[Illustration: The Author]

Dollars and Sense

[Revised and Enlarged Edition]

Being Memoranda made in the School of Practical Experience

HEREIN ARE

Golden Helps for Employer and Employee

Cheer, Courage, Help for the Weak, Weary, Discouraged Ones who Live inShadowland

Cures for Worry and FearBackbone Instead of Wishbone

AND

Guides and Experience which will Bring Success inBusiness, Happiness in Your Home, Respect ofYour Neighbors, Love of Friends, and altogetherMany Helps which will showyou how to make this life wellworth the living

By Col. Wm. C. Hunter

PricePaper Cover, 25 cents a CopyCloth Bound, 50 cents a CopyPro rata for any quantity

Published by Hunter &. CompanyOak Park, Illinois. U. S. A. 

Each Chapter Separately Copyrighted in 1906

Copyrighted in Book Form, 1907

Revised and Enlarged Edition, Copyright, 1908byWm. C. Hunter

All Rights Reserved

Contents

Aches and Pains 100Advertising 32Advice 39Ambition 18Anger 94Argument 42Associates 61Backbone and Wishbone 108Brains, Birth, Boodle 105Bribes 120Buying 34Catching Up 93Cigarets 64Compensation 25Competition 30Credit 11Debt 103Discontent 98Do Good 108Double Equipment 109Dressing 100Elimination 46Employees 89Enthusiasm 92Expenses 35Financing 96Fixed Charges 63Friends 88Frozen Dog Tales 129Generalists 99Get Away 109Good Fellowship 67Good for Evil 65Gossip 120Groundwork 7Grumbling 60Hard Times 59Hard Work 68Health 56Home Life 77Honesty 73Horse Sense 50Hypochondriacs 122Independence 85Initiative 110Kindness 69Lawyers 19Laxity 92Learn to Play 66Learn to Say No 9Managers 51Memory 79Monthly Dividends 102My Symphony 126Never Quit Work 13Night Work 111Obedience 113Optimism 78Our Sons 117Patience 57Pay Day 114Perspiration 87Politics 123Precedent 95Producers 21Profanity 123Promises 84Pull 119Reading 40Rule of Gold 125Salesmen 71Saving 115Selling 52Short Letters 87Sizing Up Things 27Sleep 60Specialists 47Speculation 43Stand When Selling 15Stenographers 121Success 74System 124The Boss 26The Man, Not the Plan 23The String 49Thinking 75Vacations 55Vantage Ground 16Waiting for Success 116Worry 81

Dedication

The Author respectfully dedicates this book

to the Officers and Proprietors

to the Managers and Superintendents

to the Buyers and Sellers

to the Clerks and Office Men

to the Youth seeking promotion

to the Boy with his first job

and to all who wish to get Happiness Health and Dollars. 

Dollars and Sense

Groundwork

When you cut a melon, your friends will come with eager mouths and situnder your shade tree and help you eat it. Few of these friends wouldrespond to your call for help when you were working in the hot sunraising that melon. 

Many people accept the dividends and benefits of friendship but giveyou a cold shoulder when called upon for assessments of friendship. 

The world is full of young men whose objective is snaps. They arelooking all the time for what they can get and not what they can give. 

To forge ahead, you must give value received. You can't draw out allthe time. 

The employe must do what he is paid to do and "then some, " for it isthis "then some" or plus that gets your salary raised. 

The employer and employe must realize that each must make profit. It isbecause there are so many ingrates and so many four flushers that sofew succeed. 

This book will be welcomed by those who are square, ambitious andpatient. It is not theory. It is not preaching. These chapters will beold friends to you, and you may read a few minutes or a few hours. Youmay read and re-read as often as you wish, for you will always findsome new truth impressed on you every time you read. 

Keep this book, carry it with you, and you will be benefitted. 

Worry and fear will fade and peace and courage will grow within you themore you study these pages. 

The writer has "been at it" for 32 years. He has had successes, failures, joys, sorrows, and experienced the passions, the problems, the difficulties you have experienced. 

Since the age of ten years he has been upon his own resources and the32 years since then have been years of study, working and playing, allblended into a happy life. 

The jolts, set backs, sorrows, worries, fears and discouragements arethe things which made him strong. They were experiences. 

Smooth sailing doesn't bring out the stuff one is made of. It takesshadows to make sunlight appreciated. 

It takes reverses to make success. It takes hard knocks to polish you. This is a book of experiences, not one of theories. 

There is no attempt to make this a literary effort. All the writerhopes for or cares to do is to truthfully state facts and experiencesin plain language. Study the thought rather than the expression. 

It is Sense the writer wants to express rather than nonsense. 

The writer is happy to say that the previous editions sold rapidly andhis friends not only read, but pass the word along. 

The way to get happiness is to make others happy and the present of oneof these books to a friend or employe is a quick way to get happiness. 

Let us go along together and consider some of the problems which we allhave to face in our business as well as our social life. A volume couldbe written on each chapter. But volumes are tiresome and herein youwill find net values which are the result of boiling down. 

So now we have the groundwork of this book. We understand each other. Simply take these truths for their evident worth. You won't agree withthe writer in all things, of course not. If, however, you get one truththat will help you, then you have been repaid for reading this book andthe writer has been repaid for writing it. 

Learn to Say No. 

Look over the history of the thousands who have failed in business, andyou will find in nearly every instance the failure was due to aninability to say No. 

People come to us under various guises and ask us to do things which inour better judgment we had rather not do, and too many have not thebackbone to say No. 

We are led to invest in mining stocks and to embark in precariousenterprises because we cannot say No. 

We endorse notes and go security for our friends, not because we wantto but because we cannot say No. 

There is a class of "good fellows" who are after us to join them inphysical pleasures, the foregoing of which would be better for usphysically, financially and mentally. Too many join them because theycannot say No. 

It is rarely a man goes off deliberately and gets drunk. The lone drunkis usually the result of sorrow, sudden financial blow or a hard joltof some sort. 

The man who gets drunk generally does so because he cannot say No whenbibulous friends press him to take a drink. 

The ability to say No, to refrain from going with the crowd, to declineto go down stream is, more than any other one thing in this life, themark of a strong character. 

The one who can say No is going to succeed. Temporarily he may feelashamed; he may find it hard to withstand the jibes and jeers andcriticism of his friends for refusing to join them in things he shouldnot do. 

Our old friend--the law of compensation--comes in here, for inproportion as a man has the ability to say No, who has the courage ofhis convictions, whose duty is to his body and his family before thetemptations that surround him, so in proportion as there are few suchindividuals these individuals stand out as marked successes. 

The manager of one of the biggest breweries in the United States hasnot tasted liquor of any kind in the last twenty years. Surely this manshows his courage, for his action in face of his occupation is asupreme test of backbone and ability to say No. 

The embezzler does not start out to do wrong. Some friends want toborrow money or someone needs financial aid temporarily, and, either atthe request of friends or because the individual has something hewishes to purchase and has not the patience to wait, he borrows fromthe firm by means of "the ticket in the drawer" plan. He repeats theoperation frequently until his conscience is dulled, and he gets thehabit. Some day he wakes up to find he has several tickets in thedrawer, and resorts to extreme measures, trying to beat the races, orto win money by gambling on stocks or grain. 

One day he finds he is in a dickens of a fix. He sees no way out of it. He takes more money and skips out, only to be caught later on and madeto suffer, and all this because he could not say No to temptation. 

Learn to say No. Set your jaws firmly and say No. The friends who goback on you and criticize you for saying No to the things that arehurtful to you are unworthy of the name of friends, and you can verywell get along without them. 

Friends who ask you to do the things you should not do are the veryones who are of no service to you in time of need. 

The individual who says No regardless of the flings and taunts that arecast at him is the one who eventually makes a success. 

Character counts above all things in the business world. The bankerextends credit on character oftener than we imagine. The banker knowshow to say No. 

A man's credit and character are most important factors in business, and many a man without security has attained magnificent successthrough untiring energy, ability, character and courage enough to sayNo. 

In proportion as you grow strong and unhesitating in saying No, thetemptations and opportunities to say Yes will lessen in number. 

Exercise your back bone and your jaw bone, so you can say No and stickto it. 

Credit

No factor is so necessary in building up business as credit, and nofactor is so necessary in building up credit as truth. 

It is comparatively easy to start credit, but the art is to keepcredit. 

The young business man who says "I want no credit, I buy and sell forcash" makes a mistake. It is all right to pay promptly, but do notestablish a spot cash payment basis, for later on, when you ask credit, your creditors will think something is wrong. 

Establish a credit whether you need it or not. It is a goodadvertisement and a frequent help. 

Be reasonably slow in paying your bills, but positively sure that youdo pay them. 

When you get a sharp or blunt letter asking for a settlement, go toyour creditor face to face, set a date when you will make a payment andkeep your agreement. 

Don't be specific as to amount unless you are decidedly sure you can doit. Be specific as to date, however, and be there or have your checkthere on the date. 

Suppose a man owes you $100 and you ask him for it and he says "Hereare ten dollars on account, and on next Thursday I will make anotherpayment, and as often as I can I will pay something until you are fullypaid up. " You don't get angry at that man when you see his intentionsare good and he is doing his best. 

So long as your creditor gets something every time he writes it keepshim good natured. 

It is the man who breaks promises who gets hard usage from thecreditors. 

If you owe more than your present cash balance can liquidate, make apro rata payment all around among your creditors. Write a good squareletter saying nothing would please you more than to send a check infull, and that this payment is made as evidence of your willingness andintention to keep good faith. 

Keep in touch personally with your creditors as far as possible. Talkto them of your plans and prospects. Always tell the truth. Have youraccount as a moral risk rather than as a Dun or Bradstreet risk. 

There is sentiment in business. Creditors have hearts and they havegood impulses. They appreciate friendship and especially gratitude. Don't believe a word of that great untruth "There is no sentiment inbusiness. "

Don't get angry when asked for money. Admit your slowness and tell yourcreditor that as an offset for your present slowness you have a goodmemory and a heart that appreciates, and some day your purchases willbe much larger, and those who are your friends now will certainly getthe benefit when the time comes that you do not require favors. 

An honest, frank, heart to heart talk is most valuable. The credit mankeeps the truthful man in mind and his account under his protectingwing. The credit man glories with you, and has a distinct interest inyour success when it comes. 

It often happens that the small bank or small manufacturer is the bestplace for the beginner to go for credit. You can get closer to thesmall growing creditor than you can to the big fellow who isindependent. 

The big bank is cold blooded. It insists upon security and collateral. Your account in a big bank is only an incidental detail, and thecashier is cold and distant and blunt. 

The small bank, however, gives you more time and attention, is moreinterested in you and can remember you much better than the big bank. 

Avoid bad associates. You can't play the races and give wine dinnersand maintain strong confidence with your creditors. 

You must be worthy of the confidence reposed in you. It is your dutyand part of the contract to be reliable and truthful. 

Every time a creditor gets out of sorts go to him and pay himsomething, and he will quiet down. 

Be grateful. Don't be afraid to express yourself freely and frequentlyon this point. 

When you are caught up and financially strong stick to those who stuckby you. 

Remember, credit is based on confidence in the individual rather thanin his bank account. 

Don't get into nasty arguments or disputes. Give and take. Be fair. Besquare. Keep your temper. Stoop to conquer. Cut out all thoughts ofrevenge. 

When a house does not treat you right, curb your temper, and, as soonas you can, get in touch with some other good house. Tell the new housefrankly why you changed. 

Credit is a subsidy, and it stands the hustling business man in goodstead. 

Many men have started in business with a capital only of ability, hardwork, honesty and good reputation. 

The use or abuse of credit determines whether a man will rise or fall. 

Keep your record clean, and if later you get on the shoals your pastwill stand you in good stead. 

If you have been given to sharp practice or dishonesty, woe be unto youwhen you fall. 

Remember these things carefully. Keep in personal touch with yourcreditors, keep your promises, pay on account when you cannot pay infull, hustle, be honest, keep good company, don't gamble, don't be asport. If you practice these virtues, offers of aid will come to yourather than flee from you. 

Never Quit Work

The average young man makes up his mind that at fifty or sixty years ofage he will retire and take things easy for the rest of his days. Theaverage young man makes a great mistake. It is far better to wear outthan to rust out. 

To the young man work is a drudge, a necessity to keep him alive. Inmiddle age work is an accepted thing and we are used to it, and feelrather the better for having occupation. 

In old age work is a necessity to keep the mind and body young. 

There is scarcely a more miserable spectacle than the man of fifty orsixty who has retired with ample fortune. He loafs around the house. Goes from one club to another. Gets lonely. Feels blue. 

He tries to kill time in the day looking forward to the meeting of hiscronies in the evening. The cronies are busy in the day time and theyhave engagements and pleasures in the evening, so that our retiredfriend seems to be in the way. 

He finds that the anticipation of retirement was a pleasure, and thatthe realization is a keen disappointment. 

"There is nothing, " says Carnegie, "absolutely nothing in money beyonda competence. "

When one has enough money to buy things for the home, for his familycomfort and enjoyment, when he has sufficient income to take care ofhimself and his family, surplus dollars do not mean much. 

The business man should prepare for his future so that if ill healthovertakes him he may have the where-with to surround himself withcomforts, travel and the best of care. 

The man who enjoys pleasures of the home and friends, who trains upyoung blood to take hold of the business, who travels and enjoyshimself as he goes along has the right idea. 

We must learn to enjoy life now instead of waiting for tomorrow, fortomorrow may never come. 

The man who cashes in, puts his money in bonds and retires from allwork goes down hill quickly, and feels he is of no use in the world. 

The farmer who moves in town to live on his income is a sorryindividual unless he has a garden and chickens, or buys and sellsfarms, or occupies his time with work of some kind. 

The retired, non-working farmer who has moved to town gets up in themorning, goes to see the train come in, whittles a stick, loafs at thehotel or store, goes to the next train, talks of his rheumatism, goesto bed at eight o'clock, and the next day goes through the samerigmarole. 

We have all seen these old codgers who have retired. They are not happybecause they have quit their life's habit of work, and are rusting out. 

Occupation is the plan of nature to keep man happy, so when you haveall the money you need, have some occupation or hobby to occupy yourtime. 

The man who retires from any active work is merely counting the daysuntil he dies. 

When old age comes and your body or brain won't let you do or care foras much as you could in your younger days, then get lighter work orlighter cares. 

Keep busy if it is only raising chickens or gardening, or studyingastronomy or botany. 

Keep at it as long as you can. Die in the harness instead of fadingslowly away. 

Cultivate the reading habit in your younger days that it may be apleasant occupation when your legs and hands grow feeble with age. 

When you quit work or occupation of some sort then life has no beautyfor you. 

Stand When Selling

You can make your point clearer, you can talk with more force, you canimpress and convince your customer better if you stand while he isseated. 

Have you ever noticed that when you are seated and the other fellow isstanding it puts you at a disadvantage? Try it some time. 

Have you not noticed that if you are seated and your adversary isstanding, when you get enthusiastic and wish to combat his argument, itis impossible for you to get in your best licks while you are seated?You involuntarily rise when you make your strong points and are full ofyour subject. 

How far would a life insurance man or an advertising man get if he satdown and leaned back and relaxed while talking to you?

You will observe that the good solicitor declines with thanks yourproffered chair. He stands up, he knows the value of standing. 

By the relation between his standing and you sitting it makes him apositive and you a negative force. He forces--you receive. 

How much would an orator impress his audience if he delivered hislecture in a sitting posture?

You cannot combat argument very well if you are sitting, nor can youconvince others as well sitting as standing. 

When you call on a customer carry a busy air with you. Stand up. Talkstraight from the shoulder. Make your point and claims clear. Placeyour position or proposition definitely, forcefully and quickly beforeyour customer. Make a good get-away when you have accomplished yourpurpose. 

If you don't land him the first time, get away anyway. Let him see thatyour time is money, and that you appreciate that his time is money, too. 

Don't visit. Gracefully and politely decline the chair that is offered;say that your limit of time and disinclination to trespass require yourstay to be brief. 

Stand. Keep busy and active. Get away quickly, and you will be welcomenext time. 

The short stayer is a welcome guest. He may not land his customers asquickly, but in the end he will land more customers, and hold themcloser and retain them longer than the tedious, visiting, social borewho sits and sits and sits. 

The Best Vantage Ground

In closing a contract or settling a dispute it makes considerabledifference whether you are in the other fellow's office or in your own. 

The man in whose office the transaction takes place has the decidedadvantage. 

If you have a disputed bill, or if you wish to make a contract formaterial or merchandise use every effort to get the other man in youroffice. When you go to another office you are on the aggressive, whenanother man comes to your office you are on the defensive. 

It is great diplomacy to get the man you deal with to come to youinstead of going to him. In proportion as you are diplomatic you willbe able to benefit. 

If you meet the other man in a club, hotel or a place outside of youroffice or the other man's office, then the vantage ground is even andneither has the best of it so far as location is concerned. 

Starting from an even vantage ground the advantage shifts greatly oneway or the other according to whether you go or the other man comes. 

Railroad officials, bankers and great merchants realize the importanceof having the vantage ground in their favor. 

The merchant, for instance, has private rooms and regular office hoursfor his buyers, and he lets the manufacturers come to him. 

Stop a moment and look over your own experience, and you will recallnumerous instances where it has been to your advantage to close a dealin your own office. 

There is nothing in what we have written in this series of talks thathas less theory in it than this particular chapter. 

There is no point we have made more surely proven by experience. 

The army that attacks the enemy in the enemy's country has the oddsagainst it, as all wars have proven. Men fight best at home on theirown vantage ground. 

Whether you are buying or selling try to close the deal in your ownplace of business. 

If you have travelers on the road let it be part of their business andduty to invite and persuade customers to call at your place of businesswhen they are in town. 

Ambition

A man without ambition had better content himself with learning atrade. A good mechanic is fairly sure of three dollars a day, andfifty-two weeks' employment in the year. 

The mechanic does not have many worries. He does not have notes to meetat the bank. He does not have to face the ingratitude of employes andpetty jealousies, for he has no employes working for him. 

He lays down his tools when the bell rings and goes home to his family. His ambition is to have a good place to sleep, plenty to eat, moneyenough to buy clothing for his family and to send his children toschool, and extra spending money enough over his fixed charges to allowhim to take his family to the circus when it comes to town. 

Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates takingchances. 

Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at thisstatement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successfulbusiness man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in moremoney than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is agambler. The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase hisearnings is not a gambler. 

We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaperwe can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble. 

Any man with two hands and ordinary health can earn a livelihood, butthe ambitious man wants to make a name for himself and to make asuccess in business, so he works harder than he would do if his problemwere only the obtaining of money enough to buy the things necessary forhis existence. 

The moment a man loses ambition, his progress, so far as businessadvancement is concerned, ceases. 

Nearly every successful business today is successful because theproprietors, in the infancy of the business, were filled with ambitionwhich made them work hard. 

We are all familiar with the successful business man who loses hisambition. It is an absolute certainty that as soon as a man losesambition his business falls off, unless he makes it an object to takecare of the ambitious young men in his employ, so that they may keep upthe pace of progress he established. 

Lawyers

Keep in touch with a lawyer, but don't take his advice on businessmatters. 

A lawyer should be like a dictionary--a place of reference. 

Lawyers by the very nature of their vocation have much to do withconcerns who are in trouble, and with firms who are poorly managed. 

Lawyers know law first and business second; the business man knowsbusiness first and law second. 

The advice of one successful business man is worth the advice oftwenty-three lawyers on a matter of business. 

Use the lawyer to keep you out of trouble. Let him see your contractsand the papers and agreements pertaining to leases, sales, purchases, royalties, and all documents which may from their nature be broughtinto court as evidence. These things are the ones on which to take thelawyer's advice. 

When you are pushed into a corner and must fight, then get the bestlawyer, for in a fight in court, like a fight in the prize ring, thebest trained and equipped man usually wins. 

It's more often the best lawyer wins than the best side of the case. 

Legal struggles seldom pay. Law suits take up time and money, and theresult, even if in your favor, seldom offsets the time, money and worryyou have expended. 

The good lawyer keeps you from fighting. Many lawyers, however, aregrafters, and they advise fight, for they win whether you do or not. 

Settle disputes even if you are imposed on. There is littlesatisfaction in getting a judgment for one hundred dollars, when yourlawyers fees are fifty dollars and you have expended two hundreddollars' worth of time and worry over the case. 

Ask your lawyer's advice on the legal status of your operations, andnot on business propositions. 

If you are a success in business that is an evidence, generallyspeaking, that your judgment is good. 

You can get all the advice you want for nothing. If you state a caseand lay out a proposed plan, and then ask your friends' advice on thesubject, you can safely count that nine out of ten will say that yourproposition is all right as outlined by you. 

These friends figure that you have given the plan much thought andstudy, and it is much simpler for them to coincide with your opinionthan to take an opposite view. 

Honestly between ourselves we must admit that when we seek advice wegenerally do it only for the purpose of having our own opinionsconfirmed, and, if our friends do not agree with us, we say they areprejudiced. 

Lawyers don't see the smooth, systematic, well balanced side ofbusiness, and their knowledge is all negative instead of positive onbusiness matters. 

If you have an important move in mind, map out the plan carefully, laythe plan out in detail, be conservative in your estimate of prospectiveprofits, and always make a liberal allowance for cost over the figuresyou have prepared, and deduct a liberal percentage from the receiptsyou anticipate. Be very conservative in matters of figures, and thensome. 

The building you propose to put up will cost far more than yourarchitect tells you. You know this in advance, and you make anallowance for extras, but when the bills all come in you will find thatin addition to the estimated cost and the extras which you have figuredon, there will be something else to pay. 

The sales of a business you propose to embark in will be less than youor your manager figure they will be. 

Always allow for enthusiasm and imagination in the matter ofprospective receipts. 

When your plans are all in shape show the documents, contracts andagreements to your lawyer, and get his legal, but not his personal, advice. 

