Newspaper Page Text
WHAT ELEPHANT IS PULLING YOUFI
»TW wmwll■ ■ b ■ ' "we. l 1r- - '■ -■«•• W •**•**«■»«».**»*• Ml . —--rul lO'Wf Bill - lull ■ -L - X -3Wt '" " "■■BSMBMi^KBBMKMMKMB^K■MOB nea■ KMBBBBBM.
■ - ~ ■ -J ■ .. -. . '
i *
■ Isw7// i z i.ff ’ h "c
.I».- •■ / ///1, a? ■ \ • bL* i'Jk ArtWfißiKm
Wmgg>
y<. ÜbffS-Jk7 v
wL \ ryMMM<4w
'■ ' ilk - ■■4 Cy^ < \Wn
%> VW K lit Ok M® J \(l® J
"" Ji 7 v_,7 yr <C
\
A Man Believes That HE Is Pulling the Big Load, When He Is Simply Part of the
Harness, and Another and a Bigger Power Is Pulling Him.
The Two Men That Manage the Elephant in This Picture Are Kind to Him and
Appreciate Him. Men Working for Bigger Men—Human Elephants, So to Speak—and
Pulled Along by Them, Should Appreciate Them, and Do at Least Their Share of the
ork, Even Though It Be Not the Big Share.
There Is a Good Lesson in This Picture of the Elephant, the Man and the Loaded
i. agon for Many Millions of Young and Old Men and Women.
11 ’ C> Photograph shows an actual
performance that may be wit
nessed throughout the country
111 the big circus. You may see
1 . .J it before the season is over, if
you haven’t ><• already.
The idea of this “act” originated with two
young men—and it is making them rich. It is
an inexpensive performance, requiring only the
feeding of themselves and one'elephant.
The crowd seated on the wagon is supplied
by the circus employes— no need to hire them.
You can see at a glance what the perform
ance is, and how simple it is.
A wagon is heavily loaded with twenty or
more human beings. Traces arc bound to the
front axle of the loaded wagon and are fast
ened to the arms of a young man. That man
WITH ONLY HIS .OWN STRENGTH
could not possibly pull the load. He could
not move it.
But in front of the young man stands a big,
carefully trained elephant. For that, elephant,
able to pull three freight cars, the load is
nothing.
The elephant is harnessed, and the traces
fastened to his powerful shoulders are united
in a soft, carefully cushioned pad at the back of
the performer's neck.
When all is ready the partner of the man
hitched to the wagon gives the order to the
elephant. If the big animal should move too
rapidly, if he should fail to start slowly and
gently, he might possibly break the perform
er’s neck.
But, intelligent as well as powerful, the big
beast leans slowly forward until he has set the
wheels of the wagon rolling, then goes along
at a slow walk. PULLING THE MAN, who
in HIS turn pulls the wagon.
* * A
It may seem almost unbelievable that a man
could stand this strain upon the back of his
neck, and that with the muscles of his arms he
could pull this heavily loaded wagon, even
with the elephant pulling HIM.
But there is no difficulty about it. Any
young man of ordinary strength could per
form this feat—the principal thing was to have
the IDEA, and to realize how fascinating it
would be to the public to watch the elephant
pulling the man by the neck, and the man pull
ing a wagon and twenty human beings with
his arms.
If.at play in a tug-of-war you have pulled
against a number of other men, you know that
the muscles of the body are capable of WITH
STANDING a strain much greater than that
which they are capable of EXERTING.
For instance, if you have in your nerves and
muscles and in the leverage of your body
power enough to pull one thousand pounds,
you could easily pull, as this man does, several
times as mftch if there were a power ahead of
you dragging you on.
The only thing necessary is to have the ele
phant hitched up in front TO DO THE
PULLING.
>
A good many young men should see in this
picture an important lesson for themselves—a
lesson in modesty, a lesson in the importance
of realizing how little and how much each of
us amounts to, and especially a lesson teaching
us to appreciate those that help us and give us
the success that appears to be our own.
* « #
Take away from this picture the elephant,
and the harness back of the man's neck, and
you would see. apparently, a marvellous thing.
You would see one slightly built young man
pulling twenty. If you saw this, without see
ing the elephant—if the elephant and his har
ness were made invisible in the circus and vou
saw this young man walking around drawing
such a load —you would believe in miracles or
believe that the man had some force above
humanity.
Only too often, in all kinds of work from the
smallest to the biggest, we see a picture which
is just exactly what this one would be with the
elephant made invisible.
Many a man gets the credit for pulling a
load that he is not pulling at all.
Many a man seems to be doing something
very wonderful when in reality another man,
ANOTHER MIND not visible in the work
but actually at the work, does the heavy pull
ing.
You may see the salesman, the editor, the
floor walker, the engineer, the architect—any
kind of a man engaged in any kind of work—
apparently doing something very wonderful.
Yet he is not doing it all; an unseen power,
another man, another brain, perhaps some lit
tle man with a small body and a big head, who
keeps out of sight, is doing the real work.
« e «
Many of us have elephants big, strong, but
unseen, pulling us. We ought at least to be
grateful to the elephant, give him a fair chance
since he does the hardest work, and do our
part, big or little, in the general performance.
You may be very sure that the two young
men that perform in this interesting “act” at
the circus are grateful to THEIR elephant,
careful of his health and interested in his wel
fare.
They don’t forget him when the perform
ance is over. They look after his feet, feed him
carefully, see that his rough skin is properly
oiled, take pains that nobody teases him or irri
tates him. They know that to his power, gen
tleness and care they owe their large weekly
income
It would be a good thing if many young men
working in all departments of activity in
America should occasionally feel gratitude to
ward the big elephant, the big MAN, the one
whose power and experience pull them along,
and do what they can to encourage him, to de
serve his help and the benefit that they get
from his pulling.
* « *
Every one of us WITHOUT EXCEPTION
is PULLED along or PUSHED ahead by
some force unseen.
It may be the man in the inside office, usu
ally invisible.
It may be the woman at home setting a good
example, giving to the man at work the in
spiration and the power that no one else could
give.
It may be paternal affection,'enabling a man
to do for a weak child what he could not possi
bly do for himself.
Very often the power is one that has long
disappeared from the earth, a father or a
mother whose energy and inspiration persist
and do in the life of the son at work what the
elephant does in this picture.
# # 4
We are all of us pushed or pulled, all of us
indebted to a power above our own and be
yond our own.
And we should all, at least, be grateful,
from the small clerk who is made secure, pro
tected in his daily living by a man working
himself to death at the head of the firm, to the
man of genius, so called, who owes the power
that the world admires to a mother unseen and
unremembered.
Don’t forget the elephant that pulls you; BE
GRATEFUL. In this way you can add to
your own force, and perhaps in time become
the power that shall pull others.