. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS AHGILBS
 
 The WINNING 
 FIGHT 
 
 By HERBERT KAUFMAN 
 
 OWEN W. BREWER 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Jttnr. OP CALIF. LIBBJOT, IDS HKHBTM
 
 Copyright, 1910 
 by Herbert Kaufman 

 
 When you stop to think of what you ve 
 
 done, 
 
 And you count your struggles, one by one, 
 The times when you stood, tho ' you wished 
 
 to run 
 
 When it cost a mighty lot to stick 
 And play the game without a tricky 
 Tho' all the while (if you'd been slick) 
 You might have saved both time and 
 
 cash, 
 
 But you chose instead to go to crash 
 Rather than let your honor smash 
 When you measure yourself against the 
 
 rest 
 
 And find that you stood the hardest test 
 And, because of your code, came out the 
 
 best 
 // you've always k Q pt n the clean, 
 
 straight side, 
 A nd there isn 't a thing that you wish to 
 
 hide, 
 
 You're well entitled to glow with pride 
 // your ways and your days have all 
 
 been right, 
 And you're not afraid of the strongest 
 
 light, 
 You\e fought the only Winning Fight. 
 
 7 
 
 21
 
 The twentieth century 
 was born without a 
 memory it's so busy 
 with today's achieve- 
 ments and tomorrow's 
 projects that no one 
 has time to remember 
 yesterday's exploits.
 
 THE MODERN PACE 
 
 Opportunity changes her pass-word every 
 day the world is spinning four times as 
 fast as it used to, A few misguided astron- 
 omers may try to dispute the fact but 
 they're living 4 'among the stars/' The man 
 who hasn't progressed is like the house- 
 holder who expects the key of his old flat 
 to fit his new home "he can't get in*" 
 
 Information soon becomes obsolete in an 
 age where improvement dismantles more 
 machinery than wear and tear which in- 
 cubates sky-scrapers over-month which 
 sets up a creed one week and upsets it the 
 next which creates a hero yesterday and 
 changes his laurel wreath to a fool's cap 
 to-morrow* 
 
 No man is secure who feels a sense of 
 security. Self-complacency is a frost it 
 kills growth. Self-satisfaction is a rust it
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 _,, dolls brilliance* The universe wants new 
 Modern wa ^ s ^ doing old things and the new ways 
 Pace become old over-night* 
 
 The twentieth century was born without a 
 memory it's so busy with today's achieve- 
 ments and tomorrow's projects that no one 
 has time to remember yesterday's exploits. 
 
 The new era has cancelled the lie of vested 
 right. Position and assured status can no 
 longer be inherited* The millions have at 
 last overtaken the thousands* The sons of 
 service are standing shoulder to shoulder 
 with the sons of privilege. The barriers are 
 down this is the day of equal chance- 
 when any man may have what he wills if 
 he possess the strength to reach it* 
 
 Those whose fathers had but the right to 
 use their hands may now employ their 
 brains* New view-points bred of centuries 
 of peasant's dreams and forbidden ambi- 
 tions are dominant* 
 
 An eager Americanism is measuring off 
 centuries in ten-year lengths crowding 
 days of energy into hour spaces. The older 
 mankind grows the younger its masters 
 
 \2
 
 The Modern Pace 
 
 become. The modern pace is wearing upon < 
 humans as wheels are worn when they race Pace 
 at reckless speed. 
 
 The narrow man can't survive. Broader 
 chests and broader foreheads are ready to 
 replace him. The yotmg man is challenging 
 his ability. Unless he constantly renews 
 his vitality and reviews his knowledge 
 unless he keeps posted and keeps pacing 
 unless he adds to his mental kit the newer 
 tools of thought and trade the newer 
 systems and the newer economics he can- 
 not hope to compete in the after-building. 
 
 Just as the power-riveter replaces a score 
 of hammers just so the new type of man 
 the virile, full-nerved, terrific, high-ten- 
 sion worker is pounding down the unfit. 
 
 There is no mercy for the weakling the 
 battle-field of Caesar's day was not more 
 brutal Human nature has not changed 
 only the weapons. The Roman fought with 
 steel for gold we are fighting with gold for 
 steel. 
 
 The moment you become a foolish miser, 
 gloating over your yesterdays, you are lost* 
 
 13
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The You mtist keep absorbing new ideas as well 
 Modern as new a j r . You must build your walls 
 
 Pace higher and thicker and constantly. New 
 men with new strength and new weapons of 
 competition are "marching onward in the 
 dawn" to give you contest they ask no 
 quarter they grant none. 
 
 J4
 
 Walls crumble and em- 
 pires fall. The tidal 
 wave sweeps from the 
 sea and tears a fortress 
 from its rocks. The rot- 
 ting nations drop from 
 off Time's bough, and 
 only things the dream- 
 ers make live on. 
 
 15
 
 THE DREAMERS 
 
 They are the architects of greatness. Their 
 vision lies within their souls. They never 
 see the mirages of Fact, but peer beyond 
 the veils and mists of doubt and pierce the 
 walls of unborn Time. 
 
 The World has accoladed them with jeer 
 and sneer and jibe t for worlds are made of 
 little men who take but never give who 
 share but never spare who cheer a grudge 
 and grudge a cheer. 
 
 Wherefore, the paths of progress have 
 been sobs of blood dropped from their 
 broken hearts* 
 
 Makers of empire, they have fought for 
 bigger things than crowns and higher seats 
 than thrones. Fanfare and pageant and 
 the right to rule or will to love are not the 
 fires which wrought their resolution into 
 
 \1
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The steel. Grief only streaks their hairs with 
 Dreamers silver, but has never greyed their hopes. 
 
 They are the Argonauts, the seekers of 
 the priceless fleece the Truth. 
 
 Through all the ages they have heard the 
 voice of Destiny call to them from the un- 
 known vasts. They dare uncharted seas, 
 for they are makers of the charts. With 
 only cloth of courage at their masts and 
 with no compass save their dreams, they 
 sail away undaunted for the far, blind shores. 
 
 Their brains have wrought all human 
 miracles. In lace of stone their spires stab 
 the Old World's skies and with their golden 
 crosses kiss the sun. 
 
 The belted wheel, the trail of steel, the 
 churning screw, are shuttles in the loom on 
 which they weave their magic tapestries. 
 
 A flash out in the night leaps leagues of 
 snarling seas and cries to shore for help, 
 which, but for one man's dream, would 
 never come. 
 
 Their tunnels plow the river bed and 
 chain the islands to the Motherland. 
 
 Their wings of canvas beat the air and 
 
 18
 
 The Dreamers 
 
 add the highways of the eagle to the human The 
 paths* Dreamers 
 
 A God-hewn voice swells from a disc of 
 glue and wells otrt through a throat of 
 brass, caught sweet and whole, to last 
 beyond the maker of the song, because a 
 dreamer dreamt* 
 
 What would you have of fancy or of fact 
 if hands were all with which men had to 
 build? 
 
 Your homes are set upon the land a 
 dreamer found* The pictures on its walls 
 are visions from a dreamer's soul* A 
 dreamer's pain wails from your violin. 
 
 They are the chosen few the Blazers of 
 the Way who never wear Doubt's bandage 
 on their eyes who starve and chill and 
 hurt, but hold to courage and to hope, 
 because they know that there is always 
 proof of truth for them who try that only 
 cowardice and lack of faith can keep the 
 seeker from his chosen goal, but if his heart 
 be strong and if he dream enough and 
 dream it hard enough, he can attain, no 
 matter where men failed before* 
 
 19
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Walls crumble and empires fall. The 
 tidal wave sweeps from the sea and tears a 
 fortress from its rocks. The rotting nations 
 drop from off Time's bough, and only 
 things the dreamers make live on. 
 
 They are the Eternal Conquerors their 
 vassals are the years. 
 
 20
 
 He seeks his model in a 
 mirror measures him- 
 self by his own image 
 and never falls short of 
 his ideal. He is intol- 
 erable of the rest of 
 the world and to it. 
 
 21
 
 THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL 
 
 His conceit is his defeat his constancy 
 to himself is a model of devotion for all 
 lovers* He neither wishes nor misses the 
 regard of others he's a combination Darby 
 and Joan* 
 
 He seeks his model in a mirror measures 
 himself by his own image and never falls 
 short of his ideal. He is intolerable of the 
 rest of the world and to it. 
 
 He heeds what pleases him most and not 
 what helps him he makes no friends 
 because he destroys the basis of friendship 
 that frankness which warns a man of his 
 errors before they have time to grow into 
 habits. He is insulted at the truth he has 
 not learned and will not be taught that 
 sincerity is seldom flattering and that flat- 
 tery is never sincere. 
 
 His universe is a swelled head with 
 
 23
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The the pronotm "I" for an axis* His brain 
 Man Who is stunted because he will not let it 
 Knows It expand he denies it nutrition he is no 
 longer in an absorptive mood he considers 
 himself beyond the point of learning and is 
 therefore unfit to teach. 
 
 His ability lessens as his complacency 
 grows his sense of humor soon deserts him 
 or he would realize that he is long-eared 
 instead of long-headed* He is a boor and 
 a bore t constantly inflicting his lopsided 
 theories and advice upon his listeners* 
 Those who voluntarily remain within his 
 circle are objective they have either found 
 a use for him or hope that he will find a use 
 for them. 
 
 He builds life badly because he builds 
 alone in his hour of opportunity he neglects 
 to earn well-wishers and in his hour of 
 distress his smirking, fawning intimates 
 (upon whom he has burdened his offensive 
 mannerisms) are first to add their kicks to 
 that of misfortune* 
 
 He carries his egotism into his business* 
 If in earlier years he created a success, he 
 
 24
 
 The Man Who Knows It All 
 
 insists that all who follow after him must The 
 of necessity either be followers or be fools* Man Who 
 He does not know that he is wrong until he Knows It 
 is wrecked his conceit makes him color- 
 blind to all signals of danger. He sniffs 
 at his competitors and permits them to 
 expand without opposition until they can 
 sniff at him. 
 
 He must fail because he does not keep 
 his mental mechanism up-to-date he must 
 fail as inevitably as a hatter who persists 
 in creating styles which please himself* 
 without regard to the wishes of his cus- 
 tomers. He is like the recruit who declared 
 himself the only man in the entire regiment 
 keeping proper step. 
 
 You can't help him, because he can't 
 hear you there is no deafness so complete 
 as that of egotism no blindness so absolute 
 as that of those who will not open their 
 eyes. 
 
 He is a danger and a menace to any 
 enterprise a stubborn mule hitched with 
 his head toward the dashboard. 
 
 One wagon wheel turning in reverse 
 
 25
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The action forces the other three to strain 
 Man Who doubly hard one such man in a business 
 Knows It can uselessly double the work of all his 
 associates. He is always sure that he is 
 in the right t but he never takes into account 
 how much his rights have a right to weigh 
 for the "right of way/' 
 
 The sooner he is eliminated the better for 
 all concerned he is a solitaire player and 
 doesn't belong in a game with partners. 
 
 He is neither curable nor endurable* 
 He's a cheap riddance at any price even 
 at his own idea of his value. 
 
 26
 
 Those who yearn to 
 wear the laurel wreath 
 must learn to bear the 
 fool's cap. The dif- 
 ference between a jack- 
 ass and genius isn't so 
 much a matter of ears 
 as of years. 
 
 27
 
 THAT FOOL 
 
 If you hope to improve the world, first 
 look to be reproved. Man is suspicious 
 of his benefactors* Jenner was fought and 
 cursed for fighting the small-pox curse* 
 The universe does not drop its beliefs 
 they must be knocked down by proof. 
 The mere possession of knowledge is nothing 
 it is totally useless until it is used. 
 
 You can't plant a new crop in an old 
 field until you clear away the. stubble. 
 The birth of an idea usually means the 
 death of an ideal. 
 
 Columbus was sure that the world was a 
 giant apple and not a geological pan-cake t 
 but he had to produce a western hemisphere 
 before the fifteenth century believed in an 
 eastern one. 
 
 Your father had the chance to buy a 
 share of the original telephone stock, but 
 because he was an average man and there- 
 
 29
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 That Fool fore narrow and suspicious of all that he 
 did not understand, he congratulated him- 
 self upon his common sense and invested 
 the money in cigars* 
 
 Your ancestors broiled a few thousand 
 gentlemen for insulting their vanity for 
 the terrible crime of thinking differently* 
 
 Those who yearn to wear the laurel 
 wreath must learn to bear the fool's cap. 
 The difference between a jack-ass and 
 genius isn't so much a matter of ears as of 
 years. 
 
 Great ambitions must be backed by 
 great control, great denial and great de- 
 termination. They who understand most 
 are sometimes least understood. 
 
 Just one man in a hundred can see 
 beyond his nose the short-sighted people 
 are in the majority and the majority 
 rules. Only imagination can visualize what 
 is to be most people have no imagination, 
 therefore they doubt and ridicule what 
 they do not comprehend. To them the 
 oak is never apparent in the acorn* 
 
 30
 
 That Fool 
 
 "That fool" rang in the cars of every That Fool 
 crusader of progress. Most illustrious men 
 divide their careers into three chapters: 
 
 Chapter One 
 The time when they jeered me* 
 
 Chapter Two 
 The time when they cheered me. 
 
 Chapter Three 
 The time when they feared me. 
 
 Fortune disdains mere ability brain is 
 nothing without bravery* The man who 
 can be thrashed by a sneer has retreated 
 before he is defeated* Half the new 
 town-halls are gifts from "blamed fools" 
 who left home because they couldn't get a 
 sixty-horse-power opportunity in a one- 
 horse village* Marshall Field was dismissed 
 for incompetency by a brilliant cross-roads 
 merchant prince. 
 
 Success is only for those who are willing to 
 stand by their standards who are ready 
 
 31
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 That Fool to endure the siege of mis judgment who 
 are prepared to face the fire of criticism and 
 to accept defeat until they become vac- 
 cinated against it* Most men who gave up 
 would have arrived if they had kept up* 
 
 Nothing can be accomplished by a coward 
 everything is possible to the courageous* 
 The realm of "You Can't" is dwindling 
 every year its coast-line is being eaten 
 away by each successive surge of advance- 
 ment. The greatest works of humanity are 
 still incubating in the womb of time. They 
 will be achieved by the "fools" who won't 
 lie down until they've downed some lie. 
 
 32
 
 Fate is old and wise 
 and cunning and 
 
 cruel. Every time she 
 
 thinks of him she 
 
 Every time she 
 
 looks at him she winks. 
 
 She has made him 
 
 33
 
 THE FAILURE 
 
 When the bookkeeper reaches the office 
 he finds him puzzling through the mail and 
 scheming out his coming nine hours of 
 routine* He hasn't had a month's vacation 
 since he slipped in harness. He takes a 
 scant half hour for luncheon even at fifty 
 years of age he hasn't earned the right to 
 a leisurely midday cigar. His daily path 
 runs in a straight line from his desk to his 
 bed. 
 
 He's a slave, shackled to the most worth- 
 less ambition that ever dulled a soul. 
 
 The pace the monotonous, unvarying 
 schedule the grinding, binding, blinding 
 self-drive the steady trudging onward un- 
 der the lash of his own will, have so worn 
 him and torn him that his nerves are peep- 
 ing through their threadbare coats by day, 
 spoiling his temper and his digestion; by 
 
 35
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Failure night, squirming and twisting at his peace 
 as he begs them for the relaxation of calm 
 sleep* 
 
 Life has cheated him by teaching him to 
 cheat himself. The fruits of success have 
 never been sweet upon his lips he has only 
 tasted the bitter rind* 
 
 His mind is channeled and all his thoughts 
 run in one deep groove the same sorts of 
 thoughts in the same groove* The only 
 book he knows is his ledger. He has never 
 permitted Ruskin to carry him along the 
 canals of Venice and re-weave the tapestry 
 of the Renaissance* Nor under the magic 
 spell of "Idylls of the King" has he seated 
 himself in the lists of chivalry where Sir 
 Lancelot would gladly joust for his pleasure. 
 
 Michelangelo and Titian have wrought in 
 their fine frenzy of genius, but his eyes have 
 never known the glories of their master 
 craft. The Alps have poked their frosted 
 old noses into the clouds Lugano has 
 purled and sobbed against her rocks the 
 sun has painted purple the white walls of 
 Tangier every day since he possessed the 
 
 36
 
 The Failure 
 
 key to his liberty, bat the chains have The Failure 
 never dropped from his ankles long enough 
 for him to paint their majesty upon the 
 canvas of his memory* 
 
 He is the most abject failure that ever 
 succeeded in life* 
 
 And yet you have envied him and wished 
 to stand in his stead* You have paused 
 before his marble cell and cursed the 
 fortune which denied you the right to have 
 what he possesses his worthless hoard of 
 unspent and unspendable money* 
 
 He can buy a thousand shares of Steel as 
 readily as you can purchase a crimson 
 cravat he can own the site of a city as 
 easily as you can take title to your allotted 
 six foot of peace-earth. But with all of 
 his wealth he can't buy what you possess 
 youth, and the opportunity to turn 
 existence into life* 
 
 Fate is old and wise and cunning and 
 cruel. Every time she thinks of him she 
 grins* Every time she looks at him she 
 winks* She has made him overpay. She 
 has sold at the price of gold and loaded him 
 
 37
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Failure down with riches which at his possession 
 have changed from preciousness into use- 
 lessness. 
 
 Now it's too late* He's too old to know* 
 All the mystery and the charm and the 
 marvel of things all the poetry and beauty 
 and wonder of his days are gone. He ran 
 by them too fast to read only the last 
 chapters are before him he can't turn back 
 the pages of Life* For thirty years he 
 planned "tomorrow" the only thing in 
 the world that never arrives. At twenty 
 he could have found joy t at thirty enjoy- 
 ment, at forty amusement, but at fifty he 
 can't play* 
 
 He has deadened every sense except that 
 of acquisition, and wealth unused is merely 
 poverty. 
 
 The next time you pass his home, think 
 it over the laugh is on him you're the 
 rich man* 
 
 38
 
 We don't want to help 
 you because assistance 
 doesn't aid. Props 
 merely show inability 
 to stand alone. We're 
 kindest to you when we 
 make you prove 
 when we force you to 
 get past handicaps. 
 Jumpers are developed 
 by setting hurdles. 
 
 39
 
 DON'T STOP AT THE START 
 
 Get away from the big mob of little men 
 and come on up. Nobody has yet managed 
 to fill out the space between here and the 
 stars. 
 
 There's nothing but room overhead. 
 Competition is intense only down below. 
 The hardest struggle is the beginning. 
 The outset of life is the biggest trial. The 
 start takes more time than the race. 
 
 If you're sure that nothing will stop you 
 nothing can stop you. So long as the 
 spirit of fight is in you t you're like a 
 throbbing motor as soon as you can get 
 belted to opportunity you're sure to drive 
 things. 
 
 Everything unusual had to be waited for* 
 The man who built the Washington monu- 
 ment simply piled his stone higher than 
 anyone else he merely kept his head clear 
 
 41
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Don't Stop anc * k* s W0f k straight. What is crooked 
 
 at the falls. A straight line is always the shortest. 
 
 Start If you doubt it, try to recall anybody who 
 
 ever got anything or anywhere in any other 
 
 way. Roundabout short cuts simply make 
 
 you turn back and start anew. 
 
 Being honest is the greater part of 
 achievement* When you know that you're 
 doing the best within you, you can't be 
 downed. Self respect is an eternal life 
 preserver no matter how often circum- 
 stance wrecks you, you're bound to float 
 back to solid ground again. 
 
 Success can't be inherited if you've 
 been handed power or wealth and can't 
 reproduce it of your own accord, you're 
 worse off than the man who had to build 
 both for himself. He can repeat his fortune 
 because he has the tools of experience with 
 which to re-create* 
 
 All really big men carved their way with 
 their own muscles and their own brains and 
 their own determination* Mansions and 
 palaces don't incubate producers. 
 
 The masters of the world moulded their 
 
 42
 
 Don't Stop at the Start 
 
 own destinies they grew great, step by Don't Stop 
 step and year by year. They stayed great at the 
 because each inch of their progress was a Start 
 contest with somebody else, until they had 
 defeated, by sheer ability, every opponent. 
 
 Timber can only be seasoned oat in the 
 open where the bad weather can get to 
 work on it it rots under a shed* 
 
 The need and hunger and want of things 
 seasoned three poor, ignorant boys into 
 Lincoln, Field and Edison. They became 
 enduring through the opposition of men 
 who already had what they wanted they 
 became forceful by trying and trying until 
 the last trial was met. 
 
 We don't want to help you because as- 
 sistance doesn't aid. Props merely show 
 inability to stand alone. 
 
 We're kindest to you when we make you 
 prove when we force you to get past 
 handicaps. Jumpers are developed by 
 setting hurdles. 
 
 We can't know that you're true-blue 
 until you have stood some of the rains of 
 life and realize that your colors don't run. 
 
 43
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Don't Stop When we assist you least, we befriend you 
 
 at the most we're teaching you self-development* 
 
 Start It's kinder to kick you than to coddle you, 
 
 because it gives you a chance to kick back 
 
 and every time your kicking is harder, you 
 
 gain additional belief in your own power* 
 
 Don't stop because the start tires you 
 you'll soon get used to the strain. The 
 cavalry recruit must stick in the saddle 
 and ride until he doesn't mind the jolting. 
 The oarsman must keep rowing until his 
 blisters grow into callouses. 
 
 Keeping on is the whole trick. The pace 
 is secondary it will develop as you pro- 
 gress. Speed without lasting-power is 
 wasted. 
 
 It wasn't the fastest beginner that won 
 the Olympian Marathon. Legs didn't pro- 
 duce the victor but grit. It was the man 
 whose courage didn't wobble when his 
 knees did whose tenacity kept him going 
 and held his chest back and his head high* 
 
 It was the spirit of "I Will" that drove 
 him to the end nothing else really counted. 
 
 44
 
 What goes into the 
 past comes out of the 
 future. Carelessness 
 won't ripen into suc- 
 cess. Laziness won't 
 fructify into ease. 
 Trickery won't breed 
 eminence. 
 
 45
 
 THERE'S JUST ONE EASY ROAD 
 
 The man who lies down and the man 
 who lies up and down eventually stay down 
 the one won't deliver what's expected of 
 him the other can't* They both want to 
 buy success at illegal rates they're taking 
 too much discount* There's just one easy 
 road the hard, straight way. The little 
 off-cuts the smooth, twisting side paths, 
 only seem safe, they're not meant to be 
 walked on. 
 
 Ever since human folk began to reason, 
 a certain percentage of misguided idiots 
 have tried to get ahead by cutting over the 
 quicksands. Occasionally some unusual 
 man (who would have done twice as well 
 if he'd "done" one-half as many) realizes 
 fifty per cent on his ability-investment by 
 "getting away" with more than the law 
 
 47
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 There's allows, btrt even when he does hold it, he 
 Just One lets g of something worth more he over- 
 Easy Road pays he loses his self-respect. 
 
 The card sharper can't expect to retain 
 both the cash and confidence of the com- 
 munity. The cheat can buy a few minor 
 luxuries, but he must forego the real 
 necessities of life. There are many things 
 we never list as assets and only weigh when 
 they've gone away which we only ap- 
 preciate when they're out of reach. Money 
 won't purchase more than food and clothes 
 and excitement peace, security and happi- 
 ness aren't marketed as yet, in the shops. 
 
 Life's just a matter of farming of finding 
 fertile soil in a good field of breaking 
 ground and being patient. The harvesting 
 comes last the main work must be done 
 while the least results are showing. 
 
 Many a man has lost out just because he 
 wasn't patient enough to wait until well 
 planted endeavor had time to sprout. 
 Thousands of careers have been ruined 
 because a few bad habits weren't weeded 
 out of a strong nature. 
 
