will arrange your
business and your purchases so that this fixed charge will be properly taken

care of each month. You will trim your expenses a little closer, and your
business will thus benefit by having this fixed charge.

Nearly every failure is due to sudden calls of creditors or refusal of the
bank to extend further credit. This fact shows plainly the necessity of
having a reserve fund.

Take your figures for several years back and find what percentage of the
total receipts was profit. If, for instance, your business earned $9,000 and
your total sales were $100,000, then 9% of your receipts represents profits.
You can therefore declare a monthly dividend of 8%, and when Christmas
comes you will have an extra dividend, being the accumulated 1% each
month you did not draw out in dividends.

Debt

If it were not for debt most banks would go out of business, for banks
live because debt is a recognized factor in business.

The plan of getting rich through saving is a very difficult and practically
impossible road to wealth.

The man who is working himself out of debt puts in better effort and
longer hours into his business than the man who does not owe a cent. Go in
debt reasonably and carefully, and you can make money with other people's
money.

Money has a fixed value in itself in the matter of earning capacity. This
fixed value is 5% or 6% or 7% as the case may be. One who puts his money
in securities gets his money which the cash earns without effort on his part.
The hustler, however, can make 10%, 15% or 20% on the money, plus his
hard work. Therefore there is an opportunity for a hustler to borrow money
at 5% or 6%, and with that money and his energy earn 10% or 15%.

The active man can therefore pay 6% per annum for money, and use that
money to discount monthly bills at from 2% to 5%.

The building and loan association, the installment firms and monthly
payment real estate concerns show what people can accomplish who go into
debt. Thousands of families now live in their own homes because they went
into debt. Few of these families would have homes if they started in on the
saving-the-money-first plan and bought for cash.

Don't go in too deeply. Calculate your earnings in business. Allow a wide
margin for discount on your figures. Hard times and unlocked for reverses

come, therefore you should play safe. Go into debt on a 25% or 50% basis
of what you are reasonably sure you can pay.

Up to forty years of age a man is sowing and tilling, and after forty he
reaps. The farmer goes into debt during the spring and summer, and reaps in
the fall.

Very few of our great men had much money before they were forty years
old. Up to forty is the debt period. Up to forty a man pays interest; after
forty he collects interest.

Business calls for the hardest kind of work up to forty or fifty. After that
time the man makes up in judgment and experience what he lacks in
physical activity.

Work hard until you are forty. Go into debt and make the money you
have borrowed earn money. After forty make money by investing your
funds in sound securities, so you will run no risk of losing what you have
worked so hard for during your younger days.

The average banker is over forty. The hustling business man who
borrows is usually under forty. Nature gives the young man ambition,
ability and willingness. Nature gives the middle aged man judgment,
experience and conservatism.

Forty years will determine what is in a man. If he has the stuff in him to
earn a competence at forty, he has usually acquired the judgment and
experience to keep it after he is forty.

The man born with a golden spoon never knows what hard work is. He
does not go into debt because he has plenty of money for his requirements.
At forty he has not the experience of his brother who was born in an
environment of hard work and little money. The law of compensation thus
bestows a subsidy on the poor boy and a handicap on the rich one to even
things up. The poor boy goes into debt and works hard; the rich one lets the
money do the work for him.

There is no joy or happiness in the possession of things we have not
worked for, so while we envy the rich who have never worked we should
take satisfaction in the law of compensation which gives us a subsidy in the
way of ability to work hard and earn money, so that later on we may enjoy
the money better than our rich friend who has never worked for his money.

Don't go into debt on the wholesale plan, hoping to make a big coup.
Don't try to be a millionaire. Don't set too big a mark. Have your ideal
advancement, no matter how little that advancement is. If you go forward
each week or each year you will find at forty or fifty that your substance
piles up much faster than you imagine. From forty to fifty years of age most
fortunes are made. From twenty to forty your efforts have been foundation
work, and the foundation does not show up much above the ground. From
forty to fifty you are building the superstructure, and when you commence
building that your progress seems more rapid.

Healthy indebtedness is a great incentive to hard work and a material
benefit in building character and gaming experience that in later years will
be of untold value to you.

Brains—Birth—Boodle

One of the weaknesses of the human race is envy. No one is entirely free
from envy, although the true philosopher who has studied himself and has
things sized up correctly is nearly free from envy.

