The San Francisco call., 1905-08-13
rs SIMILAR TO
THE PLUM TREE

Robert Herricks new book. ''The Mem
eirs of an American Citizen" is some
thing of the same kind as the weII-known
Plum Tree" 1t is the story of a man
working himself up by sheer energy and
unscrupulousness to big success under
present day business and political condi-
lions, which, the tendency Of the story is
to show. do not make success possible to
one who spins the web of his honor so
nne that little underhand tricks will tear
IT. What he says in the midst of the
book Is slightly tempered by conscience
In the nnal chapters, and. as usual at the
boys start out in life, he gets some
strict and severe lessons as to the neces-
slty OF being upright. Harrington. the
man who thus writes his memoirs
achieves great business and political
heights, and at the end of the story a
bunch of American Beauty roses Is laid
on his desk. His success was won how
ever, at the cost of the forfeiture of the
respect of some of the plain but honest
and kindly people of his native county
who scorned the methods by which he
did what Is called rising in life The
stieklers for strict morality can get that
much satisfaction from the books out
come.
There Is a chapter in the tale which
gives in pretty condensed form what is
Herrington's view of the necessary com
promises with honor in order to grasp
business success in these days of graft
1t is entitled AN Honorable Merchant .
Harrington Is the junior member of a
meat packing firm. The senior member,
Dround, is strictly honorable man, but
the younger men in his Office have built
up his business by taking advantage Of
the uses of bribery, accepting rebates,
faisifying book accounts, and all the
usual modern tricks of the trade Dround
was kept in ignorance for long When he
finds 1t out he is amazed and very angry.
The younger members regard these
tricky methods as simply necessities of
the modern struggle for existence. 1t is
eat or be eaten. You have to fight your
competitors with the same weapons they
employ, OF they win destroy you. Dround
says to Harrington: 'It saddens me to
hear as young man as you take that
cynical view. 1t is a strange time we are
coming to. | pray it may not be a worse
time for the country"
The American citizen of these memoirs
thus comments on Grounds scruples
after he had told Dround to his face.
There are no morals in business that l
recognize except those that are written
on the statute book" He closes the in
cident of the firms quarrel with these
words: ITO my mind there was some
thing childish in the use OF the. words
better and worse Every age is a
new one and to live in that age you have
got to have the fingers and toes neees-
sary for. that age. The forces that lie
in US and make those triumph who do
triumph in the struggle have been in
men from the beginning of time. There
little use in trying to stop their sweep,
or to sit and cry like Dround by the road
side, because you don't like the game.
For my part I went with the forces that
are. willingly, gladly, believing in them
no matter how ugly they might look So
history reads: the men who lead accept
the conditions of their day"
In a closing chapter called Further
Cost the rich man, now a Senator, begs
a woman to let him do something for her
little boy: but,
81 suppose you wouldn't let him touch
my money!"
She smiled back her defiance through
her tears.
You had rather he'd grow up in the
alley7"
eyes" she murmured at last, very
family.
ST was Senator of these United States.
from the great State of Illinois, but my
best friend, Slocum. and my brother,
Will, and May, and their little children.
stood to one side and turned away"