American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-09-25
What We Need.

1t is said that nine-tenths of the persons
who engage in what is called business in
this country fail. Whether the estimate is
correct or not we have no means of ascer-
tanning, but the showers of failures, great
and small, caused by the periodical jostles
that shake the business world, and the
gradual disappearance of houses and
firms that is constantly going on all the
time, suggest its reasonableness. NOcare-
full observer who has lived in the midst of
the business whirl for two decades and
closely watched matters round him can
run his eyes back over a twenty-years
period without being struck by the num-
Der of wrecks that mark it. AS rule,
the great, successful firms that stood at
the head of business in a prosperous, en-
terprising community twenty years ago
have disappeared, and their members are
hobbling along, broken spirited and un-
noticed, in vain attempt to regain foot
ing in the rushing tide that sweeps past
them. The pride and splendor of a once
envied success have vanished IN the over
taking failure; the wealth which those
firm, strong hands once held has turned
to ashes; the fortune and the influence and
authority which attended it have melted
away, and the glory of a fancied success
has been turned into the bitterness of an
inevitable disaster Why is this the mex
orable ending of SO many business ex-
periencess Why is it that our country
furnishes SO many examples of tempo
rary success that come to pitiable
and tragic failures at last? Is it not be-
cause our people lack the observation-disclosures
that is nowhere so much needed as in
business? Practical life with us abounds
in destinations Nowhere else in the
world is it invested with such marvels.
There is no other country on the globe
where SO many magical results are exhib-
tod hnn Inn. TO- <Nf1, ,fr-ry
the globe where they are demanded. Our
railroad building, our mining operations,
our practical problems of transit and car
rage, the founding of States in the wilder
ness and the connecting them with the
central government the settlement of our
fertile prairies, our immigration and emf
grafton movements, the profitable planting
of cotton in the South and of grain in the
West, and the establishment of manufact
ures everywhere, the erection of splendid
public buildings, water-works, bridges
and depots-all present such an inviting
field for employment, triumph and wealth
that our practical life is a perpetual exhil-
aration iR which we lose our heads.
Every tolerably educated young American
knows how to do business and knows
how to make money. There is not a young
man to be found, reasonably blessed with
advantages, friends and social position,
who would give the snap of his finger
for a moderate fortune on the CON
dition that he should be content with It,
He thinks he can make better one by
his own efforts-and, as general rule, he
can. But he does not hold what he
grasps; he makes money, but he does not
save it. The very success that attends his
efforts lulls the thrifty qualities that earned
it to sleep, and in an evil hour of unac-
countable infatuation he is made bank
rupt. He trusts too much to his employees;
he sells too largely on credit; he embarks
his means in disastrous speculations; he
neglects his business for politics; or he
commits some other folly, no matter what,
and goes down amid the other wrecks
whose lessons he failed to learn. Our
failures are the same story, over and over
and over, be it Jay Cooke s. Co., Duncan,
Sherman & Co., the Bank of California,
or any one of the myriad smaller ex-
amples that occur in a business cycle
the violation or disregard of the safe, set
tied rules, whose wisdom 10000 failures
attest, but which 10000 failures do not
enfOrce-St Louis Republican.