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👁 :70
WHO THE REAL LEADERS ARE
Catagory:Education
Author:Russell H. Conwell
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Among all of you who read this book I am looking for the kings and queens. I am looking for the successful men and women of the future. No matter how old you may be, you yet have life before you. I am looking for the leading men and women, and I will find them with these four tests. I cannot fail; it is infallible. Some men, intensely American, will say: "Oh, we don't have any kings or queens in this country." Did you ever observe that America is ruled by the least number of people of any nation known on earth? And that same small number will rule it when we add all the women, as we soon shall, to the voting population. America is ruled by a very few kings and queens. The reason why we are ruled by so few is because our people are generally intelligent. "Oh," you will ask, "do you mean the political boss rule?" Yes. That[Pg 12] is not a good word to use, because it is misleading. America is ruled by bosses, anyhow, and it will be so long as we are a free people. We do not approve of certain phases of boss rule, and so don't misunderstand me when I state that a very few persons govern the American people. In my home city, Philadelphia, for instance, nearly two millions of people are ruled by four or five men. It will always be so. Everything depends on whether those four or five men are fitted for the place of leaders or not. If they are wise men and good men, then that is the best kind of government. There is no doubt about it. If all the eighty or ninety millions of people in the United States were compelled to vote on every little thing that was done by the Government, you would be a long time getting around to any reform. An intelligent farmer would build a house. Will he, as a farmer, go to work and cut out that lumber himself, plane it himself, shape it himself? Will he be the architect of the house, drive all the nails, put on the shingles, and build the chimney himself? If he is an intelligent man he will hire a carpenter, an architect, and a mason who understand their business, and tell them to oversee that work for him. In an intelligent country we[Pg 13] can hire men who understand statesmanship, law, social economics, who love justice. We hire them as skilled people to do what we are not able to do. Why should all the people be all the time meddling with something they don't understand? They employ people who do understand it, and consequently, in a free nation a few specially fitted people will ever be allowed to guide. They will be the people who know better than we know what to do under difficult or important circumstances. You are ruled by a few people, and I am looking for these few people among my readers. There are some women in this country who now have more influence than any known statesman, and their names are hardly mentioned in the newspapers. I remember once, in the days of Queen Victoria, asking a college class, "Who rules England?" Of course, they said, "Queen Victoria." Did Queen Victoria rule England? During her nominal reign England was the freest land on the face of the earth, and America not half as free if you go to the extremes of comparison. She was only a figurehead, and she would not even express an opinion on the Boer War. It was all left to the statesmen, who had really been selected by the Parliament to rule. They were the real rulers.[Pg 14] I am looking for the real kings, not the nominal ones, and I shall find the successful men and women of the future by the four tests mentioned in the old tradition of the Silver Crown. The first one is: "Animals will follow them." If a dog or cat tags your heels to-morrow remember what I am writing about it here. It is evidence of kingship or queenship. If you don't have a cat or dog or an ox or a horse to love you, then I pity you. I pity the animal the most, but you are also a subject of sympathy. Is there no lower animal that loves to hear your footstep, whines after your heels, or wags the tail or shakes the head at your door? Is there no cat that loves to see you come in when the house has been vacant? Is there no faithful dog that rises and barks with joy when he hears your key in the door? If you have none it is time you had one, because one of the important pathways to great success is along the line of what animal life can give to us of instruction and encouragement. The time has come when a dog ought to be worth at least a thousand dollars. The time has come when a horse that now trots a mile in 2:05 or 2:06 ought to trot a mile in fifty-five seconds. That is scientifically possible. Now, where are[Pg 15] your deacons and your elders and your class leaders that you haven't a horse in your city that will trot a mile in fifty-five seconds? "Oh," says some good, pious brother, "I don't pay any attention to trotting-horses! I am too religious to spend time over them." Is that so? Who made the trotting-horse? Who used the most picturesque language on the face of the earth, in the Book of Job, to describe him? Did you ever own a trotting-horse? Did you ever see a beautiful animal so well fed, so well cared