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Editorial and £itv Cite Section of Ream's Sunday American, Atlanta, December 7, ton.
Some men look at life as the
red Indian and the mountain
lion look at the beaver—learn
ing nothing.
The Indian is dying out and
the mountain lion has almost
disappeared BECAUSE THEY
COULD NOT INTELLIGENTLY SEE THAT
WHICH WAS BEFORE THEIR EYES.
; Copyr;eht, 1913. by tile SUx Company. Great Britain Ritfbta Reserved.
O see a thing cleariy and
describe it simply”—
that is the task of the
writer.
To see life clearly and
learn what it means—
(hat is the task of every human being.
He who looks on and sees, but fails to
see THE MEANING, is the failure, the
disappointed man, the one that goes
down—as the red Indian and the moun
tain lion have failed and gone down in
the struggle for existence.
e * *
For long thousands of years before
white men came to this country the bea
ver, the Indian and the panther, or nioun
tain lion, lived close together
Sometimes the panther killed the In
dian and ate him. Sometimes the In
dian killed the panther, wore his hide and
made ornaments of his teeth.
Mountain lion and Indian both killed
the beaver
Through many centuries the Indian’s
painted face looked through the bushes
at the beaver w orking, and the panther’s
body crouched ready to spring as the
heaver came ashore from his water vil
lage.
Indian and panther watched the bea
ver but did not really SEE HIM They
learned no lesson from him
Their idea was oloodshed, conquest,
cruelty. They saw in the wonderfully
intelligent little beaver cutting down
trees, building dams, stopping .the
stream, constructing his water village,
only something that could be killeo and
eaten, something to furnish rlcsh for the
stomach, fur for the Indians back in
the Winter.
Neither savage beast nor two-legged
savage saw that the beaver W AS A
HI ILDER, a planner, one understand
ing co-operation and mutual aid.
They saw the busy little creature, but
did not learn the lesson he taught.
So to-day you see the panther only in
(he most distant places, and soon he will
disappear. You see the remaining In
dians cooped up like helpless children,
and soon they will disappear.
If they had learned the lesson that the
beaver could teach them, if they had
been really able to SEE HIM as well as
to watch him, Indians and panthers
might have learned the lesson that would
have saved them from destruction.
But they could not see that it is better
to build than to murder, better to help
than destroy. And they are on their w ay
to extinction with the other animals,
the other races and the other individuals
THAT CANNOT LEARN.
# # *
It is just as well that the Indian should
go, a good thing that the murderous four-
footed panther should go. They are
hopelessly out of place in a world civil
ized.
This picture is not intended tor red
men or mountain lions, but for the mil-
lions of w hite men and women and boys
and girls who can tind a lesson in it, if
they will.
Show this picture to your children and
say:
“The beaver used the brain in his lit
tle round skull and did wonders with it.
He and his friends combined to cut
down great trees. They dammed up
rivers, cutting down the trees in such a
way that they would fall across the
stream, filling in the spaces with smaller
branches, making a wall of tree trunks,
branches and mud, plastering the mud
with their broad, flat tails, which they
used almost as skillfully as a mason uses
his trowel,
“Stopping the rapid current of the
stream, they created above the dam
peaceful, smooth, wide water in which
*hev could establish their little houses
safe from molestation. They lived con
tented, peaceable, and where cruelty or
,r reed does not destroy them they still
live happy and prosperous. For they
help each other instead of killing each
other; they build instead of tearing down.
“And through ages so long that we
cannot grasp them, through tens of thou
sands of years, long before the red man
or any other man was on the earth, these
little creatures and their ancestors
WATCHED AND UNDERSTOOD
WHAT THEY SAW, and so learned to
make dams and build villages and profit
by the forces of co-operation, organiza
tion and union.
“Because they could so understand
and profit by their understanding the
beavers thrived. Because they could
not see or reason or learn the lesson of
brotherhood, the panthers and red men
led a life of butchery and hatred, and
failed.”
* * #
How many of us, old and young, look
at life and its possibilities as the two
creatures in this picture look at the work
ing beaver, without knowing what we
see?
A man is succeeding under our eyes,
and there is no secret about his success,
no mystery. Ten or twenty years from
now a majority of those that are watch
ing him will be talking about “his luck”
and the fact that THEY never had a
chance.
