Newspaper Page Text
EDITORIAL PAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Pv.*!*y Afternoon Except Sunday
Rf THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At */0 East Alabama Si., Atlanta, Ga
Filtered be second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873.
(Subscription Price—Delivered hr carrier, 10 rents a week Ev mail, 15.00 a year,
payable in advance.
No Man Is as Great as His
Work
In His Little Lifetime He Can Do Only a Small Part of Any
Important Task. Then He Must Pass On and Leave Its
Completion to Others.
“You ran take it from me. young man. that neither Wall
street nor the Standard Oil Company nor any other power on
earth had anything to do with the building of this railroad. I
built it with my own brains. They got me tlw money; they. got.
me the men. It is a good railroad: one of the best in the world,
and it is going to last for tnanx years as a monument to me.
But bear in mind that I made the radroad . the railroad didn t,
make me."
This came from a pompous, iron-,jawed railroad president, as
he scowled at an inquisitive reporter.
The reporter duly set this speech down and somewhere in
some newspaper it may be found, essentially as we have set it
forth here.
It isn't true, it isn’t just, it. isn't even common sense, but
there can be no doubt that wnen the railroad president uttered it
he. believed it. every word He fancied then, as he fancies now,
that he was greater than his work, and that the railroad prac
tically sprang from his brain, as we arc fold that lesser deities .
sprang from the brain of .love, who was the head ol the family
of deities worshipped by the thoughtful bill credulous people of
early times.
Now' this man, able as he was. merely put together that
railroad. Centuries before he was ever heard of men dug iron
ore from the earth, and thus provided the moans by which his
track and locomotives and car wheejs could be built
While the buffaloes wore still kicking up dust clouds along,
his present right-of-way, Stephenson was tinkering at his tea
kettle of a locomotive engine, thus beginning ONE BRANCH of
the railroad business, of ALL Ob' WHOSE BRANCHES this
man calls himself the master.
Then other men improved the locomotive and devised meth
ods of engineering and harnessed the lightning to the electric
telegraph, and taught steam how to work in a steam shovel, and
educated the public into ways of buying railroad stocks and
bonds, and experimented with different kinds of rolling stock,
until from the abundance of the work that they had produced
it was possible to choose and arrange the materials for a rail
road .
And meanwhile the tough, sinewy pioneers who had crossed
the plains with ox teams, fighting their way against Indians and
wild animals and famine and blizzards, developed a new country
«nd planted the wheat fields that made the railroad worth while.
So the great railroad builder, instead of being greater than
his work, was merely a small part of it.
He took up the work of hundreds, even thousands, of other
men. and, following the example of many other railroad builders,
combined it all into a tolerably efficient railroad.
Relatively he was about as much the originator of the great
system that he brought together as the fourteenth coral insect in
a reef composed of fourteen hundred billion coral insects is the
originator of the reef.
The world requires men like this man—men with imagina
tion and nerve, who can sec its needs, and who have the courage
to supply them, no matter whether their motives are purely phil
anthropic—which is often -or wholly selfish. But the world can
not. afford to let such men get conceited or to fancy that com
pared to their own important personalities the work that they are
doing is a mere incident.
Several times in history big. able men have become possess
ed with the idea that they were greater than all other earthly
beings. The last of these was Napoleon, and he livi d to under
stand, if not to admit, his mistakes.
America has been more fortunate in its great men. Wash
ington knew that compared to the cause he served his own per
sonality counted for but little. There was never a time that he
would not have stepped aside to let an abler man take charge of
the Colonial army, had an ablet man been possible to find.
Lincoln counted his country first and himself last. He had
no vanity that his contemporaries were able to discover: he had
no ambition other than to sec the country once more united and
at peace. Great men were both of these, yet neither of them
for a minute fancied that he was as great as the task that he
had been set to do.
The world that most of us know is a great workshop, in
which each must find the job he is best fitted to do. and do it
as well as he may.
Education is hut studying what other men have done in iho
world in order th.it wc max waste no lime in discovering v.bat
has already been discovered or in following paths that have
he'en found to lead in no useful direction.
There is no work so unimportant that it is to be despised,
so long as it is wholesome; there is no field of human endeavor .
that has been so fully cultivated that it will give no further re
turn for labor
The man who realizes that instead of being greater than his
task he is infinitely small in comparison with I has a chance to
do his best, and in doing his best he is reasonablv sure to be
successful.