Human kind have three measures for gauging the other fellow. We
measure the other fellow either by his knowledge—which is brains, by his
pedigree—which is birth, or by the money he has accumulated—which is
boodle. These three Bs are like three stars in the sky. The first star—Brains
is usually the dimmest, but it is really the brightest star of all. Mankind is
prone to look at the brighter stars of birth and boodle.

These three stars of Brains, Birth and Boodle, are three aristocracies. The
first aristocracy has no less authority than that of the Almighty. The
aristocracies of birth and boodle are sham counterfeits gotten up by man.
They do not mean anything when put into the crucible and tested by fire.

The aristocracy of brains differs from the aristocracies of birth and
boodle as the sun differs from the jack-o-lantern, or as the music of the soul
differs from the bray of the burro, or as a pure woman's love differs from
the stolen affections hashed up by the fourth husband.

Brains like air and water, are not always appreciated until we have
analyzed and investigated thoroughly. The foolish man thinks champagne is
the finest drink. The wise man knows water is the best drink, even though
water costs nothing. The foolish man has for his ideal—money or birth. The
wise man takes off his hat to brains.

The measure of a man is his brain and not his birth or his boodle.
Thought, reason and knowledge are possible to the man who has a brain.

No man can buy brains, and truly he is an aristocrat of the highest order
who is blessed with a good brain.

Some people whose ancestors came over with the Pilgrim Fathers have a
picture of the Mayflower in their homes and they seem to take a great deal
of pride in the picture of the Mayflower. There seems to be a halo around
the Mayflower. The descendants of the passengers of that ship look upon
the picture of the Mayflower as a sort of seal or guarantee of the good
qualities of their forefathers, and consequently, being direct descendants
they take unto themselves a lot of credit for something in which they had no
hand in the making.

The Mayflower was afterwards used as a slave ship, but our disciples of
birth do not want to know about this. Some of the passengers in the
Mayflower performed acts and violated laws and conducted themselves in
such a manner that would cause people of these days to be put in jail for the
same offenses. Some of these good ancestors of the present descendants of
birth burned witches at the stake.

Time wipes out a lot of things, and this is probably as it should be, but
certainly it is true that the world is progressing and the good man of today is
probably better and broader than some of these glorious ancestors to whom
so many take off their hats. Some of our forefathers in Europe were little
less than pirates and buccaneers. Their descendants today knowing that they
can make great claims with little fear of contradiction, extol the virtue of
their forefathers and complacently take on a superior air. They have thought
over the matter of birth so much that they really think they are superior
beings.

Grizzly Pete of Frozen Dog, Idaho, doesn't take much stock in the
aristocracy of birth. He says, "It ain't what's on a man and it ain't what his
father was that counts. The only thing to judge a man by is what's in him
and what kind of brains he has."

One thing about this glorious Western country of ours is that a man gets
credit for and he is punished by his own individual acts. It doesn't make any

difference how far back his pedigree runs, if he doesn't make good himself,
people have no use for him.

The heritage of birth is mighty thin fabric and mighty weak material for
a man to use in making a cloak of exclusiveness to put around him.

We anticipate that some of our readers will take exception to our attitude
on the matter of birth. We wish to be plainly understood that the matter of
good birth and good ancestors is a good thing to have. The writer has a
pedigree that would be his passport into the aristocracy of birth if he chose
to belong to that lodge. Your good ancestors is no handicap. It is a credit to
you, but mark this down well: You, yourself, are entitled to no credit for any
acts of your ancestors. Your measure is and should be taken for what your
own net worth is.

The aristocracy of boodle is the slimmest aristocracy of all. Yet there are
more people who try to get into that lodge than any other. The possession of
the dollar seems to be the ambition of everyone, and usually the first thing
we try to find out about a man is "how much is he worth?" The thinker,
however, knows that the possession of money doesn't make a man any
better than his neighbor who has no money—their morals and their acts
being even.

Brains. That's the true aristocracy. The professor in college who has
spent a lifetime in study and has devoted his talents to uplifting mankind is
an aristocrat. He may be getting two or three thousand dollars a year, while
his brother with lesser knowledge is getting ten times that much in another
vocation. The aristocracy of brains always has been, is now and ever will be
the enduring aristocracy. Even those who belong to the aristocracies of birth
and boodle find they are sham counterfeits and many of them turn to study
and to good impulses hoping they may get into the lodge of the aristocracy
of brain.

