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Editorial and City Life Section Hearst's Sunday American, Atlanta, Sunday, August 3, 1913
this. Success is
It does not “re-
Copyrlsflit-, 1OTH, *rr the Star OonDpany Grant Britain Rights Reserved.
OU will read below a letter which
is interesting, written by an in
telligent reader.
This reader thinks that for
the young man opportunities
are now greater than they
rere, but that “it also requires greater ability at
iresent to seize them.”
Our reader is mistaken m
jailer now than it used to be.
; uire greater ability.”
Conditions change, opportunities change in
heir character, BUT THE HUMAN BEING RE
GAINS THE SAME.
The qualities that make a man successful to-
lay are the qualities that made men successful in
he Stone Age, before men had learned how to
nake bronze implements. And the qualities that
lelp a captain of industry to-day are actually those
hat helped the men of the days when language
tself was only half developed.
r t» r
What is the thing in a man which makes him
“succeed”? It is FORCE.
Force is the power within man—call it soul,
intellect, will, or what you please — that ena
bles man to conquer his environment AND TO
FORCE HIMSELF TO MAKE AN EFFORT.
Force helps a man to control himself, and that
is the beginning of success.
A man whose energies, health and money leak
away like water from a sieve cannot succeed. He
hasn’t the force to stop the leakage.
Force within a man is the quality that enables
him to fix his mind, to concentrate his powers of
understanding upon the problem that confronts
him until he solves it.
The primitive savage looking at a stream of
rapidly running water, wondering whether he
could cross it on a log, using his brain to decide
what kind of log he ought to get and upon what
part of the log he should sit, is using the same
power that enabled Rockefeller, looking at the oil
wells of the United States, to make up his mind
how he could change that oil into money and run
't into his own pocket.
n m r.
Success is concentration, plus imagination.
The force within us—mysterious, complex—
ncludes in its workings the wonderful power—
MAGINATION. That is the biggest power of
II, because it is the power that enables a man to
ee in his brain, with the power of that brain, the
■ling which he cannot see with the eye.
An architect is great when in his brain he can
»e the building finished.
Michelangelo was greatest, perhaps, of all the
nen that ever have lived, excepting four. And he
was great because the power of imagination
showed him in his MIND the wonderful Dome
of St. Peter’s, the magnificent statue of the Virgin
with her dead Son upon her lap, the overwhelm
ing form of Moses in the marble, the beautiful
body of David, and those faces in the Sistine
Chapel, as far above the faces of real men as the
sky is above the earth.
Michelangelo was what he was Because ot
It Is Just as Easy to Succeed as It Ever Was---and Easier.
Man Has More Weapons with Which to Use His Power, if He
Has the Power.
Should We Care What the Future Says of Us ?
i
A Reader’s Interesting Letter.
IMAGINATION, plus the other kinds of force that
change imagination into REALITY.
What we need to-day is what we needed in
Michelangelo’s day, in the day of Columbus, and
two hundred thousand years before they were
born.
Wo need, first of all, POWER. And then we
need to use the power correctly, wisely and per
sistently in dealing with our problems and realiz
ing ambition.
Whether you are finding your way across the
ice to the North Pole, or finding your way slowly
over the slippery ice of office politics to the man
agement of a newspaper, or painfully struggling
up in some clerkship that apparently offers no
chance—it is all the same. You need force, con
centration, self-denial, IMAGINATION.
*, *
Chances are better for young men to-day than
they ever were, because men have more tools
with which to work. The old man of the Stone
Age had his bare hands and a sharp stone. The
stone he fastened with the entrails of a deacj ani
mal to the end of a stick, and then he watched
for some fierce creature to pass.
That man had a right to be discouraged. It
must have been rather difficult to attack a sabre-
toothed tiger, a big-tusked mammoth, or even
a wolf, with only a sharp stone in the hand.
Let the little clerk in the store, who pities
himself and wonders how he can get anywhere,
ask himself how he would like to be standing up
to his waist in a pond filled with cold water, with
an angry, wounded animal on the edge, waiting
for him to come out—and he having in his hand
only a piece of wood with a sharp stone at the
end of it. Be sure that the primitive man, with
the sharp stone, the cold cave to live in, the skin
of a beast for his only clothing, and a frightful,
cold Winter ahead of him, would gladly have
changed places with the disgruntled clerk, stand
ing behind the counter in his suit of light knit
underwear, his trousers turned up at the bottom,
and his hall room ready at night.
The young man of to-day little knows how
lucky he is, with the roof that does not leak, a
bed that is not the hard earth, and no need of ask
ing himself whether he will wake up in the night
with one of his legs bitten off.
