The Washington herald., 1917-06-12

could translate ideas into action. Then
! they chose another man past fifty and
gave him powers almost unlimited. for
his head was full of ideas waiting to
| be transferred into matter-of-fact or
ders, drastic methods of work and un-
. heard-of innovations.
! What gives ideas? Experience and
| ina agination.
What puts ideas into practical
shape? Skill and experience.
Given a high Cegree OF intelligence
the older a man grows the more he
Will learn. A young man with great
vigor and no inventive talent, is, af-
ter all. only Mt for ordinary work. The
English being a practical people. Glad
time when he was in his eightieth
year. and coming down to the present,
Winston Churchill. the youngest mem
ber of the British cabinet at the out
break of the war, was the one who
MADE the most costly blunders and
was forced to retire.
man with youthful thoughts will
continue to invent and create no mat
ter what his age may be.
1t Is not the guns and gas that win
battles, but how these are directed.
In the office sits the clear seer who
has conceived the idea, and concocted
the plans; he has not cried out his
intentions from the house-tops. For
the man Of ideas is given to silence.
This ls why men with big brains are
sometimes taken for dullards, and
men with creative ina gina ton are Of
ten considered strange and eccentric.
One man with a clear idea is worth
more than a. hundred with mere no.
tions.
Clear thinking means clear seeing,
While guessers lose time in trying
| and fumbling, the men with the mas
teTythnunhf have fr1a ~
the needful thing in the storehouse OF
imagination. When the hour for ac-
tlon arrives all the parts are put to-
gether without needless waste OF time
and without any confusion.
The men with ideas are never in a
Notions and fancies are manufac-
tured by thousands who are in a hur-
fy to win out and quit the scene of
competition. but the clear thinkers
Know too much to be hurried, worried
or wasteful
america has always led the world in
constructive mechanical genius. We
shall now be called on to lead in ap-
other Inc of invention-constructi
IDEAS for political, social, and civic
achievement.
In the big world of politics ideas
world of commerce. The same mental
law governs both. 1t is the man who
can predict the action and reaction
OF individuals and parties that wins
in the long run. While lesser minds
grcpe their way among groups, he
grips the facts by the fore-lock, dis
| counts time with a calculating-ma-
chine of his own invention, masses
the collective mind as general
masses his troups and out-maneuvers
the sectional leaders OF parties who
depend on vague promises to fill the
place of principles.
This country will be expected to
meet conditions such as the world
has not known since the beginning of
the thing we call civilization.
Progressive minds in Europe are
looking to America for the fitting
ideas, the perfected plans, for the re-
constructive period now at hard The
old systems and theories will no longer
fit the new conditions, either for this
or for any European country. The
changes are rapid for the reason that
the time Is ripe and the iron is hot
for the master strokes to re-shape the
order Of the world on the anvil Of
destiny.