The courier-index., 1920-04-16
GOING UP? ,u Richard Cnillanl

NeW OTh recently IO see the man who is head of one of the greatest railroads in the world and repre- sentative of John D. Rockefeller's big interest in transportation lines.
 Where were you at twenty?" the newspaper man asked.
 Telegraph operator at a way station on a railroad in Arkansas was the reply.
 Where did you begin?" the greatest publisher in America, if not the world, was asked.
 At twelve years of age, with capital of three cents,' was the answer.
 Are the opportunities today as good as days gone by? Assuredly. There never was greater opportuni- ty. From out of the ranks of the office boys, the clerks, the railroad employees, the rodmen, the students, the shopmen, the factory workers, the salesmen of today, will come the great captains of tomorrow.
 The opportunity is bigger today because the active, the enterprising, the alert and the capable stand out in vivd contrast at a time when there is so much inclination to shirk and loaf on the job.
 The shirker gets nowhere. The worker climbs.
 One of the partners of the bank ing house of J. P. Morgan & Go. was a reporter in New York getting $50 week twenty years ago.
 The ahead of the biggest life in- surance company in the world was small-town school teacher when he was twenty. Before that he worked on a farm.
 Frederick Underwood, president of the Erie Railroad was a brake man.
 The president of the Fidelity Mu- tual Life Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, started his business career as errand boy for John Wan amaker at $1 week.
 Thimas A. Edison was a "traia butcher," selling candy, cakes, and such things to railroad travellers.
 The mayor of New York was a locomotive fireman.
 The greatest retail merchant the world ever has known and who died leaving s65,O0O,OOO was hired hand in country store.
 John Carty, one of the principal administrative officers of the Amer ican Telephone and Telegraph Co.,, rose from a $5 week job in the company's Boston office.
 D. c. Jackling, the biggest figure in copper mining in America, was a farm in hand in St. Clair county, Missouri, and got his start educa- tlonally by studying at night by candle light in the attic of the rude shack he called ''home."
 Michael Idvorsky, who developed the long distance telephone, was porter in a New York store. Be- fore that he was farm hand.
 George M. Reynolds, president of the Continental and Commercial Bank, of Chicago, the largest fl- nancial institution outside of New York, started as an office boy for a concern in Panora, Iowa.
 A list like this could be contin- ued until columns were filled.
 The foregoing has been suggested by bit of stuff that came floating in from Armour & Co.,, which shows how nearly all the men in that mon ster organization rose from small jobs in the Armour plant. For in- stance:
 Arthur Meeker, vice-president, started at the bill desk. So did Everett Wilson, superintendent of branch houses, and Frank w. Wad- dell, head of the provision depart ment.
 F. Edson White, vice-president, spent his first years with the com pany as clerk.
 F.. A. Valentine, vice-president and head of the soap works, made his start as a salesman.
 Robert J. Dunham, vice president, began as a clerk, and Frederick w. Croll, vice president and treasurer, as assistant to the paymaster.
 Charles H. Mcdowell, president of the Armour fertilizer works, en- tered the employ of the company as stenographer.
 George B. Robbins, vice president, was clerk in the transportation department
 John E. O'Hern went to Chicago years ago looking for a job and found one in the Armour oleomargarine department at $1.75 a day. Today he is general super of sixteen Armour plants.
 Myrick D. Harding, general su- perintendent of the Chicago plant, who directs the work of 16,000 men, started with the company as mes senger at $3 week.
 Fred c. Shaw, division superin tendent of the Chicago plants, start ed as a bookkeeper.
 A. P. Penson, head of the canning sits today at desk 100 feet from the table at which, as boy of IA, he worked for $3.50 a week.
 Charles Eikel, general superin tendent of the St. Paul plant, start ed with the company as an office boy.
 Would these men have had their fine positions today had they been and clock watchers?
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