In business the aristocracy of birth or the aristocracy of boodle is a
decided handicap. They make the individual think he is superior and he is
above doing things which seem to him trivial, because he thinks he is a

superior being. The man with brains, however, digs as well as climbs.
Without brains, business would go to the dogs, for if business were
conducted by men of birth and boodle without brains, you can easily see
that the whole fabric would fall to pieces.

Backbone and Wishbone

In proportion as a man's backbone weakens his wishbone seems to
develop.

The ten dollar a week man spends his time saying: "I wish I had the luck
other people have." He says: "I wish I had this place, or I wish I had that
job." He is ever wishing.

Things in our body, whether muscle or bone, develop by usage, and if we
use the wishbone all the time it will develop into huge proportions. On the
other hand if we develop our backbone and use it frequently, we may not
have cause to use the wishbone so much.

Brace up. Stand erect. Strengthen your backbone and, with it, your jaw
bone.

Say "I will" instead of "I wish." The world bestows her prizes on men
with backbone and the blanks on those who use their wishbone.

Do Good

Doing good is planting seed, the harvest may not show at present but in
the future you are going to reap it.

A man is paid back precisely in the same coin he pays out. If he plants
weeds or mean impulses the harvest will be weeds and mean impulses. If he
plants seed of good deeds he will harvest good deeds.

Centuries ago it was said "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will
return to you many-fold."

The man who is doing good as he goes along, who is lending help,
kindly counsel and encouragement will find the world is a pretty good place
to live in after all. As he journeys along through life he will find the good he
has done in the past has flourished and returned to him in greatly increased
proportions, like the bread cast upon the waters.

It is not only the good one actually gets for the good, he has done, but it
is the profit that comes in the way of happiness he gets for his actions. The
true way to obtain happiness is to do something for somebody. You get back
out of the general exchequer of good in the world full payment for the good
you have done, plus a profit of happiness which comes from the very doing
of good.

The Get-Away

After you have driven the nail home make your get-away.

Many a solicitor has lost his prestige because, after having accomplished
his point, he hung on.

It is quite an art to know when to make the get-away. Study your
customer carefully, and when you have made your point clear and your
proposition is presented to him in the best possible manner, then get away.

The bore is a bore because he does not know how to get away. The
solicitor is always welcome if it is known he is not a hanger-on, and that he
gets in and gets out quickly.

Double Equipment

For the employe there is nothing better to possess than double
equipment, by which we mean the ability to do two things well.

From the employer's standpoint nothing will stand his business in such
good stead as to have his employes doubly equipped.

In the printing business, for instance, the old time printer knew how to
set type, lock up forms and to run a press.

Nowadays we seldom find a printer in the broad sense of the word.

In the big printing establishment we find the various branches of the
printing trade have employes who are specialists at one thing. In the
printing trade the craftsman is either a compositor a proof-reader, a make-
up man, a pressman or a binder.

The employe who can set type and also run a press is a decided
advantage to the employer. The writer knows a certain publishing house
whose every employe is doubly equipped. The rule of the proprietor is that
every job or branch of the business must have more than one person
competent to run it, and that every person must know how to do two things.

Double equipment on the part of the employe gives the employer great
resources.

When sickness, accident or other causes prevent the employe from
filling his accustomed place, then the proprietor can call on others who have
the double equipment, to fill in the gap.

The employe who is following a particular line in the establishment
should acquaint himself with some other branch of the business or some
other trade, if he is a craftsman.

The employe who is doubly equipped is decidedly at an advantage over
the employe who knows but one thing.

Initiative

Initiative is simply the willingness and ability on the part of an employe
to do things that are not simply routine, to do things he is not told to do, to
look for opportunities to help the boss or to improve the business wherever
possible.

The employe who has no initiative in his make up is going around a
circle and when you go around a circle you don't go forward. There is no
one thing outside of honesty, ability and hard work that will help the
employe to go forward like initiative.

In every great business there are many opportunities for the employe to
do things he is not told to do and when an employe gets the initiative habit
he is not long in attracting the attention of the boss.

Look over the work you are doing, study the matter carefully, figure out
some plan whereby the value of the work you are doing will be increased.

Find a chance to lessen the expense in your department.

Put into practice some idea that will increase the receipts.

Acquaint yourself with the operations of other employes in similar work.
Wherever you find a plan better than yours, take advantage of it.