for, trembling on that line with his mane shaking, his eyes flashing, his nostrils distended, and all his being alert for the leap? And did you hear the shot and see him go? If you did and didn't love him, you ought to be turned out of the church. The time has come when a horse may be as useful as a university. At Yale University, one day, I heard a professor of science tell those boys that a horse has within its body so much galvanic or electric force continually generated by the activities of life, that if that electricity could be concentrated and held to a certain point, a horse could stand still and run a forty-horse power electric engine. He went further than that and said that a man has within his living body sufficient continually generated[Pg 16] electricity which, if it were brought to a point, might enable him to stand still and run a ten-horsepower electric engine. I went out of that class-room with a sense of triumph, thinking: "There is going to be use, after all, for the loafers who stand on the corners and smoke!" In Europe, some years ago, a sewing-machine was invented on which a lady put her bare feet, and her electric forces started the machine. This power does not yet run the machine strong enough to force the needle for real sewing. The only question is to get more of the electricity of that lady through the machine and secure the greater power. Then if a young man wants a valuable wife he must marry one "full of lightning." The time is very near at hand when all the motive power of the world may be furnished by animal life. When they get one step further the greatest airships will go up and take with them a lap dog. The airship will require no coal, no oil, but just the electric force of that lap dog; and if they carry up enough to feed that dog he will furnish the power to run the motors. The great high seas of the air will be filled with machines run by lap dogs or the electricity of the aviator himself. It is not so far away as many of you[Pg 17] may suppose, and it is the greatly needed improvement of this time, not so much for the purpose of the war, as for peace. The time has come when an old hen may become a great instructor of the world. I would rather send my child to an old hen than to any professor I ever saw in my life. That old biddy which scratches around your door, or who cackles beside your fence, or picks off your flowers, knows more of some things than any scientific professor on the face of the earth. I wish I knew what that old hen does. But there are some professors who pretend to have a wonderful intellect, who say: "I graduated from Leipsic or from Oxford or Harvard, and I have no time to observe a hen." No time to notice a hen? My friend, did you ever try to talk with her? "No, I did not; she has no language." Didn't you ever hear her call the chickens and see them come? Didn't you ever hear her scold the rooster, and see him go? Well, a hen does have a real language, and it is time you scientific professors understood what that old biddy says. "Oh, but," says the professor, "I have no time to spend with a hen! They are around the place all the time, but I never take any special notice[Pg 18] of them. I am studying the greater things in the world." "Won't you come into my study a minute, professor, and let me examine you? You have examined the boys long enough, now let me examine you. "Bring all you know of science and all the scientific applications ever made, and all the instruments that are ever used, bring all that the world has ever discovered of chemistry. Come, and take in your hand a dove's egg, just the egg. Now, professor, will you tell the person who is reading this book where, in this egg, is now the beating heart of the future bird? Can you tell where it is?" "Oh no, I cannot tell that. I can tell you the chemistry of the egg." "No, I am not looking for that. I am looking for the design in the egg. I am looking for something more divinely mysterious than anything of chemistry. Now, professor, will you tell me where in that egg is the bony frame that next will appear?" "No, I cannot tell you that." "Where is the sheening bosom, and where the wings that shall welcome the sun in its coming?" "No man can tell that," says the professor.[Pg 19] The professor is quite right. It cannot yet be told. Yet, in that egg is the greatest scientific problem with which the world has ever grappled—the beginning of life and the God-given design. In that egg is the secret of life. Professor, tell me where this life begins. The professor says, "No man can answer questions like that." Then, until we can answer, we must take off our hats every time we meet a setting hen. For that old biddy knows by instinct more about it than any one of us. She knows directly, through her instinctive nature from God, something about the beginnings of life that we cannot understand yet. The last time I saw Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the grand poet of Massachusetts, he asked me to go out in his back yard and see his chickens. He told me they would answer to their names. But it turned out that they were like our children, and would not show off before company. But I haven't any doubt those little chickens still with the hen did