You must be the doctor of your own business. 

Remember, a lawyer knows law, and a business man knows business. 

Be a Producer

Employes are divided into two classes--the kind that makes profits andthe kind that is on the expense side of the ledger. 

The young man who has the foresight and ability to get on the sellingside, the side that brings profit to the house, has the decidedadvantage over the young man who is on the expense side. 

Book-keepers, stock-keepers, clerks and all other expense employes arepaid far lower salaries than the salesmen and buyers, those who produceresults. 

In the newspaper business the editor with his college education haspractically attained his limit of progress when he is 40 years old. Hemay get from $20. 00 to $80. 00 or even $100. 00 a week as editor. 

The young man in the advertising department may get from $50. 00 to$200. 00 a week. He is a producer of tangible results; the editorproduces theoretical results. 

In every business the man who sells things, who brings in the profits, is the man who gets the best pay. 

The boss will grudgingly give a dollar a week increase to thebook-keeper. He only thinks what it would cost him to replace thebook-keeper. 

The producer gets his increases in $5. 00 and $10. 00 a week jumps. 

The expense employe is in competition with the great army of theunemployed, and there are multitudes who will work for less money thanthe man who is holding his job on the expense side. 

The producer, on the other hand, knows how much profit he is bringinginto his house, and if those profits are steadily increasing he may besure his salary will increase proportionately. If it does not he canalways get another position by laying the facts and figures before somemore enterprising house. 

The producer is seldom out of a situation. If for any reason he is outof employment temporarily he can go to a good house and work oncommission, or get a small drawing account, and at three or six monthstalk salary on actual showing made. 

The shrewd business man won't let profits slip away if he can help it, so the real producer sits in a pretty good seat. He has only to showwhat he can do and he will be paid accordingly. 

The expense man's only stock in trade is faithfulness, neatness andamount of detail he can handle. He has little lee-way in the matter ofsalary, for thousands are faithful, thousands are neat and thousandscan perform great amounts of detail. 

The young man just out of school should have for his ideal that heshall be a producer first and a proprietor later on. To this end heshould equip himself by spending four or five years acquainting himselfthoroughly with all the phases and departments of the business andlearning the facts about the manufacture of the goods he expects tosell eventually. All this understanding and preparation will be ofgreat service when he is a salesman, and greater service when he is aproprietor. 

The writer started wholly dependent upon his own exertions for alivelihood at fourteen years of age. At fifteen he learned shorthand byevening study. At sixteen he attended to the correspondence and mailorder department for his employer. At eighteen he was getting $8. 00 aweek in cash for his services, and many times that amount in valuedexperience. 

"One day he got a blank application for a $75. 00 clerkship in the PostOffice. At that time appointments were made by political pull and notthrough the civil service. The writer took the blank to a relative, whowas the leading politician of the State. He asked for the endorsementof this senator and received this advice: "Young man, my signature tothis sheet would get you the job, but if you were my son I would notlet you take the place. I will give you some advice, which isthis--never take a political, railroad or bank job. In all thesecallings you are in competition with thousands of others. Thecompensation is small, the chance to better your position is remote, and you are a machine. If you want to make a success of life be aproducer, learn to sell things. "

This advice was acted on, and the writer remembers it as the turningpoint in his career. 

It is a sad thing to see the old man working for $40. 00 or $50. 00 amonth who in the past drew $3, 000 or $4, 000 a year. Such men wereexpense men and not producers. 

Moves on the checker board of business are made quickly. The man withsilver hair may be an accountant or confidential man drawing a goodsalary. Something happens, his firm goes out of business or sells out, and our old friend is left without a position. He has been used to thecomforts and associations a good salary allows, and now he findshimself out of a place and faces the necessity of starting over again, and his competitors are young and active men ready for the battle oflife. 

The old man out of a job goes around amongst his friends. The friendcan do nothing but gives him a letter of recommendation. He is passedalong from one to another until he is foot-sore and heart sick andweary of it all. 

He winds up as a sleeping car conductor, or gets a position as floorwalker or clerk at the inquiry desk. 

The producer, be he ever so old or ever so often out of a job, cancatch on again. He gets his job on results and not sympathy. 

Business men are on the lookout for producers. 

Young man, learn to be a producer. 

The Man--Not the Plan

We are prone to give credit to the plan as being the thing that makes asuccessful business. It is not the plan, it is the man behind the planthat is responsible for the success. 

The man who has a well-defined ideal, who hews to the line, whoeliminates all deterrent influences, who concentrates his energy on hisideal, who bends his efforts towards the one thing is pretty sure toaccomplish his purpose. 

We often see a man make a marked success in a field that others haveconsidered barren. 

Take a small town, for instance, where there are many retail stores. The people of the town will tell the prospective merchant that the townis already overcrowded with stores, that none of the stores seem to bemaking more than a bare living, and that it would be impossible foranother store to make a success, on account of the already overcrowdedconditions, yet the right man comes along and starts a store in thattown and makes a marked success. 

If the plan were the making of success, all an enterprising businessman would have to do would be to pick out some plan which wassuccessful and then imitate it. 

The great ocean of business has many derelicts on it as a result ofcopying plans. It is a part of the law of compensation that the man whooriginates a plan and carries it to successful conclusion has a patenton his business. This patent is his individuality and good businessequipment. The man who steals his plan physically is unable to stealthe mental end. 

Since men have recorded facts in the shape of history, we find that menhave made successes of plans and businesses that have been discarded bytheir predecessors as played-out plans. 

When a plan is presented to you do not calculate the outcome by theplan, but by the man. 

Two banks may start side by side with exactly the same office furnitureand exactly the same business operations. They use the same kind ofmoney; they make loans on lands or on securities. The operations ofthese two banks may be as closely identical as possible, yet within tenyears one bank will have considerable surplus and the other may be outof business. 

If the plan were the measure of success these two banks should fareequally well, but the fact that they differed so materially is initself evidence that the success is determined by the individuals andnot the plan. 

The illustration of a bank may be carried into other lines, merchandising, manufacturing or railroading. 

Compensation

The law of Compensation is--you pay for what you get, or you get whatyou pay for. 

This law says if a horse can run fast it can't pull a good load andvice versa. 

This law says a horse cannot go fast far. 

It says that for every sorrow there is a joy, for every positive thereis a negative. 

Where evil exists there is some good to offset it, says compensation. 

The law of compensation is the measure optimists use, and in nearlyevery chapter we have written in this series, compensation will befound as a ground-work. 

You can't get away from nor violate this rule of compensation. 

It is not new, it is as old as creation itself. 

Centuries ago it was expressed this way: "Whatsoever a man soweth thatshall he also reap. "

Too many try to ignore this great rule, they try to get something fornothing. 

You may eat first and pay afterwards, or you may pay first and eatafterwards. 

You may play the butterfly; sip life's sweets and sow your wild oatsnow, but pay day will come and may be you will be unable to pay. 

You may spend your income now and suffer want later on. 

You may work hard now and play as you go along. You may have happinesseach day you live; you can make life worth living if you work. 

Happiness is compensation for work; no work, no happiness. 

You may have what you want, but, you must pay for it. 

Millions cost happiness and often cost health too. 

The dinner is properly balanced when it has sweets as well assubstantials. The sensible person finds the dinner is better if thesweets come after the substantials. 

To violate the law of compensation is to eat the sweets first and thenthe substantials, and by this law the substantials do not taste goodwhen they are eaten after the sweets. 

The man who procrastinates is violating the law of compensation. Whenyou see your duty attend to it at once. 

The Boss

By the boss we mean the active proprietor, the executive head, theowner of the business. He is sometimes called the "old man. "

The success of an institution depends largely upon the example set bythe boss. 

If the boss is careless in little things, if he is sharp in hispractice, if he does mean acts, he may rely upon it his employes willcopy him, and later on, when some blow strikes the business, he willfind it has happened through the practices of the employes who gottheir cues from the boss. 

Kindness wins kindness; love wins love. If the boss is generous andcharitable, if he sets a good example, he will have an esprit de corpsamong his employes that is of incalculable value. 

There is not one chance in a thousand for the boss to make a successunless he has risen to the position of boss, and climbed and earned hisposition through steady progress. 

The boss must know how to do the things he hires others to do. 

The boss who can show an employe his error in a kindly manner and pointout a better method, leaves a good feeling in the heart of thatemploye. 

The boss who shows his heart to the employe and is concerned in thethings not necessarily business will be repaid a thousand-fold inloyalty and willingness on the part of the employe. 

Employes deeply appreciate consideration, and especially the littlekindnesses which are not what might be called business practice. 

The boss should not be too far aloof; he should be just head andshoulders above those working under him; he should be just far enoughabove that he stands out as a commander. 

He should be willing to grant an audience to an employe and should workwith him. 

The boss should say we rather than I. He should talk with the employesand not down to them. He should make each individual under him feelthat he is part of the institution and an element in its success. 

Remember this--employes watch the boss and they copy him. Where youfind hard working employes you will find a hard working boss. 

The boss cannot run the whole business himself; he is dependent uponwilling hands, and, in order to get willing hands, he must have willinghands himself. 

If the boss is alert and discovers wastes and leaks in his business, the employes will discover them too, and the business will receivedouble benefit. 

Sizing Up Things

One of the most necessary as well as beneficial practices a man canhave is to take fifteen minutes to an hour each day and devote the timeto sizing up things, to planning the day's work for the morrow, tothreshing the wheat from the chaff, to reviewing the accomplishments ofthe day. 

Sizing up things can only be well done in solitude. 

The benefits of sizing up things in solitude are so great it is awonder more has not been written on the subject. 

Plants grow in darkness, yet the common understanding is they grow insunshine. The sunshine is absolutely necessary for the growth of theplant, but the real growth is done in the quiet darkness. 

A man's brain develops in solitude, yet bustle and crowds and businessactivity are as necessary to the man as sunshine is to the plant. 

The real brain and moral growth takes place in solitude. 

Here again we must remember the law of compensation, for if a plant hadall sunshine and no shadow, and if a man had all hustle and bustle andno solitude, it would be like a machine without a governor; the man andthe plant would run so fast something would have to give way. 

On the other hand compensation says that if a man is too much insolitude, or the plant too much in darkness, they will wither and die. 

Man has always had strong admiration for the strong individual, whetherbird, beast, fish, plant or human. 

There are two kinds of birds, the kind that lives in flocks, like theblackbird and the wild duck, and the kind that lives by itself, likethe eagle. Amongst birds the eagle is chosen as an emblem for the flag, and never the duck or blackbird. 

Amongst beasts there are two classes, the herd kind like sheep, and thestrong individual, like the lion. The lion is the symbol of strengthand courage, the sheep the symbol of innocence and simplicity. The lionappears on coat of arms but not the sheep. 

In the fish family there are two classes, the kind that lives inschools, like the mackerel, and the kind that lives by itself, like thewhale. 

When first the savage drew a rude picture of a fish on his hut it was awhale, and not a mackerel. 

We do not find the mackerel's picture excepting at the fish dealers andon the menu, and then only because the mackerel is good to eat. 

Among trees the one that attains great proportions and beautifulsymmetry is yonder giant oak or elm that grows in the open. It needsroom to breathe and grow. It grows better if it is segregated from thecrowded forest. The giant tree is not the one that grows in the denseforest. 

There are two kinds of men, the kind that lives in the herd and thekind that has strong individuality that needs room to grow. The herdman exists in infinitely greater numbers than the individual man. 

We cannot imagine Lincoln, Bismarck, Webster, Clay, Edison or Burbankliving in the herd, or spending their time in the boulevard cafes. 

The man who lives in a herd, who is ever present where the lights arebright, where gaiety abounds, where excitement reigns, where feastingis present, soon gets himself into the habit of cultivating thisexcitement. He is never happy when alone. 

The brain never sleeps and something must occupy it. The herd man fillshis brain with frivolous things, he seeks constant excitement. He islike the plant always in the sun, he burns himself out. 

The great man with the individuality is great because he has alwaysspent plenty of tune by himself, sizing up things in solitude. Sizingup things makes the brain grow and makes it stronger. 

The universities of this country tend in a great measure to produce theherd man. The students dress alike. All have the same mannerisms, allhave the same tilt to their hats, and all the same turned up trousers. They feed at certain restaurants and crowd in flocks. Very few collegemen learn the benefits of sizing up things in solitude until in afteryears. 

On the other hand the student in the school of practical experiencedoes not copy his fellow students. That is why in this great practicalexperience school we find Lincolns, Edisons, Jim Hills and Carnegies. Those men have to wrestle with the problems for themselves. They had tosize up things in solitude instead of reading the sizing up from textbooks, as is done in the regular university. 

Every man before retiring at night, or even during the day, should takea few minutes to himself and carefully analyze the doings of the day. 

He should weigh the positive and negative acts, the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish, the right and the wrong impulses, the gainand loss in achievement. He should strike a balance, and if he seesthat the bad, deterrent and backward things in the lead he shouldresolve to get a move on himself. 

The man who goes along without this sizing up things in solitude islike the merchant who keeps no record, who pays his bills from the cashdrawer and takes what is left for profit. He will still be running alittle shop in twenty years, while his competitor who sized things upeach day will be in the wholesale business or will have retired with acompetency. 

Try this sizing up things for two weeks, and the benefits you willreceive will be so manifest it will need no further suggestion to makeyou keep up the practice. 

Competition

The saying is "competition is the life of trade, " and this saying istrue, or it would not have endured so long. 

If it were not for competition we should be living in the woods in astate of savagery. 

Ages ago all men and women led the simple life. Their chief vocationwas idleness. When the weather was hot the man sat in the shade; as thesunshine crept to him he moved into the shade again. In winter hereversed the process. 

When our savage ancestor felt a pain in his stomach, his simpleinstinct showed him that if he put things in his mouth and swallowedthem the pain in the stomach would leave. 

This low browed man's whole object in life was to keep from havingthose hunger pains, and the only energy he expended was in hustling forfood and in protecting his food from the other savages. 

One day a man observed that the beasts lived on each other, so heconceived the idea that it would be good for him to live on otheranimals. That it would be easier than digging roots and gatheringherbs, so this man caught and ate slow-moving animals. He used a clubto do the killing. 

Along about here competition began, for another man learned to throw aclub and kill his game. Then another competitor discovered that a roundstone was a more effective weapon than a club. 

These hairy forbears of ours lived in caves until competition led up tothe building of huts. 

One day a savage discovered that while the skins of animals were hardto eat, they nevertheless made a good body covering. Another discoveredthat if the skins were tied about him it left his arms free to act. This man was the first tailor. He punched holes in the skin and tiedthe rude garment together with strips of skin. This first tailor wasquite an important man among his fellows on account of his greatdiscovery. 

Some of these wild men were fleet of foot and had well developedcunning. They became expert hunters. On the other hand some of the lessactive, by the law of compensation, became more expert tailors, sotrade was formed. The hunter killed enough for himself and the tailor, while the tailor made clothes for both of them. 

In these days the woodsman lived on animals and the plainsman onvegetables mostly. So the woodsman traded skin clothing with theplainsman for grains and herbs, and this marked the birth of commerce. 

Then dugouts and canoes were built, and thus our ancestors crossedlakes and seas and developed maritime commerce. 

From away back in those dark ages up to the present time competitionhas stimulated mankind and spurred him on towards better conditions. The whole human race has benefited by each improvement whichcompetition has brought about. 

We have in mind a certain mail order house that up to 1894 had thingsits own way. Then it sold two to three million dollars worth ofmerchandise annually. A competitor came into the field, stirred thingsup, and now the old mail order house is doing eight to ten times asmuch business per annum as they did before they had the competition. 

In the matter of competition we must early learn not to worry overcompetition, but to derive as much good from it as possible. 

If a competitor does something better than you do, do not kick orprotest, but jump into the band wagon and do the thing as well orbetter than he does it. 

Price cutting is the simplest and most common phase of competition, buta better way to get advantage over your competitor is to improve yourbusiness by cutting off wastes and leaks, and reducing fixed and fancycharges so you can give your customers more quality and more quantityfor the money. 

In proportion as you increase the value you give for a dollar, just soyou will find it easier to get the dollar. 

Do not regard competition as hurtful to your business, but rather lookupon it as a pace-maker for you. 

If you had ten experts working for you studying how to improve yourbusiness you would certainly get benefit from it, but probably notenough benefit to offset the great cost of hiring these ten experts. 

On the other hand, if you have ten competitors who are sitting upnights studying how to improve their businesses, you can get thebenefit of their experience without it costing you anything. 

The world is big and there is room for all, but old compensation saysthe prizes are given to the fittest. 

If you are a laggard, if you are on the defensive instead of on theaggressive, get busy, wake up, do it now. 

Advertising

Good advertising is good publicity. Advertising is the thing that makesyour trade increase. 

Everything you do in connection with your business and every act ofyours outside of your business is an advertisement. 

Reputation is an advertisement, so is honesty, politeness, correspondence, methods, catalogues, circulars and salesmen. Neatnessis an advertisement, and so is promptness, thoroughness. And then thereis another kind of advertising which is your statement in thenewspaper. This is the printed kind of advertising, and this kind ofadvertising is the most common, in fact, when we suggest that youshould advertise, it immediately comes to your mind that advertising isspace in the newspaper. 

Keep in mind, however, when we speak of advertising we refer toeverything in connection with your business that makes an impressionupon the public or the prospective buyer. 

Some of the old timers refrain from printed advertising in newspapers, saying that the best advertisement is merit. Merit is a goodadvertisement, but it is mighty slow in its action. 

If the inventor of the typewriter planned and built the machine in hisbarn without letting anyone know about it, if he kept absolutely quietabout his doings, relying on the fact that the typewriter had merit, itwould never be known to the public unless he told about it. If theinventor of the typewriter waited for merit alone as the vehicle foracquainting the world with the merits of the typewriter, the worldwould never know of it, unless, perhaps, a fire inspector or an healthofficer accidently stumbled across the machine while inspecting thepremises. 

If the inventor waited for intrinsic merit to sell his goods, he wouldfind that months and years would elapse before he could develop hisbusiness into profitable proportions. 

If you have a good thing you must tell about it. Telling makes selling. Telling is advertising. 

Professional men hold up their hands in horror when you suggestadvertising to them. They tell you they don't believe in advertising, that it is not ethical, that it is not dignified. Doctors and lawyersare most notable in this respect. One of the first things of their codeof ethics is "Thou shalt not advertise. " They mean paid newspaperadvertising. The man who originated this idea evidently did not havethe money to pay for any, and it was a case of sour grapes. 

Let us look into this matter of ethics and see whether the doctor andthe lawyer really believe what they say about this matter ofadvertising. 

It is a rare spectacle to find a lawyer who will not gladly give aninterview to a newspaper reporter during some important trial. 

The doctor gladly avails himself of the opportunity to read a paperbefore a medical society, and he sees to it that this paper ispublished in a medical journal later on. 

Professional men belong to clubs, take part in public affairs, speakbefore people, work on committees, and actively take part in anythingthat will bring them in the limelight of publicity. They do thisadvertising themselves, yet they say they do not believe inadvertising. 

Uncle Sam builds war ships, equips his soldiers splendidly, conductshis business affairs with high grade talent, all this that the UnitedStates may be well advertised among our sister nations. 

Advertising is absolutely essential to successful business. Not printedadvertising alone but all kinds of advertising. The quality, the price, your aggressiveness, everything in your business is an advertisement, either a good advertisement or a bad one. It behooves you to see theadvertising you do, whatever kind it may be, is of the good kind. 

If you expect to remain in business a long time your advertisementsmust be good. Keep in mind that methods are advertisements. 

One bad move, which is a bad advertisement for you, calls for two ormore good moves or good advertisements. 

Have everything, every detail of your business carry a goodadvertisement, that is, have it help your business. 

Have every employe pulling on the same center tugs and have them allface forward, and your vehicle will move forward. 

Buying

The buyer derives much information and much shrewdness by carefullywatching the seller's methods. 

Some buyers seem to think that bull-dozing tactics, cute lies andirritable manners make the seller humble, weak-kneed and non-combative. This is a great mistake. 

The best buyer is first a gentleman. He keeps his word, he is patientand he knows his business thoroughly. 

The buyer gains much by being open and above board with the seller. Letthe seller know that your success consists in getting as much value asyou can for the money, and that your continuous trade will result onlythrough fair treatment. 

Let the seller understand that the better he treats you in the matterof price and quality the better you will be able to treat yourcustomers, and the longer you will be able to deal with the seller. 

The moment a buyer shows bull-dozing methods, the seller isantagonized, and his object then is to soak the buyer. 

The buyer who keeps his temper and goes at the matter philosophicallyis the one who wins out. 

The buyer should explain to the seller that the seller can get the bestof him once and may be twice, but not more than that. 

The main thing for the buyer to possess is a most thorough knowledge ofthe goods he buys. Learn who makes the goods and where they are made, and get at the factory cost. 

Then learn whose factories have the best reputation, and whose are thebest fitted and established to make the goods you buy. 

Remember you can afford to investigate. When you find a factoryover-sold you will find that factory more independent. When you find afactory short of orders you will find them eager for your trade, andthe chances are you can do much better with this factory than with theone that is behind on its orders. 

Don't get excited, don't hurry. Speak gently. Know your ground. Cultivate a reputation for fairness rather than smoothness. Laxity andindifference in buying means that you are allowing wastes and leaks tocreep in your business, and that you are placing a handicap on yourtraveling salesman, for goods well bought are half sold. 

Expenses

If you get confidential with Mr. Bradstreet or Mr. Dun so that theywill give you access to the inside history of the commercial concernswhich have failed in business, you will quickly discover that in themajority of cases the cause of the failure was "too much expense. "

It has become quite a common saying in speaking of failures that "theexpenses ate up the profits. "

Our friends Mr. Dun and Mr. Bradstreet tell us that there is about oneconcern in fifty which succeeds in business. If you will look at thesuccesses you will find out that the proprietors were good buyers aswell as good sellers but that the particular point that made themsuccessful was their ability to make careful analysis in the matter ofexpenses. 

