Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-22
By HOWARD WHITMAN

have defined success 20, 30, 40
years ago are gone, and no new
ones yet have come along.
In our parents day success was
clear, simple, clean-cut; it was
delineated with comforting
authority in the Horatio Alger
stories and in the success fiction
which was a regular monthly Of
fering of the old and now de-
funct American Magazine.
But in our generation-who
knows what success is? The old
pattern has gone out with the
bowler hat; what is the new
one?
Is it the Texas millionaire? We
joke about those fellows. re-
cognize them as mutations
sports in the national biology
like five-legged calves on the
farm. We don't aspire. or inspire
our children toward that kind OF
success Though if it comes along
by accident, okay).
1t is the top executive? Oh no
we've seen his ulcers through
the wide-screen Horoscope Gre
member Executive Suite"D; il
that's success, we'll take vanilla
Is it the celebrity? Not in the
day of television-most of the
celebrities we once worshiped
from afar can be seen in our
own living rooms any evening
peddling nail polish, beer, or
deodorant.
Is it the professor, the learned
man? Afraid not; instead of the
respect implied in the old Ger
man Herr Doktor we're likely to
look on the scholar as a long
hair" or, worse. an "egghead."
Is it the public official? Not in
this age of publicity; we're likely
to send him home from Wash
ington embalmed in headlines.
No One Fits
No one fits the pattern, for
the very good reason that there
isn't any pattern.
We see, these days, a gnawing
diSilluSionment with success.
Men and women we imagine
should be redolent with the Joy
of it instead take their success
to the psychiatrist and ask him
to analyze it for them before
they go crazy. For every sleeping
pill which is sold for the fail
llres of our world thousand
sleeping pills are sold to the
successful.
Successful people pack the no.
tells of Las Vegas and their ner-
yous fingers rifle the stacks of
silver dollars at the gaming
tables while they wait for their
divorces. Even in the solid sub
urbs commuters with pain back
OF their eyes and occasional
night migraines wonder if that
great, great wonderful struggle,
that awful struggle is really
worth it.
What Is Success?
Our old frame of references is
gone; we have no new one yet.
What is success? Whom should
we succeed for? Who is a sue
cess?
The violinist Nathan Mil
stein, upon completing Is splen-
did years with the New York
Philharmonic Symphony early
in 1855, was asked if he felt
successful. He replied:
Success? What is that? What
does it mean? In the stock mar
ket 1t means that you buy for
10 and sell for 20. In painting it
means that there is purchase
Of picture. But in music, who
knows? If one persons says
that you are wonderful and an
other says that you are terrible
how can you be both at the
same time? Every artist is much
more upset by one criticism than
by thousand praises. Why? Be-
cause you are never sure of sue
cess--you never know exactly
what it is.
Isn't it strange that so many
OF US should be in pursuit of
something vet not know what?
II recalls the remark of Walter
Davenport when he was editor of
Golfers: IAN editor is a someone
who knows what he wants but
doesn't know what it is"
Sometimes a game soul among
US ventures to set forth exactly
what he is striving for, precisely
what he considers success. Carl
Sandburg did it recently. He said
ne wanted four things out of life:
70 De out of Jail, to eat regular. :"
to have his writings printed, and
TO have a little love at home and
on the outside.
Perhaps these are as good goals
as any: I'm sure they are exactly
right for Sandburg. For someone
else? For you or me? That's
another question.
Why UnhappineSs
Why has success become so
widely identified with unhappi-
ness? In this cropping period. this
lnteregnum between the sway of
Horatio Alger and whatever
monarch of success is next to be-
enthroned, we have come to ac-
cept the fact that many success
ful people. perhaps most of them.
are unhappy. They are disillu-
stoned, liberated. slaves to bar
blturates, divorced or separated:
they smoke too much. sleep badly
are suspicious of their friends:
they are fearful lest they fall
from their pinnacle whatever III
isl, in dread Of growing older
in short. they are successful.
miserably so.
A man may be festooned with
the whole haberdashery of sue
cess, and go to his grave a casta-
way. wrote Rudyard Kipling
Haven't you known someone who
fits Kiplings line? For. indeed.