News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-03-29
OWNING THE EARTH.
MEN WHO DROP OLD ASSOCIATES
ON ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH.
4 Bit of Advice 10 Men who are Marching
Their Way mp 10 the top of the Hill.

From the Milwaukee Sun.
How often we hear men say 81 am
glad Of it, when speaking of some man
who has been at the top Of the heap
politically, socially or financially, and
has suddenly dropped. Once in great
while a man says q am sorry, but that
is when the man who has fallen was the
same kind of a fellow when he was on
top that he was before he got there. The
trouble is that too many men, who go
to the front, get the idea that they own
the earth, aud their old friends get
down on them, and they do not make
new ones TO take the place Of the old
ones.
A ward politician who becomes a
Congressman, can make no greater mis-
take than to get too big for his boots
when he is elected, and forget his friends,
and put on airs. The boys who have
made him what he is, talk with each
other about him, and laugh at his great
ness. and never tell him what they think,
but some day when he comes up again
they slaughter him, and he drops on the
political sidewalk and never knows what
hit him, but lie knows that he is hurt.
Then he tries to smile at his old friends,
and slap them on the shoulders, and eX-
plain himself, but it is everlastingly too
late.
What they wanted was to have him re-
main Just the same when he was on top.
A man may go along, poor, and be Re
spected and have thousands Of friends,
nd he may suddenly have fortune left
him. The first time he puts ON silk
undershirt he changes toward his friends
and seems to own the earth. He goes
around the block to avoid meeting some
friend of the Old days, and he looks over
them when he meets them. They watch
for him to drop, and when he does go
through his money, and gets down to
earth again, and finds that the other
fellows own some Of it. he meets an old
friend that he has not noticed for years,
and saws: ''HellO, Bill" but Bill does
not ''hellO.' Bill has wanted to ''hello,
for some time. but he didn't receive any
encouragement, and now his appetite for
"helloing" has left him. If he wants to
''hello Bill'' he goes off and does it with
somebody whose head has not got too
big for his hat, and the man who has
been temporarily at the top of the heap
IL /, F,-r Of
When a man has been climbing a hill all
his life, and slipped back so much that it
has made his head swim, but finally, by
sticking his toe nails IN, gets to the top,
he has a right to feel glad, but he wants
to be contented where he is, and not try
to fly high.
when he gets to the toI, of tine hill n,
is in more dangerous place than he was
while he was climbing, because from
where he stands it is down hill in every
direction. Did You ever think of that,
boys? Every way YOU look, when you
get up there, it is down hill, and you
have got to brace yourself; and not lose
your head, OF the first thing you know
your foot Will slip, and you will go down
head over appetite. If you have kept
your head and your friends, while you
were at the top, and those who are still
climbing see that you are letting your
foot slip, they will try to brace you, and
keep you up, but if you have made an ass
of yourself, and thought because you
had got there that you owned the hill,
and have thrown obstacles III the way OF
the other climbers, and You start to 90
down, as Josh Billings has said, "All
creation seems CREASED for the OCCASION,
anG when you get to going nobody will
reach out to save you. 1t is a good
lesson for boys as well as men to learn,
that the top of the hill is the most
dangerous place, and when they get there
they will be the same careful, sensible
persons that they were sticking their toe
nails in, and putting. The country is
full of late politicians who would give all
they have got, and mortgage all they
expect to have, if they had not lost their
heads when they got to the top of the
hill.