The business man should have his expenses divided into as manyclassifications as possible. His payroll should be separated intovarious departments, office, salesmen, workmen, accounting, and so on;through all the items of expense the division should be made as finelyas possible. 

The proprietor should have a statement each week on his desk showinghow every cent was expended. These items should be summarized monthly, and constant reference made to the items of expense in comparison withitems of expense for the previous month, as well as items of expensefor the same month of the previous year. 

One of the pit-falls in nearly every business is "general expense" or"sundry expense. " This department is a catchall for a lot of items, andit hides a lot of leaks and wastes in business. 

You can't divide your expense items too minutely. The finer thedivisions, the easier you can detect a waste of money. 

The business man who has a statement of both receipts and expenses isin the position of the first engineer of an ocean steamer; he does notseem to be doing much and does not worry unless something goes wrong, then he shows his training and ability to mend breaks and repair weakplaces. 

If the business man analyzes his sources of income into severaldivisions the same as he does his items of expense, he will find it aneasy matter to correct errors that creep in the business. He does nothave to worry about those items of expense which show minus, nor aboutthose items of receipts which show plus. 

With a finely divided sheet of both expenses and receipts you canquickly determine where the profit is coming from and where the leaksappear. 

If an expense item shows plus, you can run down that item and seereasons for it and endeavor to bring down that expense. If a receiptitem shows minus, you can run down that item and endeavor to increasethe receipts. 

The writer has a little printed card on his check book and it reads"Drive the axe into expenses. " It is a constant reminder to stop thewastes. 

The only real success that comes to the business man is the profits atthe end of the year, that is, the amount of money he makes net. 

It is easier to increase profits by cutting the expenses in many casesthan it is to increase profits by increasing sales. And here let usremark that on this subject, as well as all the other subjects we arewriting about in this series of articles, we have in mind the matter ofcommon sense, temperate action. Extremes carry things too far. You mustnot cut the expenses beyond the point where it seriously interfereswith the sales. 

If you are interested in this matter of expense, and you certainlyshould be, take up your items of expense for last month or last year, go over the cost of help, the cost of raw material and the cost ofmanufacturing; go over each branch of your expenses, analyze the itemscarefully, look into every point thoroughly, and we will guarantee thatat the end of your analysis you will see where you can save arespectable sum in the operation of your business. In going into thismatter of expense, do not take all the items at once, but take eachitem up separately and go through it thoroughly. 

Do not assume that you are paying too much for everything, but use goodsense and good judgment and see that you get your money's worth. Takethe item of wages. Look over the individuals in your employ, and youwill see a place, for instance, where two persons can do the work threeare now doing. Remember, it is generally true that where two personsare engaged in handling a certain department and they are overworked, the tendency is to give them additional help. When this is done youwill find thenceforth all three are busy. In other words, each of thetwo persons who were formerly overworked ease up and do less work themoment the third person is given as assistant. You have noticed thatwhere you put three employes to do the work formerly done by two, it isalmost impossible--if you take the employe's word--to get two employesto do the work after three have been doing it. 

The work should push the employe. The employer should get full capacityof his employes. 

Look over your pay roll and make up your mind that here and there youare going to employes and ask them to help you save money, and at thesame time you will let them earn more money for themselves. You willfind that this plan works admirably. 

For instance, if you have three employes getting $10. 00 a week each; goto the two who do the most work and say to them: "If you can do thework of this department with one less employe I will give you each$3. 00 a week more. " In this way you will pay two employes $13. 00 a weekinstead of three employes $10. 00 a week each. This will save you $4. 00on that particular part of your payroll. If you save proportionatelyall through your payroll it will make a decided profit in itself. 

Saving can also be made in the payroll by taking one of the heads ofthe department into your confidence and letting out the work to him bycontract, offering to give him one-half, or one-third or one-quarter ofthe amount he can save in his department. 

It is surprising to see how different his argument will be when hispocket is affected. For instance, in the past he explained to you thathis department is behind in its work because he has not enough help. 

He has been asking for more help right along, but never asked that someof the help be laid off. 

If, on the other hand, you say to him you will give him one-third ofwhat he can save in the matter of wages in his department, you willinstantly notice that his whole argument and attitude change. Hediscovers that he has ability to pick out employes who do the mostwork, and lets out the four-flushers and idlers. 

Remember, that as a rule the best paid employes are the cheapest. Youcan well afford to pay the heads of your departments more wages if theycan save you more money. 

A manufacturer should divide the number of completed articles done perday or per week by the amount of wages paid, and find out what the wageitem is in each department per article. 

Suppose that under your present system it costs you eighty cents inwages per article in Department A, sixty cents per article inDepartment B, etc. Explain to the foreman of Department A that it isnow costing you eighty cents per article for wages in his department, and to the foreman of Department B that wages are costing you sixtycents per article in his department. Tell these employes you will givethem one-third or one-half of whatever they can save in theirdepartments. You will find Department A will cost you from seventy toseventy-five cents per article thereafter, and Department B from fiftyto fifty-five cents per article, and in the meantime the foreman of thedepartment is making more money for you, and likewise making more moneyfor himself, than under the old system. 

This matter of expense is most important, and should have the mostserious attention of the proprietor. 

Advice

One of the things most frequently asked for and yet one seldom made useof, is advice. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the man who comes toyou for advice as a matter of fact really wants to have his own opinionconfirmed. 

Do not go around with a pocket full of advice offering it to everyone. If you advise a man to change his habits or manner of life he willresent your proffered aid. The best way to give advice is to takeanother fellow for example and hit your friend through the illustrationof the other fellow. Let him discover the point himself rather than letit appear that you are telling him the thing. 

The matter of advice is a very hard thing to properly understand. Youadvise another to do a certain thing, forgetting in the meanwhile, thatif you were in his position your view-point would be his and not yourown. You play your strong qualities against his weak ones. 

It is easy enough for you to advise a drunkard not to drink, butdifficult for you to understand his view point on the subject if youare not a drinking man yourself. 

Giving advice usually comes about because we see a weakness in others. The opposite of this weakness is a feature in our own make-up. 

The business man who is constantly asking advice is advertising thefact of his uncertainty of his own actions. Your great problems must bedecided by yourself. 

The one thing that separates the sheep from the goats, and success fromfailure, is the ability to analyze, study and weigh problems foryourself, and to make decisions for yourself. 

The law of compensation comes in here again, for in proportion as youhave self-reliance and good judgment your success will be measured. 

You may rely upon it that if you go about seeking advice, you will gettwo kinds of advice--First: the advice that concurs with your ownpreference or decision; and, second, the kind that is in opposition toyour views. You accept the first kind because it tickles your vanity, and you throw aside the second, saying the advice is prejudiced. 

Don't ask advice. Size up and weigh the problem yourself and use yourown best judgment. 

Reading

The business man who goes along day by day without taking on anyresponsibilities or without tackling more difficult problems, finds hedoes not progress. 

The man who gets into a rut and reads light, frothy literature all thetime--the kind that is pleasing to the imagination, the kind thatleaves no permanent impression--does not progress mentally. 

Reading should be like eating, we should have the dessert as well asthe substantials. It would be a great mistake to eat dessert alone, andit is certainly a mistake to read light, frothy reading matter alone. 

One of the prime requisites to a successful career is concentration ofthought. Few things will dissipate thought as much as over-reading ofnewspapers. 

The newspaper starts in with the first page, and by the time you havefinished the last column oh the last page you may have read a hundredarticles, each one of these articles touching on a different line ofthought. The daily newspaper contains climaxes of all kinds. Eacharticle is a distinct change of thought. The daily newspaper gives usstatistics, sorrow, laughter, crime, passion, death, lies, humor, andso on all through the gamut of the scale of human experience. 

The man who craves the newspaper soon finds his line of thoughtfrequently interrupted, side-stepped, drawn, cut off and dispersed. 

Abundant evidences are at hand where the book reader acquired the dailynewspaper habit and reads the daily to such an extent that it isimpossible for him to read books thereafter. He has broken hiscontinuity of thought, and when this happens book reading isimpossible. 

Everyone should read two or three or more books at a time. One shouldbe an interesting book, whether history, story or comedy, so long as itis well written and along lines that will hold one's interest. Oneshould read one book after another of this sort as a dessert for hisdinner, as it were, but along with it he should eat substantial food inthe nature of substantial reading. 

Do not read yourself to sleep at night over a light novel. Read yournovel for an hour or so; then take up your old philosopher or scientistand read a page, or as much as necessary to find some thought clearlyexpressed so that it will be burned into your mind. That thought willremain and will be of service to you in years to come. 

Read daily newspapers scantily. Read items concerning the business youare engaged in. Read the doings of Congress and the important events ofthe day. Go over the head-lines, if need be, and eliminate all thoseshocking stories of crime and sordid influence. Do not let yourself getinto the habit of reading the details of horrible crimes and badimpulses and criminal acts. Skip over all the details of hangings andmurders. They are weeds in the mind that choke up the beautiful flowersof thought. 

Remember, everything you read depresses or elevates, and in proportionas you accustom yourself to read substantial matter so in proportionyou will progress in this world, and have a flood of thoughts at yourcommand when requirements come upon you calling for clean-cutexpressions. 

You will write better letters, you will converse better, you will enjoysocial intercourse better if you read helpful reading matter from booksand read newspapers very sparingly. 

Argument

Not once in a thousand times will one man convince another in anargument, and the benefits you get if you do convince the other fellowwill not compensate you for the waste of energy expended on the othernine hundred and ninety-nine times when your efforts failed. 

You convince a man against his will and he is of the same opinionstill. 

There is a mighty lot of difference between argument and reason. Youmay accomplish more by dividing your case into one or two good reasonsand telling your adversary that you will not argue the case, but youwill let him look at these reasons, and when he takes it up logicallyyou will have no fear of his conclusion, for truth must triumph. 

While argument itself is a footless proposition, it is infinitely moreso if your argument is with those of less mental calibre than your own, for by the law of compensation, in proportion as a man is ignorant, hemakes up in perversity and lack of analytical ability. 

Do not stoop to contend with those who have no standing, mentally, morally or physically. It is a waste of time. 

If it is your purpose to change a man's opinion, do not try to do it byargument. Study the ground carefully. State your points withpreciseness, make careful analysis of every phase of the situation, take up the matter point by point. Start with your adversary by gettingon ground on which you both will agree. Take up the points on whichthere can be little chance for differences of opinion. You will findthe other man will get in the habit of agreeing with your propositionsand that his antagonism weakens. State facts that are right andtruthful, and are so plain that the truth will be self-evident. 

After you have made several propositions on which the other man agreeswith you wholly, then make a proposition that is ninety per cent. Hisway and ten per cent. Your way. Gradually increase that ten per cent. Until you swing him around so that he sees the truth. He then imaginesthat he has made the deduction himself. 

Remember, you can swing the biggest ship around by a steady, slow, gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser wouldproduce no effect whatever on the ship. 

The man who wishes to convert another to his way of thinking must be adiplomat if he is successful. Do not get excited, keep cool andcollected, be sure of your ground, be positive in your assertions, makethe whole matter clear, and use good judgment, sound reason and clearlogic. 

Speculation

You are playing against odds when you speculate. 

The only man who has a sure thing on the Board of Trade or StockExchange or the race track is the man with the "Wienerwurst" privilege. 

The successful business man some day wakes up to the fact that hisbills are paid, and that he has surplus money. This surplus moneyshould be used for investment purposes and not for speculation. Ofcourse, it is hard to draw the line where investment leaves off andspeculation begins. 

When you speculate on margins you are like the fellow holding on abear's tail as it runs around a tree--if you lose your hold the bearwill get you. 

The man who makes an investment, buying stocks or real estate andpaying cash for them does not have to worry about the market. Pricesmay be up or down, but the man who has paid for what he has bought willsleep well. 

You can't beat the speculation game. The only ones who make a success, and their success is ephemeral, are those who make speculation theirwhole occupation. The professional speculator is merely a high gradegambler, and he always winds up a loser. 

Go to the Stock Exchange or the Board of Trade and you will see ateither place a half a dozen old fellows hanging around. They are allmen who have seen better days. A little inquiry and diplomacy on yourpart will bring forth the fact that these men were once prominentfigures on 'Change. 

When you have more money than you need in your business buy good farmlands out west, or good timber lands. No man ever bought good farm landor good timber land at the prevailing market price and lost moneyeventually. Of course, at different seasons of the year the price ofland may go down a little temporarily, but the moment a good crop comesin, the price goes up again. 

With good clear farm land you can always go to the nearest bank andborrow from sixty to seventy-five per cent. Of its value. 

Real estate is the true basis of wealth, and if you want to play a suregame, buy land that produces things. 

When you buy vacant property in a large city, it is mere speculation. The land does not bring in any remuneration, and you are simply bettingthat the prices will increase. 

Every large city has abundant instances of vacant property that is notworth as much now as it was ten or twenty years ago. Real estate boomscome in cycles. Prices go up and men get the fever and buy vacantproperty. The boom explodes, property goes down and you can't get yourmoney back. The chances are you have bought the property on two orthree years' time, and it certainly is paying for a white elephant whenyou are paying for land that is worth less than what it cost you. Youcannot get out, however, because the original payment has already beenmade, and your only hope is to save something on your investment. 

Notwithstanding the fact that certain business sections and certainresidence sections in any city steadily increase in price, yet theaverage real estate in the city increases by very slow percentage. Thesame amount of money, put out in mortgages, with the interest added andcompounded, will develop wealth greater than the average vacantproperty investment, for where one lot soars up to a high price thereare a hundred that don't increase at all, and the picking out of thelot that is going to increase in value is as hard as picking out thehorse that is going to win the race. It is because the vacant cityproperty has only speculative value that the business man should nottouch it. 

Buy farm property that you can rent. It will bring you interest on yourmoney right along, and the tendency of farm land is and always has beensteadily forward. 

Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, was a speculator who made millions in thestreet-car system. He was thoroughly familiar with Hydraulics, and hesoaked the stocks as full of water as possible and then unloaded on theinvestors who speculated in street-car stocks. These speculators arenow holding the bag. When Mr. Yerkes closed out his holdings in Chicagohe granted an interview, and one truth he uttered in that interview hasever been remembered by the writer. It is so valuable an expressioncoming from such a successful speculator that we are going to give itto you. It is as follows: "I have never known a business man tosuccessfully speculate in grains or stocks for two years. "

The business man who is watching the ticker or calling up the StockExchange every day, who takes little flyers, is skating on mighty thinice. 

When you buy farms you are exchanging your money for the most certainthing in the world, for the basis of all wealth is land, and moneysimply represents the things which come out of the land. The thingsthat grow on the land are exchanged for gold, and the gold is exchangedfor things that come out of the land. The Government exchanges the goldfor pieces of paper called money, which in reality means that you canexchange these pieces of paper for gold, and you can exchange the goldfor the things that come out of and grow upon the land. 

The stock broker may not like this chapter because the more speculationthe more he benefits. He gets a rake-off every time a man buys andevery time a man sells. He plays a sure thing. He is like the man withthe Wienerwurst privilege. 

Don't Speculate. Invest. 

Elimination

One of the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should tryto operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrentinfluences and all things that fret him. 

Do not look for trouble. Do not concern yourself too much overdisagreeable things over which you have no control. 

Do not build up an intricate system in your business. Have simplicityyour ideal. Eliminate all useless moves. If you have disturbinginfluences in your institution, such as an employe who is continuallycausing friction, eliminate that employe. The man who causes frictionis pulling back on the forward impulses of your business, and he isholding back one or more men who are trying to help you forward. 

Get rid of useless things that take your time or cause you worry. 

Remember that as you grow successful people will come to you undervarious excuses to get your aid financially or morally. They want youto go into new companies. The officers of the Club to which you belongwill ask you to be a director. You will be invited to dinners, asked tospeak, asked to do a thousand and one things, and in proportion as youaccede to these demands you will find the demands increasing untilfinally you have little time to attend to your own affairs or to attendto your family. 

Have as your center idea--elimination. Everything that takes your timefrom your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength. 

Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfitsyou for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that isnot necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain. 

The Specialist

When this nation of ours was born nearly every one was a generalist. 

The merchant sold a general line of merchandise. The doctor was also afarmer and a horse trader. In those days there were very fewspecialists. 

As time passed some of the wiser individuals turned specialist andsucceeded. 

The doctor who is a generalist cannot excel in any one branch ofmedicine, or compete with the specialist who devotes all his time andstudy and practice towards one point and towards the treatment of aspecific ailment. The merchant who sells everything cannot compete withthe man who makes it his business to sell one class of goods. This isan age of specialists, and what we considered a specialist twenty-fiveyears ago is only a generalist from the present standpoint. Thespecialist of twenty-five years ago has been divided again and again. The best doctor today is one who doctors the eye alone, the stomachalone, or the nerves alone. He can do more for you and knows more ofyour case in five minutes' observation than the generalist would inthree months. 

With the keen competition of these days it is necessary for theindividual to be a specialist in business. 

Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individualshould be a generalist. 

Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, littleof electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little ofadvertising, little of anything else. It is because individuals havemade a speciality of one thing, because they have concentrated theirenergies and their brain power on one thing that the world hasprogressed. 

Recreation is for relaxation, and the business man should see to itthat he gets the full benefit of recreation. If he carries specialisminto recreation, recreation is spoiled, for the moment a man is aspecialist in recreation he strives to excel, and this striving toexcel is hard work, and that is the same thing he is doing in business. 

The business man who plays billiards and no other game doubtless willplay a better game than the generalist who indulges in all sorts ofgames and recreations, but the man who makes a specialty of billiardsfinds his powers centered on this game of billiards. He puts histhought on it and wishes to excel, he wishes to make a record, andbilliards then become business. 

This striving to excel in a game brings forth the same gamblinginstinct manifested in business. It is his "I will. " The business manwho plays a good game of billiards some day meets his superior, and thesuperior is the individual who does nothing but play billiards. 

If a man tries to be a specialist in billiards and a specialist inbusiness, even though both callings commence with "B, " he will findthat a division of effort is a division of results, and he will not bea success in either business or billiards. In proportion as he excelsin billiards he will be lacking in business, and vice versa. 

We remember the story of a young friend of Herbert Spencer who joinedthe great philosopher in a game of billiards. The young man played amost excellent game. When they had finished Spencer remarked: "Youngman, your education has been greatly neglected, you play billiards toowell. "

Be a specialist in business and a generalist in pleasure. Playbilliards, swim, ride, play golf and indulge in all athletic sports andso long as you get uniform pleasure and recreation from these thingsyou are doing right, you are helping your mind and developing your bodyand letting your brain rest, so that it may be keen and a greater helpin your specialty, which is business. 

The world needs specialists, and it needs specialists in recreation aswell as business, but the man who tries to be a specialist in businessas well as a specialist in recreation will fail in both, or, at least, his success will be only moderate. 

It is necessary for life's scheme that we have individuals who havesteady incomes so that they do not require to enter the strenuousbusiness life. It is necessary to have such individuals, so that theymay devote themselves to being specialists in recreation, otherwise thesports would die out. 

If you go in for sport do not expect you can compete with anybody whogoes in for sport exclusively. You can't win in two callings oroccupations. 

The String

There is a string to every proposition, and it behooves you to look outfor the string before acceding to the requests that are made of you. 

When a stranger comes and offers to do things for you, to let you in onthe ground floor, or assures you that he is working for your interest, you may be sure there is a string to his proposition, and the string isthat, as a matter of fact, it is himself instead of you he is lookingout for. 

Don't bite at the chance that is offered you to get something fornothing. The biggest kind of a string is always in such a proposition. 

Remember this, that people are selfish. Each man looks out for his owninterest, and even if he is protecting your interest, it is because hisown interest will be better conserved by looking out for yours. 

Don't decide on important matters too quickly. Don't get tied up in bigcontracts with strangers until you have found every strand of thestring. 

Don't be too suspicious but hunt for the string. It pays to be veryconservative on all matters in which others are interested. 

Sometimes the string in the proposition is legitimate and the otherfellow may be more interested than you are, but it certainly behoovesyou to see what this string is and to understand exactly where the endof the string is tied. 

Don't draw up in your shell and look upon every man with a propositionas trying to take advantage of you, but put down this as a truth--Thereis a string to every proposition, and you must find that string beforeyou close the deal. 

Horse Sense

Just how the expression "horse sense" came into use is not known, butthe meaning of the combination means good reason, old fashioned logic, simple analysis and actual truth, and the basing of your actions uponsimple things rather than complex things. 

The man who uses horse sense in his transactions gets along further andfaster than the man who uses selfishness and smartness. 

To be possessed of horse sense is a most valuable asset. It issomething you can use every day of your life. 

Horse sense is really one of the things that makes up the law ofcompensation. The law of compensation itself is the quintessence ofhorse sense. 

Luck is the gambling chance, and horse sense is the investment andsecurity chance. 

The man with horse sense may not go as far in a day as the man withluck, but he will progress more days and go further eventually than thelucky man. 

Horse sense is one of the most valuable things in the business world, and it is one of the rarest things. It is so valuable because it is sorare. 

In the business world today the men who are doing great things are themen who have horse sense. We call these men wonderful and look upontheir accomplishments as the result of some mysterious, wonder-workingpower that they possess. Wonder workers are only flashes in the pan. 

Do not hire your employes on account of your preference for a certaincolor hair or certain colored eyes. Do not hire your employes onaccount of their physical appearance, or on account of their ability todress in the height of fashion. Get down to their net worth. Find outhow much horse sense they have. Hire employes, as far as possible, whoare blessed with old fashioned horse sense. 

The Manager

The good manager is one who commands respect, not through his authoritybut because those under him appreciate that he has more ability andexperience than they have. 

