HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN, AN IRON WILL & PUSHING TO THE FRONT. Orison Swett Marden
everywhere as it does to-day.
There was a time when the man who was the shrewdest and sharpest and cunningest in taking advantage of others got the biggest salary; but to-day the man at the other end of the bargain is looming up as never before.
Nathan Straus, when asked the secret of the great success of his firm, said it was their treatment of the man at the other end of the bargain. He said they could not afford to make enemies; they could not afford to displease or to take advantage of customers, or to give them reason to think that they had been unfairly dealt with,—that, in the long run, the man who gave the squarest deal to the man at the other end of the bargain would get ahead fastest.
There are merchants who have made great fortunes, but who do not carry weight among their fellow men because they have dealt all their lives with inferiority. They have lived with shoddy and shams so long that the suggestion has been held in their minds until their whole standards of life have been lowered; their ideals have shrunken; their characters have partaken of the quality of their business.
Contrast these men with the men who stood for half a century or more at the head of solid houses, substantial institutions; men who have always stood for quality in everything; who have surrounded themselves not only with ability but with men and women of character.
We instinctively believe in character. We admire people who stand for something; who are centered in truth and honesty. It is not necessary that they agree with us. We admire them for their strength, the honesty of their opinions, the inflexibility of their principles.
The late Carl Schurz was a strong man and antagonized many people. He changed his political views very often; but even his worst enemies knew there was one thing he would never go back on, friends or no friends, party or no party—and that was his devotion to principle as he saw it. There was no parleying with his convictions. He could stand alone, if necessary, with all the world against him. His inconsistencies, his many changes in parties and politics, could not destroy the universal admiration for the man who stood for his convictions. Although he escaped from a German prison and fled his country, where he had been arrested on account of his revolutionary principles when but a mere youth, Emperor William the First had such a profound respect for his honesty of purpose and his strength of character that he invited him to return to Germany and visit him, gave him a public dinner, and paid him great tribute.
Who can estimate the influence of President Eliot in enriching and uplifting our national ideas and standards through the thousands of students who go out from Harvard University? The tremendous force and nobility of character of Phillips Brooks raised every one who came within his influence to higher levels. His great earnestness in trying to lead people up to his lofty ideals swept everything before it. One could not help feeling while listening to him and watching him that there was a mighty triumph of character, a grand expression of superb manhood. Such men as these increase our faith in the race; in the possibilities of the grandeur of the coming man. We are prouder of our country because of such standards.
It is the ideal that determines the direction of the life. And what a grand sight, what an inspiration, are those men who sacrifice the dollar to the ideal!
The principles by which the problem of success is solved are right and justice, honesty and integrity; and just in proportion as a man deviates from these principles he falls short of solving his problem.
It is true that he may reach something. He may get money, but is that success? The thief gets money, but does he succeed? Is it any honester to steal by means of a long head than by means of a long arm? It is very much more dishonest, because the victim is deceived and then robbed—a double crime.
We often receive letters which read like this:
“I am getting a good salary; but I do not feel right about it, somehow. I cannot still the voice within me that says, ‘Wrong, wrong,’ to what I am doing.”
“Leave it, leave it,” we always say to the writers of these letters. “Do not stay in a questionable occupation, no matter what inducement it offers. Its false light will land you on the rocks if you follow it It is demoralizing to the mental faculties, paralyzing to the character, to do a thing which one’s conscience forbids.”
Tell the employer who expects you to do questionable things that you cannot work for him unless you can put the trade-mark of your manhood, the stamp of your integrity, upon everything you do. Tell him that if the highest thing in you cannot bring success, surely the lowest cannot. You cannot afford to sell the best thing in you, your honor, your manhood, to a dishonest man or a lying institution. You should regard even the suggestion that you might sell out for a consideration as an insult.
Resolve that you will not be paid for being something less than a man; that you will not lease your ability, your education, your inventiveness, your self-respect, for salary, to do a man’s lying for him; either in writing advertisements, selling goods, or in any other capacity.
Resolve that, whatever your vocation, you are going to stand for something; that you are not going to be merely a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, a clerk, a fanner, a congressman, or a man who carries a big money-bag; but that you are going to be a man first, last, and all the time.
Chapter XI.
Happy, If Not, Why Not?
WE have seen many painful examples during the past few months of the failure of wealth to produce happiness. We have seen that a fortune without a man behind it does not stand for much. The X-rays of public investigation have revealed some ghastly spectacles.
Of a number of rich men who were in positions of great responsibility and trust at the beginning of the recent financial panic, some have committed suicide, others have died from the effects of the disgrace which they had brought upon themselves and their families, and still others have suffered tortures, not so much because of their wrongdoings, as from the fear of disclosure.
A few months ago, these men were supposed to possess the things which make men happy. They had what all the world is seeking so strenuously—money. They lived in palatial homes and were surrounded with luxuries, and yet, the moment misfortune came, what they called “happiness” fled as though it had the wings of a bird.
These men felt secure because they had that which most people are struggling so hard to get. They had supposed themselves so firmly intrenched in the wherewithal of life, so buttressed by their “solid” investments, that nothing could shake them. But, almost in the twinkling of an eye, their foundations slipped from under them, their reputations vanished, and, instead of being the big men they thought they were, they not only found that they were nobodies, but also that their “happiness” had flown with their reputations. Happiness is not such a transient visitor as that. If these men had had the genuine article, no panic could have shaken it, no fire burned it out, no ocean swallowed it up. Real happiness is not a fluttering, fly-away unreality. It is not superficial. It does not live in things. It does not depend upon money. It inheres in character, in personality. It consists in facing life the right way, and no one who faces it the wrong way, no matter how much money he may have, can ever be happy.
The trouble with many of the men who went down in the panic was that they put the emphasis upon the wrong thing.
Man is built upon the plan of honesty, of rectitude—the divine plan. When he perverts his nature by trying to express dishonesty, chicanery, and cunning, of course he cannot be happy. The very essence of happiness is honesty, sincerity, truthfulness. He who would have real happiness for his companion must be clean, straightforward, and sincere. The moment he departs from the right she will take wings and fly away.
What a pitiable thing it is to see the human race chasing the dollar—material things—trying to extract happiness, to squeeze joy, out of money alone! How little people realize that the very thing they are hunting lives in themselves or nowhere; that if they do not take happiness with them they may hunt the earth over without finding it. Happiness is a condition of mind. It is a fundamental principle,