Evening star., 1925-10-27

There was much discussion of the
secret of success at the little table in
the Old Bar.
Ned Forsooth. who was looked upon
as an authority. for he had once
turned down an offer of Il $4,000 JOB,
was expounding the law.
The real secret of success" he told
the three others at the table, lis to be
verlastingly and eternally at it. You
can't succeed unless you work"
Il believe | have heard that before,
Ned" smiled Templeton Jones, suave.
immaculate in his light gray suit, idly
playing with his fork.
Yes" returned the portly Forsooth.
II imagine Benjamin Franklin said
something to that effect, as well as
his well remembered admonitions to
save the pennies.
But the fact remains that it is i'm
possible to achieve real success in this
day and age unless you can put in
lot of time at it. OF course, l am
leaving out the flukes. There are al
ways some of them around.
You can no more account for
freak success than you can for
freak land boom. They just are, and
that is all there is to 1t. For the vast
majority of men, however, success
does not come so easy.
work hard. Take my friend, Bobbie
Doolittle. Some of you know him. lie
has no particular gift. aside from
plenty Of good horse sense. but he has
vigor plus.
"Ie uses his brawn to get triple
expenditure from his brain, and with
very good results. He can do more
work than the average two men, and
therefore he is getting some place. lie
is a worker.
Sam Pembroke. little man Of pene-
trating eyes. lighted a cigarette be
fore he launched himself into the
conversation.
Ned, YOU talk like a commence
ment orator" he smiled That's the
sort Of stuff they hand the school
children at the end of the year. a
man of achievement is called upon
to deliver the commencement ora
ton. He asks himself, Now, what on
earth shall | tell them He muses.
over this at odd moments, but, no
matter how much he thinks about it,
or who he is. he Will end up by aris-
ing on the platform and declaring,
The secret of success, my dear chill
dren, is to work hard! Then he will
string out a list of eminent men who
succeeded and who did work hard"
Ned Forsooth made no reply. but
smoked placidly away. Jones, and
Elliott, the fourth man at the table.
smiled encouraginGly at Sam. The
latter puffed away at his cigarette.
then went on:
NO, the secret of success is not
summed up so easily. There are
many men plugging away who never
regard themselves as real successes,
and no one else does, either. There
is no such universal rule OF success
as just TO work hard. II plays its
part, OF course. there is no doubt
about that, especially when d man is
no genius.
IF you can do something that no
one else can do. or can write n real
song. or elaborate :: real sure fire
novel, that compels publishers and
people TO read 1t. You can succeed in
defiance of all the rules We are talk
ing about the average run of men,
believe.
Every city You 90 into can show
you hundreds OF men, grouped now
in luncheon clubs, who are rated sue
cesses. both by themselves and by
those who know them. We are not
going into an exhaustive discussion
of success, what 1t is, and how you
can attain it, but our idea was, as /
remember, to try to figure out how
the average man secures it. Isn't
that right"
The other three nodded.
We'll, then. hold up proper pub
licity as one of the great secrets
You can't get anywhere in this mod
ern day and age without proper pub
licity. The press agent has come into