Keep your eyes wide open and you will find many opportunities for
doing things you are not told to do.

Every employe should carry out to the letter the directions given him by
the boss and in addition to this he should have initiative, which is doing
things the boss did not tell him.

It is the plus or initiative in a man's make-up that helps him to the front.

Night Work

It is always a question among experienced business men whether night
work and Sunday work help the game of business.

Of course there are occasions when a job must be finished or work
completed within a specified time and if you are behind with your hauling,
it is necessary to turn all your resources into a singleness of purpose to get
the thing done.

The trouble is, however, that many business men figure on this night
work as part of the regular scheme and in this they overdo the matter.

The law of compensation says that a man is good for just so much work
and if he spreads the work over into longer hours the intrinsic value of each
hour is lessened.

A man who habitually takes work to his home to finish and counts upon
these extra hours, will soon find the value of his work decreases.

We should all remember that we should work while we work and play
while we play.

Work hard during your business hours, conserve your energies, but
outside of business hours, let play, study and recreation occupy your time.

If you go home from business at night and forget the things you have
been doing in the day and use your time for the things in life outside of
business, the next day, when you go to your office, you can make things fly.

It is proverbial that the busy man is the one to go to if you wish things
done promptly.

Those of us who were born and reared in the country know a familiar
type that is to be found in every country town.

He may be a carpenter or blacksmith, or may run a repair shop of some
kind. We find him going to the post office in the middle of the day to get his
mail. We frequently find him in the back part of the country store playing
checkers. At other times he is watching a horse trade. Again he is arguing
politics. This man does not get in over four or five hours' simon pure hard
work in a day.

You take a job to this man and it will drag days and weeks. You become
impatient at the delay. You get after the man and his answer is that he has
not the time.

It is practically a truism that those who offer the excuse that they have
not the time are really the ones that have the time.

Some of our friends treat us shabbily in the matter of correspondence
and when you get a letter from one of them, he says: "Excuse me for not
writing sooner, but I really have been so busy that I have not had the time to
write."

As a matter of fact it takes five or ten minutes to write a letter and the
person who pleads for forgiveness through lack of time has wasted a
hundred times the minutes necessary to write a letter.

The busy man, accepts his duty as a matter of course, a ranges his
correspondence and work in systematic order and goes at the thing, hammer
and tongs, and gets the thing done.

Night work is usually evidence that the man does not do his work
properly in the day time and he is like our friend in the country who wastes
time in the day and tries to make up for it by night work.

The thing to do is to work hard in the day time and rest at night.

Obedience

Several years ago, our friend Elbert Hubbard wrote a little sermonette
entitled "Carrying the Message to Garcia." The story was simply this:
President McKinley called an orderly and gave him a letter and said:
"Deliver this letter to General Garcia."

The employe did not stand around and ask a lot of fool questions about
the trains and things. He put on his hat and duster and he delivered the letter
to Garcia. These facts were stretched out in many words and made a little
booklet. That booklet reached the sale of more than a million copies.

It seemed to make a hit with business men throughout the country. A
certain railroad bought and gave a copy to every employe. Business men
followed the example. The great sale of the book and the wide-spread
interest it created would seem to indicate that carrying the message to
Garcia was an unusual thing and so remarkable that it attracted attention.

As a matter of fact the whole theme of the story was simple obedience.

There are thousands of institutions in this country who have employes
who will carry the message to Garcia.

Richard Harding Davis, you remember, was dining with friends in
London. The discussion was along the lines of obedience and the like.

On a wager he called a messenger boy, gave him a letter addressed to his
fiancee in Chicago, told the messenger boy to deliver the letter to the lady
and bring back an answer. That fifteen year old boy carried the message to
Garcia, or in other words to Mr. Davis' sweetheart.

The Colonel of a regiment has under him about twelve hundred men.
Directly under him are his majors, and then come the captains, lieutenants,
sergeants, corporals and privates. The first rule in the army is obedience of
orders without question.

If obedience were subject to question on the part of the subordinates, the
colonel could win no battles.

When your superior gives an order, the thing to do is to carry it out. If
the order is wrong you will not be to blame, but your superior will suffer.

There are times, of course, when an order is given that is manifestly
impracticable and initiative on the part of the employe might save trouble.

On the other hand, an executive would be greatly handicapped if his
orders were subject to interpretation and analysis by his subordinates.