 48
 
 There's Just One Easy Road 
 
 It's far better to endure a little depriva- There's 
 tion during yotrth than much privation in Just One 
 old age. Springtime is the sowing season Easy Road 
 you can't replant in winter* What goes 
 into the past comes out of the future* Care- 
 lessness won't ripen into success. Laziness 
 won't fructify into ease* Trickery won't 
 breed eminence. 
 
 Millionaires are un-made t not created at 
 the gaming table* Every Wall Street for- 
 tune is built out of a thousand Wall Street 
 misfortunes. Most of the men who buy 
 silver-plated harness today wore work- 
 plated harness for a great many yesterdays* 
 
 Science has accomplished a lot of new 
 things with water-power and air-power but 
 hasn't improved on man-power. Nothing 
 so far t in the history of humanity, has been 
 discovered as an acceptable substitute for 
 honest, steady labor. 
 
 Old Cyrus Simmons built a sizeable town 
 before he stopped building wagons. He 
 planned a great many stylish rigs in his day 
 and some rules the rules hadn't much 
 style to 'em, but they were as solid as his 
 
 49
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 There's wheels they didn't wobble; Whenever a 
 
 Just One candidate for future partnership stopped at 
 
 Easy Road the cashier's window for his first week's 
 
 pay-envelope, in addition to his wages he 
 
 found a little red card of rules* Cyrus 
 
 didn't copyright the rules t so you'll get a 
 
 chance to profit by them, too* 
 
 Rule I* Don't lie it wastes my time 
 and yours. I'm sure to catch you in the 
 end and that's the wrong end* 
 
 Rule II. Watch your work, not the 
 clock. A long day's work makes a long 
 day short and a day's short work makes 
 my face long. 
 
 Rule III* Give me more than I expect 
 and I'll pay you more than you expect* I 
 can afford to increase your pay if you in- 
 crease my profits* 
 
 Rule IV* You owe so much to yourself 
 that you can't afford to owe anybody else. 
 Keep out of debt or keep out of my shops* 
 
 Rule V. Dishonesty is never an accident. 
 Good men, like good women, can't see 
 temptation when they meet it 
 
 50
 
 There's Just One Easy Road 
 
 Rule VI. Mind your own business and There's 
 in time you'll have a business of your own Just One 
 to mind* Easy Road 
 
 Rule VII* Don't do anything here which 
 hurts your self-respect* The employe who 
 is willing to steal for me is capable of steal- 
 ing from me* 
 
 Rule VIII. It's none of my business 
 what you do at night, BUT if dissipation 
 affects what you do next day and you do 
 half as much as I demand, you'll last half 
 as long as you hoped* 
 
 Rule IX* Don't tell me what I'd like 
 to hear, but what I ought to hear* I 
 don't want a valet to my vanity, but I 
 need lots of them for my dollars. 
 
 Rule X. Don't kick if I kick if you're 
 worth while correcting, you're worth while 
 keeping. I don't waste time cutting specks 
 out of rotten apples.
 
 Do not think that you 
 can spend your way 
 into better circles 
 houses with admittance 
 prices are not homes, 
 but business shops. 
 Where money is a 
 latchkey, insincerity is 
 always host. 
 
 53
 
 THE SNOB 
 
 The Snob always unmasks himself* His 
 setting can't possibly alter his paste nature* 
 He's an imitation. Education may cut 
 him into the proper form and give him a 
 false polish, but what he's made of isn't 
 changed by the process. Real culture 
 comes from within. 
 
 His own emphasis raises the question of 
 his genuineness. His loudness doesn't con- 
 vince; it only convicts. He doesn't set 
 himself in a higher class he only reminds 
 people that he has just left a lower one* 
 
 Life is filled with elevations, upon which 
 men have been set by forces quite beyond 
 their own control. It may be that a post 
 of eminence permits you to look down on 
 others but that doesn't signify that they 
 belong below you or that you're fit to be 
 looked up to perhaps it's the thing on 
 
 55
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Snob which you stand at which folks are gazing* 
 You may be an insignificant ornament on 
 a pedestal far disproportionate to your size. 
 
 If you have inherited something without 
 inheriting the qualities which produced it, 
 you deserve no especial notice* Folks who 
 profit by accident usually show it in their 
 attitude toward those whom they esteem 
 their inferiors they make the great mistake 
 of thinking that a big head rather than a big 
 heart is the sign of a big man. Greatness 
 can't lose any part of itself by simplicity 
 that's the stuff it's made of. 
 
 A gentleman is nothing more than a 
 gentle man. No amount of green in your 
 pocket can put a drop of blue in your veins 
 money can't make you attractive it can 
 merely attract people who want your money 
 and not you. There are so many mean 
 ways of getting rich and so many objection- 
 able individuals are wealthy, that a bank 
 balance alone won't balance your lack of 
 culture or refinement. 
 
 College may teach you form contact may 
 rub some things away; but breeding, like 
 
 56
 
 The Snob 
 
 a complexion, is more than a surface The Snob 
 unless it's real t it only makes one wonder 
 what's really underneath. When it is as- 
 sumed, it's bound to wear off from time to 
 time. 
 
 Men and women who are born to position 
 show it by not showing it off they aren't 
 conscious of being different except when 
 coarseness^ forces them to realize that they 
 are of another ilk. They only know that 
 they are above the average through contact 
 with some one below it. They are born 
 with their status and incomes just as they 
 come into the world with their limbs. They 
 no more exult over their goods or lineage 
 than you thank Providence for two arms 
 instead of one the sole time you realize 
 that you are better off than you might be, 
 is when you meet with a cripple. 
 
 Only pushers advertise their competency, 
 and by the irony of Fate, having attained 
 any sort of standing, they immediately lose 
 it through a display of satisfaction which 
 brands them as strangers in the fold. 
 
 When Lord Southcliff received word 
 57
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Snob from a former valet that he had been 
 plunged into sudden grief and millions 
 through the death of an Australian uncle, 
 he undertook to offer him a few words of 
 advice: 
 
 "Do not think that you can spend your 
 way into better circles houses with ad- 
 mittance prices are not homes, but business 
 shops. Where money is a latchkey, in- 
 sincerity is always host/* 
 
 "Those who do not welcome you for what 
 you are, simply tolerate you for what you 
 have/' 
 
 "Refuse any attentions which you are 
 not privileged to return and any hospitality 
 which you will not be permitted to 
 reciprocate/' 
 
 "Make no pretense and you will not be 
 met with pretense/' 
 
 "Exhibit the same reserve which char- 
 acterized you as a good servant and the 
 world will quickly forget that you ever 
 
 were one/' 
 
 58
 
 It isn't the broken shaft 
 that cnpples the most 
 machinery and shuts 
 down the works; it's 
 the little nut on the 
 little bolt that works 
 loose and throws all 
 the rest of the mechan- 
 ism into a jumble. 
 
 59
 
 JOHNNY AND OTHER LOOSE SCREWS 
 
 Watch the little screws and the big 
 wheels will take care of themselves. It 
 isn't the broken shaft that cripples the most 
 machinery and shuts down the works; it's 
 the little nut on the little bolt that works 
 loose and throws all the rest of the mechan- 
 ism into a jumble; it's the little men in the 
 little posts the minor employes the office 
 boys and the petty clerks who tangle up 
 the great systems* 
 
 For instance, there's Johnny. Last week 
 you dictated a four-page letter covering 
 every detail of your deal with X; for days 
 you were in consultation with your at- 
 torneys and your managers; you canceled 
 your bridge game at the club Friday night 
 to carefully review all the documents in 
 the matter; you verified every statement 
 and you remained downtown an hour longer 
 
 61
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Johnny than usual in order to be sure that the 
 
 and Other stenographer corrected the mistakes in 
 
 Loose your dictation; then you handed the letter 
 
 Screws to johnny to post. And Johnny lost it or 
 
 took it home with him, intending to drop 
 
 it in the box at his own corner, but forgot, 
 
 and kept on forgetting until an angry letter, 
 
 protesting against your slipshod methods, 
 
 gave you the first intimation that there 
 
 was a muss-up* Another screw loose. 
 
 Or there's Andrews, the billing clerk, 
 who tries to upset the laws of nature and 
 demonstrate that one brain can properly 
 consider two subjects at the same time; if 
 Andrews were that gifted he wouldn't be 
 drawing fifteen per in your accounting de- 
 partment; the world of vast affairs would 
 be coveting him* Andrews thinks that he 
 can discuss the baseball prospects while he 
 makes out his statements. And so Blank 
 Brothers (whose account you have managed 
 to land after three years of effort) wrote in on 
 Tuesday criticising the methods of a concern 
 which didn't know when its discounts had 
 been taken, and informed you that, in 
 
 62
 
 Johnny and Other Loose Screws 
 
 future, they would place their orders with Johnny 
 a firm possessing more gumption than to and Other 
 send a dun to a customer whose account Loose 
 was up-to-date. Andrews is a fearfully Screws 
 expensive luxury at his salary. 
 
 If there is a pink slip in either of their 
 envelopes next Saturday, chances are 
 there'll be two more to swell the snarl that 
 "a fellow hasn't a chance nowadays." 
 
 Poor Johnny and poor Andrews you'll 
 never understand; you'll never know that 
 you've had your chance and that you 
 didn't deserve it; you'll go stumbling and 
 fumbling through life neglecting your op- 
 portunities as they arise, never realizing 
 that success is measured by a man's daily 
 record that a ladder of well done little 
 things leads to the big posts up top. 
 
 The start is all that counts; the thread 
 of destiny is wound upon such a fat spool 
 that no one man ever had the time within 
 the span of one life to get to its end. But 
 you break the thread at the outset. You 
 lack steadiness; you don't learn your corre- 
 lation with the rest of the works. You 
 
 63
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Johnny can't grasp the scheme of growth that 
 
 and Other success begins as a bad and that the 
 
 Loose ripened fruit of fortune will never be yours 
 
 rews if you kill the blossom of chance by the 
 
 early frost of neglect. 
 
 You are being weighed and measured 
 every hour; you are under a constant test, 
 a test by' which you can prove yourself* 
 Carelessness is the only thing which can be 
 always regulated by your own actions, and 
 carelessness is the one thing that will not 
 be forgiven. Anything else can be ex- 
 plained; errors of judgment are but human 
 (even Napoleon made them), but laziness, 
 indifference, disobedience to orders these 
 deserve no mercy and receive none. 
 
 A ten-year-old boy saved all Holland 
 from re-becoming a part of the sea; he 
 found one little hole in the dyke which pro- 
 tected the Netherlands from the ocean; he 
 stuck his finger in the hole and saved the 
 centuries of work which had rendered safe 
 his country. 
 
 There are holes in every business dyke, 
 64
 
 Johnny and Other Loose Screws 
 
 little leaks through which failure can work Johnny 
 
 its way and sweep down all that effort and and Other 
 
 honesty and purpose have achieved* It is Loose 
 
 you who make the holes; you, Johnny, and Screws 
 you, Andrews. 
 Paste this on your walls of memory. 
 
 65
 
 Half of greatness is grit. 
 When intelligence is 
 backed up by the deter- 
 mination not to back 
 down, the only thing 
 under the sun that is 
 impossible is something 
 that can't be imagined. 
 
 67
 
 IMPOSSIBILITIES ARE THE FAIL- 
 URES OF LAZY MEN 
 
 Impossibilities are merely the half -hearted 
 efforts of quitters. The man who won't 
 go through to the finish has finished at the 
 start. If he hasn't pluck enough to hang 
 on, he must hang back. We can't afford 
 to regulate the pace of progress to accom- 
 modate the laggard. 
 
 The lazy man has always failed in every 
 spot and in everything. He's a weed in 
 the way of a producer. He absorbs more 
 than he earns. He checks the growth of 
 well-planted endeavor. 
 
 He's a sterile seed. The winds of fortune 
 may drift him successively to a dozen rich 
 soils, but no matter where he lands, he's 
 useless. 
 
 Even when he does meet opportunity he 
 69
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Impossibil- doesn't know it* He can't tell the differ- 
 ities are ence between good luck and a case of 
 the Failures measles. 
 
 The steady, ready worker never com- 
 plains. He's too busy trying to better his 
 condition. When a man is doing his level 
 best he always finds life on the level. 
 
 When you meet a howler who blames his 
 environ ' dent* his generation, his fellows, his 
 country, you find a man who has failed in 
 himself. Not geography nor time nor en- 
 vironment can hold down a fighter. 
 
 The right type of man will start a grove 
 of fig trees in a desert. 
 
 Failure isn't a disease of locality it's a 
 personal habit. 
 
 Anybody can get a steady living out of 
 steady effort. The same clock that ticks 
 off twenty-four hours for one man can't 
 cheat his neighbor. The same laws of right 
 and wrong, the same privilege to do and 
 dare, are open to both. 
 
 All through the continent, old counties 
 are changing their aspects. The stock- 
 
 70
 
 Impossibilities are the Failures of Lazy Men 
 
 breeder who wasted fourteen acres of prairie Impossibil- 
 upon one steer must hand over that land ities are 
 to a newcomer who can make it support the Failures 
 fourteen humans and the steer* azvivien 
 
 Prairie sections which once went begging 
 for buyers at a dollar an acre are now bear- 
 ing enough cotton and cane and truck and 
 fruit to raise their value a hundredfold. 
 
 The same soil was there all the while. 
 It was always worth a hundred times as 
 much as its selling price, but not to the 
 owner who wouldn't find it out. 
 
 The man who looks hard enough will find 
 enough to repay him. Only the worker 
 lasts. Carelessness and indifference and 
 neglect are not timbers for the builder. 
 
 There are no free passes over the modern 
 road. Fortune has an interstate commerce 
 law of her own she won't deadhead any- 
 one. 
 
 Everybody who ever did anything, any- 
 where, had to find the grindstone and run 
 himself against it until he developed an 
 edge that would cut something. 
 
 71
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Impossibil- Half of greatness is grit* When intelli- 
 
 ities are gence is backed up by the determination 
 
 the Failures not to back down, the only thing tinder the 
 
 ofLazyMen stm that j s impossible is something that 
 
 can't be imagined. 
 
 72
 
 There are countless 
 
 things which he will not 
 
 do f or thesake of money , 
 
 because he knows how 
 
 few real things money 
 
 73
 
 THE MAN WHO IS A GENTLEMAN 
 
 He remembers his own mother and is 
 therefore considerate in thought and deed 
 of all her sex. He neither degrades them 
 by act nor by word* He will not titter a lie 
 about a woman, but if need arise and he 
 may thereby spare her hurt, he will gladly 
 lie in her cause. 
 
 He indulges in no excesses. He is master 
 of his appetites, and does not lose control 
 of his passions, his judgment or his voice. 
 
 He estimates no man except through his 
 own experience, and then he forbears to 
 pass judgment until he is certain, of his 
 knowledge. 
 
 He does not spread scandal, nor does he 
 permit it within his hearing. 
 
 What does not affect himself he remem- 
 bers to forget. 
 
 75
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man He does no wrong but what he im- 
 Who is a mediately seeks to right it t and with his 
 Gentleman O wn hands. 
 
 He is as eager to apologize as he is loath 
 to offend and is always anxious to acknowl- 
 edge an error. 
 
 He does not mistake words for deeds; 
 therefore his politeness is more than a 
 polish. 
 
 His given word is his pledged bond, and 
 the bad faith of another never justifies its 
 default any more than the theft of his own 
 property by a neighbor would lead him to 
 retaliate in kind. 
 
 He obtrudes neither his religion nor his 
 politics, recognizing the right of every man 
 to his sincere beliefs. He is never an 
 objective critic, and when he passes criticism 
 he does so with a full appreciation of its 
 favorable as well as its derogatory function. 
 
 He bestows charity with a smile, and 
 then seeks to erase the sense of obligation 
 in those whom he assists. 
 
 He advertises neither his good works nor 
 his attainments* 
 
 76
 
 The Man Who is a Gentleman 
 
 He is gracious to all of lowly station or of The Man 
 advanced years, and never flaunts his better Who is a 
 fortune before his inferiors* Gentleman 
 
 He makes ostentation neither of his pos- 
 sessions nor his culture, realizing that his 
 opportunities may have given him advan- 
 tages which less favorable surroundings 
 might not have produced* 
 
 He discusses his grievances with no one, 
 not wishing to inflict his essentially personal 
 worries upon his fellows. 
 
 He is cleanly of habit and of tongue, and 
 prefers to find the world as himself* 
 
 He trades neither upon his name nor his 
 birth, nor does he traffic in the power or 
 influence of his friends* , 
 
 He does not prostitute his honor to bus- 
 iness profit, nor does he request his woman 
 folk to sacrifice their personal inclinations 
 in the cause of his advancement* 
 
 He asks no man to perform any service 
 which he could not and would not perform 
 without smirch to his own self-respect* 
 
 He regards wealth as a pleasant posses- 
 
 77
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man sion, btrt one which does not justify the 
 Who is a cancellation of a single attribute of honor. 
 Gentleman Jhcrc ^ cotmtlcss things which hc will 
 
 not do for the sake of money, because he 
 knows how few real things money can do 
 in return. 
 
 Above all else, he is a gentle man* 
 
 78
 
 Don't water the weeds 
 of sorrow. They thrive 
 on your tears. Dry up, 
 and they will. Root 
 them out of the garden 
 of Memory and give 
 Hope a chance to grow 
 in their place. 
 
 79
 
 DON'T WATER THE WEEDS 
 OF SORROW 
 
 Don't water the weeds of sorrow. They 
 thrive on your tears. Dry up* and they 
 will. Root them otrt of the garden of 
 Memory and give Hope a chance to grow 
 in their place. Yesterday is trtterly over 
 with Time is the only thing in this life 
 which can be completely destroyed. The 
 dead days always bury the past with them. 
 They are back of you you have journeyed 
 over that stage of the road* Don't retrace 
 your steps go forward to happiness. 
 
 What can you possibly gain for yourself 
 or for anyone else, by coaxing and fondling 
 pain? No man returns his hand to the fire 
 that burned it he isn't fool enough to 
 think that he can ease the hurt bv thrusting 
 
 81
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Don't *t again into the flame. If memory harts 
 Water the you, don't return your soul to the torture. 
 
 Weeds of Control yourself find diversion w o r k 
 Sorrow har(fcn 
 
 Don't encourage expressions of sympathy 
 any more than you would ask folks to jab 
 their fingers into a physical bruise. 
 
 Don't grow morbid get out into the 
 world. The new days are waiting for you 
 calling to you they are breaking in the 
 East of life, and in their span there are 
 songs as mellow and golden and joys as 
 great as those of any Yesterday. 
 
 But you will not see or hear them if you 
 constantly blind yourself with the images 
 of bitterness and deafen yourself with sobs. 
 
 Don't allow your gloom to befog the sun- 
 shine of others. Don't be selfish. 
 
 When you remember things which cannot 
 be helped and forget the help which you 
 owe to others, you don't lighten your own 
 burdens one iota, but on the other hand you 
 multiply them and uselessly force their load 
 upon innocent shoulders. 
 
 82
 
 Don't Water the Weeds of Sorrow 
 
 They who bring cheer with them find Don't 
 cheer they who come with peace obtain Water the 
 peace. Weeds of 
 
 Sorrow 
 
 Woes and wounds are alike they must 
 
 be closed before they can be healed. 
 
 You must learn the Great Lesson. For 
 thousands piled on thousands of years, men 
 and women have undergone all that you 
 have suffered they have met with every- 
 thing that you have faced they have 
 prized as dearly as you have prized and 
 lost as utterly as you have lost. They have 
 been forced to find their courage just as you 
 must find yours* 
 
 It's tucked away somewhere in a corner 
 of your being waiting for you to take hold 
 of it. All that it needs is a bit of exercise. 
 It's a mere muscle of the soul it grows 
 stronger every time that you work it. It 
 tightens up all your sagging nature it 
 takes the warp out of your resolution it 
 tautens your energy it sets your brain 
 working and as it becomes active your mind 
 will cast off its malaria. 
 
 83
 
 Don't 
 
 Water the 
 
 Weeds of 
 
 Sorrow 
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 You are still full of strength, but you 
 must call upon it. Happiness is worth 
 fighting for the contest lies solely with 
 yourself* Begin now to grapple with your 
 will. 
 
 Go to the window and lift the shade 
 look out and up the sun is there eager to 
 come to you* 
 
 84
 
 Spurts don't count. 
 The final score makes 
 no mention of a splendid 
 start if the finish proves 
 that you were an 
 "also ran. 
 
 85
 
 THE MAN WITH THE FIXED IDEA 
 
 Make your chart before you start 
 choose your destination before you buy 
 your ticket* Don't wait until you reach 
 the end of your journey and then decide 
 where you're going. Many a man has 
 dried up in a little way-side opportunity, 
 merely because he lacked the courage to 
 acknowledge to himself that his judgment 
 had landed him in the wrong spot. 
 
 You can't tell what you're best fitted to 
 do until you've fought for a few things fit 
 for the fighting* Now and then, rifles 
 accidentally hit bull's-eyes, but remember 
 that every championship record is the 
 result of lots of practice and a good, steady 
 aim. 
 
 C. Columbus did finally stumble onto 
 America after much aimless wandering, but 
 don't forget that a great many of his pre- 
 87
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man decessors went down in the Atlantic gales 
 With the because they set sail without a definite port 
 Fixed Idea before them. 
 
 The builder who hasn't decided how high 
 he will run his walls before he digs his 
 foundations, takes too much of a chance- 
 he's apt to make his foundations entirely 
 too weak to support the "afterwork." 
 
 Know what you are after before you start 
 out for it* The "pig in the poke" system 
 is dangerous the pig is apt to bite your 
 hand just as often as your hand is likely to 
 grab the pig. 
 
 Don't rely on accident to start you 
 accident doesn't run on schedule and 
 hasn't a habit of happening in the same spot 
 twice. The Fixed Idea is the motive 
 power that has driven most men to attain- 
 ment more plodders than geniuses have 
 reached eminence. The sail-boat without 
 a keel usually capsizes the man without a 
 keel is unsafe. Persistence and doggedness 
 oftenest bring results. Hard work is com- 
 mon coin in the realm of Success. 
 
 The musician who aspires to become a 
 
 88
 
 The Man With the Fixed Idea 
 
 maestro must look down to years of The Man 
 practice before he can look up to the hour With the 
 of acclaim, and once he has received recog- Fixed Idea 
 nit ion he must keep practicing just as hard 
 to hold it* The gift of music and the love 
 of harmony are only half it's "the fixed 
 idea" which keeps his fingers on the keys* 
 hour after hour, day after day, that brings 
 him to his goal. 
 
 The lawyer and the illustrator and the 
 scientist must all pay the same price* The 
 master of railroads must strive just as 
 earnestly and centralize his efforts just as 
 intensely today, as when he was grasping 
 for control* 
 
 You must make sure of what you want 
 to do you must feel sure that you have 
 the courage as well as the temperament to 
 do it and then Do It!! 
 
 One fair idea unhesitatingly followed out 
 is better than a dozen excellent plans none 
 of which receive concentrated attention* 
 Spurts don't count* The final score makes 
 no mention of a splendid start if the finish 
 proves that you were an "also ran," 
 
 89
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man Only the steady last. Call to mind a 
 With the dozen men who have made their mark- 
 Fixed Idea choose them from trade or profession and 
 you'll find that at least ten out of the 
 twelve were men who hung fast to a "fixed 
 idea" who held on despite setback and 
 reverse who endured self-denial and diffi- 
 culties and won out because they didn't 
 "peter out." 
 
 They believed in themselves - they thought 
 that they could do a certain thing and 
 counted what they believed far more than 
 the concentrated opinion of everybody else. 
 
 The World didn't take them seriously in 
 the beginning, but they took themselves 
 seriously and in the end the World changed 
 its mind. 
 
