The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1897-06-17
AMERICAN WASTE.
WE THROW AWAY FORTUNES
FOR OTHERS.

| w - 60nA0O w - w 81 q 0AU6 - 6V A60
| FOR OTHERS.
Gather up the fragments.
Interior.
Poverty in America is more frequent
ly the result of waste than want. The
most difficult question in our national
and domestic economy Is not how to
increase the income but how to de-
crease the outgo, the leakage which ex-
hausts our resources. A pinhole in a
lead pipe will draw more water from
the fountain-head than faucet. Our
roadbeds are drlbbled for miles with the
finest of the wheat, and our railroad
yards are black with scattered coal.
AS people we do not believe in the
milk, but are in haste for the cream.
Our children wonder, as they read their
Bibles, what "gleaner" is. Our har-
vest fields could support the paupers OF
Europe, after the sheaves had all been
drawn off the ground strewn wide as
they are with broken ears and trampled
grain. The visitor to mining camp
sees great mountains of refuse waiting
for some patient toiler to work them
over, and the Chinaman Sits anew the
tailings of our placers and retires to
Peking to become money lender. But
the American forms syndicate, builds
fume twenty miles long, turns into it
a river, drags down a mountain, and at
the end of his career s'goes broke"
But other times are coming, and he
will be the successful man who realizes
their meaning. In the future the ac-
QUESTION of wealth is to mean, even
more than the past, the problem of saw
ing the fragments. The machine which
can accomplish the same result by two
turns of the wheel instead of three takes
the honor in the factory and becomes
the foundation OF a fortune; and the
other goes to the junk pile. The
machine which gathers up the waste
beneath the loom and presses it into
soft felt has made possible an industry
which before was conducted at loss.
The more we enter into free competi-
ton with the labor of the world, where
saving Is the rule and waste does not
even figure as possible exception, the
more we realize that the fortunes of the
future are to be made out OF the frag-
ments we have been throwing away.
But this Is true of intellectual and
spiritual wealth as of the worldly riches
of men. What one does with his leis-
ure determines the man. The most
learned man of the past generation was
a blacksmith, who carried on his ling
uistic studies by the forge. 1t was the
utilization of his fragments of time that
made an authority while others with
whole days at their disposal wore still
beginners. It was not because fortune
had been kind to our great war Presi-
dent, that he seemed to have history of
nations at his fingers ends, or could
quote with such accuracy and force the
principles of law. The lad who saved
his evening half-hours, which his COM
panions spent at the tavern or country
store, became famous, while the others
died dolts. It takes more years to pre-
pare tor the pulpit than for any other
of the learned professions, but the men
who fill our pulpits are seldom the men
whose youth offered abundant leisure.
They saved the fragments of time from
the plow-feld to the hay-meadow. AS
the years rapidly draw to close we are
reminded that, for most of us, all that
remains is not life, but fragments OF
life, We cannot live over again the
blessed opportunities OF youth. We
cannot recall the full strength that we
once boasted, when there was nothing
in pleasure and nothing in duty to
make us feel fatigue. We can never
know again the long, clear, perfect days
in which everything seemed possible
and there was no need of care.
But after all, some of the finest
achievements OF mankind have been
wrought in the fragments of time that
remained after the day had begun to
darken toward its close. The swan is
not the only creature that pours out its
memorable song In the dying hour.
Many day that has been neither
clear nor dark, " as the prophet puts it,
Is closed amid the splendors Of topaz,
amethyst and carbuncle. Lite is to be
measured now by its force and beauty
and force and beauty may glorlfy a
moment. Let no one, then, mourning
over wasted opportunities, bow weakly