Intermountain Jewish news., 1926-09-09

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Successful young plan."-THE EDr
Americas Most Successful Young Man
An important German publication
cabled me as follows, the other day
Kindly send story on most success
full young man in America. Do no
select son of wealth parents who in
herited wealth or social connections"
Strange as it may seem, this order
developed into a tremendous task
America, the land of impossible pos
sibilities. has few young men who
can qualify under that heading. After
investigations and most thorough in
quiries, | discovered that the famous
self-made man is dying out. or rather
that success in America does not come
any more overnight. American brsi-
ness today requires long apprentice
ship, and if you start with empty
hands it takes years, the best years Of
ones life to reach the real success
stage.
OF course, there are professional
athletes or actors who gain fortune
and glory at the very beginning OF
their lives, but in the world of hard
business such cases are few. The up
the-ladder stories are fiction in many
cases. If you investigate conscien-
tiously, you often discover that the
successful man is merely a straw nnn
for some powerful financial corpora
ton.
Time passed and the cable from
Germany was still on my desk unan-
swered. But Germans are very in
sistant, and l was reminded every
few weeks that the successful youth
of America was wanted.
Irving G. ThalberE. Prodigy
l was on the verge Of declaring my
inability to fill the request when
stumbled across the name of Irving
G Thalberg, and soon realized that
had discovered Americas business
prodigy. The report sent to Ger
many is dry, mattter-of-fact state
ment, relating the career of the q
year old Jewish boy who today hold.
one of the most important position!
in one of the five leading industries Of
America. Without an attempt at ro
manticising, | herewith give the life
story Of Americas youngest real sue
cess.
irving Grand Thalberg, born ir
Brooklyn on May 80, 1900, attended
public school, and then graduated tC
the Boys High School. Then he fel
i'll. Eight months he fought sickness
six of them in bed. The illness was
perhaps planned for him by the Fates
1t gave his brain exercise. He read
Bacon, Kant, Epictetus, Henry James
Thalberg began work in big
Brooklyn store. He taught himself
typewriting, wrote ads and attended a
private commercial school at night te
learn shorthand and Spanish. In -four
months he could take dictation from a
machine gun, and his Spanish became
fairly fluent.
Then Thalberg put the following ac
in the Journal of Commerce:
Situation wanted: Secretary, stem
ographer, Spanish, English, high
school education, inexperienced,
SIS.
That was in November, 1917.
There were four answers. Thalbere
wanted job that would break hi:
neck and wrench his brain. He triec
a small trading outfit and was ac
cOmmodated. His hours were from
$3.50 a. m. until $3.50 p. m.
Meets Laemmle
His next position was as a stcno
grapher with some export people. AT
ter year, Thalberg was assistan
manager of the export department
He felt that he had gone as fas as h
could and resigned, going to hi
grandmother's cottage at Edgemere
L. l., for a rest. Carl Laemmle, tn
great movie man, with his son an,
daughter, lived next door. Thalber,
met him on the boardwalk and recog
nized in the little giant of the screel
a man from whom he could lear
much. Carl Laemmle, famous for hi
ability to pick winners, recognized il
Thalberg young man worth teach
ing. He offered Thalberg a job. |
came too easy. Thalberg politel
ovaded the point; probably the onl
man in the world who talked to Car
Laemmlc for FIVE minutes without ask
ing for something.
Thalbcrg went back to New YORK
He walked up to the peninsula tina
juts into Broadway at 56th street
The Mecca building housing the cxecu
tive Offices Of Universal looms hig
over triangle of two-story struc