 It always does change its mind when a 
 man makes good. But the World's so old, 
 and has had so much experience with the 
 human race, that it puts every man down 
 to a basis of zero and only acknowledges 
 that he's above it when his gauge moves up 
 to the mark that his own confidence has set 
 and his own ability attained* 
 
 90
 
 The friction of men in 
 action is the energy that 
 sends the world spin- 
 ning. Disagreements 
 are like flint and steel, 
 they strike the new 
 sparks. Contrary opin- 
 ions flail the chaff out 
 of ideas.
 
 THE MAN YOU MUSTN'T TRUST 
 
 He extends the "glad" hand and tries to 
 pass it off as the helping hand. He's too 
 pleasing to prove a pleasant acquaintance. 
 Like a chameleon, he changes his personal- 
 ity in harmony with his surroundings* He 
 has no ideals, no ambitions and no prin- 
 ciples, but what he's willing to alter for the 
 sake of self-interest. He wears his convic- 
 tions as other men wear their collars and 
 changes them just about as often. 
 
 He tries to be everybody's friend and 
 winds up by being nobody's. Necessarily 
 he's an out and out hypocrite. What he 
 really thinks or wants he never tells he 
 plans every speech and only says such 
 things as he feels you wish to hear. 
 
 He is absolutely untrustworthy. He is 
 unwilling to make enemies and thereby 
 proves himself a weakling strong men are 
 
 93
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man known by their quarrels by their intoler- 
 You ance of unprincipled actions and unworthy 
 Mustn't ideals* 
 
 He must be partly a sneak, a great deal 
 of a liar and somewhat dishonest, because 
 men differ so widely in their standards, that 
 to make himself agreeable at all times, to 
 all persons, he must sympathize with many 
 things and actions which a man of indi- 
 viduality is forced to resent* 
 
 His friendship is not practical is not 
 rigged for stormy seas it's a sort of stage 
 affair intended only for show* 
 
 He's a human kaleidoscope whom every- 
 one sees differently, and since no two men 
 ever get exactly the same view of him, the 
 great opportunities of life never come his 
 way. Nobody can tell which of them is 
 really he. When men strive for posts of 
 trust, they must be somewhat post-like 
 themselves and stand steady* 
 
 So you see, after all, he deceives no one 
 so sadly as himself. He takes so many 
 chances with human nature that he fails 
 to get his own chance. He agrees with both 
 
 94
 
 The Man You Mustn't Trust 
 
 parties in disagreements encourages op- The Man 
 posite sentiments in discussions he's a You 
 chronic Colossus of Rhodes, attempting to Mustn t 
 be on both sides at the same time t and t 
 inasmuch as deceit is sure to be discovered, 
 he loses both footholds and falls between. 
 
 He is always a flatterer* His speech is a 
 verbal anesthetic with which he seeks to 
 put men's common sense to sleep while he 
 operates upon their sane judgment. 
 
 His advice is worthless, because he thinks 
 with his tongue and not with his heart* 
 He has no aim except his own, but he fails 
 eventually, because he cannot be forceful* 
 The power to inspire belief can only spring 
 from sincerity. No hypocrite ever became 
 and remained a leader. 
 
 Oh, it doesn't pay to be "everybody's 
 friend" it's too impossible* Try some- 
 thing easier, such as upsetting the laws of 
 nature, by squaring a circle or by growing 
 wheat on the ocean or making two and two 
 total eleven. 
 
 Only a certain number of humans were 
 ever meant to coincide in temperament* 
 
 95
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man The friction of men in action is the energy 
 You that sends the world spinning, Disagree- 
 
 Mustn't ments are like flint and steel, they strike 
 the new sparks. Contrary opinions flail the 
 chaff out of ideas. 
 
 Old Jed Judson used to say, "I like a 
 man who fights me. He teaches me and 
 helps me. If he's strong enough to bang 
 the everlasting tar out of my hide, I get a 
 chance to find out where I was weaker than 
 I thought. If I can put him down, Tm 
 doubly sure of myself. These here fellows 
 all the time handing you boxes of word 
 candy don't go with me. I don't take no 
 stock in over-sociable folk. They remind 
 me of hunters calling as pleasantly as pos- 
 sible to a female turkey, for purposes dif- 
 ferent from what the blamed fool fowl 
 thinks/' 
 
 96
 
 Your diploma is just a 
 phonograph trade-mark 
 it simply tells us what 
 has been pressed into 
 your mind but it does 
 not say what you will 
 do when you attempt 
 to make an independent 
 record 
 
 97
 
 TO THE COLLEGE GRADUATE 
 
 You have heard the salutatories and the 
 valedictories the gorgeous gushes of Dr. 
 This and the Hon. That have jiggled along 
 your vertebrae. Upon the wings of their 
 fancy you have soared into the empyrean, 
 proud in the consciousness that you are of 
 the world's elect a rose instead of a thorn, 
 a mental satrap among the unlettered 
 helots. 
 
 Panoplied in academic burganet, cuirass, 
 and jamb, you stand in your armor of 
 erudition, valiantly grasping the lance of 
 knowledge, while you strain to hear the 
 fanfare calling you to the lists whither 
 Minerva has summoned you as her true 
 defender and pledged knight, and 
 
 Why, bless me, there's the alarm clock! 
 It's half-past get-down-to-hardpan. Where 
 is the want page? H'ml quite a lack of 
 
 99
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 To the five thousand-dollar posts suffering from 
 College loneliness, and those jobs which are yearn- 
 Cjraduate j ng f or occupancy all seem to lay stress on 
 such an unimportant thing as Experience* 
 Ridiculous, ain't it, in this, the twentieth 
 century? What shortsighted manufacturers, 
 what ignorant merchants, what foolish cor- 
 porations! Not even specifying that the 
 first requisite of the applicant shall be a 
 college degree! 
 
 Why, if they only knew your grasp of 
 Chauvenet, the facility with which you 
 parse the intricacies of Thucydides, the 
 grace that characterizes your scansion of the 
 Epodes of Horace, and your comprehension 
 of Locke and Spinoza, the postman on your 
 block would have to carry an extra sack of 
 mail from the hundreds of organizations 
 wearing long-distance glasses, searching for 
 oases such as yourself! 
 
 But since all these gentlemen of trade 
 and industry are not brothers to Asmodeus, 
 and their vision cannot pierce the walls of 
 your bedroom where hangs the sonorously 
 worded diploma that glorifies your name, 
 
 JOO
 
 To the College Graduate 
 
 it is quite probable that you will be forced To the 
 to go ahead like perfectly ordinary young College 
 men t and "get there" by "going some/' Graduate 
 And by the way, it may be just as well if 
 you don't lay too much stress on Spinoza 
 the world of affairs has not as yet learned 
 to appreciate the advantages of men who 
 just KNOW things* It understands only 
 men who KNOW and DO, 
 
 The most that you can hope for is con- 
 sideration as a piece of superior metal a 
 pig of iron that has passed through the 
 process of refining* Your degree is just the 
 foundry mark* As you stand, your brain 
 is practically useless; it has been pressed 
 into a standard mold of thought, and is 
 exactly like that of ten thousand other 
 young men who read the same textbooks 
 and listened to the same lectures and were 
 dominated by the same theories* 
 
 You possess absolutely no value either to 
 commerce or to art, except that of un- 
 wrought material* Your future depends 
 upon your plasticity and tensility your 
 ability to conform with conditions as you 
 
 101
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 To the meet with them, to cope with emergencies 
 College as they meet with you, and the stamina 
 Graduate vrfth which you will stand the strain of 
 action* 
 
 You cannot become a ruler through just 
 knowing rules; you must fit principles to 
 something practical before Success even 
 begins to flick an eye in your direction. 
 
 If you have simply absorbed and cannot 
 radiate, you won't get half so far as Smith 
 on the next block, who jumped school at 
 twelve with three ideas in his head and the 
 power to get them over* 
 
 Of course, we know that you have 
 committed to mind all the memorable 
 dates of history; but the question is whether 
 you will be able to make a date memorable 
 for history* 
 
 You may be familiar with the ora- 
 tions of Cicero; but have you drawn into 
 your soul and your blood the principles 
 that lay back of them? 
 
 You are not unusual; in fact, a mer- 
 chant would mark you "standard size" 
 and label you "regular." 
 
 J02
 
 To the College Graduate 
 
 You have been nurtured upon the pre- To the 
 
 digested thought t upon ideas and ideals College 
 
 that have been funneled into your brain Graduate 
 theories that other men dug from fact. 
 
 You have merely been a listener, a human 
 sponge, absorbing the experiences of others* 
 
 The world cannot find you very useful 
 in your present form; you must be milled* 
 
 You are wheat in the husk your brain 
 is over-coated with a chaff which must 
 first be eliminated and differentiated by 
 good, hard whacks of common sense* Life 
 and living must flail you until your avail- 
 able wisdom is sequestrated from that 
 which is valueless to us* 
 
 You must pass through a process of 
 subtraction before you will be considered 
 an addition to any organization. 
 
 You have been busily engaged in learn- 
 ing things; now you must start in to un- 
 learn some of them* You must create; 
 up to now you have only secreted* 
 
 Your diploma is just a phonograph trade- 
 mark it simply tells us what has been 
 
 103
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 To the pressed into your mind? btrt it does not 
 College say what you will do when you attempt 
 Graduate to make an independent record* 
 
 You have no individuality it has had 
 no arena in which it could find expression. 
 
 A singer cannot enter grand opera on the 
 strength of his training, but merely on the 
 strength of his voice* No one cares a 
 tinkers dam what method he followed, if 
 results have not followed the method. 
 
 It is assumed that you will be impetuous 
 and crusade against precedent; that you 
 will jump at conclusions and attempt to 
 upset procedures that practice has found 
 sound. 
 
 The business world anticipates the neces- 
 sity of toning you down. You will pass 
 through months of false humiliation and 
 hurt; your pride will quiver and pain, and 
 your self-esteem will be black and blue 
 with bruises; but after the foundry marks 
 have been filed off of you, and you have 
 learned some of the lessons of life after 
 you understand how to measure men, not 
 for what they know, but for what they 
 
 104
 
 To the College Graduate 
 
 do; not for what they assume, but for To the 
 what they accomplish after you have College 
 realized that your college training is merely Graduate 
 a course of mental calisthenics to develop 
 clear thinking, logical reasoning, and noth- 
 ing else after you have been set down at 
 the bottom and have forced your way up 
 then you will begin to be of some value 
 to yourself and the world. 
 
 105
 
 Lack of appreciation is 
 the incubator which 
 has hatched thousands 
 of employes into em- 
 ployers. Injustice has 
 driven into independ- 
 ence half the success- 
 ful men in America. 
 
 107
 
 WATCH OUT FOR THE MAN BEHIND 
 
 Today is yours, but tomorrow belongs 
 to The Man Behind. He's back there 
 pushing and struggling and fighting on 
 he's gritting his teeth and keeping in 
 action, so he's in better shape than you 
 the exercise of effort is keeping him alert 
 thinning down his limbs pasting his 
 muscles tighter to the bone twisting 
 gristle into the meat Look out for him! 
 
 You haven't worked at full vigor of late* 
 There's an overcoat of fat growing around 
 your intellect if he ever gets up to you 
 and it comes down to a stern, hard con- 
 test you won't last. Activity doesn't 
 tire it hardens gives resisting power 
 develops the wind teaches one to stay 
 when the tussle becomes intense. There's 
 many a man in your office carrying the 
 undeveloped seed of achievement in his 
 make-up. He's fertilizing it with his am- 
 bition and some day results are going to 
 
 J09
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Watch out grow otrt of it See to it that you get the 
 
 for the Man harvest. 
 
 Behind y^e time may come when you'll need 
 loyalty as badly as the Texas bad-man 
 needed his "Colt." He left it at home 
 on the piano t but the sheriff couldn't 
 afford to overlook the chance of getting 
 him at a disadvantage. 
 
 Your competitors are always watching 
 and waiting they're seeking an oppor- 
 tunity to "get in." You may have to rely 
 for survival upon the fidelity of the man 
 behind. You won't get it if you haven't 
 earned it. There are two sides to every 
 question and like the flap-jack, the bottom 
 gets on top in the turn-over. Your staff 
 only owes you that which you have bought. 
 If you've taken advantage of circumstances 
 in his hour of weakness, depend upon it, 
 when somebody else offers him more 
 money, no man in your employ will stick- 
 he isn't in your debt by one throb of con- 
 sideration. Lack of appreciation is the 
 incubator which has hatched thousands of 
 employes into employers. Injustice has 
 
 no
 
 Watch out for the Man Behind 
 
 driven into independence half the sue- Watch out 
 cessful men in America* for the Man 
 
 Forests die out unless there is a con- 
 stant growth of saplings they can only 
 be perpetuated by the seeds which drop 
 from the trees that have already grown 
 up* Don't forget that your young men 
 are seed that they are your insurance 
 against the future that you must look 
 to them for the timber of to-morrow. 
 Take care of them* You may not need 
 them now* but as the years pass and your 
 own powers fail, and you can no longer 
 stand the gaff as today, the skill and 
 knowledge and confidence which you 
 breed into those surrounding you now, will 
 protect your past efforts and warrant the 
 continuance of prosperity for your family. 
 
 Hold on to your sound boys they're 
 worth more to you than anyone else, be- 
 cause they are more valuable to every 
 other employer than you. When they 
 go away they are like bees, covered with 
 fructifying pollen they fly off with the 
 ability they gained from you, and use it 
 
 \\\
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Watch out against you* When they enter another 
 
 for the Man office, they handicap you by their with- 
 
 Behind drawal and strengthen your rivals with 
 
 their knowledge of your secrets. When 
 
 you replace them, you must pay as much 
 
 for their successors, break them in and 
 
 afterwards give battle to the very strength 
 
 that you allowed to desert your flag. 
 
 Carnegie is giving away libraries be- 
 cause he was shrewd enough to make every 
 potential antagonist a partner. He drove 
 his bargains when their strength was not 
 at its fullest pitch, and he put them under 
 - the yoke of mutual interest while their 
 brains were freshest and could tone up his 
 staling view-point he made his own per- 
 centage smaller, but he magnified his total 
 profits so tremendously that a part of 
 twenty men's earnings far exceeded what 
 his lone efforts would have brought, had 
 he tried to hog it all. 
 
 A small interest at an early enough 
 moment creates a lifetime ally it buys 
 you a man's play-time and night-time 
 thoughts, all his plans and ambitions. It 
 
 112
 
 Watch out for the Man Behind 
 
 creates a burden-sharer who will lift cares, Watch otrt 
 the shifting of which is worth far more for the Man 
 than the cost* It gives you a sense of Behind 
 future security, unknown to the lone 
 operator, who lives in the constant dread 
 that he will be hardest pressed when he 
 is least efficient. 
 
 U3
 
 Real men play the game 
 of life with unmarked 
 cards the tattler, like 
 every other cur, discloses 
 his breed by the manner 
 in which he carries his 
 tale. 
 
 115
 
 THE TATTLER 
 
 The main difference between a tattler 
 and a rattler is that the snake gives the 
 other fellow a show and the sneak won't* 
 In other respects they're pretty much 
 alike, barring the small matter of an "e," 
 
 The man who won't stand in the open 
 and make his accusations where they can 
 be defended, proves that he not only lacks 
 courage, but also the courage of his con- 
 victions* He's a coward his work is 
 always signed his mark is "the stab in 
 the back/' 
 
 Sincerity never bred a tale-bearer. Real 
 men play the game of life with unmarked 
 c*rds the tattler, like every other cur, 
 discloses his breed by the manner in which 
 he carries his tale. 
 
 He sometimes deceives himself with the 
 thought that he is doing good, but it is 
 
 U7
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The n t in his nature to be disinterested; the 
 Tattler personal element constantly enters into 
 his motives his tongue is poisoned with 
 the venom of envy he's jaundiced his 
 spleen is full of jealousy he can't digest 
 the thought of anybody else's success or 
 superiority* 
 
 Unable to climb as high as he aspires, 
 he attempts to pull down the ladders of 
 ability upon which better men are mount- 
 ing* But the assassin of reputations must 
 in the end bear the punishment which the 
 world has always inflicted upon slimy, 
 crawling things its utter disgust. Jus- 
 tice, although blindfolded, slips the band- 
 age from her eyes, when her sensitive hand 
 feels a cheating finger trying to weigh 
 down the scales the average run of human- 
 ity will not convict upon one-sided 
 evidence. 
 
 Ever since little Bobbie was caught 
 emptying the jam pot and smearing the 
 pup's nose in the jar, folks have realized 
 how deceptive appearances can be made. 
 
 The mud-thrower stains himself with 
 
 JJ8
 
 The Tattler 
 
 the mire which is his weapon; he smirches The 
 his own hands whenever he delves into Tattler 
 slander. 
 
 Spies have never been popular. They 
 who fight in the dark do not shine in the 
 light. The scavenger belongs to the lowest 
 caste of society; gossip-mongers, like other 
 collectors of the unpleasant, are de trop 
 in decent circles. 
 
 Even a thief is one step higher than an 
 informer, and refuses to lower himself to 
 the infamy of betrayal. 
 
 The more we learn of life, the more we 
 consider that a tale-bearer is not to be 
 trusted the instinct which leads him to 
 divulge one confidence, will, if the chance 
 permit, impel him to make use of any 
 other information which comes within his 
 knowledge* 
 
 He stamps himself as dangerous. As 
 his reputation spreads, his opportunities 
 contract; positions of importance cannot 
 be given into his care; and, so, tho* he may 
 be gifted sufficiently to perform duties 
 of consequence, the certainty that he will
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The divulge crucial secrets shuts him out from 
 Tattler openings which he might otherwise secure. 
 
 Men must have the friendship and co- 
 operation of their fellows to achieve be- 
 yond the ordinary, and the tattler soon 
 becomes a pariah every man's hand is 
 reaching out to keep him down* 
 
 Our repugnance is so great against any 
 type of traitor that it begins to manifest 
 itself in childhood even the kindergarten 
 prattlers ostracize the school-room tell-tale. 
 
 J20
 
 Demosthenes was one 
 stutterer who became a 
 great orator, but most 
 stutterers have their 
 mouths full when they 
 try to follow conversa- 
 tion, much less lead it. 
 
 J2J
 
 ALL MEN ARE NOT BORN EQUAL 
 
 Nature doesn't cast from molds, she's 
 an artist she never repeats herself; she 
 doesn't produce two things exactly alike; 
 her trees never bear the same number of 
 leaves; her plants never grow two pieces 
 of fruit that exactly match. Being a very 
 prolific and resourceful person, she puts 
 a dab of individuality in everything she 
 creates especially Man. 
 
 Opportunities are equal, but the ability 
 to grasp them, the mentality to appre- 
 ciate them, the strength to develop them, 
 vary with the individual. 
 
 Ambition is a good thing, but attain- 
 ment is not its synonym. The world is 
 filled with 22-caliber cartridges trying to 
 explode in 30-30 rifles. 
 
 Plans for achievement must be matched 
 with power to carry them through. De- 
 
 123
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 All Men mosthenes was one stutterer who became 
 are not a great orator, btrt most stutterers have 
 Born Equal their mouths full when they try to follow 
 conversation, much less lead it* 
 
 One-armed men occasionally develop 
 into oarsmen, but most of them can't even 
 keep the boat in a straight line for the 
 shore* It is a good rule not to attempt suc- 
 cess in a field for which accident or nature 
 has unfitted you. 
 
 There will always be superior intellects, 
 because superior progenitors sired them* 
 Generations of careful breeding ought to 
 eventuate in an improved strain* Futur- 
 ity winners aren't found between the 
 shafts of brick-carts* 
 
 Any man is capable of getting out of 
 himself what is in him, but he can't pro- 
 gress further than his gifts will carry him* 
 
 Accident will now and then combine 
 circumstances so as to place an individual 
 higher than he deserves, but, in the long 
 run, Merit and Merit alone will deter- 
 mine the outcome; the law of survival is 
 the one immutable law; the strong must 
 
 J24
 
 All Men are not Born Equal 
 
 rise to their appointed and destined places; All Men 
 the weak must serve those who prove are not 
 their fitness to command. Born Equal 
 
 The greatest tragedies of an absolute 
 democracy spring from the discontent 
 spread by the sophistries of its demagogues; 
 the unhappiest phase of a civilization 
 founded upon equality is the misconstruc- 
 tion of "equality*" It does not mean that 
 any social order can overturn the order 
 of nature; democracy only casts down 
 the walls of unearned privilege; it kicks 
 away the props of inherited prestige; it 
 allows each man to stand for what he is 
 and to have what he can reach to hold 
 what his strength can master and to 
 lose what his own gifts cannot maintain. 
 But no democracy will ever be con- 
 ceived by man which will overthrow the 
 basic laws of the universe first among 
 which is that of competition, which has 
 prevailed since the cave-man began to 
 test his prowess and to measure it against 
 that of his neighbor. 
 
 There are big duties and little tasks, 
 
 125
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 All Men offices of direction and of obedience, and 
 are not there must be big men and small men to 
 Born Equal perform them* 
 
 An army must have its chiel t its con- 
 sulting aids t and its ranks; there must be 
 cog-wheels as well as fly-wheels on every 
 machine each watch must have its main- 
 spring each government its supreme head; 
 all that the doctrine of equal rights can 
 hope to accomplish is that the man who is 
 most deserving shall be placed where he 
 should be. Universities cannot upset this 
 principle; they can only multiply and 
 spread in their scope until they develop 
 more of those who are most fitted to 
 stand upon the heights; they can broaden 
 the opportunity, but they cannot put into 
 any mind the elements of initiative or of 
 judgment* 
 
 Until the last page of the last volume 
 is written in the Book of Years, Merit alone 
 will rule the earth. 
 
 \26
 
 She doesn't resent your 
 boorishness-she s grow- 
 ing used to it lots of 
 ideals get nicked when 
 women go to work. 
 
 127
 
 "MAGGIE" 
 
 That's right dive on through the crowd 
 and get in front or you won't find a seat* 
 It's six o'clock and the shops are out. If 
 you wait for the women to get aboard, 
 you'll have to stand up all the way home. 
 There's a vacant place! Shoulder past 
 hhat girl you're stronger. You did it! 
 Now lean back and have a comfortable 
 half hour with the news. 
 
 Why does she moon at you with such 
 tired eyes? It's unfair to make you un- 
 comfortable mask your face with the 
 paper she can stand as well as you 
 better. She's had more practice that's 
 all she has done all day long. So a little 
 while longer won't make much difference 
 to her. If women will insist on going home 
 just at the time men leave their offices, 
 they mustn't be querulous if they find the 
 cars crowded. 
 
 The old ideas about courtesy and chiv- 
 
 J29 

 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 i 
 
 'Maggie" airy are getting to be moss-grown poppy- 
 cock. They were well enough in the 
 romantic age, but this is the business epoch. 
 We haven't time to pause for such foolish 
 notions nowadays. Besides, now that 
 women are competing with men, they 
 must forego some of the privileges of the 
 sex and not hope to be coddled there's 
 no sex in business* Dollars and cents and 
 sentimentality can't be blended* And so 
 you very properly dismiss the matter, 
 having argued it out in all fairness and 
 (especially) to your personal satisfaction. 
 
 Meanwhile Maggie hangs onto the strap 
 and wearily shifts her weight from one 
 tired foot to the other. She doesn't resent 
 your boorishness she's growing used to 
 it lots of ideals get nicked when women 
 go to work. She left home yesterday 
 morning three hours earlier than your 
 wife arose. It was dark in the room when 
 her ninety-nine cent alarm clock tattooed 
 her out of bed. She had to light the gas 
 to find her clothes the water in the 
 pitcher wore a skin of ice on top (they 
 
 J30
 
 "Maggie" 
 
 don't build stationary wash basins with "Maggie* 
 hot and cold water faucets in three-dol- 
 lar-a-week "boudoirs") . 
 
