The Washington herald., 1916-10-27
The Curse of the ''Soft Snap"
By ORIsoN SWEET MARDEN,

What, make that little fellow a captainl" was
the disparaging comment of an English naval Of
fcer when it proposed to place young Mel
son, physically almost dwarf, in command of a
ship.
The remark stung Nelson to the quick, and he
never quite forgot it. But it did more than hurt
the sensitive young sailor. 1t made him resolve
then and there to redeem himself from his handi-
cap and make himself felt in the world. Little
felloww he would say to himself. This little
fellow will yet be the biggest in the Kings
navy!
If nature had favored Nelson with tall, hand
some form, he might not have become one of the
greatest sea fighters in history.
The desperate struggle to do something worth
while in spite of handicaps or obstacles is the
very thing that often drives people to develop the
latent power which makes them conspcuously
successful Without this struggle, many famous
men and women would never have discovered
their real selves
| always feel sorry for a young man who is
looking for easy job" or who falls into a
soft snap" because l know the chances are that
he will never reach his highest possibility, that
the biggest thing in him will never come out,
certainly not while he remains in his soft snap.
Beware of the soft snap. 1t does not make
real men. There is nothing that will dampen
quickly as to fall into a soft snap, a position
which pays fairly we'll at the start and requires
comparatively little effort.
Leaders of men are not developed in such po-
stons because they do not get the discipline, the
training which begets success stamina, the sort OF
| fiber that stands great strain
| There are many government positions which
pay pretty good salaries and require very little
work. They practically sinecures-watchng
others work, supervision, something that puts no
strain mind or body. The men who have
these soft snaps are selected for important
places. Policemen who are assigned to duty in
! hotels and public places the ones who
are advanced. Fremen who simply stand around
| in theaters to see that the aisles are kept clear
and that the fire laws not violated never be-
come FIRE chiefs.
| If Lincoln had succeeded in getting a position
which he tried hard to get, in the civil service
department at Washington, history would proba-
| bly, never have mentioned his name To youth
who had been accustomed to the humblest sort
! OF hard work-splitting rails, chopping wood
tending a little country store etc.-a, dignifed
position in the great United States government
would have looked pretty big, and he might have
kept the soft snap until he had dwarfed the giant
If Charles Schwab had got a soft snap in a
government department at Washington when he
was driving stage coach in Lorette, the proba
bilities are that he would never have become the
greatest living steel manufacturer, perhaps the
greatest the world has seen
know young men OF brilliant possibilities
whose futures are being strangled by soft snaps ir
Washington. Eight hundred, two thousand
twenty-five hundred dollar positions look very al
lurng to poor country youths who are fighting
their way against poverty and hard conditions
| But any young man who has got stuff in him tc
do worthwhile things is unfortunate if he drop.
INTO soft snap which may paralyze his develop
ment, stunt his growth, and wreck his create,
possibilities.
1t is the hard workers, it is those who are
standing the strain, who arc fighting at the from
IN the firing line, who advance 1t is in the thicl
OF the fight that the stuff leaders are made of i
developed