answer to their individual names when she alone called them. I am sure that great man understood the hen and chickens as fully as Darwin did the doves. It was a wonderful thing for science that men like Holmes and Darwin could learn so much from[Pg 20] the hen. It reminds me of a current event in Doctor Holmes's own life, though the biographies do not seem to have taken notice of it. He and Mr. Longfellow were very intimate friends. They were ever joking each other like two boys, always at play whenever they met. One day, it is said, Doctor Holmes asked Mr. Longfellow to go down to Bridgewater, in Massachusetts, to a poultry show. He went; he was greatly interested in chickens. Those two great poets went down to the poultry show, and as they walked up the middle passageway between the exhibits of hens and chickens they came to a large poster on which was a picture of a rooster. He had his wings spread and mouth open, making a speech to a lot of little chickens. It was such a unique picture that Mr. Longfellow called Doctor Holmes's attention to it, and said: "There, you love chickens, you understand them. What do you suppose a rooster does say when he makes a speech to chickens like that?" They went on, and Doctor Holmes was studying over it. Finally he turned around and said, "Go on, I will catch up with you." He went back to that poster, got up on a chair, took the tacks out of the top, turned in the advertisement at the[Pg 21] top, above the picture, and then took his pencil and drew a line from the bill of the rooster that was making that speech up to the top. There he wrote what he thought that rooster was saying to those chickens. They say that he did not make a single correction in it, of line or word. He then went after Mr. Longfellow and brought the great poet back to see the poster. He had written these words, in imitation of Longfellow's "Psalm of Life":


Type:Education
👁 :63
EDUCATION
Catagory:Education
Author:Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

A great number of letters have reached me from young men who seem to think that the road to success is barred to them owing to defects in their education. To them I would send this message: Never believe that success cannot come your way because you have not been educated in the orthodox and regular fashion. The nineteenth century made a god of education, and its eminent men placed learning as the foremost influence in life. I am bold enough to dissent, if by education is meant a course of study imposed from without. Indeed, such a course may be a hindrance rather than a help to a man entering on a business career. No young man on the verge of life ought to be in the least discouraged by the fact that he is not stamped with the hall mark of Oxford or Cambridge. Possibly, indeed, he has escaped a grave danger; for if, in the impressionable period of youth, attention is given to one kind of knowledge, it may very likely be withdrawn from another. A life of sheltered study does not allow a boy to learn the hard facts of the world—and business is concerned with reality. The truth is that education is the fruit of temperament, not success the fruit of education. What a man draws into himself by his own natural volition is what counts, because it becomes a living part of himself. I will make one exception in my own case—the Shorter Catechism, which was acquired by compulsion and yet remains with me. My own education was of a most rudimentary description. It will be difficult for the modern English mind to grasp the parish of Newcastle, New Brunswick, in the 'eighties—sparse patches of cultivation surrounded by the virgin forest and broken by the rush of an immense river. For half the year the land is in the iron grip of snow and frost, and the Miramichi is frozen right down to its estuary—so that "the rain is turned to a white dust, and the sea to a great green stone." It was the seasons which decided my compulsory education. In the winter I attended school because it was warm inside, and in the summer I spent my time in the woods because it was warm outside. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of what self-education can do is to be found in the achievements of Mr. J. L. Garvin. He received no formal education at all in the public school or university sense, and he began to work for his living at an early age. Yet, not only is he, perhaps, the most eminent of living journalists, but his knowledge of books is, if not more profound than that of any other man in England, certainly wider in range, for it is not limited to any country or language. By his own unaided efforts he has gained not only knowledge, but style and judgment. To listen to his talk on literature is not merely to yield oneself to the spell of the magician, but to feel that the critic has got his estimate of values right. Reading, indeed, is the real source both of education and of style. Read what you like, not what somebody else tells you that you ought to like. That reading alone is valuable which becomes part of the reader's own mind and nature, and this can never be the case if the matter is not the result of self-selection, but forced on the student from outside. Read anything and read everything—just as a man with a