Whether he gathers together a great fortune or not does
not matter a great deal. Some men were not meant for for
tunes. and are spoiled by them
But whether or not be can justify Ins existence by being
of use to those that are here and those who are to come mat
ters a gr«u».t dual.
Let him take hold of anv work that comes to hand, if he
that he can do it. and after learning all that there is to
know about what has been done upon it go courageously to work
to do a little more if he cam
He will soon find that as ho progresses the importance of his
task becomes constantly greater in his eyes, and that as the
years have passed by he has come to prefer it to anything else
in the world.
Whether it. is medicine, law. engineering or selling grocer
ies. if he feels that it is a great and useful work he will find in
it pleasure and satisfaction, and iinconsrioiish ho will become
ne of the world's really valuable work ws.
The Atlanta Georgian
HE NEVER HAD A CHANCE
That Is What Nine Men Out of Ten Who Are Failures Say. Look Out That You Don’t Say It Yourself.
By TAD
11 I II
■
... i
i PRIVATE .
1 X-
Wyv.i
... ®
»
NO. 10.
One of lite regulars in the corner saloon
straightened Yum up and he left to see some
good friends. Yum wanted to start all over
again and be a right guy.
He thought lie d lake a small beer lor
luck before he started, but one of the gang
told him (hat drinking Itecr wasn't right;
whisky was the stuff. Drinking beer, bo said,
always made him think of a fellow trying Io
scratch his back without any finger nails.
Yum took a few shots and went down to
see an old friend. He sat in the hall. When
the office boy asked for his name he said.
“Just tell him that Yum is here; he’ll know.’’
The Working Man and His Money
Save, Save, Save. The Future Will Care For Itself
By THOMAS TA BREL’.
(The following article is punted
b;> p.'rmissjop from Mr Thom s
Tapper’:: book just-published by■ .the
Piatt ft Pool; Co.; New York, ami
copyrighted by them, entitled
"Youth and Opportunity.")
11l 1 us keep before us the at -
age workingman, and bis
money, ami let us ask what
Ins money means, what its power
is. and bow it may serve him now
and in the future: forever,v man.
who earns little or much, looks
upon money almost hungrily as the
one resource of safety. He wants
the use of it now and t.he com
fort of it in the future. Most peo
ple get the one—the. use of it in
the present but not the other, the.
future protection of it. < 'an a man
have both?
It is a comforting fact to state
that he can. Rut In order that, a
workingman of any status, may
have this two-fold use of money lie
must begin the : tudy of two
things:
I. of the money he earn*
of the time he possesses
VTom these he -.mist get the two
fold satisfaction he seeks-- present
comfort and future instil anci'.
How shall hr begin .
As«uming :.i; he gives the \ y
best there is in Jsi n for the money
he oceives, it becomes clear that
money 's only another form of the
| best there -s in him Ilf thinks
ain. works, is faithful to his task,
n the end of the week the
lu> tn elope GIVES HIM THESE
y( AIJTIES BACK AGAIN IN
ANOTHER FORM This money i
a tiling he can exchange readily
for other things. But before he be
gins to exchange It he should pause
a moment and say to himself:
What He Should Think
When He Gets His Pay.
This envelope contains all the
effort of my health, strength and
thought for a week. I may or may
not lie able to keep health, strength
and thought up to the present pitch
to the end of my life; hence this
money should protect and guaran
tee ni< protection later, when I
may possibly be less so.
Pursuing this line of reasoning,
ins first deduction will be this.
i's all evils against himself that
hf commits the wasting of money
if om of the most disastrous. for
it is equivalent to wasting his own
WEDNESDAY. .JUNE 12. 1912.
The boy returned to tell Yum that his boss
was out. Yum went to other offices, but they
all seemed to be out.
Einally he thougbt of the boy that drove
the butcher wagon in the small town years
ago. He came out and saw Yum. He thought
perhaps that if his old pal was given a help
ing hand he might get going after all. He
told Yum to sec him the next day and that
he'd rig him up with some new scenery ami
give him a job.
The world seemed a bit brighter tio'v.
Yum had a slight chance at lasi.
To Be Continued,
powei of mind and body. The
money lie earns should serve him
faithfully, and he, in turn. mutt bf
faithful to •himself in the use of his
iuoik y. Up to the present moment
lie lias perhaps saved nothing. The
rule of his life has been a varia
tion of “easy come, easy go." But
‘it has not pul him forward. He
is no better off. has nothing in
hand. He is. in fact, a little older
and a little nearer the time when
his efficiency may be less than it is
, today.
