Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1907-05-17
RICHES A HANDICAP
BETTER FOR BOYS TO START AT
THE FOOT.
Wealthy Man Troubled for Future of
His Sons Because They Have
No Need to Rely on
Themselves.

''DO you know what's bothering me
now?" said a man who has made him
self rich and is fast getting richer.
It's wondering what is going to be-
come of my boys.
Il have four sons, all young, and all
wholesome, natural youngsters, but if
l keep on making money the way I'm
doing now | don't know what's going
to happen to them when they grow up.
There's nothing like being born poor
| to give a man a real start in life, with
his feet firmly planted on the ground,
where they ought to be, and he learn
! ing to rely on himself.
| Il was born that way and I've al
/ ways been grateful for it. If l had
| been born rich | think l should have
! been more or less of a no account.
! had to get out and hustle and work to
| get along, and the habit of work has
never left me since, as hope it never
will.
'But how is it going to be about my
| boys? They may come to think that
| they don't have to work, which would
be the ruination of them, or would at
least put them out of the running with
| self-reliant, able men.
I'm sending them to public school,
Of course, and there they learn heap
of thing besides what they get out Of
| their books. They learn for one very
valuable lesson that there are other
people in the world besides themselves
and that there may be plenty of peo-
| pie smarter than they are, and that
they've got to work if they expect to
| keep their end up.
Boys are democrats. You can't put
on any lugs or airs if you expect to
get along with the boys in public
! school; if you want friends you've got
to be friendly. A good all around start
in life it is for boys to go to a public
school, and l hope my boys will profit
by it.
'But / suppose in time they'll go to
| a private school, and then if they want
| to they'll go to college, and there, what
with their money, unless they should
turn out to be very hardheaded young
men, they will come to train with
other young men with money, and SO
get separated from the bulk of their
fellow students and begin to live sort
of by themselves; and I Gan't in agine
anything happening to a young man
worse than that, his getting away from
the mass of his fellow men.
my boys have never known what it
is to be poor. They have always had
what they wanted, and unless | should
| fail or bust up or something, which |
| don't expect to do, l don't see why
| they shouldn't always have things, be-
cause as long as l had anything |
| should be sure to keep them. That's
| human nature.
And, you see, there's the trouble.
| They've got somebody to lean on, and
/ a man that doesn't have to isn't apt TO
put out his own strength. The only
way in which man can ever amount
! to anything is by work, hard work.
"The man that doesn't work dwfn-
| dies and comes to be of no account.
| And l do hope my boys will want to
work l don't care what they do If
/ they'll only work at it, and work hard
| and faithfully I think they're handi-
! capped as it is; honest Injun, | think
| 1t would have been better for them to
have been born poor, but hope they'll
| turn out to be men,"