K * *
Just remember, young men, that everything we po»-
l.-oiri the wheelbarrow to the steam shovel,
w«6 worked out by the sons and daughters of that man
who stood with the sharp stone in his hand and had no
other weapon. .4
Think what wr^have to work with to-day—the te!e-
fc.aoiie that let* us task to a thou&and men in a day if wo
will; the telegraph that takes our messages without even
ordering us to wait at the 'phone for an answer; the
mail that carries thought a thousand miles for two cents;
the wonderful machines that give us for ten cents a yard
cloth that cost a dollar only a short time ago; ABOVE
ALL, THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS THAT GIVE US EDUCA
TION FREE, and the libraries that give us knowledge, if
we have only the brains, end the heart, and the will to
accept it and digest it.
There is no question as to the opportunities for suc
cess in this day. The real question is, HAS A YOUNG
MAN WHO DOES NOT ATTAIN SUCCESS ANY EXCUSE
AT ALL FOR HIS FAILURE?
There will always be failures among men, as there
are among potatoes, peaches, apples, etc. Some are under
sized, dwarfed, filled with worm-holes. All these failures
will be with us, at least until we shall have learned the
science of developing only perfept specimens.
But no young man, even of average, moderate power,
NEED BE A FAILURE IF HE CHOOSES NOT TO BE.
If you save part of what you make, AND KEEP IT,
INSTEAD OF GAMBLING OR RISKING IT, THUS GET
TING INDEPENDENT; if you save your health, which Is
real capital, with regular sleep, careful eating, and tem
perate living; if you use your brain power to press
yourself on in the world, instead of using it to hunt
amusement, you Will succeed. •
You may not make a hundred million, and you may
not be President ot the United States.
But you can, if you choose, have real success. For
real success means, first, freedom from worry, freedom
from slavery—every man under the orders of another
is a slave. And real success means, above all, DOING
THE VERY BEST THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF DOING.
A great genius who stops working, or is dissipated
and Hoes only half that he might do, is a failure com
pared with a man of humble ability who really does his
BEST persistently, works faithfully, and deals justly with
his fellow men.
* r r.
The writer whose letter we publish suggests that
men ought to do their very best work, not caring about
the opinions of others, and quite indifferent to the opin
ion of future generations.
So far as future generations are concerned, a majority
of us need not “worry." Future generations will not
hear of us.
The opinions of other men on the earth are really
not important, except for the fact that WE MUST WORK
IN OBEDIENCE TO THE IMPULSES WITHIN US, and
the fact that desire for thr praise of others U perhaps
the greatest motive power in man and must not be dis
regarded.
We should welcome ANYTHING that makes men work
harder, live better or accomplish more.
For a certain length of time belief in hellfire and in
a cruel God that would punish eternally helpless crea
tures created by Him was a useful belief. It kept a great
many millions of men and women out of mischief and
out of crime. Since they could understand no argument
but this argument, “If you do that, you will burn up
forever," it is fortunate that the argument was put before
them.
Others need as an incentive to good behavior not
only the threat of hellfire to come, but the promise of
a beautiful heaven, in which the cheapest thinr. is gold,
n which nobody Hoes a r’rcke of work, in whi£» accom
plishments and duty are forever ended and rejuaced by
the singing of praises. For a developed man such a
heaven, without any grass or water, and especially with
out possibility of accomplishment, seems pretty dull. The
well-developed man would say, “l don’t want to live in a
pawnshop, or spend my life at Tiffany’s, with my hands
folded, or in a heaven of gold and precious stones."
But since many were made better by the description
of h solid gold heaven, it was a good thing to have it.
Some men are driven to work by earnest desire to
have their children happier than THEY were. Therefore
It is a good thing to permit men to hand down money
to their children, although it ruins the children usually
and is unwise from many points of view.
Some work very hard, because they like the admira
tion of other men and women.
The first man who risked his skin to fight a wild
animal that threatened the savage village did it, of course,
to have the women smile on him.
Men who have done the world’s really great work—
although many of them did not know it—such men as*
Alexander, who carried knowledge into Asia; Lucullus,
who would have been greatest of all conquerors had he
not had such a contempt for mankind, and Caesar, who
opened the way for the knowledge of Greece to pass
through Rom r into France and on to England—all of
these men did their best work probably BECAUSE THEY
WISHED THE FUTURE TO TALK ABOUT THEM.
Of course the real future, which won’t begin for
,. vera | thousand centuries, will know and care as little
about Alexander or Caesar "• we care about the prairie
dog that won the great fight in some prairie dog town
before Columbus landed in America.
All that we are doing now is NOTHING. We are sim-
~-tting the house in order, killing off the wild beasts,
draining a few of the most poisonous swamps, eliminat
ing from our minds the animal brutality that we sr
recently inherited.