He Must Make Himself a
Student of Money.
If he can succeed in seeing him
self in this light, he will begin :o be
. a stifileut of money. The first riling
he mttsi do is to study tn ordei the
following subjects:
1. Appropriation."
2- Equipment of himself is a
. worker.
3. The daily leisure he n.ioys.
l'_. appropriation i meant this:
ts he is a family man. c rtain fixed
items of expense mu i he met reg
ularly. II- should sit down and
make out. an accurate list of these.
He should study, thi- list until ho
is positive Unit it is right, that it
repro<ehts only those things that
are Herts ary to himse' and to Ins
fa mil;. <m< of tin ce results will he
befo v nim. (1 • The appropriation
is beyond the amount he earns, CD
or it is equal to ft. leaving no mar
gin, (3} or it is below it and ac
tually does leave him a margin.
If hr- finds that he is living be
yond his income or even within it, |
his duty is to begin again and re
apportion his expenses so as to
leave a margin, for the future is
only secure when a margin exist*.
It may be ever so small, but it pos
itively must exist, or he is skating
on ice so thin that he Is in con
stant danger of breaking through
and drowning himself and his loved
ones.
There is required of him noth
ing less than actual courage, brav
ery of the highest kind, to give up
things he has perhaps been accus
tomed to. and to establish the mar
gin he must have; but if he is se
rious and manly he will do it. His
position now is this: He earns a
definite amount. Every time the
contests of the pay envelope is dis
tributed there is something left for
the savings bank, or for life insur
ance. or for both.
He h;t now pm hi. financial <t-
f.-irs in order It has occurred to
him that anything a man can not
afford is really a waste, and waste
is the most expensive of all habits.
Extravagance is exceptionally ex
pensive. Earnest men are unani
mous in their denunciation of it.
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt has .said:
"Extravagance rots character;
train youth away from it. On the
other hand, the habit of saving
money, while it stiffens the will,
a’so brightens the energies. If
you would bo sure tiiat you are be
ginning right, begin to save."
hive cenfT, thrown away for a
thing one does not need is all the
money a dollar err, earn ip twelve
mouths, invested a; five per cent.
Bin five •■ei.t- placed in the sav
ings bank daily, amounts in fifty
years, to nearly S3iUOO. A dollar
bet on a game and lost cannot be
earn il as'interest in one year on
a. sum less than >ju. Small sums’
saved daily even, for -o short a
time as ten years, accumulate im
pressively Ti n cents .led daily
for ten years amounts, at four per
eent, to nearly $l3O. ime dqilar a
w<ck placed In a saving: batik
contlmtally for fifty •years amoums
to over SB,OOO.
These illustrations should give
one faith in the powei of a little
money to teach considerable sums,
11' IT IS CONSTANTLY SET
ASIDE. John Wanamuker, who is
said to have started in life on a
ten-dollar-a ■ week salary, says:
Difference Between Spending
All or Saving a Part.
"The difference betw eeti the
clerk who spends all of his salary
and the clerk who saves part of
it. is the difference, in ten years
between th" owner of a business
and the man out of a job."
And Andrew Carnegie, whose
success in accumulating money is
known to everybody, thus speaks
of the losses that the improvident
man must suffer:
“The failure of the man who does
not save his money is due not only
to the fact that he lias no money
with which to take advantage of
the opportunities that come in the
way of every man. but also, and
particularly, to the fact that such
a man is not able or fit to avail
himself of these opportunities. The
man who can not and does not save
money. can not and will not b,.
anything fine worth while."
THE HOME PAPER
Dr. Parkhurst’s Article
on
Civilization in Man Is
Not Lasting
-—and—-
Our Reversion to Former
Types
Written For The Georgian
By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst
rp HIS is the time of the year
I wiren a good man;- people
are leaving home, or, it had
better b? said, arc leaving the
place where they are accustomed to
stay, for in some cities there is not
very much of the home idea left,
and what is called home is for the
most part .simply the part of the
low 11 where one sleeps, where oiw
takes his meals and where one
keeps hi- trunks preparatory *o
going into the country or going
abroad.
And even those who arc so cir
cumstanced as Io be unable to ab
sent themselves for any consider
able time, stay away ds long as
they can and do not return till they
have to.
.. It may be Paris, it may be Coney
I: land, w e all remain where we be
long as little of the lime as we can.
