THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



15 



The Macfi About Town.. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUCCESS. 



Xo man's life m;iy be said to have been 

 a success until he is dead; nor may any 

 man's life he said to have been a failure 

 until he is dead. 



So long as there is life there is the 

 chance that evil may befall the man who 

 has climbed the highest; and so long as 

 there is life there is hope that he who is 

 back in the rear ranks may win to the 

 front. 



There are certain lienors which the 

 Catholic Church will not confer upon a 

 man, or rather upon the man's name, until 

 he has been dead for fifty years. They 

 not only wait until tlie man is dead before 

 they pass judgment upon his works, but 

 they let those works stand for a half a 

 century after he is dead. Then if, in the 

 dispassionate judgment of a new genera- 

 tion, thosei works are good, the honor is 

 conferred. 



I knew a man once who had been a suc- 

 cessful man all his life until he was 6S 

 years of age, at which time he was a man 

 of large property and high standing, over- 

 bearing toward those less successful and 

 merciless toward those who had failed: 

 and at OS he became involved in a specula- 

 tion which swept everything from him in 

 spite of all manner of dishonorable at- 

 tempts to hide his property and deed it to 

 relatives. At the age of G8 he, in spite 

 of desperate attempts to save himself, 

 which attempts even included perjury, 

 was stripped clean and left a bankrupt in 

 proi>erty. character and reputation, and 

 died a failure. 



I knew another man who had failed in 

 business three times, each failure worse 

 than the other, until, at the last failure, 

 which occurred when he was nearly 50 

 yea'rs of age, he owed .$49.tHJ0 more than 

 he could pay. At the age of 71 that man 

 died worth ten millions of dollars, a na- 

 tional figure, noted for his warm, human 

 sympathy and his magnificent charity — a 

 success. 



No man is hopelessly bankrupt until ho 

 is bankrupt in character. He may lie 

 bankrupt in property, and even in reputa- 

 tion, but so long as he is not bankrupted 

 in character, he has a chance, and a most 

 excellent chance, to redeem himself. But 

 I don't care how much property a man 

 may have, or how much reputation, if he 

 is bankrupt in character he is on an inse- 

 cure foundation, and is in luck if lie dies 

 before it crumbles and lets him down. 



When a lump of iron ore is dug out of 

 the ground it is of no value until it lias 

 been put through the fire and under the 

 hammer. Then, if there was iron of good 

 quality in the ore you get something wortli 

 while. 



So it is with a man. When a young 

 man enters upon his career he is like a 



BY C. D. STR.ODE. 



lump of ore that has been dug out of the 

 earth. There is a lot of dross in him, a 

 lot of false ideas, vanity and conceit, 

 which must be burnt out and hammered 

 out before he is of much value. Then he 

 must be annealed or tempered, and if he 

 has the grit to stand the ordeal he comes 

 out bright enough, and sharp euough, and 

 strong enough to clear a way for himself 

 in the world. 



The trouble with a good many men is 

 that they have not the fiber to withstand 

 the ordeal. The fire that burns their con- 

 ceit destroys their self-confidence; and 

 when their false ideas are gone there is 

 nothing remaining but resentment and 

 hopelessness. 



When the fire scorches a man or the 

 hammer hits him he should realize that it 

 is good for him, that it is the making of 

 him. and he should not whine nor slink 

 away, but just grit his teeth and hang on. 



Success comes to a good many men too 

 early in life. Fortunate is he who gets his 

 scorching or hammering early in life. The 

 man who slips into a front rank or into 

 a responsible position without having been 

 properly tempered is like a piece of Im- 

 perfect iron used in construction. So long 

 as everything moves smoothly and favor- 

 ably he may answer the purpose and meet 

 the requirements; but when the time of 

 stress comes, as it will, sooner or later, he 

 will be found wanting. 



You know of such men and you have 

 seen them tried and seen them fail. His- 

 tory is full of their lack of achievements. 



When the civil war came on they were 

 filling- all the chief places in tlie army — 

 untemjiered men whom good fortune had 

 placed in high places, full of vanity, jeal- 

 ous of one another and touchy as to prece- 

 dence. And we know they failed inglor- 

 iously; one after another, until all had 

 failed and the country did not know which 

 way to turn. Then a little, grim, silent, 

 determined man, in a shabby army coat, 

 came to the front; a man" who had failed 

 as a tanner, a merchant and a farmer; 

 who had been haniniered and scorched un- 

 til all the foolishness had been driven out 

 of him, and he was as hard and as keen 

 as a piece of tempered steel; who didn't 

 rare u iin went in to dinner first, or held 

 tlu' place of honor, so long as they let him 

 do the lighting. When Lincoln turned this 

 man loose against the Confederacy it was 

 the beginning of the end. 



The Battle of the Wilderness was, in a 

 great measure, won on the tan yard in 

 Illinois, when (Jrant, with a West Point 

 education and the soul of a Ceesar, couldn't 

 make the tan yard pay. That sort of dis- 

 cii)line is good for a man. but often the 

 man doesn't appreciate it and often he 

 hasn't the metal to stand it. 



When circumstances knock a ni.-ui down 



he will, if he has the right metal, get an- 

 gi-j- and fight back. The oftener he is 

 knocked down the more determined he be- 

 comes, but after a while he also becomes 

 cool and wary. Then he is a fighter in- 

 deed, and you want to look out for him. 

 Any man who has been hammered around 

 until he is 35 or 40 years old. who has been 

 knocked down and dragged out by adverse 

 circumstances without losing his grit or 

 determination, is a dangerous man. That 

 is. dangerous to anything or anybody that 

 gets in his way. 



* * * 



Xo man is whipped until he thinks he 

 is; and when he thinks he is, he is. 



The trouble with a good many men is, 

 as before stated, that they let the hammer 

 which should drive only the conceit out 

 of them crush their self-confidence as well. 

 Because they are knocked down a time or 

 two they conclude they are not much on 

 the fight anyhow, and talce a subordinate 

 position under someone who will protect 

 them. 



Courage is the most essential thing to 

 a man's success, for courage is the father 

 of industry and thrift. A man without 

 courage is a cake without yeast; there is 

 no rise in him. He is a "quitter," and a 

 "quitter" never gets anywhere. 



* * * 



Most of the failures in the world are due 

 to cowardice. The lazy man, the spend- 

 thrift and tlie drunkard are all moral 

 cowards. 



There is a certain large corporation in 

 Chicago which employs a number of so- 

 licitors on the very small salary, in Chi- 

 cago, of $50 a month. A competing cor- 

 poration, a newcomer in the field, offered 

 the men $75 a month, but the manager 

 of the old corporation lined them up and 

 addressed tliem as follows: 



"You fellows know that ten years ago 

 a competing corporation hired two of our 

 men away by ottering them more mouey. 

 Afterward it closed its Chicago office and 

 the men were out of a job. They came 

 back to us and begged for a job and we 

 wouldn't take them back: never did take 

 Ihem back. 



"Now. you may quit, of course, and lake 

 this new offer, but I want to say to .vou 

 that you'll never get back. Never. Star 

 with us and you are certain of a life job, 

 so long as you do good work. But if you 

 (luit uow you can never come back." 



And I'm blest if the rabbits didn't all 

 stick to the jobs. And they were com- 

 paratively young men. too. They were 

 afraid. Why? A man can make S50 a 

 month digging sewer ditch in Chicago. 



A good many men are like that. They 

 start out into the world and get a few 

 raps which take all the courage and fight 

 out of them. Tliev want then to get onto 



