The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1886-05-20
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
THE CAREER OF 4 SOUTHERN
YOUNG MANN NEW YORK.
Mr. Page Regrets that the Necessity Ever
Exists for n North Carolina Young
Man to Go to New York.

when | was pushing my way through the
perpetual jam that makes down town
Broadway almost impossible, ! was run
into by somebody who seemed to be in an
uncommon hurry, and when | looked up
the fellow was staring at me with an eX-
preston of half recognition on his face
At the same moment we recognized one
another. | knew him at college in Nlr-
ginla twelve years ago, and the last | had
heard of him he was teaching somewhere
IN the Mountains between West Virginia
and Georg gia Well, this was his story; He
had tried several years to see his way as a
| teacher-he is man well trained as good
colleges train men, which training We all
come to value less and less as we really
learn something, all except the fellow who
was graduated at a certain university 'be
fore the war, after he had tried several
years to see his way to enough money to
buy a suit of clothes to be married in and
couldn't succeed in getting $50 ahead he
concluded to give up the business of teach
ing. Like every other fellow out of job he
was sure that he could make newspaper;
and he concluded that the bigger the pa
per he tried to make the better. So he
came to New York and was astonished to
find that there wasn't a paper here that
lacked the precise quality he was able and
willing to give it. His change was run
ming low-that was year ago or more =
and something had to be done. He first
studied the problem of cheap living, and
acquired the rare accomplishment of ma
king himself comfortable on the least pos
sible outlay. And he never thought for
moment of giving up. But he had to go
back to his old trade. He made applica
ton to some agency or other which deals
in teachers and teachers positions, filed a
memorandum of his teaching and expert
ence and one day to his surprise he found
himself again in the class room, teaching
boys in one of the best private schools of
New York. All sorts of good luck helped
him to the place. This took only a few
hours a day and gave him more money
than he got in the mountains. Once com
fortably fixed, he sat down to the problem
again, and concluded that he would begin
at the bottom. If he was going to do
newspaper work, he would have to begin
at the a. b. c.. and a reporter who could
write short hand, he concluded was worth
more than one who couldn't. So he went
to work to learn stenography; and he
practiceu it till he became an expert. And
he became an expert very soon. Then he
! looked about for something else to do than
teaching; and by some sort of good luck he
got not newspaper Wort-but a comfor-
table and reasonably lucrative clerical posi-
richest concerns in America, which had
need fora educated man who could write
shert hand.
Well his fortune is made His present
salary is not large enough to enable him
to live on Fifth Avenue; but he is in the
line of promotion where it will be large
enough one of these years. | don't think
he'll be foolish enough to go back to his
newspaper dream; but it is a safe predic
81, H.
About the wedding sHit and the girl |
am sorry that | can't tell that part of the
story | have a suspicion that herein lies
the only approach to a rascal that the man
has ever made--when he forgot the girl.
The moral Of all this is yet to come. He
showed me letter the other day from an
old acquaintance of ours who writes to
ask whether he, too, shall drift up to this
Babylon and see what blind luck and pluck
not blind would do for him. Ought We to
advise him to Gomez Ought any man to
be advised to come to New York on a ven
| ture? These men are men of good train
ing, of exemplary habits, of good health,
and do not object to working Is hours day
to carry point. They are men, too, who
know enough of men and of the world to
make a good appearance. But even with
these qualities, which are an absolute as
| surance of success, in a greater or less de-
gree anywhere in the world, it is not an
act of good friendship to advise man
to come to New York
The one thing always to be remembered
is that we are sure to hear of the careers
Of those who succeeded here, while many
a poor fellow who might have succeeded
somewhere else sinks out of sight unheard
Of The first fact that StareS anyone in
the face is that whatever he may know,
whatever skill or ambition or endurance
he may have, there are among these mil
lions many men who know the same thing
more thoroughly, who have greater skill,
as great ambition and as great endurance.
There are no vacancies" anywhere. But
there are men of all kinds, of learning, of
character, of experience, who are eagerly
waiting for work to do. The only way for
a stranger to come to New York safely is
to work his way here. BY working his
way, mean the doing of something which
will make a demand for his services here.
To take an easy illustration, there are a
number of gentlemen here from our State
as well as from perhaps every other one
who are in commercial pursuits. Such of
them as had capital to invest may be ruled
out OF the class | am now writing about,
for man with capital can invest it almost
anywhere and is not dependent so directly
on other people for his success, But some
of the North Carolinians here who are sue
ceSsful, as most of your readers know,
came not as capitalists but as working
men; and they got a foothold by their
command of Southern trade or their special
knowledge of Southern markets or needs,
or something of this nature. In other
words they had or they quickly acquired
some special knowledge or quality or
adaptability that was in demand here.
Every other branch of human activity is
subject to conditions similar in this respect
to commercial life.
If, then. man works himself to New
York in this way and once gets good
) footing, he is not only sure to succeed in
proportion as he is able to win success, but
his success will be New York success
that is to say, the chances are that he will
get larger return for his labor or reach a
I higher position than he could anywhere else
But case like my friend from the noun
tains is not so often found as to be typi
cal. He had simply the chances of en-
ployment as a stenographer that thou
sands of other men here had, and he hap
!. pened to get it where it will lead to some
thing better. But the chance of his get
ting it was only one in many thousand and
. a man can hardly afford to depend on Sc
small chance. Coming to New York ''oI
a venture" is perhaps the most foolish
thing man without helpful friends here
ever did.
And there is another thing always to bt