Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
ffUflC TIRADE
VOL. LV. N o . 15.
SINGL COPIES. 10 CENTS.
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Oct. 12,1912 SINGLE
&oS PERYEAR!
Rest Is Another Name for Rust
I
T may be safely assumed that every man who has attained supremacy in any department of life's work
has done something" to earn it, for success was not attained by simply wishing. It came by working—
by striving—in brief, by doing something.
A great many men are certain that they should have won just as distinguished success as some of
the great ones in life, for they feel in their own minds that they have all the elements of bigness.
Perhaps they do possess these qualities, but they have left them undeveloped—they have permitted
them to lie dormant. Therefore, they have accomplished nothing.
They have rested—and rest is another name for rust.
It is true that some men are better equipped mentally than others; and it is also true that they have
used their superior equipment; they did not permit it to rust. They worked for a future and won.
To a degree we dictate our own future. Some of the men who have been seriously handicapped in life
have, through their own efforts, become great powers in their special fields of activity.
Milton, who was stricken with blindness, gained a soul sight by intense application.
Beethoven, who suffered deafness, continued writing music by mental impression.
Paderewski, who, like thousands of others, was born with musical ability, developed his to a marvelous
point by application. He played a single note or a phrase until he perfected it, and it sometimes took three
hundred repetitions at a single stretch to do this.
If we look over what earth's great ones have accomplished we will find that the heights of fame were
not easily won by them; and, in the language of the poet, we should remember "that they, while their com-
panions slept, were toiling upward in the night."
Always in the acquiring of a great position or a great future some man took chances: • He did not wait
until he was forced to act.
He anticipated; and in imagination as well as in execution men who are builders must display independ-
ence of thought and action. If a man takes the hardest job in sight and wins out on that he certainly has
confidence in himself to go at anything else with a determination of purpose that will insurei;him success.
It matters not how far advanced one may be or how humble the vocation, there are always points ahead
worth striving for. Most successful men have had to begin at the foot of the line, and they have shown
their true manhood by working up from the lower levels. It is to such men that credit is due.
No credit is due to the men who have inherited great wealth or great positions, which simply fell to
them as a ripe apple drops from the tree when it is shaken. The real men—the true men have been those
who, from humble beginnings, have achieved success in their own particular environment.
It does not matter whether they were great men, as the term is commonly accepted, for I hold that
a man does not need to own a chain of department stores or railway systems.or factories or newspapers to
be great.
Many of us can never hope to achieve that kind of greatness; but in our own way and in our own sphere
we may successfully work out our problems so that we can get satisfaction and pleasure out of life.
If we used the publicity yard stick to measure the successes of men we could only use it in a limited
number of cases—in those cases which stand out in plain view to be measured; but the real successes are at
least tangible. They are contributions to life as it passes—contributions which make for human advance-
ment. They are valuables of the highest order, and they are more precious than the showy accomplish-
ments.
.
^—^
^
Ml