Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, May 25, 1912, HOME, Image 32

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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.