The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-07-10
Opportunity in Real Life.

| Editor Muscular:
Editorially your paper of even date
comments:
While the l. w. VS. are running
about. the northwest telling the busy
workers in the woods and mills that
nobody has a chance to live and that
| the country is going to the dogs. We
| cite the case of Charles A. GOodnow Of
Evanston, Illinois. At the age of Is Mr..
Goodnow was a telegraph operator on
an eastern railroad. Later he became a
train dispatcher later superintend-
ent and a general manager Only the
other day he was elected vice president
of the Chicago, Milwaukee and st. Paul
railroad. Small boys who have great
ambition should study the career of Mr..
Goodnow and then they will know
| why the |. w. w. blow pipes are fail
ures."
In this case l hold no brief for the
| !. w. W.. but indeed it must be very
Iconsoiing to the man with the pick
| and shovel to know that by a little ef-
, fort he can become president of the
| railroad for which he works: to the
| humble clerk that he become owner of
the store in which he now merely
wraps up sugar and tea for the custo-
| mer on the opposite side of the count
! cr: TO the ordinary ranch hand that by
putting the spur to his ambition he can
be the proprietor Of a large estate; to
| the boy that sells the newspaper that
by using his voice a little more and
crying out the headlines just little
louder, he can some day be the wise
mind that directs the public opinion
and his learned hand the one that
leaves the literary gems for the future
generations to ponder over.
| According to the popular conception
of what constitutes success and what
constitutes failure in life. we must
always have a. very noticeable amount
of the latter. 1t is wrong to teach a
l,boy in school that everyone can be
great. 1t may be all right to teach him
to be ambitious and to emulate the
example of men both good and great
| but to tell him that all he had to dc
| is strive and wealth and fame are his
| is as bad and as wrong as to tell hin
! ghost stories to brighten his young
| mind.
| For every instance and every sue
cess like Mr.. Goodnow you have q
| tHoNSaHu INSTANCES lIl.Ll iHlITeSS you
| that there are two sides to every story
Lincoln, although he labored to ac-
compish great ends, was an accident
| For every time YOU point out an hum
BILE railsplitter that was president Of
his country. You can easily point out 6
thousand that died thinking OF what 6
| meteoric career was that of Nancy
Hanks son. For every time you find /;
Napoleon you find n thousand othel
Corscans whose greatest satisfactio,
was admiring the career of Ajaccio':
favored Little Corporal.
1t is certainly not right to take thu
minds of children and feed them wit!
poisonous mental pap. TO take thu
isolated career of Goodnow and tell
ing boys and girls that it is common
place is like wrapping limburge
cheese in the folds of lavender to xii
an offensive smell.
| At the same time it is not to be for
gotten that many n man could hav
been a success instead of a failure an,
in this of course will support in wa,
your contention that the smell of :
skunk remains the same though
sprinkled with otter of roses.
Very truly yours,
J. II. ST. CLAIR.
Missoula, July s. 1917.