The selection of a good manager is very important, for the success ofone's business depends upon its management. The proprietor cannot doall the things himself, and he must rely upon his lieutenants. 

Give a certain class of work to ten girls. Put them in a room bythemselves with no one in authority. Come back next day and you willfind that there is one girl who is laying out the work for the others. There is something in this girl that makes her a natural manager, andthere is a certain instinct amongst the rest of the girls that makesthem acknowledge this one girl as their superior, and the one to go tofor advice. This natural leadership is the quality the manager shouldpossess. 

Above all, the manager, like the boss, must know how to do things hehires others to do, and the things we have said concerning the boss islikewise true of the manager, for the manager is the next step belowthe boss. The successful boss would not have obtained his presentposition if he had not been a good manager previously. 

Let the manager read thoroughly our chapter on the boss if he hasambition to be boss some day. 

The mistake frequently made by the manager is to take credit himselffor the work done by those under him, for such a manager may be surethat sooner or later his position in this respect will be found out, and to his surprise he will find that the employe who has been doingthe things for which he has taken credit will take the manager's place. Employes are quick to detect this spirit in the manager. They see thattheir own efforts are not known to the boss, and it makes themindifferent, because they see no appreciation for what they are doing. On the other hand, if the manager says a good word to the bossconcerning an employe who has shown marked ability, it redounds to themanager's credit that he is liberal enough to give credit where itproperly belongs. 

Truth will out as sure as the sun will shine, and the manager cannotconceal his subordinates' abilities and pass them off as his own forany length of time. 

The good manager will say a kind word to the boss about the employe, ifhe is the right sort. It makes an employe feel confidence in themanager when he knows that the manager is appreciative and ready totell his superior of good things in the employe's favor. The managerwho is bad tempered, suspicious and tries to take credit that does notbelong to him is only holding his position temporarily, and some day hewill be let out of the institution for which he is working, and willfind himself forced to the extremity of getting a place somewhere elseback in the ranks from which he had temporarily risen. 

Selling

Time was when the best salesman was the one who could tell the biggestlies, drink the most whiskey and show his customers the liveliest time. 

Today the best salesman is distinguished by the following attributes:Truth, trustworthiness, together with a fine knowledge of the goods heis selling. 

The man who sells goods must be prepared to hear from nearly every manthat his price is too high. If the buyers would always tell the truth, then the salesman who sold the most goods would simply be the one whoactually sold at the lowest price. 

Price does not mean anything. Price is high or low only when quality istaken into consideration. 

The man who sells merchandise, or advertising, for instance, must bethoroughly acquainted himself with the thing he sells. He must bereliable, he must give good measure, he must keep his word. 

We hear a good deal about the live-wire, rapid-fire salesman, who goesout on his initial trip and comes back with a bagful of orders. It mustbe remembered that ever and always there is the law of compensation totake into consideration. The salesman who bags a lot of orders on thefirst trip does not get so many the second time. He has colored hispicture too highly on the first trip. He has made too many sidepromises, too many mis-statements, and the customer finds out he cannotbe believed, and this smooth article of a salesman is not as welcome inthe buyer's office the second trip. 

On the other hand and in strict accordance with the law ofcompensation, the salesman who tells the truth, who moves quickly, whodoes what he agrees to and knows what he is talking about, who talksconvincingly and attends strictly to business will eventually succeed. 

The great house of Marshall Field & Co. Of Chicago have operated alongthe line of fairness, good treatment and willingness to right a wrongand correct a mistake quickly. Marshall Field had horse sense when heinaugurated his business. 

Wonder workers who start out with a burst of speed and smash records inthe matter of selling will still be salesmen at fifty years of age, foryou can't go fast far. 

Those wonder workers change frequently. They flit from house to house. They work because they need the money to have a good time with, and assoon as they get the money they proceed to have a good time untiltheir little pile runs out, and then they get another job. Businessmen know this wonder worker well. Go into any wholesale house and youwill find them. They are living in the past and relating theirconquests. They never speak of the present but always of the past. They have done things they can't do again. The good salesman is doingthings now better than he has done in the past. 

The permanently successful salesman does not cut much of a figure inthe matter of dress. He is not as handsome as the wonder worker. Infact, he may be physically uncouth, but he has a heart under his roughexterior. The customers he mingles with have confidence in him. Theyknow he will do what he promises, and finally this man is the one whobuilds up a good trade and at fifty years of age he has a place of hisown, sends salesmen on the road, and his house does a good businessbecause his policy permeates the institution, and the customers haveconfidence in the house because he is at the head of it, and they arefamiliar with his methods and practice. 

Some buyers seem to think that it is necessary for them to give theimpression to the seller that they are buying at lower prices than theseller quotes. The wonder worker tries to make each customer believethat he is buying at the lowest price. The common sense salesman doesnot resort to such tactics. 

The average buyer does not concern himself so much about being able tobuy cheaper as he does to feel sure that his competitor does not getbetter treatment than he does. 

In the matter of selling there is no one thing that ultimately provesso successful as the one price plan. By that we mean the same price toall who purchase the same quantity or the same amount in a given time. 

The more elastic and variable your prices, the more ingenuity requiredto keep these cut prices from getting into the hands of your customers. This matter of cutting prices causes no end of worry. In proportion asyou indulge in cutting prices, so in proportion you will receive anincreased number of cut price offers. 

Let it be known that your prices are subject to reduction at the handsof a smooth buyer, and the news will travel fast. 

Let it be known that you don't cut prices, and that news will gaincurrency in the trade, and you will not have cut prices offered you. 

There is something in the matter of selling beyond dollars and cents, and that is dollars and sense. 

Remember this, when you sell goods you are also selling reputation. Ifyour goods are bad your reputation will be bad too. You can't have agood reputation and sell bad goods and make a permanent success. 

Remember, every sale you make is an advertisement. 

Remember, you can take advantage of the buyer once or twice, but if youwant to hold his trade you must be fair with him. 

Smooth tactics that bring in present money react and lose trade for youlater on. 

Vacations

Every man owes it to himself and to his family to take a vacation eachyear. 

Vacate means to get out or away from, and if you take your so calledvacation by a trip to another city and spend your time in the whirl ofindustry, you are not helping yourself, you are not taking a vacation. Neither are you resting your mind and body if you go to a swell summerresort where white duck trousers in the day and full dress in theevening is the rule. 

The real vacation you get is when you take yourself away from thebusiness marts of trade, and go to a place where you can get your feeton good old mother earth. Go where fences are unknown, where there areno "keep off the grass" signs, climb the hills, walk through theforests, fill your lungs with good ozone, say to yourself "all thesebeautiful things are mine. "

Nature has arranged it so that the poorest man in the world can get themost priceless things as easily as the multi-millionaire. The four mostprecious things in the world are good air, good food, good water andgood health. Money cannot buy any one of these things. The man withmillions cannot get any better air, or more nourishing food, or purerwater, or better health than can the poor man. 

The man who goes to the big woods for his vacation, who lives out ofdoors, who gets near to nature, is putting by a reserve in hisconstitution and brain that he will draw upon for the remainder of theyear. Such vacations will clear the cobwebs from your brain. It willgive you ability to do greater things, and make you see the beautifulside of life. 

A man should not depend wholly on his two or three weeks in the woods, however. He should take a little vacation every day. He should arrangeto get some benefit for his brain and body in each twenty-four hours. He should take a few moments each day and devote it to mental andphysical relaxation. And, above all, he can get a good vacation everytwenty-four hours if he sleeps properly. 

Our good friend Grizzly Pete, of Frozen Dog, understands the realvacation when he says. 

 Mighty pleasin' sport, you bet, sittin' on a rock; Beats a store or office an' workin' by a clock. Clears away the cobwebs from your weary brain; Gives you inspiration; makes you a man again. 

 There ain't no medicine I know for the appetite Like a summer mornin', waitin' fer a bite. Lazy summer days are here--ain't you kind o' wishin' That you had your old clothes on, an' was settin here a-fishin'?

Health

There is no misfortune, no real hard luck except sickness and poorhealth. 

If you find your health is becoming impaired, change your methods andvocation. Change before it is too late. A stitch in time saves ninetimes nine in matters of health. 

Get plenty of exercise, good air, good water, sleep with your windowsopen in winter as well as summer, walk over two miles every day. Avoidworry. Do good deeds. Help others. Eliminate evil thoughts anddeterrent influences. 

If your health is impaired, forsake dollars if necessary and makehealth your first concern. 

Dollars are worth having, but sense is infinitely better to bepossessed of. 

If your health will not permit you to get dollars and cents, then makeit your object to get health and sense. 

Rockefeller would give his millions if he could have the health ofnearly any of the thousand of employes who work for him. A good stomachis rather to be chosen than great riches. 

Patience

 Supposin' fish don't bite at first, What are you goin' to do? Throw down your pole, chuck out your bait, An' say your fishin's through? You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish, An' fish, an' fish, an' wait Until you've ketched a basketful Or used up all your bait. 

 Suppose success don't come at first, What are you goin' to do? Throw up the sponge and kick yourself? An' growl, an' fret, an' stew? You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish, An' bait, an' bait agin, Until success will bite your hook, For grit is sure to win. 

Patient effort and hard work each day, properly directed, will surelybring success. 

Failure comes to those who grow weary in the struggle, and to those whooverwork themselves and overtax their abilities. 

Such persons hope that by large sacrifices of sleep and happiness, andby extra application and hard work, they will build for themselvesfortune, that they may be happy at some future time. They make a greatmistake in this respect. 

Divide your energies so that each individual day is successful, nomatter how much the success may be. 

It is the men who are doing little things today who will be picked outto do great things tomorrow. 

And while you are making a little success each day, be sure that yourheart sings while your hands work. 

Men who can do things are discovered. They need not push themselves tothe front. Good men are scarce, and the great successful business menof today are the ones who know how to do the work that they are hiringemployes to do. Talent in this direction will surely attract theattention of your superiors. 

Learn to master the details of your business yourself. Useconscientious effort and painstaking effort. Make a round-up each nightof what you have done during the day. See wherein you have been inerror and wherein you could have improved the day's work and you willbe better fitted for tomorrow's duties. After closing your day'sbusiness, devote a part of the evening to your family and friends, anda part of it to some good book. 

It is not the clock that strikes the loudest that keeps the best time. The expensive chronometer works steadily along doing its work well andfaithfully. It does not attract as much attention as the gilt clockwith its sweet chimes, but men who know things are aware that thechronometer has the more real merit. Have the chronometer for yourideal and not the fancy clock, for true merit will certainly receivedue reward. 

We should all have some ideal which we hope to attain tomorrow, but letus remember that the way to reach the ideal tomorrow is to make todaysuccessful. 

Patience is a virtue few of us are possessed of, but the story of everysuccessful business has written on every page of its history patienceand perseverance. 

Do not get discouraged if your rate of progress each day is not as muchas you hoped for, but, so long as you are going forward and arepatient, you may be sure that you are gaining. 

Hard Times

Hard times follow good times with unerring regularity and certainty;this is in perfect accordance with the rule of compensation. 

In good times we should prepare ourselves and erect strong guardsaround our business, so that when hard times come we may find ourselvesable to go through the troublous times. 

If prosperity ran on unchecked, the ordinary, well-established businesswould soon be a thing of the past, for people would speculate insteadof work. 

When the manufacturer has his bills paid and finds a surplus in thebank, that surplus is likely to be turned into speculation. Wheneveryone speculates values rise, and continue to rise until pricesreach fictitious altitudes, and then comes about the cashing in. It sohappens that the cashing in is a general movement, and when thishappens hard times quickly follow. 

The successful business man should keep his money where it isget-at-able, and when hard times come and the prices go away down tolow water mark, then he should buy. Later on prosperity will return, assure as the sun will rise, and the things bought during the hard timeswill greatly increase in value. 

Hard times and prosperity rotate several times in a man's businesscareer. 

Hard times are necessary to the general scheme, for with continuousprosperity business would increase to such a momentum that there is notelling what the results would be. 

In times of prosperity you must make preparations for the hard timesthat are sure to come. If your pumps are greater than your leaks, yourcraft won't sink when the storm of adversity and hard times breaksacross your ship. 

Sleep

No one can do his best work if his mind is wool gathering. If anemploye is thinking about the races, he is cheating his boss, for hecannot give him his best service. If the employe is in the habit ofbeing up late nights, he cannot concentrate his mind nor bring out thebest there is in him. Nothing is so good for the hard worker, nothingwill stand him in such good stead, as plenty of sleep. 

Go to bed early. Get lots of sleep every night and you will be readyand strong for the fray of the morrow. If you get plenty of sleep youare far ahead of your fellow employe who does not get enough sleep. 

Sleep smooths out the wrinkles, builds up a storage battery in you andgives you confidence in yourself. You hold your head higher, your stepis more elastic, your eyes are clearer, your mind works better, andyour stomach does its full duty if you have taken plenty of time forsleep, for sleep is the plan of nature to restore the mind and thebody. 

Lack of sleep means wilful waste of your energies and a dulling of yourabilities. 

Business men pay for ability, keenness, alertness and capacity, and inproportion as you limit these qualifications by lack of sleep, so inproportion will your salary be kept down. 

Grumbling

Grumbling kills friends. The business man who is ever grumbling andgrowling about things makes a blue atmosphere about him. People somehowor other seem to prefer a rosy atmosphere to a blue. 

There is no good in grumbling. It gains nothing. Grumbling is anevidence that you have not sized things up correctly. That you arelaboring under a delusion; that you are looking at the world throughblue glasses, that you are not making proper estimates of other people. 

Grumbling is an advertisement to the world that you are not wellbalanced. Grumbling won't help things a bit. The more you indulge inthe habit the more firmly it becomes fixed upon you, and later you willfind it almost impossible to shake it off. The grumbler grows to be apessimist; he says disagreeable things; he makes his friends feel illat ease. The grumbler gradually loses his acquaintances and even hisclose friends. 

If you are starting on the grumbling path, pull yourself together andcut the habit quick and short. Grumbling and indigestion go hand inhand. If you have indigestion, square yourself against it, make up yourmind you will not indulge yourself and vent your ill feelings ingrumbling. 

If you can start out each day with a resolve not to grumble you willfind the proposition not difficult. The first two or three hours of theday is the time when your resistance is called into play. There is nobetter antidote or cure for the poisonous grumbling disposition thanthe following, which has been for many years a pet sermonette of thewriter: Be pleasant in the morning until ten o'clock, the rest of theday will take care of itself. 

Associates

"Birds of a feather flock together. " "A man is known by the company hekeeps. " "Like begets like. " "We are creatures of environment. "

All these truthful sayings have been preserved as proverbs simplybecause they are simon pure truths. 

The matter of associates is most important for the business man oremploye to consider. The young man who spends his time in gambling, drinking or dissipation cannot do his best work. He can no more hidethese practices than the clouds can obscure the sun permanently, forevil, as well as truth, is sure to come out. 

One of the best attributes a man can possess is character. Charactergives him credit at the bank, it gives him a standing among men. If theemploye ever expects to be a boss he must have character, and he mustassociate with men of ideas who will be helpful to him. 

A man will never improve his game of billiards if he always associatesand plays with an inferior. He may satisfy himself for the time beingthat he is a big toad in a little puddle, but if he plays with a poorerplayer than he is he is bound to retrograde. 

The only way we can advance is to surround ourselves and associate withuplifting influences and healthful individuals. Our eyes should beturned forward and not backward. 

It will make several seconds difference in the speed of a horse whetherhe is running against a horse he can beat or running against a horsethat can beat him. Race horse men have reduced this truth to actualpractice. They have what is called a pace maker. When they want a horseto trot fast they mount a boy on a running horse just ahead of thetrotter. 

If a man associates with his inferiors, the association will surelykeep him from progressing. 

If you want to make money, if you want to progress in the businessworld, go where money is being made and mix with people who are makingmoney. 

No man is naturally bad. No man gives himself over to criminal acts orhurtful habits solely upon his own instincts. These actions and habitscome about through associations. 

Go to the criminal court any day and you will see evidences of the manwho is pulled down on account of his associates. 

Mix with your superiors in matters of business and morals and you willunconsciously absorb qualities and ideas that will push you to thefront. 

Hitch your wagon to a star. Aim high. Pick out ideals in business, andeliminate from your path all deterrent influences. There is nohold-back like harmful associations. You will be judged by the companyyou keep. 

Old dog Tray was really a good dog, but he suffered because of hispropensity to associate with bad dogs. 

Fixed Charges

Fixed charges are sums you have to pay out regularly, week after week, or year after year. When you buy materials and supplies, when you leaseproperty or hire employes, or pay interest on borrowed money all suchthings are fixed charges, and it calls for the best there is in a manto keep these fixed charges down as low as possible. When you buy asingle item, such as a desk or a chair or a waste basket, do not lose alot of valuable time trying to save too much on those articles. 

When you go to New York once a year, do not stay at a second classhotel for the several days you are in New York, when by the expenditureof fifty cents a day more you could stop at a good hotel. 

It is false economy to spend five dollars' worth of time to save fiftycents. 

When you are buying single articles that are not fixed charges you havea little more leeway in the matter of price than when you are buyingthings that come under the head of fixed charges. 

In the matter of fixed charges the penny you save on the unit assumesvast proportions in the many multiples. 

Some men will deny themselves a respectable desk because they can buy acheaper one for ten dollars less, and this same person will lose athousand dollars through laxity in buying things that come under thehead of fixed charges. 

If you buy one lead pencil never mind whether the price is five or tencents, but if you buy great gross lots every few weeks you can affordto be very circumspect and painstaking in the matter of price. 

If you are buying a shirt, fifty cents one way or the other does notmake much difference, but if you are in the furnishing goods businessand buying thousands of shirts at a time, twenty-five cents a dozenmeans quite a lot. 

The matter of stationery and printing comes under the head of fixedcharges. If you are buying letter paper for your personal use and yourequire but three or four hundred sheets in the course of a year, don'tbother very much about the price per quire. The stationery you use inyour business, which you buy in large quantities, you should be carefulof. Plain, respectable, good quality letter paper is the kind used bysuccessful concerns. The fancy-colored, freakish paper is nearly alwaysused by the four-flusher in business. He is trying to put on a goodfront. He uses hand made paper and hand made envelopes. All theget-rich-quick people use fancy, high-priced stationery. 

The successful house uses a good quality of linen or bond paper, and amedium grade, regular stock size envelope. Envelopes are thrown away;letters are saved. That is why an envelope does not require to be asgood quality as the letter. It is the letter and what you put on theletter that cuts the ice. 

Fixed charges usually hide a lot of little leaks. Stop them. Manylittle leaks make a big aggregate in the course of a year, and there isno place where these leaks start as easily as in the matter of fixedcharges. 

Cigarets

We cannot call to mind a single instance where the habitual cigaretsmoker got to the top of the ladder and held his position. We see headsof large establishments smoke cigarets, but the habit was acquiredafter the position was attained. 

The cigaret smoker suffers from lapses of memory, his nerves areshattered, his judgment is not good, he forgets things and isirritable. He cannot hope to compete with the clear-brained individualwho does not smoke cigarets. 

It is not the cigaret itself that does the harm, it is the smokeinhaled into the delicate lung tissue. This smoke covers the lungs withyellow nicotine, carbon and poisonous gases. 

Some men smoke pipes because they wish to escape the criticism to whichthe cigaret smoker is subject. The pipe smoker who inhales does himselfmore injury than the cigaret smoker who inhales, because the pipesmoker takes in more smoke. 

Go to the medical college dissecting room and see the lungs of a manwho inhaled smoke, and you will quit the habit if you have been guilty. 

Don't burn your lungs with cigaret smoke, or pipe smoke either. 

The fight to get to the front is hard enough anyway, and if you want towin, do not poison your blood with tobacco smoke. 

Return Good For Evil

One of the first laws was "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, "but as time went on and man developed mentally his animal instinctswere subordinated and the law was changed, and the new law was this:"return good for evil. "

Nearly every man who has an injury done him tries to repay the injury. He must either repay it with good or with evil. If he repays it withevil he does not get satisfaction. If he repays it with good he getshappiness. It is certain that payment of evil with good can satisfy aman who is looking for revenge, while it has always been a questionwhether there is any satisfaction in paying evil with evil. 

If a man does you a mean turn he is expecting you will repay him inlike manner. He guards himself against this. He is ready for yourrevenge, but if you repay him with good you attack him in a weak spotand make him feel like thirty cents, and this is all the revenge youcan ask for. 

It is all right to get square with a man who does you a wrong, and thebest way to get square is by doing him a good turn. 

You should keep mental ledger accounts with all of your friends and allyour enemies. When a person does you an injury, debit him until youhave a chance to credit his account with some good turn; when youcredit his account be sure you overpay what you are owing him, so youwill have a balance coming to your credit. 

We have been taught to return good for evil, but we have heard thesaying so many times that few of us pay any attention to it. 

It's worth while testing, this rule of returning good for evil. Thenext time someone harms you, repay him by doing him a kindness, and seeif you don't feel happier, and at the same time get all thesatisfaction you are looking for. It matters not whether the person towhom you have done a kindness appreciates it; you have been benefitedand received happiness by your own act, for virtue is its own reward. 

The man who returns good for evil, has the satisfaction of the man whohas on clean underwear, the world may not know it but he does, and thatis all that is necessary. 

Learn to Play

Nature has given us many positives and negatives. It has given us theability to work hard, and it has given us the ability to play hard. Work while you work and play while you play. The man who is successfulis the man who works hard during business hours, and then goes home andleaves his office behind him and takes up play. 

A man should devote a part of each day to recreation, to outdoorexercise, to frivolity and to frollicking with his children at home. Ifhe does not care to play, worry will take the place of play. 

Worry and hard work together will kill a man. Work and play will makehim live. 

No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. These brainsof ours are always busy, and we should be careful what we give thebrain to act upon. 

