Omaha daily bee., 1908-10-18
UP TO YOU TO MAKE GOOD
Opportunity Only Points Ia Way to
Success, but Energy Must
Clear the Road.

Chance doesn't make men strong. 1t
finds strong men and points them out to
the world. Sooner or later merit Is bound to
be noticed. Opportunity is merely a guide
showing the way by which fortune may
be reached. Success requires not only the
ability to attain but also to retain.
Every prospector who walked over the
site of the Homestake mine had the same
chance as the man who found 1t. He
worked harder, that's all. He took more
specimens, watched the outlying formations
more carefully and struck pay dirt by stick
to the search.
Half the people who twenty years ago
jecred at the idea of buying COW lots on
tho outskirts of New York, are now sheer
ing at the luck OF the investor who had
forethought enough to realize that the
growth Of Manhattan would before long
bring these pastures within the city limits.
Edison experimental with thousands Of
minerals and fibers before he found the
filament which did make possible the in
candescent light.
The little tin bottle stopper which created
a dozen mirionaires practically ruined the
inventor and his hackers before they saw
a dollar Of profit.
The second largest department store in
New York City consumed a million dol
lars in losses before its books showed the
first credit balance.
You sec, its one thing to recognize a
path and quite another to climb it.
Almost every great artist and poet bathed
his ambition in tears of heartache and
hunger. The genius which eventually
makes masters first makes martyrs.
In the words of Zakkuri, Nothing for
nothing is given here The world has
never been different-never shall be. It
will always have its cutters and it's fight
ters. The wilmer who complains that he
has mo chance nowadays is probably ech-
ding the wall of some yellow-blooded Then
ian ancestor who found excuse for his lazi-
ness and incompetence by complaining that
all opportunities on earth had been used up
before Pericles' day.
Columbus wasn't off on a yachting trip
when he found America. Newton wasn't
struck with the theory of gravitation-the
apple that hit him only gave him a basis
for the months of investigation which fol-
lowed. You've got to go after things. You
don't need opportunity-just energy and
ambition. Every day is the golden day
OF discovery. The next twenty years will
produce men whose work viii make con.
tempOry acnlcVenent look IKE klnQerBar-
ten lessons.
The deserts are thirsting for new irri-
cation schemes-the mountains are streaked
through with hidden ore--the air and the
water are surging with Embarrassed power.
Science. now become philosopher, guide
and friend to commerce, will suggest a
thousand new industries. Merchants will
come to the fore whose enterprises will
blot out the great tradesnames of the
present. There is always more future than
past.
But the great men of tomorrow as OF
today and yesterday will be laborers, not
the talkers-the fighters, not the shirkers.
They will win by right Of conquest-by
might Of merit.
They'll pay the price eternal-hard work.
A magazine writer Interviewed old
Phineas Phillips, the lumber king. on the
subject of success. Young man." he re-
piled, 81 got where I am by not stopping
until l arrived. The trouble with most
folks is that, they mistake success for a
sort OF measles and lie around hoping
that they'll ketch 1t. faint that sort OF
disease. It's more like the brain fever
You've got to have some foundation for
It, and the only way you can get II is by
working like blazes. Herbert Kaufman
in Chicago Tribune.