 All day long (and all days are long in 
 the shops) she was standing, stretching, 
 bending, smiling please don't forget the 
 smile perhaps you noticed it the last time 
 you came to her counter* You smiled, too. 
 Hers, however, was a different sort it's 
 one of the requirements Rule 27 "Be 
 cheerful/' Yours was more of a social 
 grin a knowing, engaging, subtle, invit- 
 ing affair. Oh, "they can't tell you any- 
 thing about these shop-girls,"- but it may 
 be worth while to learn something about 
 them. And when you do, chances are that 
 you won't smile in quite the same way. 
 
 They're women who must make good- 
 good women, or they wouldn't be drudg- 
 ing out their lives for a crust and a sup 
 and a strip of bed. Just as frail as your 
 women, with the same sort of souls and 
 hearts and with the same yearning hunger 
 for care and tenderness* Young women 
 growing old at the rate of 24-months-a- 
 
 131
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 'Maggie" year women without chances or with 
 lost chances. Some marry some were 
 married most of them hope to be* Usually 
 they're strong* But sometimes the half- 
 starvation and the half-warmth and the 
 longing for better shelter and all the food 
 they'd like to eat and But most of 
 them keep on. Keep on playing by the 
 rules harder rules than yours in a tougher 
 game and for smaller stakes* 
 
 Women just as wholesome as your own 
 often with as good blood in their veins. 
 Women who haven't lost anything except 
 protection* They're paying the fiddler 
 because their fathers didn't pay their in- 
 surance premiums* 
 
 The gray mists veil the brightest of their 
 days the menace of tomorrow is always 
 between a tomorrow whose hope fades 
 with their fading and whose approach may 
 only be provided against by the hoarded 
 piece of silver wrenched out of a ten-dollar 
 bill from which must also come board and 
 lodging and carfare and clothes and doctor's 
 bills and vacations and 
 
 Why aren't you smiling? 
 
 132
 
 There comes an hour 
 when grit surmounts all 
 else. Then it isn't the 
 number of pounds 
 avoirdupois, or the size 
 of a bleep, that counts, 
 but the depth of the 
 threads in a man's 
 screws of courage. 
 
 133
 
 THE MAN WITH THE YELLOW 
 STREAK 
 
 He's as dangerous as a streak of light- 
 ning and as treacherous. He flashes his 
 true self without warning and always hits 
 something or somebody who doesn't ex- 
 pect the blow. 
 
 He's the Man with the Yellow Streak 
 the man who can't win. He's wrong- 
 wrong from eye-lash to toe-tip. There's 
 a flaw in his grain he isn't made of the 
 stuff to stand the strain. He's bound to 
 give way under pressure. His meat is 
 weak his blood is thin his soul is lack- 
 ing* He's afflicted with an incurable moral 
 epilepsy. He falls down in a panic every 
 time he's called on to stand up and show 
 his manhood. 
 
 He can't reach a very high place and 
 stay there. He's cursed with the dread 
 of those who are afraid of great heights. 
 
 135
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man It ckrtches him when he is mid-way up the 
 
 with the ladder and instead of going on and upward, 
 
 Yellow he hugs to the rungs and hangs there 
 
 Streak shivering with dread* He magnifies his 
 
 risks he multiplies his dangers he loses 
 
 all his balance his caution disappears, 
 
 and instead, a foolhardy irresponsibility 
 
 takes its place* 
 
 He's a drowning man, sinking in a sea of 
 self exaggerations* He will lay hold of 
 anybody to save his own skin he will 
 sacrifice friends, family, employer even 
 his hope of the future in his wild frenzy 
 to look out for his own immediate interests* 
 
 He's a coward a mean, selfish craven* 
 He's a girder with a flaw a beam with a 
 knot* Don't use him where there is likely 
 to be a strain he's a man with a danger 
 spot. No matter how brilliant or trained 
 or resourceful he may be when everything 
 is right, all his superior qualifications are 
 nil and must not be called on in an emer- 
 gency. He's diseased he has a taint- 
 he can never be counted on to utilize his 
 gifts when they ought to count most. 
 
 J36
 
 The Man with the Yellow Streak 
 
 He can't help himself because he isn't The Man 
 man enough to own tip and ask for assist- with the 
 ance. He won't tell you what's wrong Yellow 
 with him. He wears the velvet of false Streak 
 pride over his thread-bare patch and you 
 only see when it's too late t when his cloak 
 drops and shows his tattered courage* 
 
 Search him out among your men and 
 your associates* Don't wait until he runs 
 amuck* He won't give you warning 
 he loses his reason he doesn't realize 
 what is happening. In his zeal to protect 
 himself from the whip-lash of consequences, 
 he'll lie he'll cheat he'll throw blame on 
 the innocent. It's a kindness to both of 
 you not to give him a chance to hurt him- 
 self and you. 
 
 You can't reform him. He's a quick- 
 sand he'll merely keep involving you* 
 
 The only thing under the sun that can 
 possibly bring him to himself is to leave 
 him to himself. A great enough shock 
 may awaken the man in him no other 
 medicine will count* 
 
 Dress-parade isn't the test of a soldier. 
 
 137
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man The best tactician isn't the best field- 
 
 with the officer* Don't mistake his ability under 
 
 Yellow normal circumstances for capability in 
 
 Streak emergencies* Resourcefulness under the 
 
 pressure of circumstances has sent many 
 
 a recruit climbing over the heads of trained 
 
 but unseasoned superiors. 
 
 There comes an hour when grit sur- 
 mounts all else. Then it isn't the number 
 of pounds avoirdupois t or the size of a 
 bicep t or the number of convolutions in 
 a brain that counts, but the depth of the 
 threads in a man's screws of courage. Then 
 Opportunity enters full-winged upon the 
 scene and the right man is bound to come 
 to the front. He'll always take his proper 
 post and the man with the Yellow Streak 
 is sure to drop to his true level whenever 
 things get red hot and the fur begins to 
 
 fly. 
 
 138
 
 Your name in Burke's 
 Peerage may give us 
 an idea of the sort of 
 ancestors you had, but 
 Dun's Peerage is more 
 likely to show what 
 kind of an ancestor 
 you're apt to prove. 
 
 139
 
 YOUR START DOESN'T COUNT 
 
 Time was when a coat of arms meant a 
 lot now it's the arms in the coat that 
 count* Your name in Burke's Peerage 
 may give us an idea of the sort of an- 
 cestors you had t but Dun's Peerage is more 
 likely to show what kind of an ancestor 
 you're apt to prove. This is the land where 
 dreams come true where rainbows end in 
 pots of gold where castles in the air come 
 sailing down to earth and harden into gran- 
 ite. Everything is possible among a people 
 who cradle Presidents in mud-chinked cab- 
 ins. If you fail, you lack grit or courage or 
 judgment. Rotten fruit never ripens 
 the wind doesn't shake the sound apples 
 from the tree a little adversity makes the 
 real man clutch tighter to his ambition. 
 That which is easily had is worth least- 
 it lies within anyone's grasp. The hard- 
 Hi
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Your Start ships of the road-maker are rewarded by 
 
 Doesn't primeval forests and unstaked mines. Great 
 
 Count rewards lie at the ends of journeys not 
 
 at their start. Persistence is everything a 
 
 patient brook carved the Grand Canyon of 
 
 the Colorado. Niagara started in business 
 
 as a dinky little river, but she kept on, and 
 
 swept on, until she came to a place where 
 
 she saw her chance to do something big 
 
 and she did it* 
 
 142
 
 "I wanted some- 
 thingI knew what I 
 wanted I wanted it 
 hard enough and I 
 got it." 
 
 143
 
 THIS IS YOUR HOUR 
 
 A man who did great things in a mighty 
 way, once tore success from the claws of 
 seemingly insuperable obstacles* "I had 
 to win/' he said t "because nobody wanted 
 to keep me from it half as badly as I 
 wanted it." 
 
 Across thousands of miles of seas, another 
 conqueror of circumstance, who successfully 
 dared the wrath of his Sultan allied with 
 the three most puissant monarchs of Europe, 
 stood upon the sea-cliffs and watched Gib- 
 raltar poke her nose out of the Mediter- 
 ranean mists. 
 
 An Englishman at his side pointed across 
 the angry swirl. "Yonder lies the seat of 
 a power/' said he, "which could crush ten 
 thousand tribes such as yours. How did 
 you have the courage to defy it?" 
 
 145
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 This is Your "Bismallah," answered Raisuli with a 
 
 Hour smile, spreading his palms to the heavens, 
 
 "I wanted something I knew what I 
 
 wanted I wanted it hard enough and I 
 
 got it/' 
 
 146
 
 It's hard for a man to 
 grow zealous over cul- 
 ture or religion when 
 his stomach is empty 
 and his mind is filled 
 with visions of corned- 
 beef-and-cabbage. 
 
 147
 
 
 THERE'S A HOME MARKET FOR 
 CHARITY 
 
 Don't start off t half-cocked with your 
 sympathies. Make sure that they'll help 
 before you heap them. The average human- 
 itarian is so enthusiastic over the woes of 
 all the world as a whole that he quite 
 overlooks those of the individual. He is so 
 ambitious that he hasn't time to be specific. 
 He's like the picknicker with one pat of but- 
 ter and a loaf of bread he tries to make 
 it go so far that it isn't at all noticeable* 
 
 Providence has had her hands full ever 
 since she took charge of this universe 
 and even Providence, with all of her facili- 
 ties, has not been able to catch up with her 
 back orders. There are too many senti- 
 mentalists dropping theoretical tears over 
 the woes of everybody from Good Hope 
 to Cape Horn moved by the theatrical 
 aspects of existence to futile theatrical 
 
 149
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 There's a emotions* They go through the years dis- 
 
 Home pensing conversation coin, but seldom coin 
 
 Market for o f the realm* They exude benevolence from 
 
 Charity every pore but the purse-pore. Their ears 
 
 are always sympathetically opened their 
 
 pocket-books stay closed. 
 
 There is more than enough charitable 
 impulse running around loose that's the 
 trouble with it it needs to be harnessed 
 and made to drag some of the woes of the 
 world from the shoulders of its Atlases. 
 
 Because you are occasionally maudlin, 
 don't mistake that for pity the only time 
 that you're doing good is when you have 
 done something that actually helped. 
 
 When next you sit in a theater and sniffle 
 to the accompaniment of "Eliza-Cross- 
 ing-the-Ice" music, tumble back to earth 
 and consider that no playwright with his 
 finite brain can conceive of poverty and 
 sufferings half so intense as those which 
 Life is constantly staging in the alleys and 
 tenements of every city in the land. 
 
 Pay a little less attention to feeding the 
 starving intellect and feed a few more 
 
 J50
 
 There's a Home Market for Charity 
 
 starving bodies. It's hard for a man to There's a 
 grow zealous over culture or religion when Home 
 his stomach is empty and his mind is filled Market for 
 with visions of corned-beef-and-cabbage. Charity 
 Don't bother so much about the lines of 
 Tennyson and Browning until you've paid 
 a little attention to the bread line. 
 
 Let the cannibals in the South Sea 
 Islands and the Chinese along the Hoang- 
 Ho look out for themselves until you have 
 eased some of the misery in your own 
 block. 
 
 It isn't necessary to export any of your 
 charitable energy there's always a home- 
 market for it. 
 
 When the island of Formosa was swept 
 by a tidal wave, the shock so disturbed 
 Mrs. Hanks that her husband was moved 
 to inquire if any distant branches of her 
 family had settled there. "It's just upset 
 me so," she remarked, "that I can't eat 
 a thing. I never heard of anything so 
 terrible." 
 
 "Can't say that I have lost any appetite 
 over it," answered Hiram. "Of course,
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 There's a I ain't mean enough to feel chipper be- 
 Home cause it happened, but to tell you the truth, 
 Market for Millie, it ain't worrying me any more than 
 Charity reading about Pompeii and other such 
 islands. I guess I would feel blue if I had 
 ever paid a visit in the neighborhood and 
 was acquainted with the folks out there, 
 but not having seen the place and not 
 knowing anybody who got hurt, if I looked 
 very much disturbed Yd be a plain 'danged' 
 hypocrite! 
 
 "But your speaking of tidal waves re- 
 minds me that the Widow Wilkins is down 
 with pneumony, which means that there 
 won't be anybody to take care of them 
 two little girls of hers until she gets well, 
 so I was figuring out what we could spare 
 from the potato bin and the meat-house* 
 Seems to me that if we look out for them 
 that is right around us, it's about as much 
 as the Good Lord can expect. If all the 
 rest of the world would do the same there 
 wouldn't be any need for folks in Podunk 
 to lose sleep when things go wrong in 
 Formosa*" 
 
 152
 
 You can't arrive unless 
 you survive. Half jour- 
 neys are wasted. Only 
 the stride which lands 
 you at the finish counts. 
 
 J53
 
 EASY ROADS DO NOT LEAD TO EASE 
 
 If you try to make life too easy, you'll 
 soon find it too hard* Ambition is a dream 
 without an awakening, unless it makes your 
 will as eager as your wish* Effort is ex- 
 ercise; endeavor produces endurance* 
 
 It's no trouble to cut through butter- 
 but it won't develop strength* The hewer 
 of stone wears the strong arm and bears 
 the long labor. 
 
 Persistence is the key to existence. 
 Success invariably rewards the good fight. 
 Knowing what to do or how to do it won't 
 bring results. Action must drive ability* 
 The nail is useless without the hammer. 
 Courage is the complement of knowledge. 
 
 Easy roads do not lead to ease. Worn 
 paths run to spots and things which others 
 have already found. 
 
 Opportunity is trampled underfoot in 
 the crowded thoroughfares. The greater 
 chances always lie ahead. 
 
 155
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Easy But the price matches the prize. If you 
 
 Roads do want more than the average you must pay 
 
 not Lead more to secure it. You can't buy with 
 
 to llase counterfeit attempts* The true coin of 
 
 accomplishment bears the mint marks of 
 
 grit and honest labor. 
 
 You can't have our best unless we have 
 your best in return. You can't arrive un- 
 less you survive. Half journeys are wasted. 
 Only the stride which lands you at the 
 finish counts. 
 
 You can't take pleasure and indulgence 
 with you in the climb. You must forego 
 temptation and cut out the shortest cuts. 
 The wrong road is never a long road 
 therein lies its danger. 
 
 If you meet with brambles and boulders t 
 reflect that they are fewer toward the end. 
 The more rugged you find the way t the 
 less likelihood that you've been preceded. 
 
 You need no capital but a fixed idea and 
 the resolve to carry it out. Want a thing 
 harder than the world wants to keep you 
 from it, and you'll wear through every 
 opposition and get it. 
 
 Mere knowledge isn't competition. The 
 
 156
 
 Easy Roads do not Lead to Ease 
 
 man who secretes mast give way before Easy 
 the man who creates. A bulging forehead Roads do 
 can't conquer a squared jaw. not Lead 
 
 When old Henry Harper died, he willed to Easc 
 his millions to charity and his will to his 
 sons. This is the letter which they found 
 in his strongbox: 
 
 "I gained my money from men weaker 
 than myself, and I return it to them. If 
 you are strong enough and bright enough 
 to retain my estate, you have the necessary 
 tools with which to build one of your own. 
 
 "If you cannot succeed without my 
 wealth, you couldn't have succeeded in 
 holding to it. 
 
 "Others will think that I have pauper- 
 ized you, but I understand how great a 
 legacy I have willed you: the incentive to 
 prove yourself the supreme right to test 
 your powers without the handicap of 
 assured maintenance. 
 
 "Go out into the world to earn and there- 
 by learn. Rub against men and get an 
 edge. Enjoy the most supreme of all rec- 
 reations the thrill of creation. Only 
 the builder truly rises above his fellow." 
 
 J57
 
 His pseudo- surf ace is 
 like the iridescence on 
 a stagnant pool it forces 
 us to ponder upon the 
 depth of unwholesome- 
 ness beneath his pose. 
 
 159
 
 THE CAD 
 
 He's a hermit crab, lurking about on the 
 shores of the social sea crawling around 
 in the shell of a gentleman a thing of 
 mere garb and gab. That misguided judg- 
 ment which likens him to a pup is arrant 
 flattery, but takes mean advantage of a 
 real dog. 
 
 He's a cad, a bounder, a near-man* 
 His pseudo-surface is like the iridescence on 
 a stagnant pool it forces us to ponder 
 upon the depths of unwholesomeness be- 
 neath his pose. 
 
 Brother to the jackal, he sullies clean 
 things preys upon weakness maims that 
 which is beautiful and pure. 
 
 He takes no chances; he merely takes 
 away chances. He piles up costs which 
 helplessness must settle, but he makes sure 
 that there shall be no penalty for himself* 
 
 161
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Cad He recognizes no responsibility to society; 
 he is a wanton, a vandal, who wrecks with- 
 out recking. His quarry is always de- 
 fenseless. He lies to innocence; he trails 
 after the unguarded, and makes of want and 
 privation and hunger, pack-brothers in the 
 hunt* 
 
 He is the type of biped which fervently 
 clasps the hand of a trusting friend and the 
 hand of a friend's wife with a still more 
 fervid grasp. 
 
 He is a cast lower than the man who 
 "kisses and tells" repulsed, he tells when 
 he has not kissed. He breaks the bread of 
 a household and then its hearts. 
 
 He gambles with sacred things, and like 
 all welchers he pays no obligations except 
 those which the law itself has power to 
 collect* 
 
 He is not brave enough to be an actual 
 thief he lacks the courage to steal little 
 things such as property. He is a hundred 
 orders below a Turpin or a Shepherd or a 
 Dalton. A bank-robber would despise him. 
 The pickpocket is his superior. He is an 
 
 162
 
 The Cad 
 
 "Artful Dodger/' roaming about amidst The Cad 
 confiding reputations. He robs women of 
 their good names instead of their goods. 
 The chattels of society do not attract him, 
 because there is a definite risk in their 
 pilfering he defaults instead with the 
 really precious treasures faiths and dreams 
 and ideals* 
 
 Technically, he is not a felon, because the 
 finer ethics have no jurisprudence. Honor 
 has disdained to call upon a Blackstone 
 the God-spark which lifts the human out of 
 the chaos of beastdom is supposed to put 
 that into every normal man which calls for 
 no tableted penalties for outraging the 
 sacred fanes. Society fears to acknowledge 
 the necessity for the unwritten law, but 
 organized justice has as yet unsheathed no 
 weapon to reach, him who shatters the un- 
 recorded code. 
 
 The knout of conscience is long and its 
 leash is leaded, but conscience cannot reach 
 beyond its range it can only strike where 
 there is a target it can only hurt where 
 there is a soul, and this Judas of the heart, 
 
 163
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Cad this traitor to the finer instincts, this 
 apostate to decency, is a mere wearer of 
 flesh, alive only in his appetites and his 
 indulgences. 
 
 We have learned to build prisons for 
 theft scaffolds for treason pesthouses for 
 plague, but civilization may not wear the 
 Crown until another problem of segre- 
 gation is solved until the day comes when 
 there is no longer a chair at the table a 
 seat in the club and a shrug of indul- 
 gence for the unnamable cad. 
 
 164
 
 It takes more than a 
 snicker or a jibe to kill 
 the impulse of creation, 
 which is given to strong 
 men only because Prov- 
 idence doesn't waste 
 her real bounties. 
 
 J65
 
 THE MARKET VALUE OF OPTIMISM 
 
 He remembers yesterday's sunshine while 
 you frown at today's storms* He knows 
 that the calm will surely follow the turmoil. 
 The stabbing stone in the darkness is a 
 happily discovered spot which he may 
 thereafter avoid* While others blame Na- 
 ture for putting thorns on roses, he is glad 
 that she thought to put roses on the thorns. 
 He is grateful for the palm tree and the 
 well in the desert realizing how utterly 
 desolate the sands would be without their 
 oases. Amid the wreckage of disaster, he 
 sees timbers to be picked out for the re- 
 building* When the wind sweeps down the 
 grain fields, he plans how he can use the 
 straw. 
 
 He always manages to find a bright spot 
 in the gloom a star trying to shine through 
 the clouds. When he is knocked off his 
 
 167
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Market ^ ee *t he immediately finds them again 
 
 Value of squares his shoulders, tightens up his pluck, 
 
 Optimism and starts in to straighten up. Instead of 
 
 discounting the promise of the future, he 
 
 discounts his misfortune* He believes in 
 
 himself, and with that belief, fertilizes his 
 
 effort until it blossoms with result. 
 
 From the beginning of time, the envious, 
 complacent, lazy, half-hearted peoples of 
 the world have resented his fine enthusiasm. 
 Because he is different, they believe that 
 he must be a fool. He is insane; he isn't 
 balanced. He is abnormal; but it's the 
 abnormality of a better brain and a more 
 fluent imagination. 
 
 He's a soldier of the foreguard, marching 
 ahead to open the way and make safer the 
 journeys of those who come after him 
 who move onward only with the power of 
 their feet and their meat. He aims higher 
 than he strikes, and thereby hits a fairer 
 mark than if he aspired lower. He sketches 
 with the pencil of imagination, and even if 
 he seldom builds his towers as high as his 
 plans, he leaves the specifications with 
 which another generation can complete the 
 undertaking. 
 
 168
 
 The Market Value of Optimism 
 
 He's the optimist the man who believes The Market 
 that he can do it. He fails time and time Value of 
 again; but he fails in his work, not in him- Optimism 
 self. Even if he went but halfway down 
 the path of progress, he left only half as 
 much still to be done by the man who 
 followed. 
 
 All that you have, all that you cherish, 
 all that is big and fine and worth while, 
 all your ethics, all your philosophies, all 
 your sanities, all that means most to you, 
 all that has brought you down from the 
 tree homes of your ape forebears was 
 believed in by one set of optimists and 
 achieved by another. 
 
 The General who thinks that he can win 
 his battle does more with his optimism 
 than with his cannons. Without that be- 
 lief, a hundred battalions and a thousand 
 squadron of horse are halved in number. 
 
 A coward can't conquer anything, be- 
 cause he can't conquer himself. A doubter 
 can't help, because he's an enemy to 
 himself a traitor to his own cause. 
 
 Nothing that is hard, nothing that bends 
 
 169
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Market men's backs and strains their sinews and 
 
 Value of tears their souls and starves them, would 
 
 Optimism ever be brought to pass if an optimist 
 
 didn't have that within him which made 
 
 him feel it was worth while to endure and 
 
 to suffer for the sake of getting to the place 
 
 and the thing he wanted* 
 
 Ability doesn't count? knowledge is use- 
 less; experience has no worth without the 
 driving force of optimism. It's the steam 
 that makes all the wheels go round it's 
 the sparking plug of the motor it starts 
 things. 
 
 Some one must think for those who won't 
 and can't think for themselves. An 
 optimist had to see the steam of a loco- 
 motive through the mist of a teakettle 
 before the Baldwins could build their shops. 
 He didn't anticipate the space condenser 
 that whirls you from New York to Chicago 
 over night; but he found the principle he 
 believed that it could be done. 
 
 The architect is a bigger man than the 
 builder. You can put dumb wheels of 
 iron side by side and cog to cog and make 
 
 170
 
 The Market Value of Optimism 
 
 them do most anything after some op- The Market 
 timist has pointed out the thing to do. Value of 
 
 An optimist found America; an optimist Optimism 
 built the airship; an optimist rolled in the 
 gutters of poverty, but even in the gauntest 
 hours he clung to his belief until he set 
 together the fingers of steel and brass that 
 set these lines into print. He was jeered 
 at and sneered at; nine men out' of ten 
 thought him crazy, and ninety-nine in a 
 hundred called him a bore; but he knew 
 better all the time, and so it didn't hurt. 
 It takes more than a snicker or a jibe to 
 kill the impulse of creation, which is given 
 to strong men only because Providence 
 doesn't waste her real bounties upon yellow- 
 veined weaklings. 
 
