Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1882-10-27
HOW TO BE GREAT,
Advice to the Youth OF the Country.

Nhahh, my wy tudL just dUOuI dl
your age Is the time for you to learn
what you are good for. And when you
have found what it is go at it, and stick
to it. want to see you at work.
II have no secret" said Turner, the
great painter, "but hard work"
Nothing" said Maribeau, "is impos-
sible to the man who can will. This is
the only law of success"
"There Is but one method says Sgd
ney Smith, land that Is hard work.
1.-THE difference between one man and
another" says DIR. Arnold, "is not so
much in talent as in energy"
And do you direct your energy in one
channel Don't be diffusive in your
work. There is power in concentration.
A handful of powder scattered on the
ground makes great smoke when it Is
fired, but nothing more. 1t Is the few
ounces compressed in the blast or gun
barrel that counts for something when
it goes of. IT, you are lawyer, ply
stefan or o carpenter, and make up your
mind that YOU willknow as much about
one particular line or branch or speciality
OF your profession or trade, you do well,
because, il you know as much on any
point as any other man, surely as the
heavens are above us you will know
much more about it than thousands,
and UNNECESSARILY more than millions
Of other men, and this makes you an
authority.
Be ambitious as you will, but be am
bilious in some direction. You can
make any sphere of labor honorable. 4
good, honest, man can shovel sand with
credit to himself and profit to his en-
plOyer and honor to his country. Many
a good blacksmith and harness-maker
has been spoiled by schools of law and
medical colleges; and let me tell you,
Telemachus, right here, that society,
your country, humanity, and God need
good carpenters, and shOemakers, and
stone-cutters, and farm-hands more
than poor doctors, and poor preachers,
and poor editors. If you have to choose
between poor lawyer and good deck
hand, be a good deck-hand every time.
A few wears ago went into the Nor
ton nail-mill at Ashland, Ky. l saw
there q machine that could make nails.
/ looked at it and admired it. thought
and | still think, that machine ought to
90 to Congress. All its talents and all
its energies are directed To one point. 1t
can make nails and it can't do one soli-
tary other thing under thesun. 1t new
er talks politics. 1t can't carry a torch.
1t doesn't know what caucus Is. 1t
even doesn't know enough to go out
with candidate and take drink. 1t
doesn't want, and it never did want,
the government to issue 400, 600 kegs Of
lathe nails and loan them to citizens
who want to build chicken-hOuses. 1t
never once stopped work to sit down on
a dry goods box in a shady corner to
declare this country would never be
prosperous and happy until we had an
incontrovertible currency of shingle
nails, secured by a bonded fund of non
interest bearing railroad spikes. Ii
never once got loose and ran wildly
about the country, frantically calling
upon the people to rally to its support
as the only means of overthrowing the
''machine." 1t Just stayed in the mil
and made nails and nails and nails. Ii
knew how to make them, and so 1t just
went ahead and made them.
Well, / once knew q man who could
make shoes. He could build you pail
of glove-fitting boots with cunning little
closets for all your eorns, and lovely
bay-window for your bunion. he c0ulC
sew on an invisible patch with yellow
thread, 80 that it looked like sunset OF
the Mississippi. How he could MAKE
shoes. And he sat with his month full
of pegs and sang and whistled happy
and content, and he pounded leathe
and smote the insensate laPstone will
MANY a muffied blow, and pegged ant
n
chief end of man.
But one day he stopped whtstling
laid down his hammer, dropped his wa
into the pan full OF pegs, threw the lap
stone into the water bucket, blew al
the pegs out of his mouth, and got ..
telling what Congress ought to DO, snd
what the Government should do, ant
what ne would do if he were there, ant
he said il so often and said it 80 well
that everybody saw the country wa
going to ruin and he was the only maj
who could stop it, and the first thint
he knew, the people took him of hi
leather bench and sent him to Congress
Now, that man used to charge onl.
10 cents for sewing q patch as big as
30 cent piece, and 20 cents for a new hee
and ONLY 50 cents for half-soles; and da.
in and day out he earned about = III
day. :.
And the very first week he was II
Congress he introduced a bill for the fire.
coinage Of 5000, 900, 0OO, 600 In 81 green
hacks with a proyiso that this issu
should be doubled if it should appea
that the amount originally specitiet
should be found insufficient to meet tn
demands of the shoe trade.
And yet that man was good shoe
maker. The community missed MN q
sorely when he went to Congress L
was hard to fill his plaee-on the shoe
makers bench. Other eobblers cam!
and went, but not one of them not al
of them, cobbled so well and acceptabl!
as he, cobbIe they never so co6ble-y
He was q good shoemaker, my boy
most excellent and worthy snoenlaSer
In all the land of Ithach, my boy, Their
was no better shoemaker.-B'Tdett a
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