The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-14
COMPILED BY WALTER HARPER

time for philosophic meditation.
 So Clancy and I found quiet corner l back in the smoker and lighting up the furnaces of our merschaums prepared to make the best of the journey.
 By the way, Percy, I see an item in the newspapers that puts me to think irg, said Clancey as he spread his legs out over the seat opposite and pulled his | hat down over his eyes T see that It. tie Charlie Markham has been made president of the great Illinois Central rail road Now, tell me, doesn't that jar your ribs?"
 My father knew Charlie when he was an unpromising kid up in Tennessee. He was boy that would put bent pins on his teachers chair and tie fool pacards 10 the coat tails of the minister. He vas one of the onerest kids in his class and nobody Ibut his fond parents believed that he would ever amount to anything. But just think. He Is at the head of one of the biggest railroads in the coun- try, and by the way, he Is the nominal head of this very jerkwater branch line that we are patronizing this minute. But that is the way of these fel- lows that really amount to anything. They start at the bottom and climb up. The domination of trusts and combines does not seem to interfere with their suc- cess.
 ~na4 fe 4l,o &f,t, to thinking. You hear the young men of to- day standing about on one foot complain- ing that there is no chance for them in this day of corporation control, that the big trusts have closed the door of hope to the ambitious young man of the twentieth century.
 The door of hope is closed to tha: young man but he closes it himself. No man ever heard Charlie Markham com plain that the world held out no chance for him. He set his eye on the big job and the big salary envelopes in the big corporations and went after them. He knew that the men who held these places would die some day and somebody must fill their places. He went in training for l enc of the places and it was as natural for him to land as it is for the son of suffragette to talk
 Before the days of the trusts and the combines a man had to open his own grocery store or blacksmith shop and de- pend on his own business management to make living for his wife and kiddos. He had to suffer against the day of ac- count maturities and business fuctua- | tions.
 But the new order changed this. He can now get good salary from the trust and while the directors look after the finances and the placing of future orders he can sit snug in his position and con template the beauty of his pay envelope which is as regular as the spots on the calendar But he must be the man for the place.
 The trust has done two mighty good things. It demands ability and pays good salaries.
 Charlie Markham is only one of the
 
 their opportunity in the new business sys- tenn. The high positions like the one he holds are always drawn by men who come up from the common people, young men of the Twentieth century who sle afraid to work and believe in them- selves.
 "The boy who is born in the city. with a silver spoon in his mouth and has ease and promise thrust upon him has but lit- tie chance, and he had no better chance under the old system when the business Of the country was in the hands of in- dividuals and there was a general scram. ble for existence. (Now mind you, Percy am not defending the trusts. I am only digesting a condition.)
 T am arguing only that trust condi- tions do not close the door of oppor- unity to the young man, however poo, he may be. The tow-headed barefootec Eill boy of today who may be backward in his lessons may be president of the Steel corporation or the New York Cen. tral railroad tomorrow.
 Look at c. w. Brown, president of the New York Central. He rides in a nalac, private car and does not care what hi. cigars cost. He began as a section hant and worked hard. But he had his eve or the Door of Hope:' He did not complalr that the world held out no opportunity fo the young man of his day. He knev the orchard was full of fine, lucious plum and he went after some of them He 20 what he wanted, perhaps more. but all h. got is due directly to his own individua efforts
 You may analyze the whole lis through the Steel corporation, the Oi trust, the railroads, the big banks am every other big industrial line in the coun try and you will find that poor boy have fought their way to the high places They have the brains and the training
 You may take it in smaller affair at home. You will find men like Georg Gordon Crawford, Mayor Culpeppe Exum, w. P. G. Harding, w. w. Crav ford, A. H. Ford and the entire bunc of men that are really making the mod X ern Birmingham, began at the har, bottom and have worked their way II ! 1 through tortuous struggles to the top Q near the top. Some of these have not yc reached the limit but they are on tn way. Study their lives and you will fin them all alike.
 "I tell you, Percy, there was never time in the history of the world whe
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