 Every time the stock ticker starts to 
 spell financial doom and the fear maddened 
 hordes of depositors rush to the banks to 
 hasten the disaster, half a dozen optimists 
 a few men who believe thai courage and 
 grit and the natural resources of America 
 will always readjust the balance save the 
 nation from bankruptcy. They back up 
 
 171
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Market their belief with their fortunes; but they 
 
 Value of risk nothing the risk would be in not 
 
 Optimism believing they save themselves by saving 
 
 the markets* The most valuable stock that 
 
 is listed on 'Change is optimism, and it's 
 
 worth more per share than Chemical 
 
 National. 
 
 Anything is possible to the man who 
 believes that nothing is impossible* He 
 doesn't always make good; but he makes 
 good oftener than the pessimist. His judg- 
 ment isn't always right; but many a time 
 the very vehemence of his confidence has 
 carried through an undertaking which half- 
 heartedness would have wrecked. 
 
 He can never see failure, because the 
 golden sun of ambition is always shining in 
 his face, blinding his eyes to the impos- 
 sibilities. He doesn't heed the warnings of 
 discouragement, because higher and clearer 
 than the little noises of the little people he 
 hears the call of success. He must be what 
 he is* He's filled with the mightiest mes- 
 sage given to man he has been touched 
 with the God-spark that blazes into 
 achievement* 
 
 172
 
 He has wrenched the 
 knocker from his door; 
 stuffed his ears with 
 cotton wool and can- 
 not hear Opportunity 
 when she does sum- 
 mon him. 
 
 J73
 
 THE MAN WHO THINKS HE HAS NO 
 CHANCE 
 
 The man who thinks he has no chance 
 destroys his chances by acknowledgment 
 of self-defeat. He has deliberately blinded 
 himself; bound upon his limbs the shackles 
 and chains of cowardice; weighted himself 
 down with the greatest of all handicaps- 
 despair. He has wrenched the knocker 
 from his door; stuffed his ears with cotton 
 wool and cannot hear Opportunity when 
 she does summon him. 
 
 Life is a huge kaleidoscope, rotating upon 
 the axis of time. Every day the earth 
 takes a turn that readjusts the aspect of 
 existence. Every hour reveals a new pat- 
 tern for the future. Viewpoints are inces- 
 santly altering. New combinations of cir- 
 cumstance are putting novel phases upon 
 affairs. 
 
 175
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Xhe The highways and byways are shifting* 
 
 Man Who The wastes of past centuries are awake and 
 Thinks He blossoming into fertile areas. 
 nas JNo ^ hopeful, fearless, ingenious mind can- 
 not fail to behold promise everywhere. 
 
 All over the world Industry is in a vast, 
 seething ferment. From Shanghai to Lima 
 the merchant is finding new openings for 
 his wares. From London to Kobe the 
 manufacturer is planning further markets 
 for his products. From Assouan to Death 
 Valley the engineer is battling with the arid, 
 burning clays and sands. The explorer is 
 roaming from pole to pole for new fibres 
 and new seeds and new timbers and new 
 earths and new ores, upon which new 
 industries will feed. 
 
 In a thousand laboratories the chemist is 
 fitting his keys of research to the locked 
 secrets of Nature, enriching art and science 
 and commerce with wealths undreamed of 
 by the dead ages. 
 
 The river is wearing a leash, and, tied to 
 the turbine, its waters are making light and 
 giving power to busy wheels for miles 
 around. 
 
 176
 
 The Man Who Thinks He Has No Chance 
 
 A new empire for man's possession has 
 been conquered by the aeronaut* 
 
 The ever-hungry reaper and harvester are 
 gnawing grain and grass where once were 
 Bad Lands crying to the railroads to 
 follow them monster needles with iron 
 rails for thread, stitching fruitful textures 
 to cover the bared body of the Earth, 
 
 You nor your children's children can, 
 within the total span of your lives, take 
 advantage of all the chances which a single 
 decade has disclosed. 
 
 Never in all the millions of years of its 
 history has this secretive old universe dis- 
 played such riches, so many generous 
 opportunities, as now* 
 
 The only man who can't better himself 
 in such a whirl and swirl of pioneering is 
 the hopeless incompetent, the laggard, the 
 sorehead, the idler, or the half-wit. 
 
 Courage and effort and imagination and 
 energy never knew such chances since 
 Cheops went pyramid-building. 
 
 Wake yourself, shake yourself, and DO. 
 North and South and East and West, the 
 
 177 
 
 The 
 
 Man Who 
 
 Thinks He 
 
 Has No 
 
 Chance
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The call is sounding* For every atrophied acre 
 
 Man Who of farmland in New England, there is a 
 
 Thinks He homestead section in a Montana Valley or 
 
 ^Jf 8 ^ a Canadian prairie. A thousand cities are 
 
 about to be born. Help to make them* 
 
 They will need builders t merchants, lawyers, 
 
 doctors, manufacturers. Get a map and a 
 
 time-table. 
 
 The most terrific century of all is here* 
 Share it. 
 
 178
 
 His coat -of -arms is a 
 sneering frown, sur- 
 mounted with funeral 
 plumes and emblazoned 
 upon a field of tears. 
 The immemorial motto 
 of his clan is, "I told 
 you so." 
 
 179
 
 THE PESSIMIST AND ALSO 
 CLARENCE 
 
 He turns the silver side of every cloud 
 to find its dark lining. Beholding one 
 maimed petal, he bewails the fading of all 
 the rose. His to-morrow brings no hope 
 no rainbows follow his storms. He is a 
 human bullfrog, constantly diving into the 
 dark mud of existence and soiling the song 
 of life with his chilling croak. He seeks 
 selfish motives in every benefactor he 
 bites the coin of charity and blackens the 
 pure metal of generosity with his miserable 
 acid of doubt. 
 
 He peers into the hearts of children for 
 guile and deceit he tests the golden im- 
 pulses of great-souled men for streaks of 
 brass his chief happiness is the pursuit of 
 misery, and when his hunting is successful 
 he divides his woes freely with all his 
 acquaintances. 
 
 181
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The 
 
 Pessimist 
 and also 
 Clarence 
 
 While all the rest of the world is tugging 
 onward, he is straining backward a clog- 
 ging cog amidst the whirling wheels* He's 
 a fussy, grouchy, disturbing member of 
 society, himself unwilling to advance yet 
 unwilling to have others press onward* 
 
 His coat-of-arms is a sneering frown, 
 surmounted with funeral plumes and em- 
 blazoned upon a field of tears. The im- 
 memorial motto of his clan is, "I told you 
 so*" 
 
 His eyes never lift to the heights of 
 achievement* To him all that is untried is 
 untrue that which is undone, cannot be 
 done what has not been proven must be 
 false. We all know him* He's at every 
 desk and every elbow so busy criticising 
 that he keeps others from creating so 
 earnestly watching pennies that might roll 
 out that he overlooks the dollars they 
 might bring in. He swells his chest and 
 points with pride at the expenses he keeps 
 down without a thought to the revenues he 
 keeps away* 
 
 Don't mind him, he doesn't count. He's 
 
 182
 
 The Pessimist and also Clarence 
 
 just a stumbling block on the tip-road. 
 What he calls caution is merely cowardice. 
 If half the energy he applies to retarding 
 his associates were bent upwards, its force 
 would hurl a dozen undertakings to their 
 goal. 
 
 Clarence Nearsite was such. Clarence is 
 no longer Chief Pennysaver for Gettup & 
 Goze. Clarence's resignation was quite a 
 surprise to a number of people, including 
 Clarence. When he and old man Gettup 
 talked it all over, this was about the gist of 
 the valedictory: "When I engaged you to 
 be our safety-valve, I didn't realize what an 
 intense disposition you have* You have 
 not only been a satisfactory safety-valve, 
 but too satisfactory in about one more 
 year, the valve would have been the only 
 active part of our machine. 
 
 "So long as you held down expenses, you 
 were all right, but when you got enthusiastic 
 and started to hold down our income, too, 
 I sorter felt that I'd prefer to smash the 
 business by letting it go too hard than see 
 it lost by running down. Your record in the 
 
 183 
 
 The 
 
 Pessimist 
 and also 
 Clarence
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The 
 
 Pessimist 
 and also 
 Clarence 
 
 postage stamp department is irreproach- 
 able your showing in lead pencils and 
 rubber bands is immaculate* The prices at 
 which you purchased our ink and scratch- 
 pads show a marvelous knowledge of 
 values, but when I look over the list of ten 
 dollar chances you let slip by, while you 
 were avoiding ten cent risks, something 
 tells me that we must part. 
 
 "Somehow or other you strongly remind 
 me of Bruno. Father bought him to keep 
 the boys from stealing his apples. Bruno 
 did manage to drive the boys away, but 
 he also drove away the commission men 
 who came to bid for the crop and so Father 
 had to dispense with him he couldn't 
 afford so much protection. 
 
 "I expect that we'll lose many a dime 
 through the coming year, running along 
 without you, but the dollar-well is so deep 
 and action is so important in emptying it 
 that we'll take the risk on spilling a little 
 bit for the sake of keeping the buckets full." 
 
 184
 
 He's all right as far as 
 he goes but he's short 
 on practical mileage and 
 Fate always kicks him 
 off at a deserted water 
 tank half way between 
 Start and Finish. 
 
 185
 
 THji CHRONIC FAILURE 
 
 He journeys t tough life with his head 
 butting into the clouds and his feet dragging 
 through the quagmire. He's a trance 
 medium, a schemer, a visionary, a chaser 
 of the "will-o'-the-wisp." He rushes on 
 without seeing the road, and, like a charging 
 bull, he doesn't know that there's a stone 
 wall ahead of him until he batters himself 
 full of bumps* He's searching for "X"- 
 the great unknown quantity, the twentieth 
 dimension, the secret of the ancients, the 
 magic formula of the alchemist which will 
 change the lead of incompetency into the 
 gold of results. 
 
 He deludes himself with the fool idea 
 that he can get wealth without getting 
 down to hard tacks. 
 
 He builds weird ladders to the fairy-land 
 
 J87
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Xhe of his fancy t but the trouble with his 
 Chronic ladders is that they have no rungs. He 
 Failure tries to climb up on the steps of theory 
 and his progress is just as rapid as that of a 
 sprinter who attempts to lower the hundred- 
 yard record on a tread-mill. 
 
 He's imbued with ideals instead of ideas. 
 His whole career is an endless series of 
 rehearsals which never eventuate into per- 
 formances. He's all right as far as he goes 
 but he's short on practical mileage; and 
 Fate always kicks him off at a deserted 
 water-tank half way between Start and 
 Finish. 
 
 His brain is so jammed with illusions that 
 there isn't room for conclusions* He never 
 learns that a man must buy a full ticket to 
 go the full journey that he must rear a 
 stairway to the upper stories. 
 
 His bridges end in midstream they 
 never reach the other side. He sets off 
 down the thoroughfare, and before he has 
 fairly started, the first crossroad catches 
 his attention and off he goes, without a 
 moment's consideration as to where he'll 
 land. 
 
 J88
 
 The Chronic Failure 
 
 He isn't lazy he's merely hazy. The The 
 amount of time and zeal that he fritters Chronic 
 away is tremendous it doesn't count be- Failure 
 cause it isn't concentrated it escapes in 
 all directions* He's a human teakettle 
 blowing his steam from a dozen spouts 
 he's filled with force, but he doesn't drive 
 anything with it. He has the power to 
 make things spin t but he doesn't harness it 
 sanely his driving belt is so loose that 
 when he does hitch it on to a wheel, it 
 immediately slips off. 
 
 He's the busiest builder in town, but he 
 shows no results. His foundations are too 
 shallow to hold his walls. And when he 
 does dig them deep enough, his walls are 
 never evened up when he starts in to roof. 
 He's a carpenter without a spirit level and a 
 plumb line a constructor without a work- 
 ing diagram. He's first cousin to a water 
 bucket with a hole in the bottom no 
 matter how much energy he pumps into 
 himself, it's wasted* 
 
 He's the Chronic Failure the man with 
 .every sense but common sense. He 
 
 J89
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 figures only the chances for success, but 
 doesn't contemplate the percentage against 
 him. He doesn't look for the things which 
 are likely to go wrong. He's a bad general 
 he's content to consider how he can win, 
 but not where he can lose. 
 
 He intends to be straight, but he isn't 
 honest to himself, and his self-dishonesty 
 involves everyone whose confidence he 
 gains, and so he seems dishonest to them. 
 
 All around him are average men, with 
 fewer natural gifts. They attain and they 
 retain because they take the time to think 
 before they start and to finish what they 
 begin. They don't bother with "X" they 
 know its equivalent they attempt but one 
 task at a time and carry it out. 
 
 J90
 
 You can't get the best 
 
 of him because he holds 
 
 on to the best in him- 
 
 self. You can't keep 
 
 him down because you 
 
 can't keep him down- 
 
 hearted 
 
 191
 
 HE KEEPS ON WHILE YOU 
 
 He has his reverses he trips and bruises 
 his heart grief bites into his soul delay 
 nags at his ambition the frosts of ill-fortune 
 nip his hopes time and time again he 
 walks forth in faith, only to sink in the 
 morass of deceit but he smiles* 
 
 Life has been as hard with him as with 
 you he has learned that every joy must 
 be paid for with two tears he has found 
 that today's dreams are seldom tomorrow's 
 wakenings but he keeps on while you 
 weep on he trudges forward, always seek- 
 ing something better eternally in quest of 
 a fair sky and a rose by the wayside* 
 
 He isn't a philosopher nor an enthusiast. 
 He's merely a real man, a sitter in the 
 Game of Life who knows the rules and 
 accepts them the same rules in the same 
 
 J93
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 He Keeps game that the world has played since the 
 On While first dawn came smiling out of Chaos* 
 
 rxT 6e ^ ^^ ^ >ecattse he is a man, life is a finer 
 thing than if he were a sour-face. 
 
 He sneers at nothing. He judges no 
 fellow he has put himself upon the scales 
 and has seen his own short measurements 
 far too often. 
 
 He is charitable because he has known so 
 many hours when he could find no charity. 
 
 He is just because he has met with 
 injustice. 
 
 He is daring because he has learned that 
 the average man is a coward therefore he 
 can rely upon no initiative but his own. 
 
 He never despairs tomorrows are un- 
 known quantities. 
 
 When in doubt, he plays confidence. He 
 chooses a lever instead of a drag. He is 
 never totally a failure. When he loses 
 much, he still keeps something the right 
 to respect himself. He can't lose utterly 
 because he can only lose what can be 
 replaced. 
 
 194
 
 He Keeps On While You Weep On 
 
 You can't get the best of him because he He Keeps 
 holds on to the best in himself. You can't On While 
 keep him down because you can't keep him You Weep 
 downhearted* You can't defeat him be- ^ 
 cause he is guarding his birthright of man- 
 hood and protecting that instead of the 
 things you want t so that even if you do 
 win he does not lose. 
 
 Back in the 40's when the boys set out 
 for the Coast, Grandpa Wilson insisted 
 upon making the journey. When the 
 mountains tried to frown him back when 
 the labor of trudging up the pathless rocks 
 clutched at his heart with tearing fingers 
 when his wind wheezed through tortured 
 lungs and his legs crumbled, and it seemed 
 that his last step was to be his last, he would 
 search about him for a heavy log or a hefty 
 rock, place it upon his shoulders and then 
 try again. The burden made the way 
 doubly difficult, but when he dropped his 
 handicapping weight the relief was so great 
 that the top of the mountain seemed to 
 come half way down the slope to help him 
 up. 
 
 J95
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 He Keeps None of us can tell how much more we 
 On While can endure until we are called upon to 
 You Weep endure more. We don't know how far we 
 can go until we are faced with a longer 
 journey. 
 
 Imagination can be turned into a stilt or 
 a pair of wings, just as often as into a ball 
 and chain. When we believe that things can 
 be better instead of worse, we make them 
 so. Despair can only exist by recognition. 
 
 J96
 
 He does not make the 
 common error of con- 
 fusing education with 
 intelligence. The world 
 is filled with good brains 
 which have missed the 
 opportunity of training. 
 
 197
 
 A FAIR MAN 
 
 He gazes at life through a window-pane, 
 and does not view it through a lens. There- 
 fore, he sees all things clearly since he does 
 not permit prejudice to distort his vision. 
 
 He continually guards himself against the 
 error of diminishing the value of any man's 
 works because of a personal antipathy. 
 And on the other hand, he is just as care- 
 ful not to make the equally great mistake 
 of exaggerating the virtues and attainments 
 of those whom he loves or likes. 
 
 He measures facts on honest scales, and 
 weighs folks as he finds them, not as he 
 hopes or hears or wishes them to be. 
 
 He forms no definite opinion on any sub- 
 ject until he is qualified by the possession 
 of information sufficient to reach a sane, 
 unbiased conclusion. 
 
 He does not heed gossip or slander. The 
 
 J99
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 A Fair one is bred of thoughtlessness and the 
 Man other is the bread of malice* 
 
 He despises the anonymous attack* 
 Honesty never wears the badge of the 
 sneak. Truth does not hide in the grass* 
 
 He waits to hear both sides of a quarrel 
 and insists upon maintaining a neutral 
 attitude until he knows enough to judge 
 fairly. 
 
 He admires many whose essentially per- 
 sonal characteristics and inclinations do not 
 appeal to him. 
 
 Admiration is the approval of deeds* It 
 is a calm, clear sum total of abilities, in 
 the addition of which the symbols of friend- 
 ship do not figure. 
 
 Many men in whose company he finds 
 no pleasure and whom he does not desire 
 to meet upon an intimate social basis, none 
 the less receive his enthusiastic approval of 
 their achievements. 
 
 He searches beneath dress and under ad- 
 dress for ability and stability. He knows 
 that tailors cannot change the cut of a 
 
 200
 
 A Fair Man 
 
 man's character, and that talent is not al- A Fair 
 ways glib in its expression. He does not Man 
 make the common error of confusing edu- 
 cation with intelligence. The world is filled 
 with good brains which have missed the 
 opportunity of training. Intelligence is an 
 instinct and an experience, while culture is 
 largely a schooling a memorizing of facts 
 and rules and incidents. Initiative cannot 
 be taught; creative tendencies cannot be 
 lectured into a head; the senses of honor, 
 of self-respect, of dignity, of charity, of 
 construction, of leadership, are birthrights. 
 He is never a snob. He exercises his 
 right to choose for associates those with 
 whose ideas and ideals he is in sympathy; 
 but he does not assume that the rest of the 
 world is thereby wrong or inferior or 
 foolish. 
 
 20 \
 
 We've equalized 
 opportunity. This is 
 the most that society 
 can do it cannot 
 equalize men. 
 
 203
 
 YOU MUST SUCCEED ALONE 
 
 You say that you deserve success then 
 prove it* We're sitting in the jury box 
 waiting for the evidence ready to be con- 
 vinced willing to grant you what you 
 deserve, but neither anxious to help nor to 
 hinder you. 
 
 Present your facts show results, but 
 don't rest your case with words. 
 
 Your personal opinion is of absolutely no 
 moment; it's bound to be biased. Try as 
 you may, you will look at yourself through 
 the glasses of self-interest you will exag- 
 gerate your importance. 
 
 We refuse to accept the measurement of 
 your own scales; they can't be honest. 
 Conceit and egotism are helping to weigh 
 down your side. You're prone to mistake 
 the desire for the ability to accomplish 
 inclination is apt to color your judgment. 
 
 205
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 You Must We're cynical? Why not? Since the be- 
 Succeed ginning of civilization we have seen most 
 Alone men over-reach themselves the memory 
 of the world is scarred, and each scar 
 represents an experience with shirkers who 
 posed as workers with weaklings who at- 
 tempted beyond their strength. 
 
 Most of mankind must serve only a 
 few can command. Unless we are impartial 
 and remain judicial, we will have chaos* 
 Men must adjust themselves to their proper 
 relations to the rest of society* Progress is 
 a matter of elimination. 
 
 The only way that you can find your 
 exact measurement is to jump into the 
 seive it can't cheat. If you're big enough, 
 you won't slip through the mesh, but if 
 you're a "cull" you must be sifted out* 
 
 Democracy has made of life an open 
 game in a free field. There are no bound- 
 aries or fences, except for those who deserve 
 constraint and for those who have not the 
 power to climb over the barriers which 
 segregate servant from master, follower 
 from leader* 
 
 206
 
 You Must Succeed Alone 
 
 The world wants its powerful sons and You Must 
 the only way they can be found is to set Succeed 
 them among their fellows and have them Alone 
 demonstrate their supremacy by the con- 
 trast. No other test would be a true or 
 fair one. 
 
 Leaders are not discovered; they prove 
 themselves. Power is not bestowed it is 
 not a giving but a gift. 
 
 WeVe equalized opportunity. This is 
 the most that society can do it cannot 
 equalize men. 
 
 If you are lacking in courage and grit and 
 mentality if you are twisted or warped 
 if the vital impulse of attainment is not 
 bred in your bones and surging in your 
 blood, all the legislation and help between 
 here and Mars can't more than prop you up. 
 
 And we refuse to prop you, simply be- 
 cause the other man can't have what 
 belongs to him if we handicap him by giving 
 you assistance and demand that he look 
 out for himself. 
 
 We don't care what your parents were 
 we only wish to know who and what you 
 
 207
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 You Must arc what you can do and how honestly 
 Succeed you will do it. 
 
 Alone You can have anything if you are shrewd 
 
 and tenacious and lasting enough to reach 
 it, but you must attain, alone* 
 
 You must fight for your place t but you 
 must fight fairly and under the rules* If 
 you break them, we'll break you* 
 
 208
 
 Whenever you try to 
 hold him back you 
 simply turn him into a 
 bow you bend him 
 into greater power, and 
 lend him the strength 
 to hurl his shaft of 
 determination twice 
 as far. 
 
 209
 
 THE MAN YOU CANT DEFEAT 
 
 He isn't afraid of failure, and so after 
 awhile Failure becomes afraid of him. 
 When all's said and done, Failure is like 
 every other bully and turns tail at the first 
 hint of a whole-hearted, fearless defense* 
 
 What if he does stumble granted that 
 he goes down in defeat time and time again 
 just watch him fumbling, crawling, hus- 
 banding his strength bit by bit, gripping 
 fast with his last shred of grit and his last 
 flash of wit never despairing watching 
 and waiting until he sees the chance and 
 then, Zip! before you realize it, he is on his 
 feet again and up against the wall ready to 
 take on any comer. 
 
 He keeps learning what not to do until 
 he has narrowed down the field of mistakes 
 and errors, and by the sheer experience of 
 
 2\\
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man elimination he knows at last the few sane, 
 You Can't safe principles of success* 
 Defeat y^e s j zc o f a ^ as ^ never appalls him his 
 
 courage is great enough to lift him shoulder 
 to shoulder with any emprise to which he 
 aspires; his resolution is the most terrific 
 ram that ever battered the walls of cir- 
 cumstance* 
 
 Errors of judgment and his over-zeal 
 repeatedly hurl him to earth. But while 
 he lies on his back he doesn't waste time 
 wailing because of his failing; he doesn't 
 re-hash the past and moan and groan over 
 what is gone and what can't be helped; he 
 takes count of his assets and figures out 
 how he can return to the game* 
 
 He doesn't mind the broken bones 
 they'll knit; or the bruises they'll heal; 
 or the sprains time will take care of all of 
 them* So long as his spirit isn't fractured 
 and his determination isn't splintered, he's 
 not shattered, but only battered. 
 
