Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1856-07-16
GET ALL YOU CAN.

Passing two small boys in the street few
days since who appeared to be in the midst
of very animated conversation, overheard
one of them (the younger) say to the other,
with great deal of emphasis, 8 Git all you
can, that's the way todoit" Without troub-
ling myself about the photography, my tho'ts
became interested in the principle which the
language seemed to involve.
Get all you can, has been uttered by older
boys than these, and has become the motto
of laborious and perhaps Tin the worlds
eye) successful life of many a man who long
since got all this world could give him.
These men, thought /, who are rushing SO
huriedly on through the crowded streets
who are busting through the days, the
weeks, the years. are all saying to themselves
get all you can, and it were well they could
add, in all the sincerity Of theirhearts, honest
ly; but it is too often the case, we fear, that
those who make this motto their watch word,
and wealth the end of their getting, are re-
gardless Of the means employed. So entirely
absorbed do they become in the great end TO
be achived, and SO magnified and remagnified
in the shadowy distance, that it seems to
sanctify any means whatever bywhich it may
be attained.
We are disposed to be as charitable as the
perpendicular of truth, honesty and integrity
will allow; but the fact is no less true than
melancholy, that those who hasten TO get rich
do so at the infinite expense. of love, justice
and truth. Get all you can, says the banker,
while he demands three per cent per month
for the use of money which be knows the APP
plicant mast have, even at SO great a sacri-
fee; and pockets the avails with as much sat
isfaction as if he had earned them by the
sweat of his JroV, instead of by the sweat of
his conscience.
Get all yow can, says the lawyer, while he
pleads for a man whom he knoaOS to be guilty
of the crime alleged against him, because,
forsooth, the reward is large in the event of
his success.
Get all you can, says the merchant, while
he sells goods at one hundred per cent in
advance, assuring his unsuspecting customers
that they are getting them at just a fraction
above the cost, while, in fact, he does nearly
all the getting.
Get all youcan, says the manufacturer,
while he makes poor article and sells it for
a good one, telling his customer that it is
made of the yery best material.
Get all yoU can, says the miller, while he
manufactures, packs and sells flour from West
em wheat and marks on both heads of the
barrel pure GeneSee.
Get all you can, says the clerk, while he
helps himself at the money drawer of his
employer.
Get aU you can, says the man in office,
while he withholds from the public what the
public has taned itself to earn.
Get all gou can, says the thief, while under
the grateful cover of the night he helps him
self to what has cost another many an hour of
aching toll and himself only an outraged con-
science and guilty soul.
Get all y0u can, says the pickpocket, while
he aUalks into the pocket of a stranger and
invites his money to walk out
Now, who will tell us which one Of the
number we have mentioned has come the near
est to fulfilling the requirements of the great
moral Jaw? Echo answers, Which one!
That best of all books says:- Wisdom IS
tie principle thing; therefore get ~isdom;
and aOiM all thy getting, get understanding.
In such getting there surely is safety.
Rochester, N. Y.