If we work hard all day, the tendency is that in the evening the brainrevolves the things that have been going through it during the day. Areview of these thoughts produces worry, especially if our occupationhas been a strenuous one and if things have not been to our liking. When we devote ourselves to play, then worry and brain rack will beabsent all the time we are playing. Play was made to rest the brain. Your sleep will be better if you have indulged in recreation, and yourmind will be clearer the next morning. 

Good Fellowship

Call a man a fellow and he will resent it, call him a good fellow andhe feels complimented. 

The good fellow is ever found where pleasures abound. He shines at thedinner. His knowledge of mixed drinks is a revelation. 

The good fellow spends his time where the glasses clink, where thehorses run, and where the revelers congregate. His earnings go fordinners, bottles and shows, and while these occupy his mind he imagineshe is having a good time, that his actions evidence "good fellowship. "

Go to the clubs and you will see the "good fellow. " He is spoken of byall the other "good fellows" as a "good fellow. " And they are all goodfellows together. 

Some day the good fellow is taken sick and dies. He has not a cent tohis name, and the other good fellows take up a collection to bury him. The only persons at the funeral are the other good fellows, and theonly requiem he receives is "Well, he was a good fellow. "

The good fellow at fifty is working for the good business man. The goodfellow is like the butterfly, and sips life's pleasures, and shows offhis fancy colors, living for today only. 

The successful man is like the ant, he works and puts something awayeach day, where he can get at it in the future. 

When winter comes with its chilling blasts, the butterfly has nothingin reserve and it starves to death, while the ant keeps himself aliveon the product of his own labor. 

Some day the good fellow finds himself in need. He goes to other goodfellows, but they can't help him because they are in the same boatthemselves. Then our good fellow grows pessimistic, and finds out toolate that it does not pay to be a good fellow. 

Good fellows don't get good jobs very often. When they do get them theydon't hold them very long. 

It is a mighty poor recommendation to be referred to as a good fellow. People seem to think that the words "good fellow" cover a multitude ofsins, and when a man has done wrong, or makes a mistake, or uses badjudgment, the other good fellows try to excuse his faults bysaying--"Well, he is a good fellow, anyhow. "

The good fellow bursts upon us with his halo about him. As time passesthe halo dims and the good fellow peters out. 

The good fellow who is so popular at the Club today is found tomorrowtrying to eke out an existence selling books and life insurance toother good fellows. 

There is nothing in good fellowship that can be negotiated at the bank. The credit man of the wholesale house does not give credit on goodfellowship. 

Hard Work

It is a mistaken idea that hard work kills men. Hard work never killeda man. It is the improper care of oneself when he is not working thatdoes the damage. 

The more a man does with his brain the less his hands will have to do. The better a man's reasoning and common sense are, the more successfulhe will be. It requires hard work these days to keep up in the race. 

You cannot make a success unless you work hard. Hard work will be mucheasier if you keep worry out of it. 

Hard work brings success, but to do hard work, the machinery must be ingood order. You must keep your constitution up, you must have plenty ofsleep and you must learn to eat and breathe properly. 

No story of success has ever been truly written that did not depicthard work in every line. 

Success comes by inches, not by leaps or bounds. Success is the pushingforward each day by hard work. 

Burn the candle at one end only and you replace each day what you haveburned, by rest, sleep and recreation. By burning the candle at one endonly and replacing it fully each day, your candle will not burn out. 

Kindness

 "A little word in kindness spoken, A motion or a tear, Has often healed the heart that's broken And made a friend sincere. "

There's nothing in business that pays so well as kindness. A man mayspend his money, and in proportion as he spends it he reduces hisprincipal. With kindness the matter is different, for in proportion asyou spend kindness your principal increases. 

Lincoln said "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with agallon of vinegar. "

Kindness is beautiful. It brings round you many persons who are readyto say kind words to you. This subtle, potent influence of having lotsof friends to help you by their actions and showing their hearts is agreat blessing. It is surprising that people know so little of thevalue of kindness. 

The word "gentleman" is really a compound word, meaning gentle-man, andthese words together in their simplicity are the true definition of theword gentleman. 

Kindness means gentleness. No man is a gentleman who is not kind. 

People are glad to recognize goodness and kindness in an individual. Noone can act the part if he is not sincere. We must cultivate kindness, if there is little of it in our makeup. We must take an inventory ofour qualities, and if the weeds of mean impulses are crowding out thedelicate flowers of kindness, we should pull out those weeds and givethe flowers a chance to grow. 

Lincoln was a kind man, kindness was his chief delight, and hisexamples of kindness have been of untold benefit to millions of people. You remember he said, "When they lay me away let it be said of me thatas I traveled along life's road I have always endeavored to pull up athistle and plant a rose in its stead. "

Life at best is short, and the only things we really get out of lifeare happiness, health and love. Money cannot buy these things. 

The trouble with many business men is that they imagine good examplesand kindness have no place in business. They think the time to be kindis after they have attained success financially. They think the time toshow kindness is outside of business hours. 

The real way to be happy is to do the thing now, live each day foritself. Get kindness in each day. 

The man who is grave, austere, the man who tries to skin the otherfellow, who devotes all his energies to money-making alone, finds asthe years go by and he has attained his goal, but that he does not knowhow to enjoy himself. 

There are three periods in a man's life--the future, the now and thepast. When we attain old age our life is largely made up ofreminiscences, or looking back over the past. If our past life has beenone of struggle, worry and getting the best of the other fellow, thenthere is little happiness in looking back over such a life. 

The true philosopher does the thing now, he lives each day. He putskindness into his action, and when he grows old, he can look backthrough a life that was pleasant as he lived it, and pleasanter now inliving it over again. 

One of the Greek philosophers expresses the following beautifulthought: "If there is any good deed I can do, or kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not passthis way again. "

The trouble is that some of us keep our kindnesses, or rather theexpression of it, until it is too late. 

We should remember--"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love andtenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives withsweetness, speak approvingly cheerful words while their ears can hearthem; the kind things you mean to say when they are gone say beforethey go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send tobrighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friendshave alabaster boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathyand affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I wouldrather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, andopen them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I needthem. I would rather have a plain coffin without a flower and a funeralwithout an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love andsympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for theirburial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the troubled spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over life's wearyway. "

The Salesman

Selling goods or soliciting requires careful study. The salesman whomakes the greatest success in the long run is the man who has practicedtruth and established himself in the confidence of his customers. 

The whirlwind makes a good showing on the start, but, by the law ofcompensation, what a man gains in speed he loses in power. 

Some customers are slow to open up and extend their confidence to asalesman. Others make up their minds quickly and express theirpreferences. 

A great deal of preliminary work can be avoided if the salesman istactful on the start. First impressions are lasting, and a salesmanshould study carefully his first appearance. He should be neatly butnot flashily dressed. He should be a gentleman above all things. Thegentleman dresses so that later we can not accurately describe theclothes he wore. It is the flashily dressed salesman we can describelater on, for his clothes are so out of the ordinary that they areremarkable in this respect. The flashily dressed salesman is rememberedby his clothes rather than by his personality. 

The solicitor should never smoke in the presence of the customer onfirst acquaintance. The matter of smoking in a customer's presence hasprejudiced many a man against a salesman who has this practice. Business men have prejudices, and to some smoking is highly obnoxious. Under no circumstances smoke in a customer's presence unless thecustomer is smoking, or until at least you are well acquainted withhim, and have received his permission to smoke. 

Times without number the writer has left his half-finished cigar in thehall-way before entering the customer's presence. 

Story telling is like a two-edged sword; sometimes it helps andsometimes it is a distinct disadvantage to tell stories. You must knowwhen to tell stories, and, above all, do not tell stories to yourcustomer that he could not repeat in his home. 

Above all things, the salesman must know his man. If the customer givesevidence that he is fond of a story, then remember a good story andtell it to him. No salesman ever made a distinct hit by telling vulgarstories. While a customer may laugh, he forms an opinion of you that isnot complimentary, and, if you are always telling stories that youwould not repeat where women were present, the customer forms a verylow estimate of your character. 

The facts are the world is full of good stories, and good stories helpyour case, while vulgar stories hurt it. 

Drinking is another method used by many salesmen to gain favor with acustomer, and what we have said about vulgar stories may be applied tothe matter of drinking. 

Years ago it was a general practice to take the customer out and gethim half seas over before trying to sell him. 

The customers who are most susceptible to influence through whiskey arethe ones who are most likely later on to cause you trouble, eitherthrough failure in business or through their preference for some otherindividual who can outdo you in the matter of drinking. 

You must get your customer by the heart and not by the stomach. Youmust make your customer believe in you. 

In these days the business man likes to deal with a salesman who isbusiness from the start. He only buys goods because he expects to makemoney on them, and the sooner the transaction is over, the sooner hecan turn his attention to other matters. 

The best advertising solicitors and best salesmen are those who getbusiness on business grounds and through their knowledge of theirbusiness, rather than through their ability to tell stories, orderdinners and drink liquor. 

The good salesman studies the other side of the question. He acquaintshimself with the method used by the customer in disposing of his goods. He does not talk his own side of the case all the time. He works withthe customer, tries to give him good advice and shows an interest inthe customer's business. Such a salesman gets close to the customer, and retains his patronage long after the good fellow has passed away. 

Be wise, be patient, and above all things, acquaint yourself thoroughlywith the goods you are selling. Know more about them than your customerdoes. Live up to your obligations. Keep your appointments. Study yourcustomers' welfare. Help them when opportunity offers. 

The life insurance solicitor who gets the most turn-downs is the onewho writes the most policies, because the fact he gets so manyturn-downs is owing to the fact that he has seen so many people. 

Hard work, cheerfulness, honesty, patience, sobriety and knowledge ofgood goods will make a man a successful salesman. 

Honesty

Under this caption we are expected to say "Honesty is the best policy. "This expression is as old as the hills, and if it were not good itwould not have obtained so long, for honesty certainly is the bestpolicy. 

Many a man in business practices absolute honesty and integrity, because honesty is the simplest and best method he knows of for doingbusiness. 

No man can succeed permanently, who is dishonest in his practices. Thesuccessful business man is the one who practices honesty in all actionsand dealings during his business experience. 

Honesty begets honesty. The man who is honest in his dealings with hisfellowman has a subsidy which money cannot buy. He gets honesttreatment at the hands of others. 

The merchant who cuts a bolt of silk in the middle and puts differentprices on each piece, may figure he is making money by his action, butretribution is sure to follow. 

Honesty is a slow road to wealth, but, in accordance with the law ofcompensation, in proportion as the business built up on honesty isslow, so in proportion will it last longer. 

Honesty is the best advertisement a man can have in his business. 

Success

If after the employe strikes a balance each day, he finds that he ismoving forward, then he is on the road to success. And so it is withthe business man, only the proportions are greater. 

One cent put at four per cent. Interest per annum nineteen hundredyears ago, with interest added to the principal every twenty-fiveyears, would represent today more money than there is in the world. Itwould have taken twenty-five years before the original investment ofone cent was doubled. 

If a man had started that plan his grandchildren would have said thescheme was no good because it was too slow. 

The boy goes to school regularly and shows little advance in hismentality if you measure from day to day, but the boy is gaining everyday. He is going ahead slowly but certainly. 

The gambler and the foolish man like success to come quickly and withgreat strides. It is because there are many foolish men and gamblersthat the get-rich-quick fake thrives. 

The man who gets rich suddenly usually indulges in such sports aslighting cigars with ten dollar bills, and his wind-up is in thepauper's grave. 

No man knows the true value of money unless he has worked for it. Theman who has earned his dollars through the penny route knows the valueof the penny, and he gets mighty good value when he spends a dollar. 

The man who walks steadily in one direction does not appear to bemaking much progress. The ship on the ocean seems to be standing still. When night comes the man who has been walking steadily has disappeared, and the ship that seemed to be standing still has vanished beyond thehorizon. 

The law of compensation says, The more haste the less speed, and so inthe matter of success, we must not feel discouraged because the speedat which we are traveling forward does not seem noticeable whencompared with the rapid pace of some of our friends. 

Be not impatient. Learn to wait. Be a good stayer. Do not let thesuccess of the get-rich-quick creature deter you from your resolve tomove forward slowly. You will get there in the long run. 

And when your hair is silvered and cares rest easily upon yourshoulders, the long road you have traveled will be a source of infinitesatisfaction to you. Your retrospection will be pleasant, and the verythings that were hard in your youth, are sources of satisfaction to youin your old age. 

Do not use the yard measure in counting your progress, but use the inchrule that has fine fractions on it. 

Thinking

"I did not think" is an excuse offered by many. Thinking is the thingin business. 

The trunk railroad, the trans-Atlantic cable, the steam engine, theelectric light, the wireless telegraph, the very republic in which weare living, came about through thinking. 

Every man should take from five to fifty minutes each day to divorcehis mind from the strenuous activity surrounding him, and devote thattime to thought, and good will come out of it. 

The brain is like a muscle, it must be exercised or it becomes flabby. 

Cultivate concentration of thought; study your sphere of usefulness;cut out the weeds that grow in your brain; get out of the mental rutyou are in; stop drifting; keep your brain healthily active. 

Men are paid either for what they think or for what their muscles do. Man's muscles have a limit; he can move just so much matter by physicalforce. But his capacity from a mental standpoint is unlimited. 

The world offers golden prizes to the man who thinks. Therefore weshould cultivate our brains and make them expand. The brain is like aplant. If you nourish and cultivate it and care for it, it will growtoo. 

Excitement, striving for pleasures, indulging in reading light, frothyliterature, excessive daily newspaper reading are all weeds and thoughtkillers. 

Don't act on impulses. The get-rich-quick man or the fake mine promotersays, "Buy today, the price goes up tomorrow. " These fakirs don't wantyou to think. Thinking is an enemy to their persuasive arguments. Ifyou think, and think rightly, the fakir does not get you. 

When you get a nasty letter don't answer it right away. Think it over. Think carefully. If your thoughts of revenge are so strong that youcannot calm yourself down, then write a letter and express yourself inthe fullest degree. Leave the letter on your desk. Do not look at itfor three hours. Then when you look at it you will instantly determineto tear it up, because in the meantime you have been thinking. 

Thoughts expressed on paper have a different sound than if they areuttered verbally, therefore you should think carefully when you write. 

Cultivate poise, calmness, and practice careful thought before youspeak or write. 

In proportion as you master difficult problems through thought, yourbrain will be ready for greater conquests. 

Here are some things to think about during these times when business isso good. 

These prosperous times are dangerous times. In times of prosperity webuild up false idols, and raise our hopes and ambitions beyond thesafety point. 

Prosperity makes most of us careless. We don't give our business thecareful consideration we should. We run to extremes during prosperoustimes. 

We should make the most of prosperity while it is here. We should enjoyit to the fullest, but we should remember that for every high tidethere is a low ebb. 

Prosperity should enable us to put away a reserve for the hard times. 

We should be careful that prosperity does not turn our heads or causeus to lose our vigilance. 

Home Life

After all we say and do, the real pleasure of this world comes from thehome. The gilded palaces we see in our travels abroad are beautiful tolook upon presently, but later on they serve their purpose to make acontrast with the sweet simplicity of home. 

When you go home, cut business out, and let play and sociability andlove occupy your time. 

A married man should be in partnership with his wife. The man beingfitted with sturdier physique, with strong ability to combat, shouldtake up the heavy burden of business, for those are the things he cando the best. The wife should take up the home part of the duties of thefirm, and when evening falls each member of the firm should try tolessen or take away the cares to which the other has been subjectduring the day. 

The best place in the world is the home, and in proportion as home lifeis unsatisfactory or uncongenial, so in proportion are the Clubs filledwith dissatisfied and unhappy men. If you want to hear pessimistictalks on home life, talk with those derelicts who spend most of theirtime at the Clubs. 

Learn to make much of little things. Learn that smiles and good humorin the home bring happiness, and iron out the frowns and check the meanimpulses arising within us. Be pleasant every morning until teno'clock, and the rest of the day will take care of itself. Start out inthe morning right and happiness will be home at night. 

There is nothing in your old age that will be such a comfort to you asretrospection, or looking back over a long life of happiness in thehome. The happy little incidents which today seem trivial will beremembered in the future, and a thousand and one occurrences which arehappening in the home are being put away in the store-house of memory, later to be called upon and enjoyed again. 

In the evening of life when you and your silver-haired partner sitbefore the fire place, when you have retired from active participationin your respective branches of the business, which is bread winning onthe part of the man and bread making on the part of the woman, then youwill have a happiness and satisfaction which all the gold in the worldcould not buy. The pleasures of the old who have had happy homes duringtheir lives are the greatest pleasures in the world. 

The sunset of your life will not be beautiful unless your home life waspleasant during your day of work. 

Optimism

The man who is an optimist may be laboring under a delusion, butcertain it is that he is happy while under the delusion. 

Every man should have ideals. He should see the beauty and good inthings. He may not accomplish his ideals, but the anticipation andworking out of them is a mighty pleasant vocation. 

The pessimist is always unhappy, and when no definite thing is beforehim to worry about, the very fact that there is nothing to worry aboutmakes him unhappy. 

The pessimist says "Business is not half as good as it would be if itwas twice as good as it is. " The optimist says "Business is twice asgood as it would be if it was only half as good as it is. "

Grizzly Pete, of Frozen Dog, Idaho, is an optimist, and Webb Grubb, ofthe same town, is a pessimist. A short time ago they had a big rainstorm in Frozen Dog. Webb Grubb kicked about the rain. Grizzly Pete, all wreathed in smiles, said "Rain is a mighty good thing to lay thedust. " A few days later the sun came out oppressively warm. Webb Grubbkicked about the warm weather. Grizzly Pete, again all smiles, said"Hot weather and sunshine are mighty good things to dry the mud. "

The pessimist goes about with a dark lantern peering intoout-of-the-way places, ever looking for meanness and things to findfault about. 

The optimist goes about in the bright sunlight looking for thebeautiful things, and sees more things by the aid of the great sunshinethan the pessimist can find with his little dark lantern. 

The optimist rises in the morning with gladness in his heart, sunshinein his face and smiles upon his lips. The mere privilege of living andenjoying nature is a priceless satisfaction to him. He gets good out oflife every moment he lives. He is a man to be envied, if envy is everallowable. 

The pessimist warps his mind and his physique, and his influence onothers is decidedly bad. 

The optimist raises the average of the world by his presence, thepessimist lowers the average. 

The optimist is in the majority, however, and the world is growingbetter. 

Learn to see beauty in the small things. Study nature. Watch theprocesses of plant life and animal life. Surround yourself with helpfulinfluences; books, music, friends. 

There is no investment a man can make that yields such unboundedreturns as optimism. 

Optimism cannot be bought with money. It is as free as the air webreathe. That is why poor people generally are optimists. 

Memory

The man whose memory allows him to play four games of chess blindfoldedis good for nothing else. 

Book-keepers who can name every folio page and every customer's balanceare good for little else. 

There is nothing in mental gymnastics from the dollar standpoint. 

The good lawyer or the good business man does not rely on his memory, but rather his ability to find out things and get at results. 

If you remember only the customers who are slow pay or shaky, it willbe a lot easier than to remember the names of all the customers who paypromptly. 

If your wife wants you to get something down town tomorrow, write herrequest on a little piece of paper, roll it up in a ball, put it inyour pocket with your loose change. Forget the incident, let the paperdo the memory act. 

Next day when you reach in your pocket for change you will find thelittle ball with the reminder on it. 

If there is something you want to attend to at home, drop yourself apostal card. 

Carry a little pad of paper in your pocket. Write down the littlethings you are to do. Don't store your mind with these temporarymatters. Let the tab remember for you. 

Let your mind be like a sieve, and have the meshes coarse enough tokeep in the big things and let the little things go through. 

Have your business figures written down, your comparative sales, increases or losses. Study the written figures. Have system. Do thingsmethodically. Don't trust to your memory. If the thing you see or hearis worth keeping, write it down on the little tab. 

The orator who commits his speech to memory is in a sorry plight if heforgets a sentence. 

If you are to speak at a dinner, lay out your plan, divide your topicinto several parts. Jot down the catch lines, and just before you speaklook over the ticket. Charge your brain with the points or ideas andbuild the words around them. 

Don't remember things with verbatim correctness. Remember the skeletonthought, the idea. 

When you quote a price or figure, jot it down. Confirm the verbalstatement by a written memorandum. 

Memory is a bad servant sometimes. You remember a thing one way and theother fellow remembers it another way. You are both honest, but one ofyou is wrong. If you had made a memorandum in duplicate or jotted downthe figures, what trouble it would have saved you. 

Where dollars are concerned it is good sense to trust to a writtenmemo. , and not to any mental memo. 

No use to cram your brain with transient things, when lead pencils andpaper are so cheap and so easily obtainable. 

The employe who trusts to his memory hurts the business, and after hequits a lot of misunderstandings will come up. 

Insist on your employes making memorandums of things and prices, forwhen the employe goes he takes his memory with him. If he has amemorandum you know the facts. 

Worry

Nothing will prevent effective work like worry. If you are given tointrospection and worry, and allow these things to go unchecked, theybecome habits with you, and while your sleep, in a measure, is anantidote for worry, yet the more worry you have the less soundly youwill sleep, and consequently the less effective sleep will be incorrecting the injury caused by worry. 

Sunshine and darkness cannot be present at the same time, for in natureone of the first rules we find is that no two objects can occupy thesame place at the same time. No matter how much one is given to theworry habit, he experiences reflex moments when he does not worry. Someof our pessimistic friends who are given to the worry habit say it isimpossible for them not to worry. You are thinking of what you arereading, and if your mind is interested in it you are not worryingwhile you are reading these articles, and this shows that if you areinterested in reading there is little chance for worry to get in; foryour mind is occupied. 