The executive may give an order and in the giving have in his own mind
the relation of this order to some other order he has given in an entirely
different department and upon the proper execution of all the orders given
through the various departments depends the ultimate success of his plan.

The thing for the employe to do is to obey orders willingly, quickly and
to the letter.

The employe is not blamed when he does his duty.

It is a source of great satisfaction to the boss to know he has dependable
employes and that when he gives an order the thing is done so far as further
effort on his part is concerned.

Pay Day

We have all tried all sorts of plans regarding pay day, but the plan most
satisfactory to all concerned is to pay each Tuesday or each Monday for the
previous week. If the nature of your business is such that Monday is an
unusually busy day, then Tuesday should be your pay day.

Monday is usually called blue Monday, because the employes blot out
some of the sunshine on Sunday by thinking of the hard week's work ahead
of them. Much of the blueness is driven away, however, if in looking
forward they know that Monday or Tuesday they will get their pay checks.

The old fashioned habit of paying off Saturday nights is a bad one,
especially if most of the employes are men.

Many men are weak and it is difficult for them to pass a lot of saloons on
Saturday night without the money in their pockets burning a hole.

The Saturday pay day may mean that a percentage of your employes will
not show up on Monday morning. Many men will go on a spree on
Saturday night on the theory that they can rest up on Sunday, who would
not think of going on a spree on Monday night or Tuesday night, for it
would interfere with the work next day.

The writer does not know of a single concern that has adopted this
Monday or Tuesday pay day plan and practiced it for a reasonable time
without finding it works admirably. Try it in your business and you will not
go back to the Saturday pay day.

Saving

We will not indulge in the proverbs handed out by the savings bank in
the matter of saving. We are not pessimistic when we say that no man ever
became wealthy through the savings bank plan of putting away a certain
amount each week. We will say, however, that there is no better training for
the employe than this one thing of saving. Saving a part of your weekly
income and putting it away, if carried on for a number of years becomes a
habit and it means that you will keep your expenses within your income. It
is the saving habit that makes the benefit, for later on when you are in
business the habit stands you in good stead and teaches you the value of
having a reserve.

By all means, put away a certain amount each week. If it is not a dollar,
put away fifty cents. If that is too much, put away half of it, or even ten
cents a week.

Have some amount as a fixed charge in your operations and put this
amount in the savings bank. Later on your balance will grow and you will
have much satisfaction in watching its development to better proportions.

Habitual saving makes you careful in the things you do. It teaches you
the relationship between principal and interest. It shows you that when you
buy something useless and pay ten dollars for it that it is costing you
interest each year to maintain it.

The man who does not save is pretty sure to live beyond his means and
some day trouble or affliction will come and he will be out of a job and then
he appreciates the difference between the butterfly and the bee.

When you haven't anything to fall back upon, the world is a mighty blue
place. When you have money in the bank it is a mighty good place to live

in.

Waiting For Success

It takes a good poker-player to know when to lay down his hand.

It's a wise business-man who knows when to quit a forlorn hope.

It's all right to build up a business. It is all wrong to play a losing game
in business for a succession of years in the hopes of ultimate success.

As years go by the business man is establishing matters on a firmer and
more solid foundation. Sales generally increase; the volume of the business
gradually grows greater. This fact is responsible for many business men
continuing their business at a loss, lured on by the hope of final success. It's
all right to build a reputation and to be patient, but when the odds are
against you and by all the changes you make and all the brains and
ingenuity you put into your business, you cannot turn it into a profitable
basis, then get out of that business and start something new.

It's all right to build, provided that as you go along you are making a
living profit, but dogged determination to play a losing game year after year
is not to a man's credit.

Every man has some particular channel in which his talents will fit and
produce good results. If your business goes along year after year at a loss, it
is evident that your talents are not in the right channel.

The great thing in business is that it shall respond quickly and show
signs of life right away. If it does not, then the business is wrong.

The shores of the great ocean of business are strewn with wrecks which
have been dashed to pieces on the rocks sailing for that false beacon light,
"keep everlastingly at it brings success."

This saying is true, providing you are making expenses and some profit
as you go along, but to keep everlastingly at it when your business shows a
loss means failure.

The thing that lures many on is the increased sales. Meanwhile, the
expenses are increasing proportionately, and if these two lines are always
parallel, there is no hope of your making a success. Better quit before you
get too deep in the hole and have a lot of "dead horses" to pay for.