sound digestion and a good appetite eats largely and indifferently of all that is set before him. The process of selection and rejection, or, in other words, of taste, will come best and naturally to any man who has the right kind of brains in his head. Some books he will throw away; others he will read over and over again. My education owes much to Scott and Stevenson, stealthily removed from my father's library and read in the hayloft when I should have been in school. As a partiality for the right kind of literature grows on a man he is unconsciously forming his mind and his taste and his style, and by a natural impulse and no forced growth the whole world of letters is his. There are, of course, in addition, certain special branches of education needing teaching which are of particular value to the business life. Foremost among these are mathematics and foreign languages. It is not suggested that a knowledge of the higher mathematics is essential to a successful career; none the less it is true that the type of mind which takes readily to mathematics is the kind which succeeds in the realm of industry and finance. One of the things I regret is that my business career was shaped on a continent which speaks one single language for commercial purposes from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico. Foreign languages are, therefore, a sealed book to me. But if a man can properly appraise the value of something he does not possess, I would place a knowledge of languages high in the list of acquirements making for success. But when all is said and done, the real education is the market-place of the street. There the study of character enables the boy of judgment to develop an unholy proficiency in estimating the value of the currency of the realm. Experiences teaches that no man ought to be downcast in setting out on the adventure of life by a lack of formal knowledge. The Lord Chancellor asked me the other day where I was going to educate one of my sons. When I replied that I had not thought about the matter, and did not care, he was unable to repress his horror. And yet the real reasons for such indifference are deep rooted in my mind. A boy is master, and the only master, of his fortune. If he wants to succeed in literature, he will read the classics until he obtains by what he draws into himself that kind of instinct which enables him to distinguish between good work and bad, just as the expert with his eyes shut knows the difference between a good and a bad cigar. Neither may be able to give any reason, for the verdict bases on subconscious knowledge, but each will be right when he says, "Here I have written well," or "Here I have smoked badly." The message, therefore, is one of encouragement to the young men of England who are determined to succeed in the affairs of the world, and yet have not been through the mill. The public schools turn out a type—the individual turns out himself. In the hour of action it is probable that the individual will defeat the type. Nothing is of advantage in style except reading for oneself. Nothing is of advantage in the art of learning to know a good cigar but the actual practice of smoking. Nothing is of advantage in business except going in young, liking the game, and buying one's experience. In a word, man is the creator and not the sport of his fate. He can triumph over his upbringing and, what is more, over himself.


Type:Education
👁 :73
LUCK
Catagory:Reading
Author:Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Some of the critics do not believe that the pinnacle of success stands only on the three pillars of Judgment, Industry, and Health. They point out that I have omitted one vital factor—Luck. So widespread is this belief, largely pagan in its origin, that mere fortune either makes or unmakes men, that it seems worth while to discuss and refute this dangerous delusion. Of course, if the doctrine merely means that men are the victims of circumstances and surroundings, it is a truism. It is luckier to be born heir to a peerage and £100,000 than to be born in Whitechapel. Past and present Chancellors of the Exchequer have gone far in removing much of this discrepancy in fortune. Again, a disaster which destroys a single individual may alter the whole course of a survivor's career. But the devotees of the Goddess of Luck do not mean this at all. They hold that some men are born lucky and others unlucky, as though some Fortune presided at their birth; and that, irrespective of all merits, success goes to those on whom Fortune smiles and defeat to those on whom she frowns. Or at least luck is regarded as a kind of attribute of a man like a capacity for arithmetic or games. This view is in essence the belief of the true gambler—not the man who backs his skill at cards, or his knowledge of racing against his rival—but who goes to the tables at Monte Carlo backing runs of good or ill luck. It has been defined as a belief in the imagined tendencies of chance to produce events continuously favourable or continuously unfavourable. The whole conception is a nightmare of the mind, peculiarly unfavourable to success in business. The laws of games of chance are as inexorable as those of the universe. A skilful player