Ry constitution, we dwellers in
great cities are all tramps. Even
people who have elegant homes Io
live In and comfortable bods to
sleep on will lock their doors, for
sake their beds and go rushing out
into the woods for th p fun of camp
ing out.
Difficulty of Living Down
Inherited Impulses.
It is a reversion to the original
mode of living when our ancestors
roamed through the forests and
dwelt in tents, huts and caves. It
is difficult to live down the im
pulses that have descended to us
from the habits of centuries ago
The original savage keeps creep
ing out in us. We are constantly
on the verge of becoming wild men
of tlie woods again.
A few centuries of civilization
have bard work battling against
the hundreds of thousands of years
that our race lived through before
it .struck civilization.
It takes old momentum a long
time to wear out. It requires con
stant struggle to keep from drop
ping back into the hole that man
kind lias crawled out of and that it
is homesick to fall back into again.
It is the same with nrtii as w ith
! brute beasts. 1 met on the cars the
other day a man who had along
with him a Siberian dog. The ani
mal was gentle and could be safely
played with by a little child, "but,''
said the gentleman, ''there are spots
of wolf-in him, and w ere I to let
him run wild in the woods for six
I months all the savageness belong
ing to his ancestry would break out
in him. and he would have to be
shot or caged.”
In man or boast civilization is
not a permanent quality. It is
against nature and becomes extinct
unless constantly renewed. We are
kept respectable by restraint:
tS) Shirtwaist Days t>?o
, ■ By CUES! ER ET RKT NS.
IITHETHER pink or white or blue.
VV Whether prim or peek-a-boo,
Here’s a welcome unto you,
Pretty waist!
Os all summer comers blest,
You’re the brightest and the best.
Every wintry clothing pest
You've effaced.
Oh, but aren’t we glad to be
From those "ladies suits" set free.
And the ugly, crochet\
Pony coat!
As the May-time flowers save
Country glade from Winter - grate,
So you give the city pate
Summer's note.
I '
Mr
It is for that reason that going
off in ihc summer and breaking
loose from our accustomed sur
roundings involves an amount of
risk.
We are likely not to come back
in as good moral trim as we were
in when we went away. There Is a
sense of wild liberty experienced
by any man when he feels that he.
is looked upon by people that do
not know him.
Human Beings Held in Place
Like Bricks in a Wall.
Like bricks In a wall ne are
held in position in part bj the hu
man bricks that we are wedged In
between. It Is unpleasant to fall
below the expectations that others
have concerning us, and those tn
whom we are. total strangers have
no expectations regarding us on*
way or the other.
They will not be surprised, there
fore, if we behave well, nor any
more will they be surprised If we
behave badly. People who are good
Christians when living among
Christiana easily turn reprobates
when let loose among people of the
othe? kind.
It is true to creed, that "once «
saint, always a saint,” but it does
not always seem quite true to fact.
Clamp a steel spring and ft will
retain its enforced shape so tong as
the clamp is on, but remove the
ciamp and It will fly back to the
form that it was in originally, even
after a thousand years it will fly
back.
There is a great deal of efficacy,
therefore, in clamps. Going away
from home and from usual sur
roundings and people is, therefore,
dangerous, for it means removing
some of (he clamps.
Much of what we commonly sup
pose to be our virtue is simply the
unnatural and enforced shape in
which we are held by external
pressure.- There has recently been
published the story of a person
who had been dead for five min
utes. but wh'o was resuscitated by
mechanical pulsation.
Goodness Not Altogether
A Matter of Artifice.
That show s w hat forces-operat
ing from without will do for the
body. They will do somewhat the
same thing for the inward man and
create in him a condition of arti
ficial goodness.
That docs not moan that good
ness is altogether a matter of ar- ■
tifice. but only that goodness a.t its
best is more or less infirm, and is
much more dependable when ex
isting in circumstances that are of
a kind to encourage it and to keep
it itt good spirits.
Trim and dainty, tried and true,
You are, democratic, too.
For the Many, like the Few,
flail your fame.
At her factory machine
Sadie wears you; Fashion s queen
In her gleaming limousine
Does the same.
tn
Welcome, little Summer Waist!
Though they say you’re not straight
laced,
Let such pedantry bo placi d
I Out of view
Chic and charming, new and neat.
" ''at has Earth that's half so sweet
•Srivc the goo who bless the street,
wearing vmr>