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THE
MUSIC TRADE
the like. We simply cannot find such men fast enough. Why, all
but the merest fraction of the best operating officials in the railroad
world to-day are men who have come up from the ranks, advancing
by earnest effort and untiring energy along the hard, straight road
and finding few 'short cuts.' By reason of that manner of advance
they have brought with them to their high positions that practical
knowledge obtained by wrestling hand to hand with the minor prob-
lems that make up the great whole, which enables them to contend
with and solve the ever more intricate problems that are being
created each day by the big and grooving mechanism of national
industry.
"Yes, sir, the man with the big opportunities to-day is the man
•in the ranks. With the armies of industries constantly increasing
in number more generals and colonels and captains are required.
And those positions of authority and responsibility constantly are
calling for men. After all, though, advancement depends upon the
man. Luck and laziness do not go together. The man who climbs
up must prove himself and grasp his opportunities. Opportunity
will not look him up. He must have his eyes open. The men who
have the capacity and are content are not in danger of failing. In
simple truth, the man who attends to his work, performing every
task set before him to the best of his ability, will succeed anywhere."
M
R. HILL adds further: "Success, however, never comes to
the man who devotes most of his time to watching the clock.
The man who climbs up is the one who is not content with doing
only just what is absolutely necessary, but who does more. And,
mark you, there are many men, probably with sufficient ability,
who have shut themselves off from promotion by falling in with
certain short-sighted movements that would have injured, not only
a section, but all of our industrial fabric. Harking after such things
—and it's usually the shirkers who allow themselves to be misled
or fellow deliberately—often has lost men not only advancement but
deprived them of the work they already had to do.
"My rule for success is untiring application, loyalty to one's
employer, which is loyalty to one's-self, the 'doing the best you can'
in every task that faces you; practicality, initiative and industry. 1
am not one, either, who does not believe in a college education for a
young man. No man is injured by knowing too much, so long as
he knows how to apply that knowledge in a practical way. I am
not, however, defending the 'intelligent theorist' who is too lazy or
too visionary to push his ideas to practicality. But there is not a
branch of modern business which does not need scientific knowledge.
Why, railroading to-day is a science. So, sooner or later, all knowl-
edge comes into play. But the workingman who does not hold a
college degree has, if he has properly applied himself, a practical
education that frequently enables him to advance all the faster.
Above everything else, however, a man's determination, or his lack
of it, to apply what he knows in his way may mean to him just the
difference between ultimate success and failure. He needs not
worry about the opportunities. They are more immeasurably nu-
merous than ever before in our history."
URNING up money—and few people have any idea how much
money is burned up in the great fires annually over America.
According to estimates, the fire losses of the country amount to
$360,000,000 annually, while Germany with its population and
wealth was only $36,000,000. The insurance companies effect a
settlement for the damage caused by these great fires, but in the
end the entire people pay, first, in premiums necessarily large to
cover the risk; second, the waste of wealth and material resources
in conflagrations like those of Baltimore, San Francisco and Chelsea,
and third, in the period of depression bound to follow a succession
of such wholesale drawings on the country's working capital. We
have had a number of fires in piano factories and piano dealers also
have been great sufferers. There is, however, a good feature of the
situation and that is the association, which represents all of the
underwriters' organizations of this country, now presses its urgent
demand for more stringent building regulations and an enactment
of new measures to safeguard property by preventing and checking
the spread of fires. There is no question but that as a people we
are careless. It would be far better to surround property with
additional safeguards than to burn up $360,000,000 in property
annually. The interest on that amount would pay for a great many
special police and fire apparatus as well.
B
REVIEW
IN LIGHTER VEIN
MARINE PUZZLE.—Teacher—Johnny Jeffs, what is a dromedary?
Johnny Jeffs—Please, teacher, a dromedary is a two-masted camel.
A PUZZLE.—"Why should a man want to lead a double life?"
"I give it up. One existence has enough perplexities, it would really
seem."
JUST MAN'S EXCUSE.—A piano man remarked yesterday that he
hadn't seen his pastor since Easter, all on account of the "Merry Widow"
hat at church services.
WISDOM OF THE SEER.—Young Lady—Will the young man 1 am
engaged to make a good husband?
Fortune Teller—It's up to you to make a good husband of him. All
bad husbands are self-made.
HIS REASONS.—"I suppose," remarked the old-time friend, "that
you will have a spacious salon in the residence you are building."
"Certainly not," answered Col. Stillwell. "I am a prohibitionist;
and, besides, I am against spelling reform."
AS TO A COURTSHIP—"He's telling everybody that she is his
first love."
"And she?"
"She is confiding to a select few that he is her last chance."
CONFLICTING EMOTIONS.—"Don't you hesitate about pillorying
your enemies so?"
G. Bernard Shaw smiled grimly. "Well, I do hate to give them the
consequent fame, and that's a fact," he answered.
Bidding the office boy refill the vitriol stand, the author turned to
his wonted task.
DON'T ABBREVIATE.—Pupil (reading)—And his body was interred
in St. Paul's Cathedral with er—er Pompey the Great.
Teacher—With what? Are you mad?
Pupil—Well, it ses here "With Great Pomp," but you told me last
week that I wasn't to 'breviate when I was readin', so I read it out full."
THE WOMAN'S WAY.—"No," said the higher critic. "I don't be-
lieve everything in the Bible. For instance, I don't believe there was
any snake to tempt Eve."
"You don't?"
"No; I feel pretty sure it was just an apple worm and she magni-
fied it."
AVERAGING UP.—"America is the land of opportunities," said the
patriotic citizen. "Think of the men who have attained greatness from
humble beginnings."
"Yes," answered the European, who had been reading investigation
reports; "but think also of the men who have attained humility from
great beginnings."
THE WOODMAN'S EXCUSE.—Notwithstanding the pathetic appeal
addressed to him by the pOet, the woodman refused to spare the tree.
"What's the use?" he asked. "The Wood Pulp Trust will cut it down
sooner or later, anyway."
Whereat he grasped the axe again, and the sound of his lusty blows
reverberated through the forest.
HE SELDOM.—The head mistress of a certain provincial school in
the Philippine Islands was one day examining a few of her select pupils
in grammar.
"Stand up, Juan, and make me a sentence containing the word
seldom, she said, pointing to a small urchin.
Juan paused as if in thought; then, with a flush of triumph on his
face, replied: "Last week father had five horses, but yesterday he
seldom!"
EXPECTED IT.—"Who is there," cried an impassioned orator, whose
voice is heard at the music trade conventions, "who will lift a voice
against the truth of my statement?"
Just then a donkey on the outskirts of the crowd gave vent to one
of the piercing "hee-haws" of the tribe.
The laugh was on the orator for a moment, but assuming an air of
triumph he lifted his voice above the din to say,_"I knew nobody but an
ass would try it."
FORCE OF HABIT.—At a certain county court the judge is, in his
private capacity, a very kind-hearted man. The usher of the court is
age( }—very aged—but as he had been a faithful servant for many years,
he was retained in that capacity.
One morning he fell asleep in court and began to snore.
The noise he made naturally disturbed court proceedings, but the
judge displayed great tact in dealing with the matter.
"Usher Jones," he called out loudly, "someone is snoring."
The usher woke up. He jumped to his feet and glared ferociously
around.
"Silence!'.' he roared. "There must be no snoring in court!"