*. *
Our friend Mr. Sunshine, whose letter we print, puts
it mildly when he suggests that there may be another
iNnft with a mind compared with which that of Mr.
Thomas A. Edison would look insignificant.
Long ago a distinguished scientist observed, quite
'•ssonafcly, that there were unquestionably on the other
planets brains which, compared to ours, would be like
ours compared to the brain of a black beetle. Already
* -» nrt there hnve appeared minds compared with
which the mind of Edison is like that of an intelligent
working beaver compared to Mr. Edison himself.
* he brain of the greatest mechanic even is as far
below that of Edison, a Beethoven or Leonardo as it
s acove the mind of an ordinary carpenter.
Rieht here on this earth, when the brain of man
shall have become doveloned, when his body shall have
become secondary, when the animal shall have been elim
inated, when the whole brain shall be used in thought—
ninety per cent of it now lies wasted and idle when
each human being’s head shall be. as nearly as possible
a perfect sphere, evenly developed in all directions, with
just room enotigh for the breathing apparatus, eyes, nose
and mouth set into the sphere, there will be men think
ing, living, creating and talking to the other planets and
system from this little earth WHOSE BRAINS WILL
BE AS MUCH BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION as the
twentieth century express is beyond the comprehension
of the hootoad that sits beside the track and watches it.
* r. r.
The suggestion of this letter that men should do
right simply because it is right is a good suggestion.
Many men do right because it is right, and many have
done so, luckily for this world.
The ordinary, decent MAN behaves himself, deals
justly and honorably, not because he is afraid of hell of
desires heaven, or because he is afraid of being hanged,
or fear, the jail, BUT BECAUSE HE CANNOT LIVE WITH
OUT HIS OWN RESPECT. BECAUSE HE IS BEGINNING
TO GET A SPARK OF THE REAL HUMANITY WHICH
WILL IN FUTURE GOVERN US ABSOLUTELY.
The day is coming when all men will do good because
they WANT to do good, and for no other reason, and
that will be only the very beginning of civilization.
Meanwhile, let us be glad that there are other induce
ments to good conduct and to great accomplishment.
Let us be grateful for the stories about hell and about
heaven, for the dreadful pictures of a vengeful and tor
turing God; let us he grateful even fo» the rack, the
knout, the hangman’s rope, the personal vanity, the
desire for self-approval, and oil the other inside savage
forces that have driven men on to do their best of to
abstain from their worst—while waiting for them to
become civilized.
Here is the letter from our friend. Read it. It will
interest you:
Dear Sir—
Your editorial in Evening Journal July 14
in which you say you have been asked
whether the opportunities at present are as
many for young men as formerly was certainly
very Interesting reading. |t appears that the
opportunities at present are greater no doubt,
but it also requires greater ability at present
to seize them. It is doubtful whether ths
young men of the past could repeat their suc
cesses under present conditions.
That part of yogr editorial where you say to
the effect that most men after they die are
about as mucJi thought of as the chickens they
ate, starts up a train of thought something like
this in my mind: What’s the difference
whether posterity knows or cares about us as
individuals or not? It’s only a question of
time, anyhow, it no catastrophe occurs before
to destroy life here, when the earth will cool
off and roll as an uninhabited sphere through
space, so what is the use of worrying whether
posterity knows of me or not? Most of us are
not sufficiently cognizant of our own unim
portance. Such men as Edison, for instance,
appear as mental giants to us for the reason
that most of us are intellectual pigmies. Pos
sibly on some other planet further along in the
scale of development than ours there are in
telligences that would make the mind of an
Edison seem ridiculously insignificant. Rea
soning from deduction, that is quite a prob
ability.
For centuries past it seems to have been the
aim of the human microbe to leave some “foot
prints on the sands of time.” There are evi
dences that the ancients (as we call those who
lived a few short years ago) were Imbued with
the idea of perpetuating tnelr mental and
physical personalities. Old Father Time simply
laughed In his sleeve at their puerile efforts,
and a great poet aptly described their efforts:
“What fools these mortals be."
Why not get down to hard pan? Why not
drop the Idea of doing things for a hope of re
ward or a fear of punishment and do right for
right’s sake and because it is Just as easy to do
right as wrong and much more pleasant? Let
us face the oblivion of death with Spartan cour
age In spite of the fact that folks ten
thousand years from now won’t know that
any one of us lived, and care less; let us do
our best NOW for the sake of those who are
here NOW on this planet. Right now you don’t
care whether the man |n the next flat think*
you are a great man or not, so why worry what
some dweller or dwellers here later on may
think pf you? All our efforts have but tern,
porary results, for verily THERE IS NO PER*
MANE^CE. Yours very tfuly,
f* MONROE SUNSriiNB* £