Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-01
THE FACTOR OF SUCCESS
Continued from page 4

OS''"''"~~
inventor of the tool actually lost his home,
it was sold over his head to satisfy his credi-
tors! And what might not have happened
had luck been there?
SOMEONE might say, after reading the
- foregoing, that the Western physicians
did not study their market before they
f1oated their device, that they did not
make enough investigation of existing con-
ditions to learn whether their patented
affair was one that artisans would accept.
Assume that to be true, and disregard the
enthusiasm of the manufacturers agent, the
street workman, and the statesmen, does it
follow that careful survey of the field and
the brightest of reports upon it are letters
IN the spelling of success?
Turn to the case of one man who was in
business in large city on the Atlantic sea-
board. He bethought him of a new idea in
the manufacture of hitching weights for
horses. To be truthful, it was not horse
blocks he intended making, but an article
of invariable use in building construction.
However, we'll use horse blocks for the
theme. His idea was to make them out of
Stag; but before undertaking the manufac-
ture of them he spent more than a year
studying the hitching- weight field. He went
as far as the horizon and learned absolutely
everything there was to be known about
them. He became the worlds expert on
hitching weights. He could have written
two volumes upon them. His studies proved
to him that existing horse-weight practice
was all wrong. They were not standardized
at all, and they were far too expensive. His
weight, made of Stag, one of the cheapest of
materials, was really the only proper kind
to attach to a self-respecting horse, however
restless it might be.
He did not learn all this in moment. 1t
took him months and months, and it is not
at all unlikely that he investigated foreign
conditions, because what was best for horses
in this country would Individually be best
for horses of ether tongues. In brief, what
he didn't know about this particular kind of
weight could have been written in capitals
on the point of needle. He went so far as
to negotiate with certain iron firms for the
Stag from their furnaces. He was going to
take the horse-weight world by storm and
show it thing or two, he, the supreme liv
ing human authority on the subject.
Now, there is no question whatever that
this man had new and valuable idea in his
head. His horse weight was good thing
everyone told him that at the outset of his
educational course. But did he 60 ahead
with the manufacture of the weights? Not a
bit of it! He only studied them, and so far
as it has been possible to learn he never put
them on the market. "A corporation direc-
tory that not long ago listed his firm ap-
pended to its name the announcement "out
of business And here endeth the chapter
on horse weights. 1t may or may not have
any connection with "luck"; but it shows
what was achieved by man who had the
"bug" for field exploration.
nNE might continue to cite instances
~ there must be hundreds upon hundreds
of them-of the curious Vaccinations of
the Fairy Godmother. She is always about
us. Some of us she selects, many of us she
ignores.
One might cite, for example, the case of
the man who had new idea in photograph
films and begged his mother and his brother
to lend him eight hundred dollars only
eight hundred, mind you!-with which to
meet his payroll. Both refused-and today
this man is at the head of one of the greatest
camera and photograph supply concerns in
the world. If the Fairy Godmother had
been present that day in the interest of either
the mother or the brother, she would have
counseled the loan of eight hundred dollars;
L. 4 L Il. IL