will, in the long run, defeat a less skilful one; the bank at Monte Carlo will always beat the individual if he stays long enough. I presume that the bank there is managed honestly, although I neither know nor care whether it is. But this at least is certain—the cagnotte gains 3 per cent. on every spin. Mathematically, a man is bound to lose the capital he invests in every thirty throws when his luck is neither good nor bad. In the long run his luck will leave him with a balanced book—minus the cagnotte. My advice to any man would be, "Never play roulette at all; but if you must play, hold the cagnotte." The Press, of course, often publishes stories of great fortunes made at Monte Carlo. The proprietors there understand publicity. Such statements bring them new patrons. It is necessary to dwell on this gambling side of the question, because every man who believes in luck has a touch of the gambler in him, though he may never have played a stake. And from the point of view of real success in affairs the gambler is doomed in advance. It is a frame of mind which a man should discourage severely when he finds it within the citadel of his mind. It is a view which too frequently infects young men with more ambition than industry. The view of Fortune as some shining goddess sweeping down from heaven and touching the lucky recipient with her pinions of gold dazzles the mind of youth. Men think that with a single stroke they will either be made rich for life or impoverished for ever. The more usual view is less ambitious. It is the complaint that Fortune has never looked a man's way. Failure due to lack of industry is excused on the ground that the goddess has proved adverse. There is a third form of this mental disease. A young man spoke to me in Monte Carlo the other day, and said, "I could do anything if only I had the chance, but that chance never comes my way." On that same evening I saw the aspirant throwing away whatever chance he may have had at the tables. A similar type of character is to be found in the young man who consistently refuses good offers or even small chances of work because they are not good enough for him. He expects that Luck will suddenly bestow on him a ready-made position or a gorgeous chance suitable to the high opinions he holds of his own capacities. After a time people tire of giving him any openings at all. In wooing the Goddess of Luck he has neglected the Goddess of Opportunity. These men in middle age fall into a well-known class. They can be seen haunting the Temple, and explaining to their more industrious and successful associates that they would have been Lord Chancellor if a big brief had ever come their way. They develop that terrible disease known as "the genius of the untried." Their case is almost as pitiful or ludicrous as that of the man of very moderate abilities whom drink or some other vice has rendered quite incapable. There will still be found men to whisper to each other as he passes, "Ah, if Brown didn't drink, he might do anything." Far different will be the mental standpoint of the man who really means to succeed. He will banish the idea of luck from his mind. He will accept every opportunity, however small it may appear, which seems to lead to the possibility of greater things. He will not wait on luck to open the portals to fortune. He will seize opportunity by the forelock and develop its chances by his industry. Here and there he may go wrong, where judgment or experience is lacking. But out of his very defeats he will learn to do better in the future, and in the maturity of his knowledge he will attain success. At least, he will not be found sitting down and whining that luck alone has been against him. There remains a far more subtle argument in favour of the gambling temperament which believes in luck. It is that certain men possess a kind of sixth sense in the realm of speculative enterprise. These men, it is said, know by inherent instinct, divorced from reasoned knowledge, what enterprise will succeed or fail, or whether the market will rise or fall. They are the children of fortune. The real diagnosis of these cases is a very different one from that put forward by the mystic apostles of the Golden Luck. Eminent men who are closely in touch with the great affairs of politics or business often act on what appears to be a mere instinct of this kind. But, in truth, they have absorbed, through a careful and continuous study of events both in the present and the past, so much knowledge, that their minds reach a conclusion automatically, just as the heart beats without any stimulus from the brain. Ask them for the reasons of their decision, and they become inarticulate or unintelligible in their replies. Their conscious mind cannot explain the long-hoarded experience of their subconscious self. When they prove right in their forecast, the world exclaims, "What luck!" Well, if luck of that kind is long enough continued it will be best ascribed to judgment. The real "lucky" speculator is of a very different character. He makes a brilliant coup or so and then disappears in some overwhelming disaster. He is as quick in losing his fortune as he is in making it. Nothing except Judgment and Industry, backed by Health, will ensure