 The mere loss of goods is just a loss of 
 time; if he hasn't lost his manhood and his 
 memory, he can duplicate whatever he 
 
 2J2
 
 The Man You Can't Defeat 
 
 possessed and re-attain whatever he Xhe Man 
 dropped. You Can't 
 
 You can "break" him. but you can't 
 break his backbone. You can bind his 
 activities, but you can't tie down his spirit. 
 You can handicap him, but so long as he 
 doesn't handicap himself, he'll win out 
 against you as surely as day must follow 
 night. 
 
 He puts his own judgment in the scales 
 and the prejudices of the whole universe 
 won't outweigh it; while there's breath in 
 his body, and hope in his breast, and nerve 
 in his meat, he's ready and eager to pit his 
 ambitions against all humanity. 
 
 Don't waste the time to laugh at him, to 
 shrug at him or strike at him; the joke is 
 bound to be on you in the end. He's 
 padded all over with self-assurance. A 
 sneer can't get through his vitals. Dis- 
 belief and incredulity rattle against his 
 sheath of confidence like dry peas upon a 
 stone wall. 
 
 Whenever you try to hold him back you 
 simply turn him into a bow you bend him 
 
 213
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man into greater power, and when you let go 
 You Can't you have loaned him the strength to hurl 
 Defeat his shaft of determination twice as far. 
 
 He's a human spring the greater the 
 pressure you put upon him t the further 
 he'll rebound. 
 
 Opposition is his whetstone; it simply 
 puts a deeper edge upon his keenness. 
 
 Every unfair dig that he receives is a 
 spur-tear. 
 
 It doesn't stop him, but sends him leaping 
 ahead. It rouses his lazing, lurking am- 
 peres and kilowatts of force it calls upon 
 his reserve of energy and sets it surging and 
 singing through his being, doubling his 
 horse power, intensifying his voltage, until 
 he breaks every band and bond of oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 Don't measure him by his years; courage 
 never rusts with time. 
 
 He'll break new ground for himself up 
 to the hour that you break ground for him. 
 
 You can't tell how he'll finish, until his 
 finish. 
 
 214
 
 But the wise old Earth 
 wags her aged head at 
 you and pityingly smiles. 
 Mother of Creation, she 
 knows what mighty 
 thing has been deeded 
 to her sons to be. 
 
 215
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH 
 THE POLE 
 
 Another search of ages has been ended; 
 another secret of the universe disclosed. 
 A new leaf has been added to the laurel of 
 achievement* 
 
 This wonder-century which showed the 
 way to talk across the vasts and whispered 
 to Invention how to seize the highways of 
 the air. has led the first explorer to the Pole. 
 
 And, of coarse, e we all agree that it <was 
 very ^wonderful and brave a deed of mighty 
 courage sublime and everything else that 
 is nice and praiseworthy. BUT- 
 
 When we pause to consider that it has 
 merely shown the map maker where to rule 
 a few more lines upon his globes, and al- 
 lowed the scientist to place its equivalent 
 beside another long-elusive "X," the game 
 by far outweighs the candle. 
 
 2J7
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 What F r t beyond these things, what in the 
 
 Shall We name of common sense are we to do with 
 Do with it? How may we use it? 
 the Pole 
 
 It will not add to the wealth of nations 
 
 nor simplify processes of manufacture. It 
 has no market value. It isn't a bed of 
 radium nor a mine of gold only a weird, 
 wild acre, whose trail is marked with tor- 
 tured lives and haunted with their trag- 
 edies. 
 
 When you think of all the long bleak 
 journeys up there on the unpathed ice, with 
 hunger always stalking close behind the 
 sleds the frost-fanged blasts that no furs 
 could withstand, the maddening isolation 
 and the wearied limbs, stung ever onward 
 by the lash of courage, you surely can't be 
 called narrow or unjust when you judge 
 the achievement to be a woeful waste of 
 splendid energy. 
 
 But the wise old Earth wags her aged 
 head at you and pityingly smiles. Mother 
 of Creation, she knows what mighty thing 
 has been deeded to her sons to be. 
 
 2J8
 
 What Shall We Do with the Pole 
 
 She gazes to the North and there beholds What 
 a spur to drive the laggard to the fore. Shall We 
 She sees a dazzling light to burn away the Do with 
 mists of doubt; a tablet to endure within 
 the halls of history and there proclaim to 
 all the lands and all the times how all is 
 possible to confidence* 
 
 The chemist, spent with years of futile 
 trials, will, at the recollection of the Pole, 
 re-clench his teeth, and urge his dying 
 courage back to spreading wing. 
 
 The artist, pleading to his brushes to 
 transmute the dream within his soul, will, 
 by its grace, paint on until persistence lifts 
 him into genius. 
 
 Inventors, wearied with the teasing puzzle 
 of wheels and cranks and springs, will call 
 to mind how one more trial found the 
 farthest goal; and sped again to essay at 
 their jumbles, will find that Fortune always 
 answers to the louder Call. 
 
 No scales can weigh nor figures tabulate 
 its worth. Its memory means another 
 ampere to the will of man another tendon 
 
 219
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 What for fas tiring arm support to fagging hope 
 Shall We fresh resolution to repel despair* 
 Do with j t ig a f orce Bought f r om the uttermosts 
 to nurture that in men which makes them 
 climb up to their highest destiny a ringing 
 voice to cry "I can t I shall, I must/' into 
 the hearts of all who truly seek the Key* 
 
 220
 
 You must come out of 
 the attic of theory and 
 elbow your way through 
 the matter-of-fact 
 practical world. The 
 thing which ruins the 
 possibilities of half of 
 mankind is the inability 
 of men to see clearly 
 the distinction between 
 yearning and earning. 
 
 22 J
 
 THE MAN WHO OVERESTIMATES 
 HIMSELF 
 
 You're a wedge trying to make a start 
 at the wrong end; you expect to find an 
 opening which will fit your egotism instead 
 of your capacity. 
 
 The sooner you taper down to circum- 
 stances t the quicker you'll taper up to 
 circumstance. 
 
 You want to begin at the place where 
 others are content to finish; you hope to be 
 an oak without commencing as an acorn. 
 
 Careers and trees are wonderfully alike 
 both require years and patience until they 
 reach their normal development. They 
 must have roots before they can mature. 
 They must get a firm hold on solid ground 
 before they reach height and breadth and 
 branch out. 
 
 223
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man We don't know what is in you until it 
 Who Over- comes out of you* Therefore, we demand 
 estimates evidence of accomplishment before we believe 
 
 TT <F 
 
 in your accomplishments. 
 
 We have learned that strength wants no 
 favors and disdains assistance; so that if 
 you ask to be fostered in a hot-house of 
 favoritism, we are skeptical and regard it 
 as a whimper and an evidence of your self- 
 distrust. 
 
 If you're confident of your attainments* 
 go ahead and back up your belief by attain- 
 ment. Let us see you grow; but go out 
 into the open where you can be tested by 
 the same storms and difficulties that the 
 average man must survive* Weather the 
 weather. Put yourself on a basis of un- 
 restricted competition. 
 
 If you're blown down, or shrivel up at the 
 outset, it's either your fault (you haven't 
 gripped with strong enough or long enough 
 roots) or it's your misfortune (you're a 
 weakling and lacking in the sap and fibre 
 of survival). 
 
 We'd have a fine sort of a world if we 
 
 224
 
 The Man "Who Overestimates Himself 
 
 permitted unproved, untried, untested men The Man 
 to leap in and abrogate what pleases their Who Over- 
 vanity* Our armies would have no privates estimates 
 every soldier would seize for himself the Himself 
 field marshal's baton* Our battleships 
 would rust in the docks; there would be no 
 stokers every sailor would be strutting 
 about the decks in the cocked hat of a rear 
 admiral. The wheels of our factories would 
 never turn every worker would be a 
 superintendent without a force to direct* 
 
 Making life too easy for you would make 
 it too hard for everyone else; therefore, in 
 the end, just as hard for you. 
 
 We won't help you because misplaced 
 assistance is hindrance. 
 
 You must work your way up and expect 
 everybody else who is after the same things 
 to try and hold you down. 
 
 You must come out of the attic of theory 
 and elbow your way through the matter-of- 
 fact practical world. The thing which ruins 
 the possibilities of half of mankind is the 
 inability of men to see clearly the distinction 
 between yearning and earning* 
 
 225
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man If Yu honestly believe that you are 
 Who Over- capable, you will court comparison and look 
 estimates for competition. You won't care how or 
 
 TT *r r 
 
 where you're placed, provided you have 
 room enough and time enough to demon- 
 strate your superiority* 
 
 The cup-winning thoroughbred had to 
 pass through the same training as every 
 other yearling in the paddock. Otherwise, 
 he would have been too erratic to run a 
 good race. 
 
 You, too, must be taught how to stick 
 to the set course and conserve your energy. 
 You must learn to respond to intelligent 
 direction. It won't break your spirit. It 
 will simply save you from wasting it. 
 
 Even genius must be restrained and 
 shaped into practical form. We build the 
 machinery of commerce and government 
 and professionalism on staple lines. We 
 must plan every part to fit in with co- 
 relation. We must replace so often that 
 it is dangerous to gear any segment on to 
 our engines for which there isn't an available 
 counterpart in case we lose it. 
 
 226
 
 The Man Who Overestimates Himself 
 
 We demand that you take the test. We 
 insist upon your reliability* We must 
 train you before we can use you* 
 
 Until Niagara was harnessed, her force 
 wasn't worth as much to the world as a 
 half-horsepower of brook falling upon a 
 medieval mill wheel* 
 
 The Man 
 Who Over- 
 estimates 
 Himself 
 
 227
 
 Fate frequently post- 
 pones her settlement 
 day to increase its hard- 
 ship, she often lulls the 
 cheat into a sense of 
 security, and after per- 
 mitting him to aspire for 
 the finer things of life, 
 she drags him down to 
 his earlier level and 
 collects her debt with 
 compounded interest. 
 
 229
 
 DISHONESTY DOUBLES THE 
 JOURNEY TO SUCCESS 
 
 Dishonesty doubles the journey to suc- 
 cess; a crooked path mttst always be longer 
 than a straight one. If you have the least 
 doubt upon this point, take out your pencil 
 and make the test; you don't need an 
 engineer's degree for the proof just a 
 degree of common sense. A man is never 
 so strong as when he stands upright the 
 further he stoops the easier he can be 
 knocked over. 
 
 The end of a reputation depends very 
 largely upon its beginning. An unsafe 
 foundation continually threatens every- 
 thing that rests upon it. A little more 
 time spent in beginning life right will save 
 years of after-effort in setting right a false 
 start. Reputations must be built of sound 
 timber or they can't last. If there's a flaw 
 
 231
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Dishonesty in a man's record, it's bound to show, and 
 
 Doubles the more important he becomes the more 
 
 T certain the disclosure. A faulty beam is 
 
 c v never in such danger as when it is called 
 Success . - ^ Q 
 
 upon to sustain a great weight* booner or 
 
 later failure is sure to mark the man who 
 marks his cards. 
 
 Swimming against the tide requires more 
 skill and endurance than swimming with 
 it; the man who isn't straight puts a terrific 
 handicap upon himself. He must play 
 tug-of-war single-handed against ail society. 
 The strength and resource that can suc- 
 cessfully hold out against the organized 
 opposition of public sentiment could ac- 
 complish tenfold as much with the co-oper- 
 ation and good will of everybody arrayed 
 in his favor. 
 
 Every now and then we hear Weakkneed 
 Shallowbrain sophistically remark: "Don't 
 tell me that honesty pays; look at So-and- 
 So; see what he has accomplished; and 
 everybody knows how he made his money." 
 
 But Shallowbrain doesn't pause to realize 
 that if "So-and-So" had not paid the 
 
 232
 
 Dishonesty Doubles the Journey to Success 
 
 penalty and did not wear the livid brand Dishonesty 
 of disrepute he would not be able to quote Doubles 
 his record. the 
 
 Prison bars are by no means the ultimate Success ' 
 punishment; iron gratings are easier for 
 some men to endure than the grating 
 contempt of their associates* 
 
 Wealth shrinks in value when its possessor 
 is despised and distrusted; its purchasing 
 power shrivels. 
 
 Every dishonest dollar leaves a trail as 
 plain as that of an anise bag which event- 
 ually leads up to the man who carries it. 
 
 Fate is a creature of whims. In her 
 sardonic humor she frequently postpones 
 her settlement day to increase its hardship; 
 she often lulls the cheat into a sense of 
 security, and after permitting him to 
 understand and aspire for the finer things 
 of life, she drags him down to his earlier 
 level and collects her debt with a frightfully 
 compounded interest. 
 
 An obscure man attracts less attention 
 than a well-known figure the bigger the 
 
 233
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Dishonesty crowd around the pillory, the more shame- 
 Doubles ftjl the emotions of him who stands in it* 
 
 the There's only one way that's right, and all 
 
 Journey to ,< .< 
 S e is other ways are wrong. 
 
 Success does not cut her rates her terms 
 are net she does business on the one-price 
 system. 
 
 All the noteworthy achievements in com- 
 merce and in art were soundly conceived 
 and accomplished through hard work and 
 honorable effort. 
 
 234
 
 Deprivation breeds 
 appreciation. Ambi- 
 tion shrivels where 
 luxury flourishes. 
 Energy grows poorly 
 in rich soil. Men 
 are awakened and 
 quickened and spurred 
 on by need. 
 
 235
 
 THE BOY WHOSE FATHER OWNED 
 THE CANDY STORE 
 
 The boy whose father owned the candy 
 store missed all the fan of wishing that 
 father owned it* 
 
 He never knew what it was to flatten his 
 nose against the shop window while he 
 hesitated over the relative advantage of 
 investing his penny in a lemon sticker 
 (which would last for an hour) or a marsh- 
 mallow peach (which would delight his 
 palate for one fleeting moment but leave 
 him with a greater longing than before). 
 
 No matter how wisely or well you chose, 
 you invariably decided that the selection 
 had been ill-advised t and so there were 
 always tomorrows with their unrealized 
 hopes. 
 
 Wishing for things is by far the best part 
 
 237
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The of possessing them. The man who has too 
 
 Boy Whose much at the outset finds too little at the 
 
 rather enc j a jj things are valueless t because he has 
 
 ^? e < e no standards of measurement* We cannot 
 
 Store ^ nc * *ke true weight of wealth except upon 
 
 the scales of poverty* 
 
 Deprivation breeds appreciation* Am- 
 bition shrivels where luxury flourishes* 
 Energy grows poorly in rich soil* Men are 
 awakened and quickened and spurred on 
 by need* We learn to know the worth of 
 what we win by contrast with a period 
 when we possessed less* 
 
 The man who has cut his teeth on a silver 
 spoon is in the midst of riches but not 
 enriched by them. He is like the merboy 
 whose whole life is spent in the water but 
 who cannot experience the thrill which runs 
 through a hot t tired, dusty youngster, who 
 has trudged half a morning over sun-baked 
 roads and fields of stubble for momentary 
 delight of the shock that follows his dive 
 into the swimming hole. 
 
 You see Fortune isn't so lopsided in her 
 division of bounties as she sometimes seems* 
 
 238
 
 If she gives lavishly in one direction she The 
 usually takes away a compensating some- ^V Whose 
 thing to make up for it. ~ rather 
 
 f . Owned the 
 
 The laborer envies the clerk because his Candy 
 
 duties are lighter; the clerk envies his em- Store 
 ployer because he is master of his own 
 business; the employer envies the dawdler 
 because he is master of his own time; the 
 dawdler envies the peer because his status 
 is assured; the peer envies the monarch 
 because his position is supreme and the 
 king envies the laborer and the clerk, and 
 the employer and the dawdler and the peer 
 because they possess rights as individuals 
 which he can never own* The circle is 
 complete it touches every human of every 
 caste and class* There is no such thing as 
 complete happiness through mere posses- 
 sion of goods or position* 
 
 Happiness lies only in contentment. Envy 
 and dissatisfaction find fruitful soil all the 
 way from the ditch to the throne-room. 
 
 The want of things makes progress. 
 The necessities of existence produce Men. 
 
 239
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The The most important word in the lexicon of 
 Boy Whose success is "must" 
 
 rather j^ j s ^ t ^ e striving and the struggling 
 
 /-. i that the sinews of initiative and determina- 
 
 Store ** on are developed* The most useless as 
 
 well as the most unhappy people on the 
 
 face of the earth are those who have no 
 
 duties* The man who works gets far more 
 
 out of life than he who shirks* 
 
 240
 
 Easy problemsare never 
 worth solution the 
 great rewards are always 
 bought by terrific 
 effort little men can 
 only achieve little things. 
 Windfalls are worthless. 
 Nature and human na- 
 ture are both alike all 
 real treasures are rock- 
 bound 
 
 241
 
 THE WORLD BELONGS TO THE 
 FIGHTING FEW 
 
 When you lose faith in yourself your 
 mainspring has run down the rest of the 
 works are useless. You're letting time 
 pass without making a record you're all 
 wrong inside, and a glance at your face 
 shows everybody that you are out of order. 
 
 You're just occupying the space of a 
 man fit only to be directed and fitted 
 merely for the little posts in life where 
 hands and feet are paid for by the dime per 
 hour. You've judged yourself and passed 
 adverse sentence the world won't reverse 
 the decision. You can no longer direct 
 yourself, so you must be driven. 
 
 The rest of us are not cheating our hour 
 of opportunity, and since you don't care 
 we haven't the time to care for you. 
 You can come wherever we go, but we won't 
 
 243
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The World carry you. The roads to everywhere are 
 Belongs open. You have the same right of way, 
 to the j^. no {. j^e right to weigh upon our backs. 
 Fighting 
 
 Few The thing the only thing that can 
 
 save you is a rewinding of the mainspring 
 Determination* 
 
 Wishing for things is like fishing for things 
 wasted without perseverance. Thinking 
 and doing aren't the same. Good ideas are 
 only seeds. They must be planted and 
 tilled before they can produce. 
 
 A thousand men thought that the airship 
 was possible, but possibility couldn't be- 
 come probability without hard labor. 
 
 Instead of building castles in the air t the 
 Wrights and Zeppelins and Dumonts built 
 something to carry them to the castles. 
 They planned and plugged and figured and 
 failed, and kept failing and kept learning 
 from failure until they could soar to what 
 others merely saw. 
 
 They fell down and bumped themselves 
 until they bumped into the right plan 
 they couldn't pick it out from the wrong 
 
 244
 
 The World Belongs to the Fighting Few 
 
 ways tmtil they had eliminated them by The "World 
 test. Belongs 
 
 Easy problems are never worth solution TJ 7 C 
 the great rewards are always bought by 
 terrific effort little men can only achieve 
 little things* "Windfalls are worthless. Na- 
 ture and human nature are both alike all 
 real treasures are rock-bound. 
 
 Thousands of men had that in them 
 which could have made them a Napoleon 
 or a Caesar, a Carnegie or a Field, but they 
 remained nonentities simply because they 
 had a fool idea that Fortune keeps a 
 visiting list. She doesn't. She hasn't 
 stirred from home since she first went into 
 business. Her abode is way up among the 
 crags. There are no beaten, paths to her 
 front door* No man who ever found it 
 managed to leave footprints to guide an- 
 other over exactly the same route* She 
 gives nothing. She trades and she drives 
 her bargains just as hard as a Monday 
 shopper. The price of her goods must be 
 paid for in grit and ability. 
 
 Being a woman, she despises a coward 
 
 245
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The World her smiles are only for those who flatter her 
 Belongs vanity by enduring some suffering for the 
 to the favor of her graces. 
 
 *g m 2 j n every desert there are wells in every 
 stretch of sun-baked bad land, there are 
 pools. The weaklings who wander out into 
 the sands and the wastes do not find them. 
 They are there for the Fighting Few. The 
 great things of the earth are not for the 
 doubters this universe belongs to the sons 
 of strength. No field of endeavor is so 
 barren but what they find its oases. Some 
 time, amid the ruins of an ancient land, a 
 temple will be unearthed sacred to Success, 
 and high over the altar, hewn into the 
 living rock, these lines: 
 
 "I exist only in the Man I am Human 
 Will. I cannot aid those who seek help, 
 but them who disdain to ask it. Those who 
 doubt themselves destroy me; they who 
 believe, achieve/' 
 
 246
 
 There are wonderful 
 dreams foundered in the 
 ruts and wrecked things 
 in the dirt, and, some- 
 where toward the 
 outset, a heart-hurt 
 and memories. 
 
 247
 
 The wardrobe mistress lingers at Nellie's 
 door* She's waiting for her peacock cos- 
 tume* One of the pony ballet caught her 
 foot in it before Nellie could swish the train 
 aside and the rent will have to be repaired. 
 Managers are very considerate of gowns. 
 The stage is a place where lots of things get 
 wrecked, if one is thoughtless, and cos- 
 tumes costing up to $175 must be guarded. 
 Nellie wears seven imported creations in 
 the new revue Her salary is twenty "per." 
 
 Perhaps you've noticed Nellie she stood 
 fifth in the line the last line. For the past 
 five years she's been moving back at a 
 distance crow's-feet and loosening chins 
 don't show. (And then, too, grease paint 
 and rice powder help some.) From where 
 you sit, Nellie still looks stunning. Almost 
 
 249
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The 
 
 Windows 
 of Hope 
 
 and 
 Memory 
 
 as pretty as when she belonged in the front 
 line t right up near the stage boxes* But in 
 fifteen years lines come and go some stay* 
 
 Hazel has Nellie's old place now. Hazel 
 has only been on fifteen days* She's 
 wholesome and young and rosy* Her eyes 
 sparkle her limbs are all life as she whirls 
 and swirls through the dances* This is 
 such a gay world with its calcium and 
 tinsel and crashing music and brightness 
 and cheer without any of the worries and 
 sorrows with none of the grinding, binding 
 duties, but just freedom and independence 
 the maddest make-believe all come true. 
 Why, only a month ago she was wasting 
 her days in the drab routine of matter-of- 
 fact home life an ordinary, usual person, 
 no better than you or I but now! At 
 last, Nellie has changed the sequined robe 
 for a street suit and is making ready to 
 leave* Hazel walks back to the hotel with 
 her. Hazel is pouting with disappointment 
 at the last moment the little midnight 
 wine supper is off. And so tonight she 
 has time to lie and think of things. And 
 
 250
 
 The Windows of Hope and Memory 
 
 Nellie, across the hall, is thinking, too 
 both are thinking of their roads of the 
 same road, but neither knows that, nor 
 would you or I, if we were peeping at it 
 through Hazel's eyes or Nellie's* 
 
 This is the road that Nellie sees: A long, 
 winding, twisted way which runs through 
 years of tears and of shattered hopes. 
 There is mud underfoot and blasted ideals 
 are strewn about* The road is bathed in 
 sunlight where it starts, but keeps getting 
 darker and harder, and the farther it 
 runs the more the grade waxes. There 
 are wonderful dreams foundered in the 
 ruts and wrecked things in the dirt, and, 
 somewhere toward the outset, a heart-hurt 
 and memories. 
 
 But Hazel doesn't see any of these things 
 on her road. It's covered with a golden 
 haze and has a golden pave and it's hedged 
 with rose fantasies. In the distance dashing 
 princes are prancing toward her (at least 
 they would prance if they weren't motor-car 
 princes), and almost within reach is a castle 
 (which might stand upon a terraced hill if 
 
 251 
 
 The 
 
 Windows 
 of Hope 
 
 and 
 Memory
 
 The 
 
 Windows 
 of Hope 
 
 and 
 Memory 
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 this weren't the year of J9IO when castle 
 building is done nearer to the ground). And 
 all along the road are wonderful things 
 waiting for her fame and triumph, lavish 
 luxury, happiness and 
 
 Poor Hazel and poor Nellie it's really 
 the same road only the years have changed 
 it for you. We all see the road differently 
 at the end of fifteen days and after fifteen 
 years. We begin by gazing at it through 
 a casement of hope, and then when weVe 
 lived and suffered and are weary, we look 
 back at it through the window of memory. 
 