Right beside you there is some young
man or older man to whom you wiil look
up in a few' years, joining in a chorus of
mingled praise and envy concerning his
success.
Yet he will get his success BY THE
THINGS THAT HE IS DOING NOW,
and that you can see.
And YOU might be doing now the
things that he is doing, and ten years or
twenty years from now YOU might be
enjoying success, usefulness, peace of
mind, instead of simply envying those
possessions in some other man.
# 6 *
The panther in this picture has sharp
er, stronger teeth, bigger muscles, than
the beaver. He has the strength to do
everything that the beaver does—if he
had the will and the intelligence.
He could build himself in the moun
tains a barricade that would keep out his
enemies or prevent the escape of his
prey.
As for the Indian, if he could have
learned building and co-operation from
that beaver, he might have built up for
himself a civilization greater than that
which Columbus represented when he
arrived in this country.
For the Indians had a great continent
to themselves, they had not back of them
the history of horrible oppression, injus
tice, fanaticism, religious bigotry, tor
ture and the other dreadful things that
Columbus represented.
If the Indian couid have seen in the
beaver something besides a creature to
be murdered and eaten he might have
faced Columbus with a civilization and
a power far above his own.
The Indian and the wild beast could
watch but could not SEE, examine, but
not learn, and they failed.
£ * 4»
And the white man, the white boy or
girl or woman w ho ends as a failure may
truly say. except in cases of misfortune
and accident, that failure is due to IN
ABILITY TO LEARN BY WATCHING
SUCCESS.
\ r ou know that near you, in the same
village or city, in the same school or at
the next office desk, there sits the success
of a few years hence.
Like you, he has two eyes, two ears,
one pair of feet and hands.
He is not performing any miracles.
But, like the beaver, HE IS WORKING,
and he is working on a definite plan;
he knows what he means to build in
the way of a career and a success.
We don’t say that any healthy young
man by any possibility whatever, by
any amount of observation, hard work
or self-denial, could make himself the
equal of exceptional greatness.
No baby living a hundred years ago,
w hen Richard Wagner was in the cradle,
could have done Wagner’s work.
But genius and success are separate.
EVER MAN CAN HAVE SUCCESS
AND WILL HAVE IT if he will watch
intelligently and SEE that which he
watches.
* # *
The beaver in this picture is beginning
his work. He gets up early, starts to cut
down a tree, picks out a tree that will fail
across the stream when it is cut, selects
a tree not beyond the cutting pow ers of
himself and his friends. And thf \ he
spends the day CUTTING. He dote, not
take a nibble at the tree and then run
down the stream to tell somebody how
wonderful he is, or what a difficult job
it is to cut trees.
HE KEEPS ON CUTTING AT THAT
TREE.
If he makes a mistake and the tree
falls the wrong way—as must happen oc
casionally—he goes at another tree.
Then another. He cuts the small twigs,
he fetches his mud and plasters the
whole thing up; then he has his dam, his
quiet pool; he builds his houses, lives
happily and watches the young beavers
work as he used to do.
And that is all that is done by the man
next to you who will be a success twenty
years from now, w hen you, perhaps, will
be talking about hard luck.
The man who succeeds gets up early,
selects his task and keeps at it.
He plans what he means to do, and
something that he CAN do.
If he makes a mistake, he starts in
again undiscouraged, knowing that work
will do for him just what it does for the
beaver.
He does not work for three or four
minutes and go off to tell about it.
He keeps at it.
You, Mr. Reader, can do what the hu
man beaver-next to you is doing, if you
will watch him intelligently.
Work, and keep working—exercise
and sleep enough.
Be sober, and keep sober.
Save, realize that money is power, that
the most horrible slavery is POVERTY,
that puts you under the thumb of any
man with a dollar.
Life is not complicated, success is not
difficult.
Any group of beavers can make a dam
and establish a beavers’ city. Any young -
man can put himself beyond the reach
of want, can reach a point where he may
use his brains for a bigger thing than
money earning—if he has brains.
But to succeed we must not be like the
savage man on the one side and the sav
age beast on the other side in this pic
ture, WATCHING, BUT NOT LEARN
ING.