Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-07-19
OPPORTUNITY"
ROASTED PLENTY
Platitude Founders say In
GALS Poem is all Nom
sense and Injurious.

distinct service to society when, in
in his baccalaureate address, he
paid his respects to John ]. Ingalls,
famous poem, saying: II do not
believe that there is an equal num-
Der of beautiful lines in the Eng
lish language which contain more
linmitigated nonsense than Ingalls,
Opportunity President James
told the graduating class that oppor-
tunities come in ga never ending
procession. AS a result of his
protest Ingalls, verse has been
widely discussed. The discussion
will be helpful because of the neces-
sity for stamping out the DISPOSE
ton to look on the dark side of
things.
The lines to which President
James referred follow:
master of human destinies am 1!
Fame, love and fortune on my foot
steps wait.
Cities and fields / walk; penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and pass
ing by
late
knock unbiddcn once at every gate.
If sleeping, wake-if feasting, rise
before
turn away. 1t is the hour of fate,
And they who follow ME reach
every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every
foe
Save death; but those who doubt or
hesitate,
Condemned to failure, perjury and
woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly inn
plore:
j am not; and I return no
more
Although these lines have been
made conspicuous In every publica-
tioh of MIR. ingalls, writings, it is
claimed by some of his friends that
he never intended the verse to be
taken seriously. A writer in the
Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald
says, Senator Ingalls, himself rec
ognized the poem as sophistical. He
was q man of great talent and DASH
ed off the lines one day while at his
desk in the senate chamber. I'M
pressed with the untruthfulness OF
the idea that opportunity knocks
only once at every door, he threw
the poem into the wastebaskct
whence it was rescued by a page
and through the latter became pub
lie. Justice to Senator Ingalls,
memory demands that this nara
tive shall be kept in the record.
1t would not be difficult to be
what he wrote when he gave thes
beautiful lines to the world. H
was not the only one in his time
prior to his time and since his time
who has taken the gloomy view
that there is master of human
destinies'' who knocks but once a
every gate and forever after turns
deaf ear to those who then failed t
heed him. A greater than Ingall
took a mighty gloomy view whe
he wrote: THAT there is a It'd
in the affairs of men, which
taken at the flood, leads on to for
tune; omitted, all the voyage {
their life is bound in shadows an
in miserics; and we must take tn
current when it serves or lose on
ventures. Also: ''Who seeks an
will not take when once tits of
cred, shall never find il more
Going from the sublime to til
ridiculous, Mr.. Dooley framed
companion piece for the Ingalls, ella:
sic when he wrote: ''Opporchunit
knocks at livery mans dure vans
On some mems dures it hammci
till il breaks down tn dure an thi
it goes in an afthcrward it wurrl
FIR him as night Waterman. Q
other mems dures il knocks an ruI
away, an on tn dures iv SON
men il knocks an whin they CON
out it hits thin over thu head wit
an AK. But ivrey wan has an oppo
chunity.'
The newspaper poets are g1vir
the shade of Ingalls, something
think about these days. They al
bringing hope to the hopeless
writing in pleasing verse the tru
about opportunity.
S. E. Kiser writes for the Oh
cago Record Herald:
Master of human destinies am l
Fame, love and fortune on my foe
steps wait.
Cities and fields walk, penetrat
Deserts and seas remote, and pas
ing by