 The windows do it all the road never 
 changes. 
 
 252
 
 Active critics are usually 
 lazy builders. Men 
 who are accomplishing 
 most in the world are 
 constantly figuring how 
 they can squeeze out 
 a little more time to 
 catch up with their 
 back work. No real 
 busy body was ever a 
 busybody. 
 
 253
 
 MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS 
 
 There are three sides to every dispute 
 the inside and the outside and the wrong 
 side* Make sure you see the right side 
 when you pass judgment. But before you 
 bother about the matter at all figure out 
 whether it's any affair of yours to give an 
 opinion* Chances are that you are a 
 muddling, meddling, interfering butter-in 
 a self-constituted, unsummoned jury of 
 one* 
 
 See to it when you chase chickens out of 
 your neighbor's garden that you don't 
 create more havoc by trampling down the 
 flowers. 
 
 Mind your own business. If you have 
 one, it needs all the attention you can give 
 it. If you find that you have any atten- 
 tion to spare, you need a new sort of busi- 
 ness* 
 
 255
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Mind Active critics are usually lazy builders* 
 
 Your Own Men who are accomplishing most in the 
 
 Business wor ld are constantly figuring how they can 
 
 squeeze out a little more time to catch up 
 
 with their back work. No real busy body 
 
 was ever a busybody. 
 
 Lending advice is like lending money- 
 it destroys every other friendship, A still 
 tongue is a multitude of virtues, 
 
 Get out of the habit of making other 
 people's beds. Keeping your own com- 
 fortable is a good-sized life-task. 
 
 There's always a bit of glass in every 
 cottage, and when you feel the desire to 
 break somebody else's windows, first take a 
 squint at your own. If you look with honest 
 eyes you will see enough targets to occupy 
 your attention without quitting the premises. 
 
 The law against snarling curs is not 
 nearly so necessary as a statute against 
 snarling gabbers. It isn't the canine who 
 most needs the muzzle. Dog-bites aren't 
 nearly so deadly as gossip-bites. They're 
 easier to cure and far less poisonous, 
 There are mighty few deaths from hydro- 
 
 256
 
 Mind Your Own Business 
 
 phobia, but irresponsible slander has piled Mind 
 up a mortality as heavy as that of war. Your Own 
 
 "R ' 
 
 Men and women struck down by the arrows -Business 
 of rumor outnumber those who have fallen 
 before the rifle* 
 
 The man who shoots off his mouth and 
 kills a good name deserves as much pun- 
 ishment as that other type of prize idiot, 
 who shoots off a gun without noticing 
 where it is pointed. The fact that neither 
 one knows "it is loaded" doesn't heal the 
 hurt. 
 
 "See, hear and speak no evil" is one of 
 the first lessons implanted in the mind of 
 a Japanese child. 
 
 The world is not nearly so bad as it has 
 been painted. The average human is a 
 pretty decent individual. Folks who have 
 the habit of discounting the best in men and 
 women have gotten the viewpoint from 
 themselves. A thief has confidence in no 
 man's honesty the wanton ridicules the 
 virtue of all women. They who constantly 
 mistrust are most to be mistrusted. 
 
 Old Doctor Watson made a practice of 
 
 257
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Mind presenting to each of his graduates a little 
 
 Your Own printed card* "I have merely taught you 
 
 Business your A-B-C's," he would say; "your real 
 
 education is now about to begin. You'll 
 
 find life less of a problem if you bear these 
 
 few lines in mind: 
 
 "No. \ When you're speaking evil of a 
 woman, picture your own mother or 
 sister in her place* When you're right 
 you're wrong. 
 
 "No* 2 If you think that a man is a 
 thief, tell the police. If your facts are not 
 strong enough to warrant a warrant, they 
 do not justify the accusation* 
 
 "No* 3 Distrust 'hearsay.' It's as cow- 
 ardly to judge an absent man as it is 
 dastardly to strike a defenseless one* 
 
 "No. 4 For use when you can't think 
 of any other rule 'Mind your own busi- 
 
 ness." 
 
 258
 
 This is the land of new 
 to-morrows. Give 
 yourself the same show 
 that you demand of 
 society, and society will 
 soon make a path to 
 your door. 
 
 259
 
 GROW A SPINE AND MAKE GOOD 
 
 When you're down in the dumps and 
 the sun's rays are blue when your bank 
 account's short and your face is long, and 
 you've quite made up your mind that you 
 haven't a ghost of a show- 
 When you've run the gamut of your 
 friends and worn out their patience and 
 your credit when you can't find a living 
 soul who is willing to help you and you're 
 sure that the game is up 
 
 When you've tried to get work, and the 
 only work that you can find is the work 
 of looking for it when you've reached the 
 stage where all life has assumed a lemon 
 flavor and the future tastes like a mouthful 
 of lye 
 
 When you're sure that nothing is worth 
 while, and you've begun to believe that 
 
 261
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Grow a the world has gone wrong, and that you're 
 Spine and a football on the field of fortune with the 
 
 Make whole universe on the eleven 
 Cjood 
 
 Then it's time to remember that Helen 
 
 Keller made good. 
 
 Put down your assets in one column and 
 list hers beside it. Then we'll strike a bal- 
 ance. 
 
 Huh! Why, you're rich. 
 
 You have eyesight and hearing and 
 speech. Your limbs are sound. You can 
 use your arms and your legs and your hands 
 as freely as ever. What in creation are 
 you wailing about, you weak-kneed welcher! 
 
 Oh, don't start cataloguing your trials 
 and afflictions. They don't weigh as much 
 as a feather when you hold them in the 
 scales against those of a girl, the mention 
 of whose name should bring the blush of 
 shame to the cheeks of every man who has 
 his health and fails. 
 
 Without eyes, she learned to read. She 
 never heard a violin or the glory of a great 
 voice. Her tongue never framed a ques- 
 
 262
 
 Grow a Spine and Make Good 
 
 tion. All the things that her brain yearned Grow a 
 to know were walled away from her. Spine and 
 
 And yet she made good, simply because Make 
 she wasn't a quitter. What Nature wouldn't 
 give her, she gave herself. 
 
 And you t who have everything that 
 counts all the tools of success all the 
 unbuyable gifts of Providence wealth that 
 the gold of a strongbox couldn't purchase 
 from you even at this hour you are 
 bawling! 
 
 You deserve failure. You're a coward. 
 
 There's a chance for every man in this 
 country, but you haven't spunk enough 
 to take yours. 
 
 The prairies are yearning to become 
 farms the rivers are eager to turn mill 
 wheels the cities are breeding new neigh- 
 borhoods millions of peasants, ignorant of 
 a word of English, without skill, but with 
 doggedness to take its place, are earning 
 bread and finding homes. 
 
 You can't be helped because you're a 
 jelly-fish. If you were lifted up, you'd 
 flop back like a soggy sponge* 
 
 263
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Grow a Start in and grow a spine. Wade through 
 Spine and your self-pity and your false pride. Dig 
 Make through your cowardice and your fear and 
 Good ft nc l the man in yourself. 
 
 Try again and keep trying; try as hard 
 as the blind girl tried. 
 
 If one spot is too crowded, go where they 
 need a crowd* If one resource fails you. 
 invent another. 
 
 This is the land of new tomorrows. 
 Give yourself half the chance that you 
 demand of society, and society will soon 
 make a path to your door. 
 
 264
 
 Effort is chiefly lost 
 through misapplication. 
 The men who know the 
 most haven't done as 
 much forthe world as the 
 men who do the most. 
 "Waiting until to-mor- 
 row" has destroyed 
 more businesses, ruined 
 more lives and annihi- 
 lated more armies than 
 the power of enmity. 
 
 265
 
 THE HALF-BALD LADY 
 
 The eleventh hoar is only thirty minutes 
 long. You can't do your best at the last 
 moment fretting whether you'll have time 
 enough, consumes half of your energy. 
 
 It isn't what's in your head, but what's 
 in your go-ahead it isn't what you can do, 
 but what you do do only action wins. 
 
 Postponements usually end in post-mor- 
 tems. The men who live in today have a 
 better chance to reach tomorrow than the 
 air-castle architect, whose dreams keep 
 him so busy that he doesn't busy himself. 
 
 Life's a treadmill if you don't keep 
 stepping you'll fall down and be stepped 
 on by the man behind you. 
 
 Caution is a virtue, but when taken in 
 over-doses, like some good medicine it 
 becomes a vice it hurts instead of helps. 
 An over-used brake is a breaker. It's far 
 
 267
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The better to spoil a chance than to neglect 
 Half -Bald it. You can repair the harts of misjudg- 
 Lady ment t btrt what has gone is utterly lost* 
 Time is the only thing that can be de- 
 stroyed. The day that has slipped away 
 can't come back the old gentleman with 
 the scythe and hour-glass doesn't make 
 round-trips. 
 
 The Greeks pictured Opportunity as a 
 half-bald woman with all her hair on her 
 forehead you had to grab her from the 
 front once she had passed there was noth- 
 ing to clutch at your opportunities have 
 a bald side, too. 
 
 If you want to see how necessary time- 
 liness is, go to a play and watch the actor 
 who misses his cue he holds up the whole 
 performance. It's the same in the bigger 
 theater Life. The men who don't watch 
 their cues never get into the leading com- 
 panies the rest of the cast are afraid of 
 
 'em. 
 
 The office boy who forgets to send the 
 telegram brings the discretion and reputa- 
 tion of his firm down to his own level of 
 inefficiency. The motorman who misses 
 
 268
 
 The Half-Bald Lady 
 
 his schedule involves every other car on the The 
 line the last member of the dinner party Half-Bald 
 discounts the punctuality of all his fellow Lady 
 guests tardiness is more than careless- 
 ness it's selfishness. 
 
 The most powerful machine can't move 
 faster than its slowest wheel. The bird 
 within range while on the fence can't be 
 reached after it has flown away you've 
 got to do things while there's a chance of 
 making good. 
 
 Effort is chiefly lost through misapplica- 
 tion* The men who know the most haven't 
 done as much for the world as the men 
 who do the most. 
 
 ''Waiting until tomorrow" has destroyed 
 more businesses, ruined more lives and 
 annihilated more armies than the power 
 of enmity. 
 
 The boy who stuck his finger in the dyke 
 and saved the sea wall of Holland did as 
 much by being on time as all the working- 
 men whose years of labor had created it 
 if he had run away to ask for information 
 the Netherlands would indeed be the nether 
 lands. 
 
 269
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The WLen. wno do things on time save much 
 
 Half-Bald more than time. They discount the dis- 
 Lady advantages which would keep them down 
 if their better gifted and better educated 
 fellows were as quick and as steady. The 
 plodder gets along because he goes along 
 because he's not a waster he gets ahead 
 because he doesn't lose his head. 
 
 The ball team with a man at first who 
 grabs at everything that comes his way- 
 even if he makes a muff every now and 
 then is far stronger than the nine with a 
 crack player who isn't watching the game. 
 
 When Old Judson promoted Smith to 
 the management of the New York branch 
 there was a howl among the other em- 
 ployes. "The trouble with you fellows/' 
 he said, "isn't that you ain't got the ability t 
 but that I can't count on it. You're like 
 the chocolate in the marble cake it's there, 
 but you can't tell where. Smith don't 
 know half as much as half of you, but I'll 
 get what he does know when I need it. I 
 can't say that he'll make things move faster, 
 but one thing certain, there ain't no time in 
 the day that he'll keep things from moving." 
 
 270
 
 The man who comes up 
 from bedrock has a price- 
 less hentage. He knows 
 that poverty cannot ruin, 
 merely check, so he risks 
 more and has less than 
 those who have been set 
 upon the middle rungsof 
 the ladder at the outset 
 whose imagination pic- 
 tures the loss of money, 
 as the loss of everything. 
 
 271
 
 WHILE YOUR GRIT LASTS, YOU WILL 
 
 He didn't know that he could do it he 
 wasn't sure that he'd win he heard the 
 sneers and he saw the smiles of incredulity, 
 but they didn't stop him he believed in 
 himself, and went ahead. Occasionally 
 he fell down, but every bruise was an in- 
 vestment it was a record of one of the 
 wrong ways an asset which showed him 
 that he could survive, even if he was 
 knocked over occasionally. 
 
 He's the man who wasn't content with 
 candle light and went snooping around until 
 he managed to perfect a lamp, and after 
 he had the lamp, he yearned for more light 
 he kept yearning for it until he discov- 
 ered gas. But even gas wasn't pervasive 
 enough, and so he harnessed up electricity. 
 
 He wasn't praised at the start the man 
 
 273
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 While who tries never is. One of the penalties of 
 
 Your Grit being greater is to rim up against the grat- 
 
 Lasts, i n g envy and lashing skepticism of the 
 
 'little folk/' But it takes a lot more than 
 
 an insult or a cold shoulder to chill the real 
 
 winning impulse. 
 
 If you expect to be coddled and cheered 
 if you're looking for approbation and en- 
 couragement if you haven't stamina 
 enough to stand alone with your ambitions 
 and to fight for them 'til you attain them 
 you're wasting dreams. It's one thing to 
 believe in a theory and another to believe 
 in yourself. Being brilliant is only half of 
 the game being brave is the other half* 
 The road to the laurel grove runs up the 
 side of a cliff. There are spots where you'll 
 have to hold by your finger tips, but if 
 you're not willing to take the risk, you don't 
 deserve what's up top. 
 
 There was a time when strength decided 
 greatness when the strongest arm and the 
 longest wind made chieftains, but the 
 tourney is no longer the tilt-yard. For 
 untold centuries the greatest brutes were 
 
 274
 
 While Your Grit Lasts, You Will 
 
 the greatest men the same instinct While 
 that then sent their clubs swinging at Your Grit 
 the physically weak still survives. They v Jr. 
 don't understand they never did under- 
 stand you can't expect them to share in 
 your visions. They must touch things, 
 feel them, see them, measure them all 
 their senses are physical, and so until they 
 see you higher than themselves they won't 
 place you where you belong. 
 
 You'll have to pay for wanting more, or 
 being more or having more. They'll tear 
 at you they'll wear on you they'll block 
 your way and hold you down until you 
 gather force enough to squirm away from 
 under the crowd. 
 
 You'll never suffer so mtich as when 
 you're getting the least you'll never need 
 your confidence half so badly as when you 
 doubt yourself most. 
 
 You'll have to be brave in the dark- 
 dogged and purposeful. You don't need 
 wealth or position. The want of things 
 creates the impulse to attain them. Farm 
 houses have bred more giants than middle- 
 
 275
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 While class competency* The man who comes 
 
 Your Grit up from bedrock has a heritage that is 
 
 Lasts* priceless* He knows that going back to 
 
 ot * bedrock will still give him a chance to 
 
 start anew that poverty cannot ruin, but 
 
 merely check, and so he risks more and has 
 
 less fear than those who have been set upon 
 
 the middle rungs of the ladder at the outset 
 
 whose imagination pictures the loss of 
 
 money as the loss of everything* 
 
 Come on and keep on take your time 
 and take your lickings take everything 
 that belongs to you don't sell out to cow- 
 ardice. When your grit has gone you're 
 done with* While it lasts, you will* 
 
 276
 
 Why, it might pay you 
 to have Tommy's 
 mother come and work 
 for you. Her system, if 
 applied to your expense 
 accounts, would save 
 thousands per year. 
 She takes a great interest 
 in figures and practices 
 all day long "six pairs 
 of socks forty-seven 
 towels eight sheets 
 
 277
 
 TOMMY'S MOTHER AND THE 
 NEEDLE GATE 
 
 There was a camel a very foolish camel 
 and there was a needle, with a very small 
 eye, and the camel tried to thread his way 
 through eh, you know that old tale? 
 Well, after all, it isn't really our story, 
 which is about Tommy the snub-nosed, 
 red-headed Tommy who works for you. 
 Perhaps you don't know him by name- 
 but maybe this will identify him: The 
 shabby boy whose cuffs never peep out 
 and whose toes sometimes do. 
 
 It is unpleasant to have such an unkempt 
 youngster about the place. Call him in and 
 call him down, or, better still, send for his 
 mother and insist upon more care in his 
 appearance. 
 
 Tommy's mother is worth meeting; she's 
 
 279
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Tommy's 
 
 Mother 
 
 and the 
 
 Needle 
 
 Gate 
 
 quite a wonderful person; a most remarka- 
 ble mathematician. It would amuse you 
 to see her figure out of her three weekly 
 washings and Tommy's three weekly dol- 
 lars, rent and clothes and food and coal 
 and wood and doctors bills, besides the 
 world of other things that people must have 
 if they must live* Why, it might pay you 
 to have Tommy's mother come and work 
 for you; her system, if applied to your 
 expense accounts, would save thousands 
 of dollars in the course of a year. She 
 takes a great interest in figures; she practices 
 all day long "six pairs of socks forty- 
 seven towels eight sheets"- 
 
 But then Tommy's mother is able in so 
 many ways a veritable admirable Crich- 
 toness: laundry proprietress (and also de- 
 livery wagon for the laundry), cook, nurse- 
 maid, seamstress, upstairs-downstairs-and- 
 general-utility-maid but no woman ever 
 knows what is in her until the heel of pov- 
 erty begins to grind it out of her. And 
 then a very strange thing happens; she 
 grows so healthy that she doesn't go to bed 
 
 280
 
 Tommy's Mother and the Needle Gate 
 
 on account of headaches or feel that it's at 
 all necessary to rtm to the mountains and 
 tmprostrate her nerves. It's really more 
 wonderful than the faith cure this pov- 
 erty cure. (Next time your wife com- 
 plains, look her over and consider how 
 much good it might do her.) 
 
 Any mother who can perform so many 
 other marvels of industry has no excuse for 
 neglecting the hole in Tommy's pants. 
 She's growing careless that's it. She's 
 probably wasting her time planning Easter 
 costumes* Oh, these women they require 
 so much reflection before they can decide 
 between a mauve messaline over gray 
 taffeta or a pale lavender Panama cloth 
 with baby Irish. (This spring's delicate 
 tints, if unwisely chosen, are apt to play 
 havoc with the complexion.) 
 
 But it's quite possible that Tommy's 
 mother is really made of the same meat 
 and strung with the same nerves as your 
 wife; and sixteen hours of day-after-day 
 drudging to half-feed and half-clothe her 
 babies may have so numbed and blinded 
 
 281 
 
 Tommy's 
 
 Mother 
 
 and the 
 
 Needle 
 
 Gate
 
 Tommy's 
 
 Mother 
 
 and the 
 
 Needle 
 
 Gate 
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 her that she misses sight of such a big thing 
 as a little rent in a boy's suit* 
 
 All of which foregoing dribble is rank senti- 
 mentality, in 'which neither of as believes. 
 
 But (for argument sake) suppose you 
 were sentimental and did believe in things, 
 and suppose you took Tommy down the 
 street and made ten dollars behave like a 
 complete wardrobe (the same kind of a 
 ten-dollar bill which paid for the wine after 
 theater last night), and suppose 
 
 But, as we just agreed, neither of us is senti- 
 mental. Still, if we were, and there is a 
 needle-eyed gate somewhere between here 
 and hereafter, mightn't it be possible that 
 you could squirm through it more readily 
 if your pockets were thinned out occas- 
 ionally for Tommy in which case his 
 mother might know a prayer that would 
 help out, if the eye squeezed very hard? 
 
 282
 
 If you don't believe in 
 yourself, you've lost 
 before you've fought. 
 Give yourself half the 
 show that you'd ask 
 from anyone else and 
 you've won the greatest 
 part of your battle and 
 gamed the allegiance of 
 at least one firm believer 
 to take the place of a 
 traitor. 
 
 283
 
 THE MOST USELESS THING 
 IN THE WORLD 
 
 Hurry more and you'll worry less. You 
 can't gain by moping and you may attain 
 by hoping. Regret is a poor cement it 
 can't mend anything. Don't poison to- 
 morrow's hope with yesterday's despair. 
 Nothing can be half as bad as you can 
 picture it. The amount of vitality it takes 
 to chew the cud of misfortune will extract 
 enough mental nutrition to create another 
 fortune. 
 
 Work it off! Worry is a disease of idlers. 
 Despair is a fungus a parasite that absorbs 
 the vitality of the will. No man can keep 
 the same head filled with energetic ambi- 
 tions and enervating doubts. 
 
 You discount on the wrong end. Shift. 
 Try the other side and maybe you'll get a 
 
 285
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Most view-point which shows that you're half 
 Useless as badly off. 
 
 the World ^ ^ ot< don't ^ e ^ eve m yourself, you've 
 lost before you've fought. Master your 
 fears just give yourself the show that 
 you'd ask from anyone else and you've 
 won the greatest part of your battle because 
 you've gained the allegiance of at least one 
 firm believer to take the place of a traitor. 
 
 Perk up! Get the yellow paint out of 
 your veins and instead fill them with the 
 blood of determination. Control yourself 
 and you needn't bother about the rest 
 of us. 
 
 Granted that you have your troubles- 
 forget them. They're the most thoroughly 
 useless things on the face of the earth. 
 Grow busy and they'll grow small. 
 
 Worry is like a mold it can't get hold 
 of anything that's moving any more than 
 a creeper can cling on a spinning fly-wheel. 
 
 If you're threatened with reverses, 
 remember that rain doesn't fall from every 
 storm cloud. Each hour that intervenes 
 
 286
 
 The Most Useless Thing in the World 
 
 gives you an opportunity to find an um- 
 brella to plan some way of surviving. 
 
 No man can do his best when he is tied 
 hand and foot with his doubts and shackled 
 with fright* 
 
 The last barrier thrown up at the last 
 moment has saved more than one army 
 from annihilation. So long as you can 
 stand, remember that you're not downed 
 so long as you can hope, there's a chance 
 to fulfill the hope. You can always be de- 
 feated that will take care of itself without 
 any aid from you. 
 
 Every other failure is through fear. 
 Grit is the biggest asset you can own. Old 
 Man Hallowell didn't think more of a dol- 
 lar than you think of your right eye, but he 
 loved pluck more than money because 
 pluck is the mold in which money is minted. 
 He built his fortune by backing up men 
 who never backed down. 
 
 Charlie Walters might have been even 
 as big as he thought himself if he had kept 
 his nerve keyed up to the same pitch as 
 his fear, but the Old Man caught him look- 
 
 287 
 
 The Most 
 
 Useless 
 
 Thing in 
 
 the World
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Most m g over an insurance prospectus one day. 
 
 Useless It was just when Charlie's concern was 
 
 Thing in getting it hard from a half dozen quarters 
 
 , < \Y7 f/4 
 
 : world anc j HallowelTs backing was the very back- 
 bone of his resources* 
 
 "What's the matter, Charlie?" Hallo- 
 well asked. 
 
 "Oh, nothing, I was just figuring on some 
 more life insurance. You see there's just 
 one chance that we may go to the wall, 
 and I thought I'd look out for the future." 
 
 "Charlie," said Hallowell, "instead of 
 figuring over those policies, you sit right 
 down and figure who'd be likely to buy 
 my interest. I'm through. I'll follow a 
 fighter to hell, but I won't follow a flunker 
 to the corner. Since you've reached the 
 conclusion that there's one chance of our 
 failing, I've made up my mind that we 
 haven't a chance. You ain't got the stuff 
 in you to win you can't down your own 
 nerves. If you'd spent more time calculat- 
 ing how to beat this game instead of abus- 
 ing your days and nights snooping around 
 for pitfalls, you and me would still be 'we.' 
 
 288
 
 The Most Useless Thing in the World 
 
 When a man is looking for trouble, his eyes The Most 
 become telescopes he can see it on Mars. Useless 
 A leader who don't believe in his own cause Thing in 
 ain't got any. You've kept worrying and ** 1C World 
 worrying over nothing now begin to 
 bother over something. It's happened. 
 Any man who worries long enough won't 
 be disappointed." 
 