Men have tried all sorts of things to escape worry. Some of themfrequent places where gaiety and mirth abound, so that they are for thetime being banishing worry, but in proportion as these things keep onefrom worrying, the reaction is stronger when it does come, and theindividual who tries to escape worry by going the pace and occupyinghis time with light things, suffers more keenly from worry when it doescome. Some men turn to drink to kill worry. Many a man imagines whilehe is drunk and his brain is clogged with alcohol that he is thehappiest man in the world, and some of them go to the extent ofimagining their finances are in a flourishing condition. The alcoholfills the brain with fancy pictures, and for the time being the mindforgets to worry. When the alcohol wears away the brain takes up theworry again in an increased degree. 

To kill worry by the active process is like trying to cure rheumatismby external application. The only thing you do is to stop the paintemporarily. The best way to cure rheumatism is to go at it through theblood. Eradicate the uric acid from the system, and then the rheumatismwill disappear. The best way to cure worry is not by localapplications, but by getting at the root of things. Eliminate as far aspossible the things which cause worry. Remember that as long as youlive there will come things across your path that are not to yourliking. You should be philosophical, and make the best of things thatare about you. Look at the bright side rather than the dark. 

There are only two things in the world to worry about. First--thethings we can control or change; second, the things over which we haveno control. Now, it is manifestly useless to worry over the first kind;for we can correct the thing and there will be nothing to worry about. 

It is manifestly useless to worry over the things we cannot control, for, as set down in the second proposition, we cannot change thethings. It therefore behooves us to eliminate from our calculations thesecond kind of worry, for no amount of worry can possibly change thatkind. We must therefore confine our attention to the first kind, thekind we can change, and when we have changed the thing there is nocause to worry. 

Nothing helps a man's health so much as contrasts in climate or habits. When the doctor tells you it is necessary to go to California orArizona, or some other distant point, he knows that fifty per cent. Ofthe good you will get by the change is from the water, air, sunshineand surroundings, and the other fifty per cent. Of the good you willget is because you have been taken away from the very things that havebeen causing you worry. If you can't get contrasts by trips to otherdistant points, you can get the contrasts right where you live. If yourmind is occupied in the day with deep thinking and hard businessproblems, you should occupy your evening with something that willcontrast with it. Take up some light literature, play with yourchildren, or work at some hobby in which you are interested. 

The trouble with those who worry most is that they have workedthemselves up to such a frenzied state they can't read anythingexcepting startling newspaper articles and freakish, frothy books. 

The man with rheumatism cannot cure himself in a day, neither can theman with the worry habit eradicate worry from his make-up in a day orso. 

The man who worries should make up his mind he is going to read and getinterested in the reading. Let him set apart ten minutes the first day, and agree that he will devote those ten minutes honestly, intently tothe subject before him. The next day he can add a minute or two, and soon until he can read one or two hours at a time. Finally, the wrinkleswill be ironed out and the horizon will be brightened. 

As we are, so is the world to us. The most familiar objects changetheir aspect with every change of the soul. When you worry, everythingis distorted, everything appears unnatural, the world looks dark, ourfriends seem far off. The jokes we hear fall flat. We indulge ourselvesin pessimism. 

When the whole matter is summed up philosophically, there is no badluck in the world except sickness. All other so-called hard luck issimply temporary. If you lose your money, don't worry about it, makesome more. If you lose a friend, don't worry; show him his mistake. Ifyou lose an opportunity, do not worry; be ready for the next one. 

Life is short. The end of life is death. What's the use of worrying. 

Worry is like drink. The more you give it the more it fastens on you. 

Cultivate a cheerful disposition. Mix with people who are cheerful. Donot allow the garden of your mind to grow up with worry weeds. 

Occupation kills worry. If your mind is filled with uplifting work orbrain training it will have little time to worry. 

Promises

A business man may be rated as worth a million, but if he breaks hispromises regarding payments or fulfillments of contracts, he will findlater on those who deal with him will insist upon cash transactions. 

Keeping promises is the basis of credit. Let it be said of you that youalways keep your promise; that you have never been known to break yourword, and you will need little persuasion to get the credit man's O. K. 

If you purchase for cash right along, some day you can ask for and willreceive a small credit, if you promise to make your payments on acertain date. If you keep your promise you can repeat the operation. Later on you will be given larger credit, because you have been keepingyour promises. You can increase your credit step by step to amazingproportions if your promises are always kept. 

The business world places much confidence in promises. The note in thebank is a written evidence of the promise. The note says on the face ofit "I promise to pay. " The Government of the United States issues banknotes on the face of which is a promise. 

When you make promises as regards dates, jot down the promise in yourmemorandum book. Whatever you do, keep that promise. The man who breakshis promise in little things will break them in greater ones. 

When you make a promise to meet a man it is just the same as promisingto pay a man money. In either instance you are in the man's debt, andthe obligation is not cancelled until the debt is paid. In other words, until the promise is fulfilled. 

Just so sure as the sun sets, the man who habitually breaks hispromises will surely break his business. 

Independence

It seems to be the rule rather than the exception that the moment abusiness man attains success he grows independent. 

There is no such thing as independence within the full meaning of theword. Every creature in the world is dependent more or less. 

The man who takes delight in his so-called independence and forces itto the front, soon receives knocks. 

The constant tapping and knocking hurts anyone. Boosts beat knocks. Theman who has a reputation for being independent never gets boosts. 

Some business men forget the obligations they are under. They forgetthe help that was extended to them in time gone by. They furnish up afine mahogany office, with an outer room, and outside of this anotherroom with an information desk. They cultivate coldness andindependence. They make it difficult for their friends to see them. They put a lot of red tape around their business, and by these actsthey get out of touch with the pulse of the business. They look atthings through colored glasses. Their judgment gets warped. 

In proportion as a man cultivates independence and autocratic ideas, just so in proportion is he nearing the brink over which many havefallen to destruction. When an independent man has a fall, his enemiesglory and loud are the shouts that arise from them, and if we listenclosely we will hear the multitude say: "Serves him right. "

There is nothing like democracy in business. By this it must not beunderstood that the head of the concern is to see every pedler, orevery life insurance agent. But if the business man is accessible, andgreets you with a glad hand, and in the pleasant manner turns you overto the proper department head, you go away from the office satisfied, and you give this man a boost instead of a knock. 

The late P. D. Armour was a good example of the point we are making, hedid not waste time in social visits during business hours, but anyonewho had business with the Armour Institution could get an interviewwith Mr. Armour. It has often been remarked by business men that theywould rather have a turn-down from Mr. Armour than an order from someof the other houses, for Mr. Armour always made one feel good. 

No one can be independent. The larger one's business is the more theproprietor is dependent on those around him. 

It takes many months to build a sky scraper, yet a wrecking company cantear a sky scraper to the ground in a few days, and so it is with aman's reputation. It takes years to get good credit in the commercialworld, but if success spoils a man and makes him independent, he hascreated enemies, and there is no telling where these enemies will getin their work. It is like the worms eating through the bottom of aship. Some day the craft goes down because of the silent attacks madein it, which were not visible from the surface. 

Some day the independent man is surprised to have the bank call him inand insist that he take up his loans. He is astonished; he does notknow why this sudden change has happened, but like as not some secretenemy in the bank, or some secret competitor who has a friend in thebank, has gotten in his work, and then this independent man finds outhow really dependent he is. 

The safer a man is from attacks, the safer his business is from thefinancial standpoint, and the more generous this man should be in hisconsideration for others. 

No man can afford to be independent. Men who have built up theirbusiness slowly are not the ones whose heads are turned and who affectthis independent air. The independent man is nearly always the newlyrich or the suddenly successful business man, and the moment he setshimself up as independent he is made the target for an army of enemieswho are waiting for a chance to injure him. 

Short Letters

Most business men make much ado about nothing in the matter ofcorrespondence. They use a wilderness of words to express themselves. They write at such length that the original meaning runs into so manyby-lanes that the meaning is lost. 

The man who writes long letters usually deals out high sounding phrasesand customary paragraphs such as he has picked up through his perusalof others' letters. 

The average business man seems to glory more in his ability to useeuphonious sentences than to talk to the point. 

Letters should be like telegrams, they should be short and to thepoint, so there will be no misunderstanding on the part of therecipient. 

There is one business man that we have been in close touch with forover fifteen years. We have heard from him an average of once a week, and in all that time he has never written a letter of over twenty-fivelines. Our records show there is no customer with whom we had so muchbusiness dealings and so little misunderstanding as this one. 

Write short letters. Use small words. Don't be blunt, but be short. 

Perspiration

No matter what one's aspirations may be, success will not come withoutperspiration. It is well this is so, otherwise success would not beappreciated. That which a man earns by perspiration he appreciates andknows how to enjoy. 

If success were something that could be drawn by chance, like a prize, success would not be worth anything. 

The measure of any valuable thing, or condition, or relationship is theamount of work, energy, trouble and sacrifice that has been expended toobtain it. 

None is to be more pitied than the rich idle-born, who have everycomfort around them. They do not know that perspiration must be addedto aspiration before they get success. 

Friends

How little the average business man understands this word "friends. "

In everyday conversation we hear one man say to another "Mr. Blank is afriend of mine. "

As a matter of fact the word acquaintance could be substituted inninety-nine cases out of a hundred where the word friend is used. 

Real friends are few and far between. A real friend is never determineduntil a test has been made, and this test is usually troublous times, adversity or the loss of a loved one. 

When afflictions come to our families, or reverses come to ourbusiness, when the dark clouds hang over us, when stormy seas are aboutto swamp us, when we need help, then is the time we find who are ourtrue friends. When such calls for friendship arrive it is surprising tosee how we have been mistaken in individuals. Those upon whom wecounted most shrug their shoulders, draw their skirts about them andgive us good advice, while those whom we had never counted as friendscome to the front and lend helping hands. 

The word friend has been greatly abused. Around places of gaiety, wheredrinks and good fellowship abound, we frequently hear the word friend, but in the time of trouble those who pose as friends will not help us, and the few who would help us cannot because they have squandered theirsubstance and have not the ability to help us. A friend in need is afriend indeed. 

There is no relationship more sacred than friendship. 

Friendship carries with it love. The true friend is not one made in ahurry. There is no friend like the old one with whom you wentbirdnesting in your youth, the friend that has plodded along life'sroad with you shoulder to shoulder. 

When you have a friend who has proven himself such, never let up solong as you live in your evidences of gratitude for the kindness he hasshown you. Repay him with interest for his good offices, and let youractions towards him ever be a source of happiness and pleasure to him. 

Nothing is so much appreciated between friends as gratitude, andnothing will kill friendship like ingratitude. 

Genuine friendship is such a rare jewel that when you have a positivedemonstration of it, let it be your great concern that you will donothing to mar this friendship, for broken friendship is a source ofgrief to both friends so long as they live. 

Employes

The success of any business depends upon the hearty cooperation of theemployes. 

We have often heard that a corporation has no soul. A corporationprobably has no soul but most of us forget that the officers of thecorporation have souls and hearts, and in proportion as the individualat the head of a corporation or private enterprise treats his employesjust so he will be repaid. 

We are paid back what we pay out. If we are harsh and mean to others, ever suspicious, ever looking for evil motives, those who work for uswill be suspicious of us and look for evil motives behind our everyact. 

The employer who shows consideration, cultivates respect and sets agood example will find it pays from a monetary standpoint, as well asin the satisfaction he has in knowing that he is doing the right thing. 

Lincoln said "A house divided against itself must fall. " If theemployes of an institution spend their time in wrangling andquarreling, it means a divided house, and the house will certainlysuffer. 

Set a good example to your employes. Take them into your confidence. Recognize ability. Advance worthy ones, and you will find everyone fromthe office boy to the officer pulling on the rope in the samedirection, and you will get full measure of ability from everyone whoworks for you. 

It is impossible to suddenly get a perfect working force. A goodorganization comes through the process of evolution and elimination. 

Whenever an employe does all he is hired to do and a little more, thatemploye is in a position to occupy a place of greater responsibility. 

If an employe is a sluggard or a four-flusher, he may be sure thesethings will be found out and he cannot hope for advancement. 

Employes should remember that the most successful institution is theone whose managers are developed from the rank and file. The besthouses do not hire high class help from other concerns. The mostsuccessful men are those who started in at the bottom of the ladder, and by perseverance and pluck and aptitude they climbed the ladderuntil they reached the top. 

Employes should remember that the most difficult problem the employerhas to solve is that of good employes. 

A small want ad. In the metropolitan daily will bring an army of cheaphelp. The market is full of cheap help, but good employes that areworth over $2, 000 a year are very scarce. The high priced employes aregenerally the best money makers of the institution, for they areselling their brains rather than their hands. The hands are limited, the brains are not. 

Employes, there are golden opportunities before you. Disregard theclock. Bend your energies toward doing your work well. The advancementwill be sure to follow. 

The trouble with many employes is that their minds are filled withoutside matters of a frivolous nature. 

In every large city there are thousands of dude employes, the kind whowear high collars, the kind who spend all their salary for clothes. 

The dude employe stands in his own light. He wears a higher priced tiethan the boss; he is immaculately neat; he looks like a fashion plate, but at the same time his tailor bill is not paid, he is owing moneyright and left. He spends his evenings in the cafes, and at odd momentsduring the day he dodges out to look over the racing form and smoke acigaret. This dude employe sits up late at night. He spends his salary, and more too, in the gay life. He is tired next morning when he comesdown. 

The dude employe who wears a high collar is not the one that knucklesdown to hard work. Perspiration and high collars do not go welltogether. The dude employe does not like perspiration, so he sees to itthat he does not exert himself enough to perspire. 

Employes should remember that very truthful axiom: "The employe whonever does more than he is paid for is never paid for more than hedoes. "

The employe should remember that the boss takes large chances in hiringhelp, for there is not one employe out of ten that is a goodinvestment. The employes should remember that it is necessary for theboss to make a good margin of profit on each employe, else he could notmaintain his business. 

Every employe who studies how much he can do is a help to an employer. Every employe who sees how little he can do is a hold-back to theinstitution. 

Employes should remember that prosperity goes in cycles, that it is butthree generations from shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve. 

Over ninety per cent. Of the bosses today started in and worked theirway up from the ground. The young man who inherits a partnership in hisfather's business really has a handicap on him, and is not as likely tosucceed as an employe who starts in at the bottom of the ladder. 

Employes should remember that responsibilities only come to thosewhose shoulders are broad enough to bear them, and when additionalresponsibility comes to an employe that employe should look upon theresponsibility as a distinct advantage to him, for it gives him anopportunity to show the stuff he is made of. 

Laxity

When young men start in business their thoughts are all prospective. They look forward to the time when they will attain success. They workhard. They put enthusiasm and long hours into their business. As yearspass they attain success and cash in this world's goods. They buybeautiful homes and surround themselves with luxury. They indulge inhigh living. They have country places. They take things easy. They sitback in their chairs and imagine their business will go on foreverbecause they are so well established. 

The hard worker is entitled to slacken up a little as success comes tohim, but the moment his energies commence to wane, he should see to itthat he gets the right sort of young material in the institution tokeep up the enthusiasm and hard work which he himself has had. 

In the very nature of things it is impossible for a man to keep up hisyouthful pace in his mature age, for, as we have frequently observed, you can't go fast far. 

One of the principal elements in Marshall Field's success was that hegot enthusiastic, hard workers around him. The moment he saw signs oflaxity in any of these individuals, he let them out and got newmaterial. 

Laxity means loss of power, and with loss of power the machine does notdo as good work. 

Laxity in business is a waste. 

Enthusiasm

In these days of keen competition and wonderful activity it isnecessary for the business man to have enthusiasm. If he lacks in this, his business will be at a stand-still, while his enthusiasticcompetitor goes forward. 

Enthusiasm should not be carried to an extreme any more than any othergood thing should be carried to an extreme, but at that it is better tobe over-enthusiastic than not enthusiastic enough. No one can be trulyenthusiastic who does not believe in his business. Enthusiasm is a formof advertising. It shows the people you deal with that there issomething going on and that you believe in your own medicine. 

Catching Up

Nearly every one in this business world seems to be engaged in theoccupation of "catching up. " Nearly everyone is a little behind in thematter of finances. 

As soon as one gets across the stream and is on dry land and has hisbills all paid, then he takes on new responsibilities and goes deeperin debt. 

It is a very hard game, this catching up. The game of existence is veryeasy to play when you are caught up. 

We have tramped through the forests of the great West, and we haveinvariably found that the pace-makers or leaders are the least tired atnight, while the followers or those who are behind trying to catch up, are the ones who are most fatigued. 

Some people are habitually behind "with their hauling, " as theMissourians say. No matter how their salaries may increase they areproportionately behind with their hauling all the time. When an employegets $50. 00 a month he is owing $75. 00, he is working hard at thecatching-up game all the time. He figures that if he only got $75. 00 amonth, he could apply the $25. 00 extra and could catch up in threemonths. The theory is all right but the practice is not, for when thisindividual gets $75. 00 a month, instead of applying that $25. 00 extrato catching up, he finds that he wants better neckties and betterunderwear, and makes greater expenditures all along the line, soinstead of wiping out that $75. 00 debt he had when earning $50. 00 amonth, he finds himself $150. 00 in debt on his $75. 00 salary. 

This catching up has a bad influence. It worries the individual; hedoes not do his best work. 

When you have all your bills paid and a surplus of $500 in the bank, your head is higher, your chest is broader, your backbone stiffer, andyou have a confidence that helps you take on greater responsibilities. 

To be in debt is to be under obligations to your friends, and it killsoff those strong qualities which you naturally possess but which warpwhen you are catching up. The man who is catching up cringes instead ofstanding erect, he is suppliant instead of dominant. He is disturbed bylittle things, and in the meantime the catching up process is tearingdown his nervous system. 

Get caught up with your hauling. Whatever your income is, save apercentage of it. Do not mistake us in thinking that we are preachingthe old sermon of the savings bank, which is, save your pennies and thedollars will take care of themselves, for our friend Grizzly Pete ofFrozen Dog, Idaho, says: "Save your pennies, the dollars will be blownin by your heirs. "

No man gets rich through mere saving, but it is the training the mangets in saving the pennies that gives him a good idea of values ofthings and shows him the importance of having a reserve. 

If the boss is extravagant in little things, the employe multiplies theextravagance. 

If you are always catching up while you are an employe you will alwaysbe catching up while you are boss. If you are always saving and puttingby a reserve while you are an employe, you will be doing the same thingwhen you are a boss. The principle is the same. It is merely a questionof figures. 

Do not take on financial responsibilities until you see your way clearto meet the responsibilities, and in addition to meeting them, see toit that you have made an allowance for good measure. 

Catching up calls for double effort and double work. 

Anger

In proportion as a man is wise, he controls his anger. 

Centuries ago the following truth was written: "Whom the gods woulddestroy they first make angry, " and in the same era there was alsogiven us another truth: "A soft answer turneth away wrath. "

A man's judgment gets twisted, his ground becomes insecure and hispoint of vantage weakens when he becomes angry. 

The man who keeps calm when the other fellow gets angry has infinitelythe best of the matter. 

Let the other fellow fret and stew and get red in the face, but youkeep calm and you will win the fight every time. 

Control yourself, change the subject, and absent yourself when angershows. 

Cultivate poise, refrain from lowering yourself to the methods of theignorant, which is anger. By keeping your temper when your adversarygets angry you thereby show your superiority, and your adversaryinstinctively feels you are a bigger man than he is. 

A cool head is wonderful capital for an employer or an employe. 

Don't mistake coolness and poise for submissiveness and servility. Don't let people impose on you and take advantage of your good nature. 

State your position in cool, well-weighed words, and carry convictionwith them by your manner. 

It takes two to make a quarrel. Whenever anger is present, do not beone of the two. 

Precedent

Precedent has caused many failures. We refuse to make a bold move andinaugurate a new system because we hate to break away from the methodsestablished by successful predecessors. 

We say "Let well enough alone. " We forget that times change, and thatconditions which made our competitors successful, may not now exist. 

If you have the precedent habit it is an admission that you have notthe brains to originate, and you are trying to take advantage ofanother's brains. 

You remember the old fable of the lion and the jackass. The jackass wasbrowsing on thistles in the desert. It took all his time to gatherenough of the scanty vegetation to keep him alive. One day the jackassnoticed the lion comfortably eating a lamb, whereupon he said "That'sthe scheme for me. I will do the same trick as Mr. Lion, " andforth-with the jackass found a dead lion and covered himself with thelion's skin, hoping that with the lion's skin he would appear as a lionand thus be able to catch game in large portions, and relieve himselfof this slow monotonous, hard work he had been used to. The jackasssallied forth, but he could not catch a lamb. He had copied the lion sofar as physical appearances were concerned, but he did not have thebrains of the lion, and he failed. 

There are hundreds of wealthy business concerns today who are slowlydying from dry rot because they have not the nerve to break away fromthe precedent that built up their businesses. They let sentimentoutweigh common sense. They maintain the same old lines and follow thesame policy because that policy years before things made themsuccessful. 

Many manufacturers continue to advertise in publications which havelong since lost their advertising value. These manufacturers have thehabit, and on account of precedent they are afraid to break away. Theydo not recognize that since they started there are dozens of newer, brighter and better publications than the ones they are using. 

Columbus, Marconi, Edison, Stevenson, Newton, Fulton, and hundreds ofother originators would never have succeeded if they had followedprecedent. They required strong courage to break away from acceptedmethods. Each of these men was told in so many words that the thingnever had been done, and consequently could not be done. 

Business men who throw aside precedent are more apt to succeed, for bythrowing aside precedent they show they have originality instead of theability to copy. 

Financing

A financier and a general are much the same thing. The financier makesthe dollars do the work at the best place, and the general does thesame thing with his soldiers. The financier with plenty of money in thebank and the general with plenty of soldiers at his command are alike. They give the order and the thing is done, for they have the materialto do the thing with. The difference between the good financier and thebad financier is like the difference between the good general and thebad one, the difference being that the good one makes a little go along way, and gets the best results from the little under his command. 