It's all right to have ambition, tenacity and patience in business and to
look forward to the far future as crowning success of your efforts, but it's all
wrong unless you are paying expenses and making a living while doing
these things.

Our Sons

The noblest and most important work we have to do is the training and
teaching of the coming generation.

The successful business man has no more difficult problem to solve than
what he will do with his son.

It is a fact that the greatest successes in the business world today are
those men who had to start in the battle early, and fight their way to the
front.

The successful business man usually tries to arrange matters so that his
son will not require to go through the hard working school of experience he
himself attended, and in this the business man rather goes to the other
extreme in that he tries to make things easy for his boy.

As the twig is bent so the tree is inclined. The young mind is plastic and
capable of receiving impressions, and we know that the impressions made
in our youth are lasting all our days.

The problem in the country is not so difficult, for there are so many
things to do about the home that the young country boy usually has plenty
of chores and duties to perform.

Occupation is a decided blessing and a present benefit to a boy.

People in the cities have all creature comforts about the homes,
transportation facilities are ample, the homes are heated by steam, stores are
in abundance, people buy from day to day, and every little convenience is at
hand to keep the scheme of living going along smoothly.

Because the city boy is surrounded with schools and the comforts of
home he has much time on his hands. The boy is active, and if his activity is
not turned on useful things, it will be turned on useless things. The young
boy goes to the grammar school, and the daylight hours, outside of school
hours, are devoted to play. This is right and as it should be, but when the
boy gets along to twelve or fourteen years of age, the parents should
arrange for him some little duties, some regular task to perform. The
youngster will get accustomed to this, and it is decidedly beneficial. As the
boy enters the high school he finds his hours shorter and his leisure hours
longer.

The high school period is a most important one in the boy's life, and the
father should see to it that the high school boy is occupied for several hours
each day, either in his own place of business or in some other establishment.

There is no way of teaching a boy the value of money like having him
work for money.

Arrange to pay your boy so much an hour for the duties he performs.
Have his occupation regular, talk with him about what he has done during
the day, be a companion to the boy, and soon you will notice that he evinces
interest in the things he is doing, and as time passes, ambition is fired in his
breast, and when the time comes for him to enter the threshold of business
he has been prepared for the work.

It is strange that while we parents realize the importance of education,
we pay so little attention to the boy while he is going to school. We should
keep in touch with the boy's teachers and with the boy himself, taking an
interest in his studies. The business man as a rule drifts apart from his son
during his younger years.

There is nothing that will help the boy so much as being a companion to
him, being interested with him in the things he does, whether work or study.
Fathers and sons should be comrades.

A close companionship between father and son is not only a great
satisfaction and source of happiness to each of them, but is decidedly

beneficial to both.

By all means have some regular occupation for your boy while he is
going to school. Keep in close touch with him. Explain to him the things he
does not understand. Show him the great possibilities ahead of him if he
does right, and the impossibility for him to succeed if he does wrong.

Pull

The young man who is expecting to get a fat job through pull is working
on a false basis. The young man whose objective is to get a snap shows he
has not ambition, and surely this young man will occupy inferior positions
as long as he gets a job through pull.

There is a legitimate pull in business, and that is activity and ability.
Don't look for snaps. Snaps are merely traps. Men are not paid for snaps,
but for snap.

The average young man just out of college looks for a job through the
pull of his father or some relation, and in this he is making a great error. The
best way to get a job is to get it without pull through your own energy and
aggressiveness.

The best jobs are obtained through push and not pull.

The City Hall and Government buildings all have the word "pull" on the
front door, and in direct contrast with this you will notice the front doors of
the successful business institutions are marked "push."

Gossip

It is surprising to see the extent to which gossip is carried on among
business men. The funny papers always refer to women and the members of
the sewing societies as gossips of the first class, but if the gossip going
around business circles could be tabulated, we are sure the sewing society
would have the joke on us.

It is a footless thing to spend valuable time in idle gossip, for the gossip
is seldom a successful business man.

Gossip takes hold of some men to such an extent that most of their
waking hours are spent in finding out something to tell to someone else, and
thus leaves but little time for business.

Bribes

Many business men seem to think that bribes are efficient helps. It is not
so. The moment you bribe a person you acknowledge your dishonesty by
paying for his dishonesty, and you may be sure that the bribe habit will
grow; the demands of the men accepting the bribe will grow to alarming
proportions. For every dollar you make by bribing someone, you are losing
ten dollars in other ways, especially in your own self respect and
satisfaction.