 289
 
 There must be a cause 
 behind those who find 
 battles before them. 
 The mercenary is never 
 a soldier he's fighting 
 for money and not for a 
 cause he's a hired man 
 whose sword can only 
 be driven with his brute 
 strength he cannot 
 strike with the courage 
 of his convictions. 
 
 29J
 
 THE MAN WHO JUST WANTS MONEY 
 
 The man who plays the game is the man 
 who gets the gain; he fights for more than 
 the award. To him the prize means noth- 
 ing unless it stands for something unless 
 it is a token of victory. 
 
 There must be a cause behind those 
 who find battles before them. The mer- 
 cenary is never a soldier he's fighting for 
 a money and not for a cause he's a 
 hired man whose sword can only be driven 
 with his brute strength he cannot strike 
 with the courage of his convictions. 
 
 The Hessians fell like grain before the 
 reaper; they had no flag to inspire them. 
 They marched into the conflict under the 
 lash of avarice, and so they could not en- 
 dure against the untrained laymen the 
 
 293
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man farmers and the tradesmen and the artisans 
 
 Who Just who opposed desultory ranks against 
 
 Wants their trained formations, but who flailed 
 
 Money them to the ground simply because it was 
 
 more than mere muscle and drill manual 
 
 that dug their bayonets and sped their 
 
 bullets they were not aiming at men but 
 
 at a menace they were not fighting for 
 
 pay but for patriotism. 
 
 The man who does not strain for the joy 
 of conquest or the defense of right who 
 does not match wit and tenacity for the 
 glory of reaching something beyond, makes 
 of his struggle a labor. He is like the pro- 
 fessional gambler (who leads" the dullest 
 and the most sordid of lives) he counts 
 the winnings and not the winning. His 
 sordidness cheats him of the delight and 
 thrill of the game. The sprinter who sees a 
 purse at the end of the course can't get 
 that into his legs which will carry him past 
 his rival racing toward the pot at the end 
 of the rainbow who is filled with something 
 of a finer texture who hears a cheer instead 
 
 294
 
 The Man Who Just Wants Money 
 
 of a clink when he hurls himself against The Man 
 the tape. Who Just 
 
 The biggest things that this world has 
 seen were wrought for the sake of the fame 
 and glory that came out of their achievement. 
 
 The lust for possession is futile against 
 the thirst for mastery the longing to be 
 respected and admired and famous is a 
 sharper spur than the dig of greed. 
 
 Love is the most beautiful part of life 
 and love cannot be bought whether it be 
 the love of a woman or the love of friends 
 or the love of self-respect or the love of a 
 people the very act of purchase makes 
 purchasing impossible. 
 
 The mightier compensations must be 
 earned they are not ticketed with a price. 
 Fame, affection and admiration have no 
 stalls in the Market Place. The Esau 
 who traffics his birthrights for dishes of 
 golden pottage takes away a tasteless mess. 
 
 The man who merely wants money is 
 perpetually starving he can never have 
 enough of it no matter how much he 
 
 295
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Man secures, there is still more to be had t and to 
 Who Just the end of his days he is a slave on the 
 Wants treadmill of the gods, driven on and on over 
 Money t ^ e whirling paddles of the wheel of Mam- 
 mon as ridiculous as an old Dobbin, 
 futilely jogging after the sack of oats for- 
 ever dangling just beyond his nose* 
 
 296
 
 The right man can't be 
 kept out of his rights. 
 You can't hold him 
 from his proper place. 
 You can merely drive 
 him from your place. 
 He won't do his best 
 for you unless you prove 
 to him that he is doing 
 the best for himself. 
 
 297
 
 DON'T TRY TO UNDER-PAY 
 
 You won't fare far if you don't share fair, 
 A leader must have followers, and others 
 will not fight for you if they must fight with 
 you. Inappreciation destroys organization. 
 
 Even royalty cannot exist without loyalty. 
 Empires are not built by kings alone. The 
 throne of Napoleon was reared upon the 
 batons of his marshals* Generosity carried 
 him further than selfishness. The crown 
 of France was his reward for his rewards. 
 
 Men will not serve well unless they are 
 served well. There's but one standard 
 which inspires absolute allegiance which 
 arouses the utmost energy and tenacity 
 and zeal the banner of self-interest, the 
 one flag which is never waved in vain. 
 
 Ability constantly seeks its best market 
 place. The worker who is under-paid first 
 becomes a shirker and eventually a deserter, 
 
 299
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Don't An employer who does not divide his profits 
 Try to with those who helped to make them will 
 Unoer-Fay not profit through his over-share* He can- 
 not bind men to his service by blinding 
 them to the value of their services. Com- 
 petition is always waiting and watching to 
 post his helpers upon the current price of 
 merit. 
 
 When men resign under the lash of in- 
 gratitude, they consider the old books bal- 
 anced when the old desk is closed and feel 
 justified in using all their experience and 
 training and information for the benefit 
 of their next paymasters. 
 
 The right man can't be kept out of his 
 rights. You can't hold him from his proper 
 place. You can merely drive him from 
 your place. He won't do his best for you 
 unless you prove to him that he is doing 
 the best for himself. Shrewdness makes 
 partners of all subordinates in whom there 
 is the making of competitors. 
 
 It was not so much the merchandising 
 skill of Marshall Field as his knowledge of 
 human nature which established him as 
 
 300
 
 Don't Try to Under-Pay 
 
 the most eminent storekeeper of his era* Don't 
 His genius never displayed itself so clearly Try to 
 as in that policy which led even the cash Under-Pay 
 boy to think that it lay entirely with him- 
 self to become a part owner. He doubled 
 the efficiency of his employes by doubling 
 their ambition. He knew that his clerks 
 would require little watching or coaching if 
 they could be made to feel that only neg- 
 ligence and listlessness would hold them in 
 minor positions. 
 
 Old Sam Southgate celebrated his six- 
 tieth anniversary by putting four new 
 names on the firm's stationery. "I'm in- 
 dulging in a real birthday present," he 
 said, * peace of mind. You boys know 
 all the weak spots of this business and I 
 don't mean to have my rivals get hold of 
 you and batter me to pieces in my old age. 
 Oh, don't thank me; I'm looking out for 
 myself; I'm simply buying an insurance 
 policy on my past efforts. If I died to- 
 morrow my wife wouldn't know how to 
 run things, and for fear of bad management 
 on her part I'm selecting you to make sure 
 
 301
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 Don't that the business won't be wrecked* It's 
 
 fry to cheaper to give you half than to have you 
 
 Under-Pay gra ^ everything a little later* Besides. 
 
 the combined ideas and energy of you four 
 
 men will more than double the value of the 
 
 concern and increase my fifty per cent 
 
 equity beyond my present total holdings. 
 
 So jump in and put your youth to work 
 
 while I start to learn leisure/' 
 
 302
 
 Like the boy who ate 
 the green apples in the 
 dark, he doesn't find out 
 that his judgment is bad 
 until he can't change 
 his mind 
 
 303
 
 THE MAN WHO DOESN'T REALLY 
 COUNT 
 
 He tries to build by lying instead of try- 
 ing, but if his head were as long as his ears, 
 he'd realize what an ass he is. His view- 
 point is all askew he doesn't know the 
 difference between being "smart" and 
 "clever" or "sly" and "shrewd." 
 
 He mistakes his blindness for the world's 
 esteem. If he were one whit less contented, 
 he'd discover that he's just a human 
 ostrich with his head buried in the sands of 
 conceit and his real character revealed 
 to every one. He is not a man of mark, 
 but a marked man. The outcry that fol- 
 lows him is always a jeer instead of a cheer. 
 Before long, he stands marooned upon the 
 shores of life, vainly signaling for some 
 friendship to sail him back to safety. 
 
 305
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The He lives on the theory that every one is 
 
 Man Who a bigger fool than himself, but he is like the 
 
 Doesn't illustrator who has used his face as a model 
 
 Really until he unconsciously outlines his own 
 
 Count <._, i 
 
 personality in every drawing. 
 
 He sows betrayal and double-dealing, 
 and because the seed of his deceit doesn't 
 sprout at once he forgets the consequences. 
 He isn't aware that a lie always finds its 
 voice, and when it does start to shout a 
 foghorn is a whisper in comparison. 
 
 He can no more escape his irresponsi- 
 bilities than he can halt his shadow by 
 slugging it with a sand bag. 
 
 His past may be slow in finding his trail, 
 but when it limbers up and goes in pursuit 
 it travels with a speed that makes a sixty- 
 horse-power racing car look like a rheu- 
 matic snail. 
 
 He is trying to pick the lock of Fortune, 
 but no moral burglar has ever turned the 
 trick. If he has any doubt upon this point, 
 a little research into the affairs of a few 
 of his predecessors, to-wit: Judas Iscariot, 
 Benedict Arnold or the late Cassie Chad- 
 
 306
 
 The Man Who Doesn't Really Count 
 
 wick, will supply him with considerable Xhe 
 information. Man Who 
 
 He chooses the down-grade and goes on Doesn't 
 his way deluded with the idea that he's 
 the rising man, but, like every other lob- 
 ster, he's moving backward all the while 
 he's trying to get ahead. 
 
 Whenever he is endorsed, he turns him- 
 self into a human promissory note and 
 proceeds to discount himself, leaving his 
 innocent friends saddled with the settle- 
 ment when his misdeeds fall due. He is 
 no better than a chicken thief who robs a 
 henroost, eats the fowl and throws the 
 head and feathers on his neighbor's back- 
 door step. 
 
 When it's far too late, he awakens to the 
 realization that one wrong won't cover 
 another, any more than salt will blot out a 
 claret stain it's bound to work its way 
 through and show. A dozen lies piled on 
 top of the first one won't hide what's at the 
 bottom they merely act as coats of var- 
 nish and bring it out more clearly. 
 
 He exercises all the ingenuity and schem- 
 
 307
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 ^j< *ng and procrastination within his power 
 pv ,. to circumvent facts but fact is a sort of 
 Really widow's overgrown son bound to come 
 Count popping up when least wanted* 
 
 Like the boy who ate the green apples 
 in the dark, he doesn't find out that his 
 judgment is bad until he can't change his 
 mind, 
 
 Old Man Norton had the situation down 
 pat: "There's two kinds of varmints 
 which I ain't got no use for a rattler and 
 a liar givin' preference, howsomever, to 
 the reptile, it bein' agin' his code, as a snake 
 and a gentleman, to deceive nobody as to 
 his intentions*" 
 
 308
 
 He bestows nothing 
 upon humanity except 
 harm he is a greater 
 enemy to society than 
 the thief for he would 
 steal the very seed of 
 inspiration from which 
 betterment takes root. 
 
 309
 
 TO THE PESSIMIST 
 
 You are the most utterly useless of all 
 humans. Without the ability to create, you 
 aim to kill the spirit of creation; without 
 the skill to produce, you seek to check the 
 advance of progress. 
 
 You are a poison oak in the forest a 
 creeper without the strength to climb on 
 your own stem* You not only are fruitless, 
 but one degree worse than sterile you 
 absorb vitality to no purpose and hurt 
 everything with which you come in con- 
 tact. 
 
 Despite the evidence of all the ages, you 
 still refuse to recognize that nothing can be 
 achieved without trial that nothing can 
 be accomplished unless it is attempted 
 with courage and enthusiasm you make 
 of yourself a check-rein wherever there is 
 
 3U
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 To the call for a spur you persist in kicking with 
 Pessimist discouragement every striver who needs the 
 helping hand of confidence. 
 
 When all the machinery of civilization 
 is doing its best to speed faster, you turn 
 in reverse, and exert your utmost to force 
 every wheel down to your slower ratio. 
 
 You have no imagination and yet you 
 try to discount all new thought. Without 
 the courage of a single conviction, you 
 wish to reduce the zeal of strong, sane and 
 far-seeing intellects. Without a construct- 
 ive idea, you continually hurl your incre- 
 dulity at every rising wall. 
 
 Had the world relied upon your tribe for 
 its progress, this earth would still be a raw 
 expanse of rock and dirt a chaos in chaos* 
 
 Your grandsires in the darker centuries 
 burned a thousand great-souled men be- 
 cause they dared to do things better- 
 enlightenment has uprooted the Stake so 
 that the most you can do to-day is to con- 
 sume the ambitions of your contempora- 
 ries in the flame of discouragement. 
 
 3*2
 
 To the Pessimist 
 
 Four hundred years ago you would have To the 
 stood in the ranks of the hooting mobs that Pessimist 
 stoned and reviled the chain-laden Colum- 
 bus. As a Puritan bigot, yours would have 
 been the hand that fired the fagots at 
 Salem. 
 
 Had wills of your calibre prevailed in 
 America, Bell, Morse, Edison, McCormick, 
 Wright and Fulton would have died un- 
 known. 
 
 Were all men cast in your narrow meas- 
 ure, there would be no trans-continental 
 trains; no tunnels beneath the Hudson the 
 barber would continue to wield the surgeon's 
 knife upon patients tortured for the lack of 
 anaesthetic mercy. 
 
 You're just an ignoramus you won't 
 learn the indisputable truths. Education 
 is wasted upon you. 
 
 Opportunity is squandered every time 
 you are given a chance. 
 
 You bestow nothing upon humanity ex- 
 cept harm; you are a greater enemy to 
 
 313
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 To the society than the thief for you would steal 
 Pessimist the very seed of inspiration from which 
 betterment takes root. 
 
 To be pessimistic in this hour of illustri- 
 ous deeds to proselyte despair in a century 
 which has disproven the impossibility of 
 impossibilities is to insult society and to wear 
 the livid brand of confessed incompetence. 
 
 3J4
 
 Humanity does not 
 bestow affection upon 
 those who correct its 
 hypocrisies and its con- 
 ceits, but it grants them 
 honor. It does not love 
 its moral surgeons, but 
 it obeys and follows 
 them. 
 
 3J5
 
 THE WORLD NEEDS A MAN LIKE 
 THIS 
 
 The man who does not possess the courage 
 of his convictions can never hope to con- 
 vince the rest of us that he possesses courage* 
 You must fight for your beliefs before the 
 world will believe in your fights. 
 
 When you set out to attain, the respect 
 of mankind, remember to count your self- 
 respect first and after that the respect of 
 your fellows will last. 
 
 The cause of nine successes out of ten is 
 the cause and not the success for which 
 the battle is made* 
 
 We need leaders, but we insist that they 
 shall prove their right as well as their 
 might to lead. If opposition discourages 
 you. we'll be discouraged in you. We ac- 
 knowledge a better only after we have 
 
 317
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The "World been bettered* We do not elect oar stipe- 
 Needs a riors; we submit to their greatness* We 
 Man Like d o no t give way to those who flatter us, 
 but to them who batter us* Every man 
 Jack in the land would much prefer to 
 command than to serve* Therefore, your 
 ambition to stand at the head of the line 
 means a contest all down the line. 
 
 We must have more men in our midst 
 who will dare to help us by hurting our 
 vanity and correcting our faults* Far too 
 many of us lack the manhood to look our 
 weaknesses squarely in the eye and call 
 them by their unvarnished names* 
 
 We do not wish the surgeon's knife* but 
 when it saves something we acknowledge 
 its beneficence we are not fond of the 
 index finger of the diagnostician* but when 
 its jab produces a jump* it signifies that 
 something is wrong underneath. 
 
 The physician who cuddles his patients 
 the manager who coddles his superior 
 the chief who does not discipline his men* 
 are all cowards and must pay the penalty 
 of cowardice they eventually fall to the 
 
 318
 
 The World Needs a Man Like This 
 
 ground they must fall by the law of The World 
 gravity the gravity of Truth. Needs a 
 
 Wounded vanity has never as yet been ^ n Like 
 known to prove fatal, but many a patient 
 and many a cause and many an enterprise 
 have been killed because a yellow-veined 
 hypocrite at a crucial moment winked at 
 the existence of a wound rather than wound 
 a weakness* 
 
 Humanity does not bestow affection 
 upon those who correct its hypocrisies and 
 its conceits, but it grants them honor. It 
 does not love its moral surgeons, but it 
 obeys and follows them. 
 
 They may arouse our anger, by forcing 
 us to realize that we have wronged our- 
 selves, but every time they demonstrate 
 that we are small, they make us acknowl- 
 edge that they are great. 
 
 Vanity is ever blinding us. We have a 
 habit of looking away from our flaws and 
 enlarging our virtues. We love our self- 
 love more than we love ourselves. We 
 need help at all times and in all places. 
 
 We are surfeited with demagogues we 
 
 3J9
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The World have far too many hypocrites, but society 
 Needs a is pitifully lacking in giants everywhere 
 Man Like the call is sounding for Men for strong 
 Inis men men with clear vision men with 
 clean hearts men who dare to nail a lie 
 and tell a truth who fear to fail in noth- 
 ing so much as in themselves. 
 
 320
 
 You weren't content to 
 have the butterflies 
 flutter past in the sun- 
 light you caught them to 
 feel the spangles on their 
 wings and the moment 
 you touched the gauze 
 all the purple and the 
 gold rubbed off and they 
 died in your hands. 
 
 32J
 
 THE MAN WHO SNEERED AT SANTA 
 GLAUS 
 
 You're the man who drove the fairies out 
 of their dells; the gnomes hide as you 
 enter the woods; the squirrels won't talk to 
 you; you don't understand what the wind 
 says at night; and you can't even see the 
 face of the man in the moon. 
 
 You weren't content to have the butter- 
 flies flutter past in the sunlight; you caught 
 them to feel the spangles on their wings t 
 and the moment you touched the gauze 
 all the purple and the gold rubbed off and 
 they died in your hands. 
 
 You set a snare for the rainbow, and after 
 you'd trapped it in your prism it stopped 
 being a rainbow and just turned into a 
 haze of colored lights. 
 
 323
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The Oh, the fortunes and fortunes you've lost 
 
 Man Who all your dreams all your faiths! YouVe 
 
 Sneered so y vcmr birthrights* And now you're 
 
 Glaus* alone, and miles and miles and miles away 
 
 from home! 
 
 You set forth in the wrong direction 
 through the Gate of Years down the Path 
 of Tears* Why, already there's grey in 
 your hair; so how can YOU know about 
 Santa Glaus? 
 
 You went hunting for him, just as you 
 searched for the pixies and elves, and of 
 course you couldn't find him because 
 DOUBT blurred your eyes. Your name is 
 on his blacklist. He never stops at your 
 chimney. 
 
 At which you probably shrug your 
 shoulders and sniff and sneer and want us 
 to think that he doesn't exist. But 
 
 Way down in your heart (in a little lone- 
 some corner which belonged to a forlorn 
 boy who got lost inside of you) you KNOW 
 that Christmas is real, that there IS a 
 Santa Glaus, and that he rides over all the 
 world in a single night in a wonderful 
 
 324
 
 The Man Who Sneered at Santa Glaus 
 
 sleigh that simply can't be emptied, no The 
 matter how many guns and drums and ^ an Who 
 horses and dolls and blocks and books he Sneered 
 takes from it. 
 
 You've heard the bells on his reindeer 
 when they champed on the gables as he 
 wheezed and puffed and squeezed down the 
 tight old chimney place. (You never could 
 understand how he managed to get through 
 it, because it wasn't really a chimney, but 
 just a hole, no bigger than the stove-pipe. 
 But the chimney didn't pinch at all you 
 BELIEVED that he would come, and 
 Faith widened the way for him.) 
 
 He always brought the very things for 
 which you wrote, too. Mother helped you 
 with the letter you and she composed it. 
 She guided your hand, and even suggested 
 what to ask for. 
 
 But you sealed the envelope all by your- 
 self, and mother took it out with her the 
 next morning, because she knew the exact 
 letterbox from which he received his mail. 
 
 Where are your sneers now? You know 
 you'd give half the world to go back to- 
 
 325
 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The night and crawl upstairs to the bedroom 
 Man Who under the eaves and wish things again- 
 Sneered half thc wor y to slecp at "home" one more 
 
 Claus* Christmas Evel 
 
 No boy ever truly slept on the eve; but 
 
 you pretended to with all your might and 
 main* And when mother and father tip- 
 toed into the room and stood beside the 
 cot you peeped through one half-opened lid 
 and wondered why he kissed her. And 
 once a moonbeam slipped in and fell on her 
 face and you saw tears on her lashes. 
 
 And as it grew later and the wind 
 growled and howled and the branches of 
 the old locust slapped against the window, 
 you moved over and pinched brother to 
 keep him awake as you had promised. 
 
 It seemed like a whole year of nights 
 before you heard the sleigh bells. My! 
 You lay still and squeezed your eyes shut 
 and you gave a snorty snore t for fear that 
 Santa Glaus might come upstairs and catch 
 you waiting. And you didn't move again 
 until you heard father lock his door. 
 
 Then you crept downstairs. The parlor 
 
 326
 
 The Man Who Sneered at Santa Glaus 
 
 was dark; but the stove was redhot and its The 
 
 glow showed the ghostly row of stockings Man Who 
 
 on the mantel. The big lump at the bot- Sneered 
 
 torn of yours was an apple you knew that at Santa 
 
 without touching it; he always stuck an 
 
 apple in the toe and the thing sticking out 
 
 was a jumping jack t which he'd put in the 
 
 top for good measure, without your even 
 
 asking for it. (He must have had plenty 
 
 of jumping jacks, to be so liberal with 
 
 them!) 
 
 And over in the corner stood the tree. 
 You never did figure out how he got it 
 down the chimney without smudging the 
 angel with soot. 
 
 The angel stood at the very top, and she 
 had silver wings that glistened like snow, 
 and all over the branches were golden 
 whirlimajigs and glass balls and red-striped 
 peppermint canes and cornucopias with 
 pictures pasted on them and festoons of 
 pop-corn and chains of red and blue and 
 green and yellow and white paper. The 
 toys were spread around on the floor. 
 
 Your gun with the bayonet was resting 
 
 327 

 
 Herbert Kaufman 
 
 The against a "real-skin" horse, and on the other 
 Man Who s ide was a soldier set mounted on a big red 
 Sneered carc j w ftk go y edges. 
 
 at oanta Sister's doll, which could open and shtrt 
 Claus .. f , < . ,. 
 
 its eyes (just as she asked), was resting as 
 
 comfortably as you please in a blue rocking 
 chair that was meant to be used. 
 
 And the baby's shoo-fly had a rattle and 
 a closed box on the tray that hung between 
 the heads of the dappled grays. 
 
 You had no business to touch that box, 
 and it served you right that you got a scare 
 when an impudent red -nosed Jack with 
 carrot-colored whiskers popped up and 
 shook his cap in your face* 
 
 Besides all these gorgeous gifts from 
 Santa Glaus were the two handkerchiefs for 
 mother and the carpet slippers for father 
 and the "Sanford and Merton" that Aunt 
 Theresa sent you, and the drum from Uncle 
 George. 
 
 They don't make drums like that now- 
 adays. The new ones haven't anything like 
 the right sound. 
 
 You couldn't wait until you had slipped 
 
 328
 
 The Man Who Sneered at Santa Glaus 
 
 the tape around your neck and pulled the The 
 sticks from the sides and then "Rub- Man Who 
 
 a-dub-dub ..'>" ftHnfa 
 
 Why, it isn't the drum at all it's the Qaus 
 steam radiator sounding "Taps!" calling 
 you to come back back over the Road of 
 Years back to NOW. 
 
 But you're lonely and wistful and you 
 want to stay and hear the sleigh bells ring 
 you want one more real Christmas. 
 
 The things you can buy in the shop are 
 all wrong. You can't get any fun out of 
 them. 
 
 Christmas gifts don't count if they aren't 
 brought down the CHIMNEY. 
 
 329
 
 A 000 121 064 o