The cause of many failures is due to bad financing instead of badbusiness. The trouble is few business men know exactly "where they areat. "

A detailed statement should be kept of all obligations. The businessman should get along as far as possible without giving notes, and whenhe does give notes he should see to it that the notes are taken up whendue. 

The business man who overstocks shows he is a bad financier. The manwho buys too much on possibilities makes a mistake. 

As you go along this year you should make statistics of the receiptsand expenses by the day, week, month and year. With these figures youcan make up a budget of your receipts and expenses for the coming yearwith reasonable correctness. 

Keep your resources well in hand. Buy often rather than buy in largequantities. 

If you are owing money to the bank, have your plans arranged so thatyou can realize on your assets quickly. 

The good general always plans his campaign to be ready for attack thatmay come through unexpected sources. The good financier is always readyfor an attack on his finances. 

The concerns from whom one buys may be prosperous. The bank with whomone deals may be flourishing, and yet without warning something happensand you are suddenly called upon to liquidate your indebtedness. Youshould be prepared for this sudden call. 

Financing is an art, and you will never be a good financier unless youhave had perplexing problems to solve. In order to solve problems youmust have the pro and con, in other words, the details of your receiptsand expenses. These figures should be put down plainly, with elaboratedetail, if necessary, so you may count on your figures and make yourplans accordingly. Preparing for emergencies is one of the first thingsthe financier should understand. 

Discontent

While in another part of this book we show that ambition is one of thethings that makes success, yet it must not be forgotten that discontentis another great factor in bringing about success. 

When the young man quits school he has life before him and has ambitionto succeed. It is not particularly necessary that we find out what hisambition is to start him on the right path. Let the young man getstarted at any thing. If he is ambitious and has ability in him tomanage a business he will get there finally. 

He may get started in the wrong line and this will make himdiscontented. The discontent will cause him to try another tack, and solong as discontent makes him change he will finally get into the rightline by the process of eliminating those callings which make himdiscontented. 

Time after time we find in reading the stories of successful businessmen that they have floundered around in the beginning of their careerfrom one business or calling to another. Discontented with each of themthey changed and changed and changed until they finally struck thething best suited to them, and all the changes they made in the pastwere distinctly beneficial because of the experience they obtained. 

If it were not for discontent many of the leaders in the business worldtoday would still be on the farm or clerking in a country store. 

Keep busy, young man, do the first thing that comes handy. Change yourjob if you are discontented, for no one can do his best work if hisheart is not in it. When discontent causes you to change frequently youmay be sure that some day you will strike your gait, and then ambitionwill fire you to stick at it. 

When you get on the right track and are not discontented you havestruck it right. 

The Generalist

The chapter on "The Specialist" is almost inseparable from thischapter. One is the positive, the other the negative. What we have saidabout the specialist we could repeat by taking the opposite of thequestion for the generalist. 

This one point, however, we wish to make clear, even at the risk ofrepetition. Do not be a generalist in business. If you divide yourefforts your results will surely be divided. The business man who goesin many outside ventures will not get along as far in the matter ofwealth as the man who does one thing well. 

We hear about "The jack of all trades, " but the aftermath of the jackof all trades is "master of none. "

Only one concern in fifty succeeds in business, therefore it calls foryour best efforts if you wish to succeed. It calls for a singleness ofpurpose. 

If you make more money than is necessary in your business put out themoney in some form of investment that will require little of yourattention. Buy mortgages or real estate. Get stuff that you can put inthe green box in the safety deposit vault and not have to worry about. 

The stockbroker has a lot of unwritten history about the business manwho divides his energies between his office and the ticker. Thebusiness man who is trying to make more progress than his competitor inbusiness and at the same time trying to beat out the stock market isdividing his energies, and between the two occupations he is likely tofail. Be a generalist in pleasure and recreation, but not in business. 

Our Aches and Pains

When we work hard with our body all day our backs ache and our musclesache. This is all right, for Nature has given us sweet refreshingslumber to drive away the aches and pains so that on the morrow we areready for the fray. 

In proportion as we have endured these backaches and pains and arepatient in our occupation, the aches will lessen until finally we havelaid up a store of energy so that the aches will not bother us. 

The backaches and muscle-aches and headaches we have, when they comefrom honest work performed for the benefit of those we love, are sweetaches and pains. They represent sacrifice, these aches and pains do, and sacrifice brings happiness. The only way to be truly happy is to dosomething for somebody, and doing something for somebody is making asacrifice for somebody. 

The aches and pains we have endured in performing labor for those welove is the best evidence of genuine sacrifice. 

We gladly suffer when our efforts are appreciated, and when those forwhom we work are grateful, but there is one pain that never lessens, and it is the pain that kills. That pain is a heartache, and theheartache comes from ingratitude. 

After we have endured backaches and headaches for those we love andfind the effort has not been appreciated, then comes the heartache, andthat is the ache that kills. 

Whenever anyone does something for you, your first concern should be toshow appreciation. 

Gratitude is one of the most priceless gems in nature's collection. There is nothing lower on the face of the earth than an ingrate and asnake's belly. 

Dressing

Many persons look upon the good dresser, and think that good dressingis an evidence of success. In dressing, as in everything else, theextremes should be avoided. The man who is temperate has the rightidea. A man must be temperate in dressing as in all other things. 

We have all seen the solicitor and the business man who look like afashion plate or tailor's model. Each day he appears with a differentsuit. He wears the latest ties, the latest shoes, and appears in theheight of fashion. This extra dresser is a four-flusher, for he istrying to appear as something that he is not. Grizzly Pete says "Itain't what's on a man but what's in him that counts. "

In proportion as a man's character or mental training is lacking, heoften tries to make up for it in dress. With some it is a case ofninety per cent. Dress and ten per cent. Man, and with others ninetyper cent. Man and ten per cent. Dress. 

In trying to find a word of cheer for the good dresser, the writervainly endeavored to recall some successful business man who hadclimbed the ladder step by step through a period of years, during whichhe was always dressed in the height of fashion. We recall to mindseveral extreme dressers who are possessed of millions, but thesemillions were the result of accident or inheritance rather thanability. We cannot remember any instance of a plodder who started inwith nothing and made his millions who during the operation dressed inextremes. 

We have an autographed photograph of Marshall Field, and we venture tosay that there are fifty men in Field's store more expensively dressedthan Marshall Field was at the time this picture was taken, shortlybefore his death. Not that Marshall Field was poorly dressed, but thathe was dressed like a gentleman. A gentleman does not wear extremecollars, extreme neckties, extreme coats. Marshall Field's clothesfitted him well, the goods were of splendid quality, but of modestdesign. Marshall Field was ninety per cent. Man and ten per cent. Dress. 

When a man recognizes he has not the ability to make a name for himselfon account of his brains, he resorts to dress in order to give himdistinction. 

The ability to dress in the extreme of fashion is an advertisement tothe world that dress is your specialty, and if you are a specialist indress you will not be a specialist in business. 

Declare Monthly Dividends

Make it a rule to declare dividends every month. We venture to say tothe business man that you are meeting all your fixed charges, payingyour rent and employes, paying for postage stamps, lights, taxes andall other fixed charges. When the Government put a two cent tax on yourchecks you paid that tax. You certainly can add one more fixed chargeto your business, and that fixed charge should be a percentage of yourcash receipts. 

It is usually a difficult thing to draw your profits out of yourbusiness in a lump at the end of the year, but if you draw your profitsout in monthly installments, you can do so without any burden. 

The business man should figure what percentage of his cash receipts isprofit, and this percentage should be deducted every month, less alittle leeway to make the matter easier. Make the percentage a fixedcharge and put this money away in a special account as a reserve fundif you do not wish to draw the dividends out of your business. If youhave this reserve fund drawn out in monthly installments, you are readyfor attack if your creditors call on you suddenly. 

If you have a snug little sum in a separate bank as a reservesufficient to withstand any attacks on your business, your step will bemore elastic, you will have more confidence in yourself, you will haveless worry than if you are keeping your nose to the grindstone and haveno reserve. 

There is some amount between a dollar a week and a thousand dollars aweek which you can draw out of your business without affecting it. Ifyou make this a fixed charge you will take care of it, and you willarrange your business and your purchases so that this fixed charge willbe properly taken care of each month. You will trim your expenses alittle closer, and your business will thus benefit by having this fixedcharge. 

Nearly every failure is due to sudden calls of creditors or refusalof the bank to extend further credit. This fact shows plainly thenecessity of having a reserve fund. 

Take your figures for several years back and find what percentage ofthe total receipts was profit. If, for instance, your business earned$9, 000 and your total sales were $100, 000, then 9% of your receiptsrepresents profits. You can therefore declare a monthly dividend of 8%, and when Christmas comes you will have an extra dividend, being theaccumulated 1% each month you did not draw out in dividends. 

Debt

If it were not for debt most banks would go out of business, for bankslive because debt is a recognized factor in business. 

The plan of getting rich through saving is a very difficult andpractically impossible road to wealth. 

The man who is working himself out of debt puts in better effort andlonger hours into his business than the man who does not owe a cent. Goin debt reasonably and carefully, and you can make money with otherpeople's money. 

Money has a fixed value in itself in the matter of earning capacity. This fixed value is 5% or 6% or 7% as the case may be. One who puts hismoney in securities gets his money which the cash earns without efforton his part. The hustler, however, can make 10%, 15% or 20% on themoney, plus his hard work. Therefore there is an opportunity for ahustler to borrow money at 5% or 6%, and with that money and his energyearn 10% or 15%. 

The active man can therefore pay 6% per annum for money, and use thatmoney to discount monthly bills at from 2% to 5%. 

The building and loan association, the installment firms and monthlypayment real estate concerns show what people can accomplish who gointo debt. Thousands of families now live in their own homes becausethey went into debt. Few of these families would have homes if theystarted in on the saving-the-money-first plan and bought for cash. 

Don't go in too deeply. Calculate your earnings in business. Allow awide margin for discount on your figures. Hard times and unlocked forreverses come, therefore you should play safe. Go into debt on a 25% or50% basis of what you are reasonably sure you can pay. 

Up to forty years of age a man is sowing and tilling, and after fortyhe reaps. The farmer goes into debt during the spring and summer, andreaps in the fall. 

Very few of our great men had much money before they were forty yearsold. Up to forty is the debt period. Up to forty a man pays interest;after forty he collects interest. 

Business calls for the hardest kind of work up to forty or fifty. Afterthat time the man makes up in judgment and experience what he lacks inphysical activity. 

Work hard until you are forty. Go into debt and make the money you haveborrowed earn money. After forty make money by investing your funds insound securities, so you will run no risk of losing what you haveworked so hard for during your younger days. 

The average banker is over forty. The hustling business man who borrowsis usually under forty. Nature gives the young man ambition, abilityand willingness. Nature gives the middle aged man judgment, experienceand conservatism. 

Forty years will determine what is in a man. If he has the stuff in himto earn a competence at forty, he has usually acquired the judgment andexperience to keep it after he is forty. 

The man born with a golden spoon never knows what hard work is. He doesnot go into debt because he has plenty of money for his requirements. At forty he has not the experience of his brother who was born in anenvironment of hard work and little money. The law of compensation thusbestows a subsidy on the poor boy and a handicap on the rich one toeven things up. The poor boy goes into debt and works hard; the richone lets the money do the work for him. 

There is no joy or happiness in the possession of things we have notworked for, so while we envy the rich who have never worked we shouldtake satisfaction in the law of compensation which gives us a subsidyin the way of ability to work hard and earn money, so that later on wemay enjoy the money better than our rich friend who has never workedfor his money. 

Don't go into debt on the wholesale plan, hoping to make a big coup. Don't try to be a millionaire. Don't set too big a mark. Have yourideal advancement, no matter how little that advancement is. If you goforward each week or each year you will find at forty or fifty thatyour substance piles up much faster than you imagine. From forty tofifty years of age most fortunes are made. From twenty to forty yourefforts have been foundation work, and the foundation does not show upmuch above the ground. From forty to fifty you are building thesuperstructure, and when you commence building that your progress seemsmore rapid. 

Healthy indebtedness is a great incentive to hard work and a materialbenefit in building character and gaming experience that in later yearswill be of untold value to you. 

Brains--Birth--Boodle

One of the weaknesses of the human race is envy. No one is entirelyfree from envy, although the true philosopher who has studied himselfand has things sized up correctly is nearly free from envy. 

Human kind have three measures for gauging the other fellow. We measurethe other fellow either by his knowledge--which is brains, by hispedigree--which is birth, or by the money he has accumulated--which isboodle. These three Bs are like three stars in the sky. The firststar--Brains is usually the dimmest, but it is really the brighteststar of all. Mankind is prone to look at the brighter stars of birthand boodle. 

These three stars of Brains, Birth and Boodle, are three aristocracies. The first aristocracy has no less authority than that of the Almighty. The aristocracies of birth and boodle are sham counterfeits gotten upby man. They do not mean anything when put into the crucible and testedby fire. 

The aristocracy of brains differs from the aristocracies of birth andboodle as the sun differs from the jack-o-lantern, or as the music ofthe soul differs from the bray of the burro, or as a pure woman's lovediffers from the stolen affections hashed up by the fourth husband. 

Brains like air and water, are not always appreciated until we haveanalyzed and investigated thoroughly. The foolish man thinks champagneis the finest drink. The wise man knows water is the best drink, eventhough water costs nothing. The foolish man has for his ideal--money orbirth. The wise man takes off his hat to brains. 

The measure of a man is his brain and not his birth or his boodle. Thought, reason and knowledge are possible to the man who has a brain. No man can buy brains, and truly he is an aristocrat of the highestorder who is blessed with a good brain. 

Some people whose ancestors came over with the Pilgrim Fathers have apicture of the Mayflower in their homes and they seem to take a greatdeal of pride in the picture of the Mayflower. There seems to be a haloaround the Mayflower. The descendants of the passengers of that shiplook upon the picture of the Mayflower as a sort of seal or guaranteeof the good qualities of their forefathers, and consequently, beingdirect descendants they take unto themselves a lot of credit forsomething in which they had no hand in the making. 

The Mayflower was afterwards used as a slave ship, but our disciples ofbirth do not want to know about this. Some of the passengers in theMayflower performed acts and violated laws and conducted themselves insuch a manner that would cause people of these days to be put in jailfor the same offenses. Some of these good ancestors of the presentdescendants of birth burned witches at the stake. 

Time wipes out a lot of things, and this is probably as it should be, but certainly it is true that the world is progressing and the good manof today is probably better and broader than some of these gloriousancestors to whom so many take off their hats. Some of our forefathersin Europe were little less than pirates and buccaneers. Theirdescendants today knowing that they can make great claims with littlefear of contradiction, extol the virtue of their forefathers andcomplacently take on a superior air. They have thought over the matterof birth so much that they really think they are superior beings. 

Grizzly Pete of Frozen Dog, Idaho, doesn't take much stock in thearistocracy of birth. He says, "It ain't what's on a man and it ain'twhat his father was that counts. The only thing to judge a man by iswhat's in him and what kind of brains he has. "

One thing about this glorious Western country of ours is that a mangets credit for and he is punished by his own individual acts. Itdoesn't make any difference how far back his pedigree runs, if hedoesn't make good himself, people have no use for him. 

The heritage of birth is mighty thin fabric and mighty weak materialfor a man to use in making a cloak of exclusiveness to put around him. 

We anticipate that some of our readers will take exception to ourattitude on the matter of birth. We wish to be plainly understood thatthe matter of good birth and good ancestors is a good thing to have. The writer has a pedigree that would be his passport into thearistocracy of birth if he chose to belong to that lodge. Your goodancestors is no handicap. It is a credit to you, but mark this downwell: You, yourself, are entitled to no credit for any acts of yourancestors. Your measure is and should be taken for what your own networth is. 

The aristocracy of boodle is the slimmest aristocracy of all. Yet thereare more people who try to get into that lodge than any other. Thepossession of the dollar seems to be the ambition of everyone, andusually the first thing we try to find out about a man is "how much ishe worth?" The thinker, however, knows that the possession of moneydoesn't make a man any better than his neighbor who has no money--theirmorals and their acts being even. 

Brains. That's the true aristocracy. The professor in college who hasspent a lifetime in study and has devoted his talents to upliftingmankind is an aristocrat. He may be getting two or three thousanddollars a year, while his brother with lesser knowledge is getting tentimes that much in another vocation. The aristocracy of brains alwayshas been, is now and ever will be the enduring aristocracy. Even thosewho belong to the aristocracies of birth and boodle find they are shamcounterfeits and many of them turn to study and to good impulses hopingthey may get into the lodge of the aristocracy of brain. 

In business the aristocracy of birth or the aristocracy of boodle is adecided handicap. They make the individual think he is superior and heis above doing things which seem to him trivial, because he thinks heis a superior being. The man with brains, however, digs as well asclimbs. Without brains, business would go to the dogs, for if businesswere conducted by men of birth and boodle without brains, you caneasily see that the whole fabric would fall to pieces. 

Backbone and Wishbone

In proportion as a man's backbone weakens his wishbone seems todevelop. 

The ten dollar a week man spends his time saying: "I wish I had theluck other people have. " He says: "I wish I had this place, or I wish Ihad that job. " He is ever wishing. 

Things in our body, whether muscle or bone, develop by usage, and if weuse the wishbone all the time it will develop into huge proportions. Onthe other hand if we develop our backbone and use it frequently, we maynot have cause to use the wishbone so much. 

Brace up. Stand erect. Strengthen your backbone and, with it, your jawbone. 

Say "I will" instead of "I wish. " The world bestows her prizes on menwith backbone and the blanks on those who use their wishbone. 

Do Good

Doing good is planting seed, the harvest may not show at present but inthe future you are going to reap it. 

A man is paid back precisely in the same coin he pays out. If he plantsweeds or mean impulses the harvest will be weeds and mean impulses. Ifhe plants seed of good deeds he will harvest good deeds. 

Centuries ago it was said "Cast your bread upon the waters and it willreturn to you many-fold. "

The man who is doing good as he goes along, who is lending help, kindlycounsel and encouragement will find the world is a pretty good place tolive in after all. As he journeys along through life he will find thegood he has done in the past has flourished and returned to him ingreatly increased proportions, like the bread cast upon the waters. 

It is not only the good one actually gets for the good, he has done, but it is the profit that comes in the way of happiness he gets for hisactions. The true way to obtain happiness is to do something forsomebody. You get back out of the general exchequer of good in theworld full payment for the good you have done, plus a profit ofhappiness which comes from the very doing of good. 

The Get-Away

After you have driven the nail home make your get-away. 

Many a solicitor has lost his prestige because, after havingaccomplished his point, he hung on. 

It is quite an art to know when to make the get-away. Study yourcustomer carefully, and when you have made your point clear and yourproposition is presented to him in the best possible manner, then getaway. 

The bore is a bore because he does not know how to get away. Thesolicitor is always welcome if it is known he is not a hanger-on, andthat he gets in and gets out quickly. 

Double Equipment

For the employe there is nothing better to possess than doubleequipment, by which we mean the ability to do two things well. 

From the employer's standpoint nothing will stand his business in suchgood stead as to have his employes doubly equipped. 

In the printing business, for instance, the old time printer knew howto set type, lock up forms and to run a press. 

Nowadays we seldom find a printer in the broad sense of the word. 

In the big printing establishment we find the various branches of theprinting trade have employes who are specialists at one thing. In theprinting trade the craftsman is either a compositor a proof-reader, amake-up man, a pressman or a binder. 

The employe who can set type and also run a press is a decidedadvantage to the employer. The writer knows a certain publishing housewhose every employe is doubly equipped. The rule of the proprietor isthat every job or branch of the business must have more than one personcompetent to run it, and that every person must know how to do twothings. 

Double equipment on the part of the employe gives the employer greatresources. 

When sickness, accident or other causes prevent the employe fromfilling his accustomed place, then the proprietor can call on otherswho have the double equipment, to fill in the gap. 

The employe who is following a particular line in the establishmentshould acquaint himself with some other branch of the business or someother trade, if he is a craftsman. 

The employe who is doubly equipped is decidedly at an advantage overthe employe who knows but one thing. 

Initiative

Initiative is simply the willingness and ability on the part of anemploye to do things that are not simply routine, to do things he isnot told to do, to look for opportunities to help the boss or toimprove the business wherever possible. 

The employe who has no initiative in his make up is going around acircle and when you go around a circle you don't go forward. There isno one thing outside of honesty, ability and hard work that will helpthe employe to go forward like initiative. 

In every great business there are many opportunities for the employe todo things he is not told to do and when an employe gets the initiativehabit he is not long in attracting the attention of the boss. 

Look over the work you are doing, study the matter carefully, figureout some plan whereby the value of the work you are doing will beincreased. 

Find a chance to lessen the expense in your department. 

Put into practice some idea that will increase the receipts. 

Acquaint yourself with the operations of other employes in similarwork. Wherever you find a plan better than yours, take advantage of it. 

Keep your eyes wide open and you will find many opportunities for doingthings you are not told to do. 

Every employe should carry out to the letter the directions given himby the boss and in addition to this he should have initiative, which isdoing things the boss did not tell him. 

It is the plus or initiative in a man's make-up that helps him to thefront. 

Night Work

It is always a question among experienced business men whether nightwork and Sunday work help the game of business. 

Of course there are occasions when a job must be finished or workcompleted within a specified time and if you are behind with yourhauling, it is necessary to turn all your resources into a singlenessof purpose to get the thing done. 

The trouble is, however, that many business men figure on this nightwork as part of the regular scheme and in this they overdo the matter. 

The law of compensation says that a man is good for just so much workand if he spreads the work over into longer hours the intrinsic valueof each hour is lessened. 

A man who habitually takes work to his home to finish and counts uponthese extra hours, will soon find the value of his work decreases. 

We should all remember that we should work while we work and play whilewe play. 

Work hard during your business hours, conserve your energies, butoutside of business hours, let play, study and recreation occupy yourtime. 

