The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-12-06
WANDERERS WHO SUCCEED.
THEY DISPROYE THE ADAGE
 ABOUT ROLLING STONES

Likes Globe TrOtting and Keeps at
 It.
 That old adage "A rolling stone gathers no moss,' is not only chest nut, but it doesn't hold good in a whole lot of cases that I know of, said a federal official whose station was in San Francisco. We see a heap of rolling stones out our way. Thousands of them fit in and out of San Franscisco every year, and you'll never meet up with any of them who hasn't got the price of a swell smoke.
 ''The hoboes are now the only fellows who are on the eternal move. The con- ditions of life in this country during the last twenty years or so have de- veloped a large class of confirmed wan derers of an indefinite higher type than the hoboes.
 They have all of the hoboe's irnpa- tience of any one spot as a steady abiding place, but, along with that, 1 they've got brains and education, and, most of all, the willingness to work hard when they connect with. some kind of outfit where their work seems to them worth while.
 You recall, of course, that United States Post Office Department clerk who reorganlzed the postal system of the empire of Japan and became mill lionaire?
 Well, he was one of the type of which I am speaking. He lost his job in the Post Office Department at Wash ington owing to a change of adminis- tration--it was before the civil service law came along-and, like most Gov ernment people when they're bounced he didn't have the price of Wheeling stogie when he was let out.
 But he made his way to San Fran cisco on railway postal cars, got a billet there as assistant purser of a steamer bound for Japan, and when he got to Japan he didn't do single soli- tary thing but present himself to the Ministers of the Mikado and tell them that their postal system was In an un- imaginably bum state, and that ht really couldn't be answerable for the consequences if they refused to em' lploy him to reorganize the Japanese Ipostal system on the American pat tern.
 His dazzling nerve won him out and they turned the job over to him.
 "He had the head, knew the posta business from soup to nuts, and In side of very few years Japan had a' fine a postal system as any in the world, and the rolling stone who start ed it a-going had moss to make bon fires with. ..
 Mot long ago I took a ride arount San Francisco harbor, and down to the Farallones and back, on the beautifu steam yacht of a natural born rolling stone who has so much moss that hel lnever be able to spend it, and he's lpretty spectacular spender, at that Less than ten years ago this one was Iscratching out $15 a week as a steno' grapher in an Omaha railroad office.
 "Ie didn't see that that was getting {hin anything, and so he got his roll ing clothes on. He shorthanded 1t il Denver for a while, and then he got somebody to grubstake him and went a-hunting for pay dirt in the Colorado for a while.
 Mot springing any of the right Ikind of rocks, he passed that up the end of six months and hiked to San Francisco, where he pounded a type writer long enough to save up a few hundreds that he needed to push him Ialong on a little tour down the line that he had in mind.
 "He then went to the west coast oi Mexico and checked off coffee sacks as a shipping clerk for few months when he moved along to Central ano South America, west coast, picking uI a job here and there to keep him going land maintain his front.
 "Ie rolled around there down in tht How attitudes for about three years, anc then his idea came to him. He made a little list of all the sizeable coas' towns that he'd struck that imperative Ily needed ice manufacturing and re- Ifrigerating plants, got concessions o1 Hand from each place for the building of such plants, and then reached up t San Francisco capitalists with hi' scheme and with his concessions, all il black and white.
 Well, at the present time that roll ing chap has got a chain of ice mak ing plants all the way from Mazatlan on the west, to Montevideo, sn the eas and, in addition, he's now engaged il starting department stores on th' American plan in about twenty of th' most important cities of Central ant South American.
 Already he's one of the mossies rocks of his age in San Francisco where he spends his time during thu rainy seasons down the line, and h' diverts himself by trying to figure ou how much he would be worth to-day i he had stuck to his typewriter whack , ling job in the Omaha railroad offict instead of becoming a rolling stone. Every couple of years or so ther' drops into San Franscisco, in pretty sumptuous state, on his way to New York and Europe, a. peachy skinned young millionaire, a man of S5 or so who, fifteen years ago, was working a. Itdeliverv clerk in New York Japan csc store.
 His job melted him SIP week, ant he didn't see where he was ever going to get his name daubed before the X jCo.' sign out in front. He knew lot about Japanese goods, but he wa: tsick of that stuff when he was sick o that stuff when he passed up his job land he didn't have anything more tx do with Japanese truck for number