New Ulm review., 1901-08-14
YOUNG TEN AND SPECULATION.

made himself the western railway king.
He thus advises young men:
ssThele is no substitute for hard work
in winning success. There is always an
element of chance, but it is never the
predominating element. Chance simply
presents the opportunity, and opportun-
1ty is merely vehicle for human en-
deavor. The man, young or old, who
thinks otherwise, who believes that it is
luck alone that makes riches, and i'll
luck that keeps men poor, starts out
with a false notion. 1t is inevitable
that he should come to grief in the
scheme of life. The craze for specula-
tion that sweeps over the community
now and then grows largely out of the
conviction that success is luck. Such
craze is more injurious to the prospects
of the young men who are carried away
by it than war or pestilence. It means
not alone the loss of money, but the
ruination of character. It leaves its VIC
Tins standing on a false platform where
they are consumed with a desire to get
something for nothing, and lose all ap-
petite for hard work. 1t units them for
sincere effort, and almost without excep-
tion produces Generalization that
blights their entire existence. Whether
the young man who makes his first spec
ulative venture wins or loses the result
is equally bad. If there is any differ
ence at all 1t is in favor of the man who
comes out loser in his first venture.
With him at least there is a chance that
he will wake up to the hopelessness of
speculation as a means of acquiring
wealth, and that the lesson taught will
result in leaving him useful working
member of society, instead of drone
who thinks that he may get along by
dipping into the honey-pots of Others"
Speculation never made man of any
body. Character, reputation, ability
all three lie in the word work. To the
man who is ambitious time is nothing.
Eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours a day
his mind occupied by thoughts of ad-
Vancement. he bends every energy to be
somebody and do something. There is
always room at the top, hackneyed
though the saying is, and just at present
the way lies through pleasant valleys.
Bralns, brains and grit, be intelligent
keep your wit about you and if you have
the right stuff in you you will get to the
top no matter how humble your circum-
stances. Never in the history of the
world has capital looked so unsuccess-
fully for somebody to direct it. Within
the last ten years changes have been so
rapid that it almost staggers one to think
of the transition, and the result Is that
men who control capital are willing to
pay almost anything for man to sue
cessfully direct it. But the man who
undertakes the handling of capital will
never be the man who spends his time IN
speculation.
Mr.. Hill, in concluding his article
says:
'.What We want to breed in our young
men is the wholesome conviction chat
nobody in this world has any business
to exist without work; that true happi-
ness is to be achieved only by the work
er, not by the idler or dwadler, that the
man who labors to tue best of his abil-
ity in the field in which he finds himself
is the only only one for whom the world
has any use. There is already too great
natural tendency to shirk work, with
out having such tendency fostered artl-
fcially. Somehow we are getting in the
habit of believing that we are suffering
from overwork, and our young men in
every field are only too ready to accept
this delusive idea. There are many forms
of mental labor that admit of only a
limited number of hours of steady en-
ployment, but in most forms of manual
labor ter hours constitute only fair
day, and, if the man is constituted to do
the work at all, ten-hour day will not
injure him. A twelve or fourteen hour
day would undoubtedly be harmful ply
sically, but ten-hour day is very rea-
sonable proposition, and the man who
cuts it down to eight is robb1ng himself
and society of twenty-five per cent. of
the results that he has been put into this
world to achieve.
1t is the constant cry against so-called
overwork, that has gone up in recent
years, that has bred the desire, first to
cut down work to the minimum, and
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