The moment you give a bribe you are under obligations, and some day or
other the facts will be brought out and you will suffer the consequences of
your own weakness.

Underhand, clandestine information you get is no more than dishonesty
on your part. You can get better information and accomplish your purpose
more surely by going direct to a competitor, stating your case plainly, and
announcing your abhorrence of underhand methods. Your competitor will
appreciate you more for your fairness, and he will go out of his way to give
you information when you have shown you are square.

Stenographers

Few young men realize the advantage of learning stenography. We all
know the young man who writes shorthand comes in touch with the boss at
once, and while acting as amanuensis or secretary is getting a schooling that
money could not buy. He is going through and becoming familiar with
business as it actually exists.

He sees the decisions made by his employer, and he unconsciously
absorbs methods which would be almost impossible for him to learn were it
not for his proximity to the boss.

Shorthand is decidedly beneficial, first—because it is a good training for
the mind; second—it is a help all through one's life. It enables him to take
down memoranda and keep notes of verbal transactions; it enables him to
get in the private office, and to be in the middle of the nerve centers of
business.

Some of the greatest men in this country were shorthand writers. The
stenographer who is alert soon gets to the center of the business; he soon
has responsibilities given him by the boss, and is in direct line for
promotion.

Hypochondriacs

Here is a type we run across every day in business. We see the
apparently well man taking out a pill box or a bottle of medicine as he sits
down to lunch. We ask him what is the matter, and he proceeds to tell us
about his bodily ills and infirmities.

Many men seem to take a keen delight in having something the matter
with them. They go to a physician, though often the disease is practically
mental.

You can't get health out of a glass bottle. The man who is taking
medicine all the time is going at things wrong end to. If his stomach is out
of whack he should change his method of living rather than to try to cure
his dyspepsia with stuff that comes in a bottle.

The man who needs a tonic before he can eat a lunch had better take
plenty of air and exercise than to take poisonous drugs into his system.

If you are a smoker and find you have no appetite for lunch, give up
cigars in the forenoon, and you will notice an immediate difference when
you sit down to the noonday meal.

The hypochondriac imagines he has things the matter with him, and he
becomes confirmed in his belief, he finds that so long as he lives he has
something the matter with him. He no sooner gets cured of one than
something else attacks him. There is no medicine like air and exercise and
occupation. The man who gives in to trifling ailments is in a sad plight. He
is never happy unless he is sick. He is unreasonable, and he is the last one
to appreciate what can be done by a man who cures himself through the
mental processes.

We all know that we can take a perfectly well man and pre-arrange to
have a dozen of his friends on a given day greet him with some remark
about his ill appearance. That man will be sick before the tenth man accosts
him.

Politics

Politics is a losing game. Every man owes it to himself and to his family
and to his country to take an interest in politics to the extent of getting out
to the primaries and voting for the right man, and help to get good men in
office. But when a man carries politics to extremes or mixes it with his
business, his business is sure to suffer.

There are two kinds of politics—the honest kind and the grafting kind.
The honest politician gets very slight remuneration for the time and energy
he spends, and the grafting politician sooner or later winds up in the soup
through his dishonest practices.

There is no greater danger to business than to have the proprietor spend
much of his time in politics. The upright business man will not descend to
the things practised by the dishonest politician, and the sharp business man
who has no compunctions on this score will make a loss in his business.

The law of compensation surely comes in here, for in proportion as a
man plays politics his business is bound to suffer.

Profanity

Twenty-five years ago profanity was found on every side. Today you
find it only among laborers. Business men won't allow profanity.

Swearing goes with lying. The truthful man can look you in the eye and
chisel out his words and you know he means it.

The liar gets angry and swears, and he is a bluff.

Truth doesn't need curse words to make it stick.

Some great men swear and many small men swear. Usually, however, the
truly great man doesn't swear.

Men who think, men who study and analyze, seldom swear.

Swear words are usually used as fillers in sentences. Some men have
limited knowledge of adjectives so they resort to swearing.

Mark this when you hear a man firing a volley of profanity in rapid
succession—You lose respect for that man!

Profanity is an easier habit to acquire and harder to give up than its
distant relative, slang.

Slang has its value for it has taken place of much profanity.

