The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1893-08-25
miscellaneous.
CHANCE Is A FACTOR.
IN ONES LIFE LUCK PLAYS A MIGHTY
IMPORTANT PART.

Capable Man Fail to Push Him Into
Prominence Except as Chance Lends It's
Aid-SoIAe Noted Examples.
Chance is everything. Opportunity and
luck mean much. The great race, it seems
to me, is but a creature of conditions. Now
and then we hear individuals spoken of as:
He is a man of programme. He fixes a
course and adheres to it." And that re-
mark is generally made concerning some
one who has achieved success, either as a
money getter or holder, or as factor on
some elevated plane of life, but when you
come to think of it the beggar in the street.
may be quite as determined in his pro-
gramme, and possibly it is his very pro-
gramme that keeps him where he is.
Burglars, highwaymen and rascals gen.
orally are quite as likely to be men of pro-
gramme, to which they adhere with 9. de-
termination that may well be called obsti-
nate, as any others. My own theoryis that
mankind is made what it is by circum-
stances. Very few of us with deliberate in
tent surveyed the country Of opportunity.
Very few of us with ak in hand cleared
away path through what appeared al i'm
penetrable forest, which being followed,
led to partial clearing, where persistent
labor with the AK and the grub furni she'd
us fallow field in which to plant the seed
of today that we might reap the harvest of
tomorrow. am very sure didn't.
And as look around me 1 am quite con-
WINGED that the very large majority of my
fellow citizens did no such thing. What
makes this man preacher, this writer,
this doctor, this Il soapmaker, this sales
man, this a banker? In some instances it
is natural fitness unquestionably, but in a
very great majority of cases it is siraply
the outcome of all controlling cirCum-
stances and conditions.
Take the case of Henry Ward Beechsr.
Being clergyman's son, he, like all his
fathers children, studied for the ministry.
forget how many sons the old gentleman
had, but six. at all events, every one of
whom became a clergyman. One of them
was no more lit to be a preacher than l. One
would have made most admirable teacher,
professor, but he is no preacher In fact, of
them all the two who succeeded il life
were Henry Ward and Thomas K, but
they were sons of Lyman Beecher, and it
was as natural for them to yield to the all
controlling circumstances and conditions of
their fathers family and fall into the min
isterial line as it is for the son of bugcher
to follow his fathers calling.
But to return to Beecher. When he was
i'll the west, nothing but an accident pre-
vented his becoming railroad man. You
didn't know that, did you? He was pastor
of n church i'll Indianapolis. A new rail
road was projected, and a superinter dent
was to be chosen. A bank president who
was one of the chief directors had been
greatly impressed with the go ahead man.
ner and zeal of the young parson, and con-
Guiding that he was possessed of the quail
ities that would make him first rate rail
road official proposed his name. The con-
test was close. Beecher lost by one vote.
Now suppose for moment that he had
been successful. He would have gone ahead
in his calling and the fire and energy and
vital industry which were prominent among
his qualities would rapidly ,unquestiona
have forced him to the front.
And then, growing as the west grew,
nothing under heaven could have kept him
out of politics, and the large probabilities
are that he would have become foremost
figure i'll national councils, with a seat in
the senate and possibly a home in the
White House. 1t was Il little thing that
switched him. One vote settled the mat
ter AS it was with Beecher, so unques
tionably it is with multitudes of men less
conspicuous
Not many years ago humble Irish
American worker was sticking type in the
composing room of Il neghboring city. The
newspaper was not very successful then.
Its editor died. None of the reporters
seemed quite up to the mark, and the pro-
prietor, Il nervous fidgety man, allowed
things to drift. The reporters printed what
they pleased. Several paragraphs pertinent,
timely, evincing thought, We're written by
a compositor and handed to the proprietor,
who published them. They attracted at
| tention. He asked him to write more. In
! a little while Thomas kinsella became the
| editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, which ere he
| died was of the five chief newspaper prop
critics in the country. If the editor of that
paper had continued his work, Kinsella
would have remained in the composing
room, instead of which he left his case, en-
tered the sanctum, formed political and
! financial alliances, went to congress and
died a comparatively wealthy and very
generally esteemed citizen of that great
| town.
It was the purest incident of an accident
that secured for him a commanding posi-
ton and wide felt influence in affairs.
| What nonsense it would be to say that Gar
| field when he was driving horses on tow
path had any idea, any plan, any pro-
gramme, the end of which was the presi-
! dency of the United Statesl 1t was chance,
accident, which gave him opportunity aft
or opportunity, and it was an industrious,
honest utilization of the chance and of the
opportunity which advanced him steI' by
step, but even there see how he was favored
| by circumstances
The story is familiar to you all. Twenty
Thousand people were packed i'll the great
assemblage hall in Chicago. Ten thousand
of them cheered themselves hcarse over the
name of Grant, while the other 10000 en-
deavored to drown the noise made by hur-
raining and clapping and cheering for
| Blaine. Now, if Grants friends had been
the stronger in the convention, there would
have been no Garfield, or if Blaine's friends
had had sufficient strength to carry the
| day Garfield would have been nowhere.
The happy accident was that there was
divided convention, SO far as those names
were concerned, and the compromise was
Garfeld's opportunity.
That's my point. 1t is not that Garfield
was not competent, not that he wasn't sub
sequently elected, not that he couldn't fill
the bill, but that whatever might have
been his desire, ambitions, hopes, it was
nothing but the bitter, relentless fight be-
tween the friends of Blaine and Grant that
gave him the opportunity. We are apt,
when arguing matters, to utilize illustra-
tions drawn from conspicuous realms,
but this opportunity. this chance, this &C
cident, obtains just as absolutely in your
life and mine as in the experience of candi-