The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1903-11-13

cess. The strenuous life"' has become
our ideal, and the presid dent Of the United
States. whom we all admire, is the ex-
emplar Of that life. says the Wall Street
Journal. So ~
There is a lack Of great thinkers. The
glory Of our time is the men who do. We
have no poets like those who inspired.
and charmed and soothed our fore
fathers. We import our best music and
our best art II we produce some great
painters and must clans. they 60 to. ELL
rope where>sthe "atmosphe is more
congenial.@ The air Of this countryist toe
bracing for fine arts, and the best think
ing is done in France and Germany,
where lifeis less rapid than the United
States. sS5s 10: ssszaass''sS SsE
The types of our, nation and time are
the skyscraper, with it's frames of steel,
the electric motor and the stock tape We
have now no great philosophers of calm,
serene lives, like Emerson, who never
did anything except to write few thou
sand words which have left their impress
upon the life of the world. We do not
love money more than our forefathers
did, but we love the making of money far
more. We work fewer hours, but with
more intenseness and nervous energy.
We measure our labor, not by degrees
and diplomas, but by horsepower units
and kilowatt hours H.
The men who do things are not content
with small achievements. They work
on scale of continents They are the
captains in the conquests Of the markets.
They build immense railroads and canals.
They consolidate industries. They Gre
ate big banks. They bridge oceans with
ships. They regulate competition so as
to reduce it's waste. They are ever seek
ing new ways of making consumption
keep pace with the productive energies
of the country. They are the men who
keep labor employed.
There is reason, therefore, in the ad-
miration which we give to these men.
Admiration is the coin which the world
pays to its leaders. 1t is great thing
to be able to do things, not merely as
most of us are content to do, by laying
one brick upon another, but by waving
a magic wand, or, like Aladdin rubbing
a lamp, rear vast structures almost in a
night, thousands of hands doing ones
bidding. 1t is a great thing to be able
to do one thing supremely we'll, to be
able, like Stevenson, to say, lone thing
l do" In this age we have specialized
and if he is of the right kind seeks to do
that thing supremely well. The result
is an astonishing rapidity and high quail
| ity of production. But it will be observed
that the keynote which is always sounded
is, "do," "do." So intent are we on doing
! that we give ourselves very little time for
| thinking. Even in our recreation we are
| forever doing and never resting. With
our nerves at the highest point Of ten
sion, we do not allow ourselves time for
| repOse and thought.
This is the great defect of this age. We
not only do, but we overdo. We work,
but We overwork. We play and we over
play. We eat and we overeat. Wespec-
! ulate and we overspeculate.
The most pressing need is more time
for thought. After all. it is not action
that keeps things moving, but thought,
and that nation is not the greatest and
! the most powerful which does not pro-
duce men who think as we'll as men who
do.
This fact has vital bearing upon the
business situation. Much OF our present
depression in Wall street is the result of
OVERRIDING, and overthinking. We were
too eager to get rich quick, and too eager
to crowd into half decade what should
have been the legitimate achievements
of twenty years, and we are now paying
the penalty of overpromotion. And fact
| is that as a nation we have become a
| trif1e too strenuous.