Slang and profanity, and logic and thought don't mix well together. The
more profanity, the less brains in your make-up. Profanity is a hold-back.

System

System is all right so long as it lessens labor. Generally system is
complex and increases fixed charges.

The system of copying every letter is a waste of time. Not once in a
thousand cases do you require to refer to a letter.

Have fixed rules and prices and you won't have to refer to letters.

When you do copy a letter copy it on the back of the letter you are
answering. Use a carbon sheet.

Have Simplicity your rule instead of System.

System has tangled many institutions.

Beware of system that makes more work.

Don't clutter up your office with a lot of useless data and wagon loads of
old letters and records.

Rule of Gold

Centuries ago Confucius was walking through the woods soliloquizing
and analyzing and sizing up things in solitude. While thus engaged he was
waylaid by two Chinese peasants. These men had heard of Confucius'
philosophy, but they could not make much out of it, for Confucius used
words beyond their limited understanding. These men, with raised clubs,
halted Confucius and said to him: "Our minds are small. We do not
understand the things you say. Tell us how to live. Make your story short or
we will slay you. We can only remember as much as you can tell in a
moment. Therefore, stand on one foot and tell us quickly what we are to do.
We can only remember what you can tell while standing on one foot."

Confucius stood on one foot and said: "Sing, fat, bong, lung, looy,"
which, being interpreted, means "what you would like others to do to you,
do to them."

This is the golden rule which has been handed down through centuries. It
has been alloyed and simulated. It has been attacked, but, like all pure gold,
it has endured forever. There is no line of action we can suggest or anything
that will prove more valuable to the young man or old man through life than
the golden rule.

The golden rule is not theoretical, but a wholly practical help, and so in
closing this series of talks with you, the writer feels that the essence of all
the logic, good advice and philosophy may be summed up in the following:

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

In saying good-bye we suggest that you particularly remember the key to
knowledge, which is O.R.B., and which means Observe, Reflect and

Benefit, and the practice of the following: Work, Horse Sense and Golden
Rule.

THE END

My Symphony

By
COL. Wm. C. HUNTER

I have set my mark at Truth,
My purpose fixed, I shall not hesitate;
Ever on and on again
I go toward the goal of my ambition;
I shall not turn aside or pause.
The pleadings of the Siren,
The wiles of the Devil,
The threats of mine Enemies,
Shall not make my Purpose change.
Obstacles may block my path
And Darkness blur my way.
But ever firm with Right my guide
I shall keep pushing on.
I may not reach my grand Ideal,
But be that as it may,
The journey to it surely will
Be a pleasant one;
And should I fall upon the way,
My face shall be toward the place
I started for.

Truth is Right and Right is Truth,
Wrong shall surely fail;
I shall not be discouraged
At Clouds or Storms.
I know the Sun doth shine,
It beams somewhere tho' I see it not.
I fear not but the end of Time
Will show all Things that are, are best
For the Eternal plan.
Truth endureth and Lies shall not obtain
For any length of time.
In Shadow Land are upstretched hands
And, midst the noise of this Great World
Are feeble cries for help;
My ear shall practice to hear such calls,
My hands shall train to lift the fallen;
Noble men and women who are pushed aside
Need champions for their cause;
Man, where'er he is or what he be
Is none the less my brother
And needs the strong to cheer him on.
What we extend in help and cheer,
Brings its reward in Happiness.
It is not for me to say or think
Look out for myself first;
The bird, the beast, the stream that flows,
The hills, the fields, the land, the sea,
Are Parts, are Things like me,
And all belong to one Grand Plan;
The stars, the moon, the sky,
And endless space as well,
Are Parts of one machine,
That runneth by but One Grand Power
Of which I am in truth a part,
An Atom though I be.
All things that are, are best—

This much Truth I know,
Though why things are I can't explain,
My Vision still is dim.
All answers will be given out
When time shall be no more,
And so I keep a-plodding on,
And on and on my way;
My face is to the Light,
My heart doth sing for Joy;
I strive to do the best I can each day
In Act and Thought and Word;
I know not just the plan of things that are
But back of all is Truth,
And Truth I seek;
I shall not know all Truth
Until the great Revealing Time.

Col. Hunter's Symphony is printed on heavy parchment paper. Illustrated
in colors. Size 9 x 12 inches. It is suitable for framing or may be hung on
the wall with ribbon. Price, postpaid, 25 cents a copy.

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