The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1920-11-26
Long Hours Held
Necessary to Make
Ambitious ARRIVE
By B. C. Forbes

very long hours, or have they their
affairs so well organized and system
affixed that they can quit at half-past
or in the afternoon, forget all
about business until or 10 o'clock
next morning, and then go off for gen
erous week ends?
l have been asked to answer these
questions.
Nature hates uniformity. No two
human beings of all the 1888, 10000
in the world are exactly alike, either
physically or mentally. In the same
way, no two conspicuously successful
business men work alike. Some toll
early and late, with rarely a respite.
Others, equally as successful, work
comparatively few hours and take fire.
quent vacations. Yet at least one de-
duction may be made after close study
of the careers of a hundred financial,
industrial and mercantile leaders.
Daniel Guggenheim, head of the
enormously wealthy Guggenheim fam
lily of mining and smelling fame, once
declared emphatically to me: "rhe
man who works twelve months a year
works only six. 1t is the man who
works perhaps ten months who works
twelve" Charles B. Sabin, who has
built up the greatest trust company in
the world, finds that he also can ac-
complish most by working short hours
and darting off frequently for golf or
polo or some other form of recreation.
This system enables Mr. Sabin to get
through staggering amount of work
and serves to keep his brain always
clear. Judge Gary, head of the largest
industrial enterprise in the world,
does not arrive very early at his Office
and he leaves generally between A and
5. Every year, also, he takes at least
one long vacation, usually visiting
foreign countries. Yet, no man in
America handles more matters of gi-
gantic importance. He is never hur.
ried, never flurried. System" is the
explanation.
Thomas e. Mitten, the wonder-work-
ing head of the Philadelphia Rapid
Transit Company, always appears to
have abundance of time to take up any
matter, yet he finishes work quite
early. In his case, however, the secret
is that he is at his desk promptly
every morning at 4 o'clock, so that by
the time other business men begin to
move around, he has broken the back
of his days duties. Theodore N. Vail,
the man who gave America more tele-
phones than all the rest of the world
combined, did not work long hours and
often scampered off to his Vermont
farm. 1t was said of him, however,
that he could in five minutes give a
subordinate enough work to keep him
going five weeks. His mind worked
as swiftly as lightning. 1t should be
added, however, that Mr.. Vail spent a
great many of his away-from-office
hours reading and studying problems
incidental to his business.
George Edward Smith, dynamic
head of one of the large typewriting
companies, works relatively few hours
and plays a great deal Nevertheless,
he has made such a notable record
that he is in keen demand as a direc-
tor and factotum in other important
enterprises-and finds time to attend
to the duties. John D. Rockefeller
once told me that the popular notion
that he toiled like a galley-slave was
all wrong. He added: "The fact is,
stayed away from my Office so long
and spent so much time transplanting
trees and enjoying myself about my
home, that I sometimes felt that !
was Stacker"
The list of leaders who work long
| hours is, however, much longer than
the list of those who work short hours
The president of the United States
Steel Corporation, for example, is up
and at it early every morning, keeps
his nose to the .grindstone all day, and
usually takes home pile of work to
do at night. In this way James A.
Farrell has earned the reputation of
knowing more of the details of his
vast enterprise than the head of any
other huge corporation. Frank A. Van
derlip. for years president of the larg-
est bank in America, also found it
necessary to work like Trojan from
about to between and 6, and to
spend many evenings wrestling with
problems requiring undisturbed con-
centration such as was impossible
during the hurly-burly of the Wall