If you go home from business at night and forget the things you havebeen doing in the day and use your time for the things in life outsideof business, the next day, when you go to your office, you can makethings fly. 

It is proverbial that the busy man is the one to go to if you wishthings done promptly. 

Those of us who were born and reared in the country know a familiartype that is to be found in every country town. 

He may be a carpenter or blacksmith, or may run a repair shop of somekind. We find him going to the post office in the middle of the day toget his mail. We frequently find him in the back part of the countrystore playing checkers. At other times he is watching a horse trade. Again he is arguing politics. This man does not get in over four orfive hours' simon pure hard work in a day. 

You take a job to this man and it will drag days and weeks. You becomeimpatient at the delay. You get after the man and his answer is that hehas not the time. 

It is practically a truism that those who offer the excuse that theyhave not the time are really the ones that have the time. 

Some of our friends treat us shabbily in the matter of correspondenceand when you get a letter from one of them, he says: "Excuse me for notwriting sooner, but I really have been so busy that I have not had thetime to write. "

As a matter of fact it takes five or ten minutes to write a letter andthe person who pleads for forgiveness through lack of time has wasted ahundred times the minutes necessary to write a letter. 

The busy man, accepts his duty as a matter of course, a ranges hiscorrespondence and work in systematic order and goes at the thing, hammer and tongs, and gets the thing done. 

Night work is usually evidence that the man does not do his workproperly in the day time and he is like our friend in the country whowastes time in the day and tries to make up for it by night work. 

The thing to do is to work hard in the day time and rest at night. 

Obedience

Several years ago, our friend Elbert Hubbard wrote a little sermonetteentitled "Carrying the Message to Garcia. " The story was simply this:President McKinley called an orderly and gave him a letter and said:"Deliver this letter to General Garcia. "

The employe did not stand around and ask a lot of fool questions aboutthe trains and things. He put on his hat and duster and he deliveredthe letter to Garcia. These facts were stretched out in many words andmade a little booklet. That booklet reached the sale of more than amillion copies. 

It seemed to make a hit with business men throughout the country. Acertain railroad bought and gave a copy to every employe. Business menfollowed the example. The great sale of the book and the wide-spreadinterest it created would seem to indicate that carrying the message toGarcia was an unusual thing and so remarkable that it attractedattention. 

As a matter of fact the whole theme of the story was simple obedience. 

There are thousands of institutions in this country who have employeswho will carry the message to Garcia. 

Richard Harding Davis, you remember, was dining with friends in London. The discussion was along the lines of obedience and the like. 

On a wager he called a messenger boy, gave him a letter addressed tohis fiancee in Chicago, told the messenger boy to deliver the letter tothe lady and bring back an answer. That fifteen year old boy carriedthe message to Garcia, or in other words to Mr. Davis' sweetheart. 

The Colonel of a regiment has under him about twelve hundred men. Directly under him are his majors, and then come the captains, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals and privates. The first rule in thearmy is obedience of orders without question. 

If obedience were subject to question on the part of the subordinates, the colonel could win no battles. 

When your superior gives an order, the thing to do is to carry it out. If the order is wrong you will not be to blame, but your superior willsuffer. 

There are times, of course, when an order is given that is manifestlyimpracticable and initiative on the part of the employe might savetrouble. 

On the other hand, an executive would be greatly handicapped if hisorders were subject to interpretation and analysis by his subordinates. 

The executive may give an order and in the giving have in his own mindthe relation of this order to some other order he has given in anentirely different department and upon the proper execution of all theorders given through the various departments depends the ultimatesuccess of his plan. 

The thing for the employe to do is to obey orders willingly, quicklyand to the letter. 

The employe is not blamed when he does his duty. 

It is a source of great satisfaction to the boss to know he hasdependable employes and that when he gives an order the thing is doneso far as further effort on his part is concerned. 

Pay Day

We have all tried all sorts of plans regarding pay day, but the planmost satisfactory to all concerned is to pay each Tuesday or eachMonday for the previous week. If the nature of your business is suchthat Monday is an unusually busy day, then Tuesday should be your payday. 

Monday is usually called blue Monday, because the employes blot outsome of the sunshine on Sunday by thinking of the hard week's workahead of them. Much of the blueness is driven away, however, if inlooking forward they know that Monday or Tuesday they will get theirpay checks. 

The old fashioned habit of paying off Saturday nights is a bad one, especially if most of the employes are men. 

Many men are weak and it is difficult for them to pass a lot of saloonson Saturday night without the money in their pockets burning a hole. 

The Saturday pay day may mean that a percentage of your employes willnot show up on Monday morning. Many men will go on a spree on Saturdaynight on the theory that they can rest up on Sunday, who would notthink of going on a spree on Monday night or Tuesday night, for itwould interfere with the work next day. 

The writer does not know of a single concern that has adopted thisMonday or Tuesday pay day plan and practiced it for a reasonable timewithout finding it works admirably. Try it in your business and youwill not go back to the Saturday pay day. 

Saving

We will not indulge in the proverbs handed out by the savings bank inthe matter of saving. We are not pessimistic when we say that no manever became wealthy through the savings bank plan of putting away acertain amount each week. We will say, however, that there is no bettertraining for the employe than this one thing of saving. Saving a partof your weekly income and putting it away, if carried on for a numberof years becomes a habit and it means that you will keep your expenseswithin your income. It is the saving habit that makes the benefit, forlater on when you are in business the habit stands you in good steadand teaches you the value of having a reserve. 

By all means, put away a certain amount each week. If it is not adollar, put away fifty cents. If that is too much, put away half of it, or even ten cents a week. 

Have some amount as a fixed charge in your operations and put thisamount in the savings bank. Later on your balance will grow and youwill have much satisfaction in watching its development to betterproportions. 

Habitual saving makes you careful in the things you do. It teaches youthe relationship between principal and interest. It shows you that whenyou buy something useless and pay ten dollars for it that it is costingyou interest each year to maintain it. 

The man who does not save is pretty sure to live beyond his means andsome day trouble or affliction will come and he will be out of a joband then he appreciates the difference between the butterfly and thebee. 

When you haven't anything to fall back upon, the world is a mighty blueplace. When you have money in the bank it is a mighty good place tolive in. 

Waiting For Success

It takes a good poker-player to know when to lay down his hand. 

It's a wise business-man who knows when to quit a forlorn hope. 

It's all right to build up a business. It is all wrong to play a losinggame in business for a succession of years in the hopes of ultimatesuccess. 

As years go by the business man is establishing matters on a firmer andmore solid foundation. Sales generally increase; the volume of thebusiness gradually grows greater. This fact is responsible for manybusiness men continuing their business at a loss, lured on by the hopeof final success. It's all right to build a reputation and to bepatient, but when the odds are against you and by all the changes youmake and all the brains and ingenuity you put into your business, youcannot turn it into a profitable basis, then get out of that businessand start something new. 

It's all right to build, provided that as you go along you are making aliving profit, but dogged determination to play a losing game yearafter year is not to a man's credit. 

Every man has some particular channel in which his talents will fit andproduce good results. If your business goes along year after year at aloss, it is evident that your talents are not in the right channel. 

The great thing in business is that it shall respond quickly and showsigns of life right away. If it does not, then the business is wrong. 

The shores of the great ocean of business are strewn with wrecks whichhave been dashed to pieces on the rocks sailing for that false beaconlight, "keep everlastingly at it brings success. "

This saying is true, providing you are making expenses and some profitas you go along, but to keep everlastingly at it when your businessshows a loss means failure. 

The thing that lures many on is the increased sales. Meanwhile, theexpenses are increasing proportionately, and if these two lines arealways parallel, there is no hope of your making a success. Better quitbefore you get too deep in the hole and have a lot of "dead horses" topay for. 

It's all right to have ambition, tenacity and patience in business andto look forward to the far future as crowning success of your efforts, but it's all wrong unless you are paying expenses and making a livingwhile doing these things. 

Our Sons

The noblest and most important work we have to do is the training andteaching of the coming generation. 

The successful business man has no more difficult problem to solve thanwhat he will do with his son. 

It is a fact that the greatest successes in the business world todayare those men who had to start in the battle early, and fight their wayto the front. 

The successful business man usually tries to arrange matters so thathis son will not require to go through the hard working school ofexperience he himself attended, and in this the business man rathergoes to the other extreme in that he tries to make things easy for hisboy. 

As the twig is bent so the tree is inclined. The young mind is plasticand capable of receiving impressions, and we know that the impressionsmade in our youth are lasting all our days. 

The problem in the country is not so difficult, for there are so manythings to do about the home that the young country boy usually hasplenty of chores and duties to perform. 

Occupation is a decided blessing and a present benefit to a boy. 

People in the cities have all creature comforts about the homes, transportation facilities are ample, the homes are heated by steam, stores are in abundance, people buy from day to day, and every littleconvenience is at hand to keep the scheme of living going alongsmoothly. 

Because the city boy is surrounded with schools and the comforts ofhome he has much time on his hands. The boy is active, and if hisactivity is not turned on useful things, it will be turned on uselessthings. The young boy goes to the grammar school, and the daylighthours, outside of school hours, are devoted to play. This is right andas it should be, but when the boy gets along to twelve or fourteenyears of age, the parents should arrange for him some little duties, some regular task to perform. The youngster will get accustomed tothis, and it is decidedly beneficial. As the boy enters the high schoolhe finds his hours shorter and his leisure hours longer. 

The high school period is a most important one in the boy's life, andthe father should see to it that the high school boy is occupied forseveral hours each day, either in his own place of business or in someother establishment. 

There is no way of teaching a boy the value of money like having himwork for money. 

Arrange to pay your boy so much an hour for the duties he performs. Have his occupation regular, talk with him about what he has doneduring the day, be a companion to the boy, and soon you will noticethat he evinces interest in the things he is doing, and as time passes, ambition is fired in his breast, and when the time comes for him toenter the threshold of business he has been prepared for the work. 

It is strange that while we parents realize the importance ofeducation, we pay so little attention to the boy while he is going toschool. We should keep in touch with the boy's teachers and with theboy himself, taking an interest in his studies. The business man as arule drifts apart from his son during his younger years. 

There is nothing that will help the boy so much as being a companion tohim, being interested with him in the things he does, whether work orstudy. Fathers and sons should be comrades. 

A close companionship between father and son is not only a greatsatisfaction and source of happiness to each of them, but is decidedlybeneficial to both. 

By all means have some regular occupation for your boy while he isgoing to school. Keep in close touch with him. Explain to him thethings he does not understand. Show him the great possibilities aheadof him if he does right, and the impossibility for him to succeed if hedoes wrong. 

Pull

The young man who is expecting to get a fat job through pull is workingon a false basis. The young man whose objective is to get a snap showshe has not ambition, and surely this young man will occupy inferiorpositions as long as he gets a job through pull. 

There is a legitimate pull in business, and that is activity andability. Don't look for snaps. Snaps are merely traps. Men are not paidfor snaps, but for snap. 

The average young man just out of college looks for a job through thepull of his father or some relation, and in this he is making a greaterror. The best way to get a job is to get it without pull through yourown energy and aggressiveness. 

The best jobs are obtained through push and not pull. 

The City Hall and Government buildings all have the word "pull" on thefront door, and in direct contrast with this you will notice the frontdoors of the successful business institutions are marked "push. "

Gossip

It is surprising to see the extent to which gossip is carried on amongbusiness men. The funny papers always refer to women and the members ofthe sewing societies as gossips of the first class, but if the gossipgoing around business circles could be tabulated, we are sure thesewing society would have the joke on us. 

It is a footless thing to spend valuable time in idle gossip, for thegossip is seldom a successful business man. 

Gossip takes hold of some men to such an extent that most of theirwaking hours are spent in finding out something to tell to someoneelse, and thus leaves but little time for business. 

Bribes

Many business men seem to think that bribes are efficient helps. It isnot so. The moment you bribe a person you acknowledge your dishonestyby paying for his dishonesty, and you may be sure that the bribe habitwill grow; the demands of the men accepting the bribe will grow toalarming proportions. For every dollar you make by bribing someone, youare losing ten dollars in other ways, especially in your own selfrespect and satisfaction. 

The moment you give a bribe you are under obligations, and some day orother the facts will be brought out and you will suffer theconsequences of your own weakness. 

Underhand, clandestine information you get is no more than dishonestyon your part. You can get better information and accomplish yourpurpose more surely by going direct to a competitor, stating your caseplainly, and announcing your abhorrence of underhand methods. Yourcompetitor will appreciate you more for your fairness, and he will goout of his way to give you information when you have shown you aresquare. 

Stenographers

Few young men realize the advantage of learning stenography. We allknow the young man who writes shorthand comes in touch with the boss atonce, and while acting as amanuensis or secretary is getting aschooling that money could not buy. He is going through and becomingfamiliar with business as it actually exists. 

He sees the decisions made by his employer, and he unconsciouslyabsorbs methods which would be almost impossible for him to learn wereit not for his proximity to the boss. 

Shorthand is decidedly beneficial, first--because it is a good trainingfor the mind; second--it is a help all through one's life. It enableshim to take down memoranda and keep notes of verbal transactions; itenables him to get in the private office, and to be in the middle ofthe nerve centers of business. 

Some of the greatest men in this country were shorthand writers. Thestenographer who is alert soon gets to the center of the business; hesoon has responsibilities given him by the boss, and is in direct linefor promotion. 

Hypochondriacs

Here is a type we run across every day in business. We see theapparently well man taking out a pill box or a bottle of medicine as hesits down to lunch. We ask him what is the matter, and he proceeds totell us about his bodily ills and infirmities. 

Many men seem to take a keen delight in having something the matterwith them. They go to a physician, though often the disease ispractically mental. 

You can't get health out of a glass bottle. The man who is takingmedicine all the time is going at things wrong end to. If his stomachis out of whack he should change his method of living rather than totry to cure his dyspepsia with stuff that comes in a bottle. 

The man who needs a tonic before he can eat a lunch had better takeplenty of air and exercise than to take poisonous drugs into hissystem. 

If you are a smoker and find you have no appetite for lunch, give upcigars in the forenoon, and you will notice an immediate differencewhen you sit down to the noonday meal. 

The hypochondriac imagines he has things the matter with him, and hebecomes confirmed in his belief, he finds that so long as he lives hehas something the matter with him. He no sooner gets cured of one thansomething else attacks him. There is no medicine like air and exerciseand occupation. The man who gives in to trifling ailments is in a sadplight. He is never happy unless he is sick. He is unreasonable, and heis the last one to appreciate what can be done by a man who cureshimself through the mental processes. 

We all know that we can take a perfectly well man and pre-arrange tohave a dozen of his friends on a given day greet him with some remarkabout his ill appearance. That man will be sick before the tenth manaccosts him. 

Politics

Politics is a losing game. Every man owes it to himself and to hisfamily and to his country to take an interest in politics to the extentof getting out to the primaries and voting for the right man, and helpto get good men in office. But when a man carries politics to extremesor mixes it with his business, his business is sure to suffer. 

There are two kinds of politics--the honest kind and the grafting kind. The honest politician gets very slight remuneration for the time andenergy he spends, and the grafting politician sooner or later winds upin the soup through his dishonest practices. 

There is no greater danger to business than to have the proprietorspend much of his time in politics. The upright business man will notdescend to the things practised by the dishonest politician, and thesharp business man who has no compunctions on this score will make aloss in his business. 

The law of compensation surely comes in here, for in proportion as aman plays politics his business is bound to suffer. 

Profanity

Twenty-five years ago profanity was found on every side. Today you findit only among laborers. Business men won't allow profanity. 

Swearing goes with lying. The truthful man can look you in the eye andchisel out his words and you know he means it. 

The liar gets angry and swears, and he is a bluff. 

Truth doesn't need curse words to make it stick. 

Some great men swear and many small men swear. Usually, however, thetruly great man doesn't swear. 

Men who think, men who study and analyze, seldom swear. 

Swear words are usually used as fillers in sentences. Some men havelimited knowledge of adjectives so they resort to swearing. 

Mark this when you hear a man firing a volley of profanity in rapidsuccession--You lose respect for that man!

Profanity is an easier habit to acquire and harder to give up than itsdistant relative, slang. 

Slang has its value for it has taken place of much profanity. 

Slang and profanity, and logic and thought don't mix well together. Themore profanity, the less brains in your make-up. Profanity is ahold-back. 

System

System is all right so long as it lessens labor. Generally system iscomplex and increases fixed charges. 

The system of copying every letter is a waste of time. Not once in athousand cases do you require to refer to a letter. 

Have fixed rules and prices and you won't have to refer to letters. 

When you do copy a letter copy it on the back of the letter you areanswering. Use a carbon sheet. 

Have Simplicity your rule instead of System. 

System has tangled many institutions. 

Beware of system that makes more work. 

Don't clutter up your office with a lot of useless data and wagon loadsof old letters and records. 

Rule of Gold

Centuries ago Confucius was walking through the woods soliloquizing andanalyzing and sizing up things in solitude. While thus engaged he waswaylaid by two Chinese peasants. These men had heard of Confucius'philosophy, but they could not make much out of it, for Confucius usedwords beyond their limited understanding. These men, with raised clubs, halted Confucius and said to him: "Our minds are small. We do notunderstand the things you say. Tell us how to live. Make your storyshort or we will slay you. We can only remember as much as you can tellin a moment. Therefore, stand on one foot and tell us quickly what weare to do. We can only remember what you can tell while standing on onefoot. "

Confucius stood on one foot and said: "Sing, fat, bong, lung, looy, "which, being interpreted, means "what you would like others to do toyou, do to them. "

This is the golden rule which has been handed down through centuries. It has been alloyed and simulated. It has been attacked, but, like allpure gold, it has endured forever. There is no line of action we cansuggest or anything that will prove more valuable to the young man orold man through life than the golden rule. 

The golden rule is not theoretical, but a wholly practical help, and soin closing this series of talks with you, the writer feels that theessence of all the logic, good advice and philosophy may be summed upin the following:

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. "

In saying good-bye we suggest that you particularly remember the keyto knowledge, which is O. R. B. , and which means Observe, Reflect andBenefit, and the practice of the following: Work, Horse Sense andGolden Rule. 

THE END

My Symphony

By

COL. Wm. C. HUNTER

I have set my mark at Truth, My purpose fixed, I shall not hesitate;Ever on and on againI go toward the goal of my ambition;I shall not turn aside or pause. The pleadings of the Siren, The wiles of the Devil, The threats of mine Enemies, Shall not make my Purpose change. Obstacles may block my pathAnd Darkness blur my way. But ever firm with Right my guideI shall keep pushing on. I may not reach my grand Ideal, But be that as it may, The journey to it surely willBe a pleasant one;And should I fall upon the way, My face shall be toward the placeI started for. Truth is Right and Right is Truth, Wrong shall surely fail;I shall not be discouragedAt Clouds or Storms. I know the Sun doth shine, It beams somewhere tho' I see it not. I fear not but the end of TimeWill show all Things that are, are bestFor the Eternal plan. Truth endureth and Lies shall not obtainFor any length of time. In Shadow Land are upstretched handsAnd, midst the noise of this Great WorldAre feeble cries for help;My ear shall practice to hear such calls, My hands shall train to lift the fallen;Noble men and women who are pushed asideNeed champions for their cause;Man, where'er he is or what he beIs none the less my brotherAnd needs the strong to cheer him on. What we extend in help and cheer, Brings its reward in Happiness. It is not for me to say or thinkLook out for myself first;The bird, the beast, the stream that flows, The hills, the fields, the land, the sea, Are Parts, are Things like me, And all belong to one Grand Plan;The stars, the moon, the sky, And endless space as well, Are Parts of one machine, That runneth by but One Grand PowerOf which I am in truth a part, An Atom though I be. All things that are, are best--This much Truth I know, Though why things are I can't explain, My Vision still is dim. All answers will be given outWhen time shall be no more, And so I keep a-plodding on, And on and on my way;My face is to the Light, My heart doth sing for Joy;I strive to do the best I can each dayIn Act and Thought and Word;I know not just the plan of things that areBut back of all is Truth, And Truth I seek;I shall not know all TruthUntil the great Revealing Time. 

Col. Hunter's Symphony is printed on heavy parchment paper. Illustratedin colors. Size 9 x 12 inches. It is suitable for framing or may behung on the wall with ribbon. Price, postpaid, 25 cents a copy. 

Another Colonel Hunter Book

[Illustration: Front cover of the book "FROZEN DOG TALES AND OTHER THINGS"]

This book is full of pathos and humor. It is all stories and sketchesdepicting life in the far West. It tells of the doings of Grizzly Pete, Joe Kip and other inhabitants of Frozen Dog, Idaho, where ColonelHunter has his beautiful ranch. It breathes the spirit of the mountainsand the forest. In Dollars and Sense you have read the business side ofColonel's life. In Frozen Dog Tales you get his life as he sees itwhile close to nature. 

The book is much larger than Dollars and Sense. It is bound in fancycloth covers in colors. It has 200 pages and one or more pictures onevery page in colors. 

If you like Dollars and Sense, you will love Frozen Dog Tales. Ittouches your heart strings and the next moment convulses you withlaughter. 

The price of Frozen Dog Tales is $1. 00 per copy, postpaid. 

Address HUNTER & CO. , Oak Park, Ill. 

COL. HUNTER'SAutographed Motto

We want every reader of Dollars and Sense to have one of these brassmottoes. 

The illustration below shows the size. 

[Illustration: Be pleasant every morning until ten o'clock, the rest ofthe day will take care of itself

Wm C. Hunter]

The autographed motto is engraved and enameled. It has a hole in thecenter to tack it up. 

The motto can either be worn as a pocket piece, or it may be tacked upon your desk, on your dresser, or on the wall. 

THE PLATE IS TWO INCHES IN DIAMETER

PRICE 10 CTS. POSTPAID

Address HUNTER & CO. , OAK PARK, ILL.