The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1921-01-23

grave, and pass across the dark waters years
before they would have heard Charon's call
had they have continued the use of the tai
ents with which the Divine Father endowed
them.
Overwork, worry trouble, nervousness,
rrtability will materially shorten the lives
OF the strongest, both physically and men,
tally. But idleness, especially an idleness
indulged in after a life of thriftiness and at
tainment of ambitions, is a corroding element
which eats into the vitals and kills, just as
surely as rust eats into and renders worthless
the flues of an unused boiler or the finest
steel Of Damascus, when the blade hangs un-
cared for upon the wall.
The American people are a people Of
thrift of energy, Of industry, Of perseverance.
The blood of the adventures of three, four
tlVe-even six centuries ago, course through
the veins of the average citizen of the United
States The people who populate our cities,
the ones who cultivate our farms, are de-
scendants of the men and women who first
came to the Western World. and who, through
perseverance and indomitable WILL carved an
empire out of chaos, while, actuated by an
inborn thrift they amassed completeness and
laid up fortunes.
Being such people, Americans, as whole
do not belong to the class which can be
content to sit idly down when they reach
middle life, toying with benumbed fingers
the hourgass, as they indolently watch their
life's sand trickle to oblivion.
Thrift and industry are inborn attributes
of the American. And no matter if the indi-
vidual of this nationality be a man who has
been buffeted by an unkind fate and forced
thereby, to toll on through his twilight years,
or man who has basked in the smiles of a
kinder fortune, and whose declining years
may, therefore be spent less strenuously, the
same rule applies, the rule which proves the
Great Reaper will gather to his fathers later
in life the man whose blood is quickened each
day with the desire to do something, with the
determination to die in the harness.
The man, rich or poor who feels that he
has reached the point in life where he may
retire the point at which he may cease work
ing and sit beneath the tree of idleness, and
who does retire and folds his hands in use
lessness, signs his own death warrant when
he writes "Finis" at the close of Activity's
chapter, seals his own doom when he closes
and locks his desk, and sounds his own fu-
that thrift spirit which made the realization
of his earlier ambitions possible.
The old adage which advises, "Never say
die might well be changed and revamped
to read, Never quit" Never quit working,
never quit endeavoring to achieve some laud-
able end never quit the activities of useful
life, never forget that thrift is the keynote
of success and that honest effort consistently
applied prolongs life and engenders happi-
ness.
1t has been written that the idle brain is
the devils workshop. To this might well be
added that idle hands, hands idle after years
of useful work, are the maidens attendant
upon the bridegroom, Death.
In conclusion, to all who may ask when
shall an active man retire." we would say,
When he folds the draperes of his couch
about him and sinks into quiet repose, with
the smile of peace upon his lips as his dying
ears hear angel voices whispering We'll
done, good and faithful servant enter upon
the joys of thy reward"