The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-02-12
Songs of Spring
The Only Sure Way
TO Real Success
From the Philadelphia Press.

~ PEAKING before the Graduates
w club, of the University of Chicago
IN the other day, Mr.. Richard Mans
w field told of the hardships a young
and ambitious, but poor, actor has
often TO undergo t he expects to achieve
success in his profession. Referring to
his own case Mr.. Mansfield said: For
years and years after the play I went
to my little garret room, II l were for
tunate enough to have one, and took my
crust, If | had one, and toasted 1t over
the fire, if ! had one. oh, many times |
have wandered the streets of London for
hours at time. / would buy hot po-
tato from corner vendor, and after
carrying it in my pockets to warm my
fingers would eat it,
Mr.. Mansfield has achieved distinction
in his profession and is now entitled TO
look back with cCmmendable pride on
the hardships he endured and the OBJ
staces he oveTcame in his struggle for
fame. But the road he Travelled was
beset with more difficulties than the path
most successful men have trodden. The
majority of them, in this country at least
can look back from the heights they have
reached upon an arduous life spent in
surmountng the difficulties that beset
the pathway they have followed. II they
had foreseen them all and known the
true nature of the task they were under
taking, they might never have had the
bravery to begin the work. But a kind
providence veiled the future from them
while giving them the courage, persist
ence and energy to undertake their task
1t was the "hot potato route to success
they took.
This Is the old road to SUCCESS and il
has been blazed and placarded with sigh
boards by generation after generation.
But in this age of electrical achievement
young men are apt TO forget it, They
Imagine that there must be a trolley
route to success now. They hear of
young Joe" Letter from college only
yesterday, buying millions of bushels OF
wheat and cornering the market and of
promoters" getting hundreds of thou
sands of dollars from banks with weak
cashiers, and appealing to the imagina-
ton of the public with speculative
schemes promising fortunes in a few
weeks, and they conclude that that is
the fin de steele route to riches The old
way, they think, went to its grave with
their grardfathers and none but fogies
travel H. now. But if success doesn't
come by the new tangled route they are
ready to exclaim: There is no place
for me In the world. Other men have got
all the good places" Such young men
should remember Mansfields "hot po-
tato"
o.
There is also too prevalent an opinion
among young men that those who have
succeeded gained their position from the
start. They see Mr.. Mansfield delighting
crowded houses by his presentation of
well-known characters and they conclude
that he must have done the same from
the start. They don't hear of his garret
and his crust and his wanderngs through
the streets OF Lordon with only hot po-
tato to warm mis- chilled fingers and fill
his empty stomach There is hardly a
man who has achieved true success who
has not had these difficulties to contend
with or who would have one OF them re-
moved If he had his life to live over again.
They were his stepping stones to success.
Luck plays no part in such a career. One
or the most successful men Philadelphia
ever had used to say he felt like kicking