real and permanent success. The rest is sheer superstition. Two pictures may be put before the believer in luck as an element in success. The one is Monte Carlo—where the Goddess Fortune is chiefly worshipped—steeped in almost perpetual sunshine, piled in castellated masses against its hills, gaining the sense of the illimitable from the blue horizon of the Mediterranean—a shining land meant for clean exercise and repose. Yet there youth is only seen in its depravity, while old age flocks to the central gambling hell to excite or mortify its jaded appetites by playing a game it is bound to lose. Here you may see in their decay the people who believe in luck, steeped in an atmosphere of smoke and excitement, while beauty of Nature or the pursuits of health call to them in vain. Three badly lighted tennis courts compete with thirty splendidly furnished casino rooms. But of means for obtaining the results of exercise without the exertion there is no end. The Salle des Bains offers to the fat and the jaded the hot bath, the electric massage, and all the mechanical instruments for restoring energy. Modern science and art combine to outdo the attractions of the baths of Imperial Rome. In far different surroundings from these were born the careers of the living captains of modern industry and finance—Inchcape, Pirrie, Cowdray, Leverhulme, or McKenna. These men believed in industry, not in fortune, and in judgment rather than in chance. The youth of this generation will do well to be guided by their example, and follow their road to success. Not by the worship of the Goddess of Luck were the great fortunes established or the great reputations made. It is natural and right for youth to hope, but if hope turns to a belief in luck, it becomes a poison to the mind. The youth of England has before it a splendid opportunity, but let it remember always that nothing but work and brains counts, and that a man can even work himself into brains. No goddess will open to any man the portals of the temple of success. Young men must advance boldly to the central shrine along the arduous but well-tried avenues of Judgment and Industry.


Type:other
👁 :109
MONEY
Catagory:Reading
Author:Baron Max Aitken Beaverbrook
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Many serious letters and a half-humorous criticism in Punch suggest that I am to be regarded as the apostle of a pure materialism. That is not so. I quite recognise the existence of other ambitions in the walks of Art, Religion, or Literature. But at the very outset I confined the scope of my advice to those who wish to triumph in practical affairs. I am talking to the young men who want to succeed in business and to build up a new nation. Criticism based on any other conception of my purpose is a spent shaft. Money—the word has a magical sound. It conjures up before the vision some kind of enchanted paradise where to wish is to have—Aladdin's lamp brought down to earth. Yet in reality money carries with it only two qualities of value: the character it creates in the making; the self-expression of the individuality in the use of it, when once it has been made. The art of making money implies all those qualities—resolution, concentration, economy, self-control—which make for success and happiness. The power of using it makes a man who has become the captain of his own soul in the process of its acquirement also the master of the circumstances which surround him. He can shape his immediate world to his own liking. Apart from these two faculties, character in acquirement, power in use, money has little value, and is just as likely to be a curse as a blessing. For this reason the money master will care little for leaving vast wealth to his descendants. He knows that they would be better men for going down stripped into the struggle, with no inheritance but that of brains and character. Wealth without either the wish, the brains, or the power to use it is too often the medium through which men pamper the flesh with good living, and the mind with inanity, until death, operating through the liver, hurries the fortunate youth into an early grave. The inheritance tax should have no terrors for the millionaire. The value of money is, therefore, first in the striving for it and then in the use of it. The ambition itself is a fine one—but how is it to be achieved? I would lay down certain definite rules for the guidance of the young man who, starting with small things, is determined to go on to great ones:— 1. The first key which opens the door of success is the trading instinct, the knowledge and sense of the real value of any article. Without it a man need not trouble to enter business at all, but if he possesses it even in a rudimentary form he can cultivate it in the early days when the mind is still plastic, until it develops beyond all recognition. When I was a boy I knew the value in exchange of every marble in my village, and this practice of valuing became a subconscious habit until, so long as I remained in business, I always had an intuitive perception of the real and not the face value of any article. The young man who will walk through life developing the capacity for determining values, and then correcting his judgments by his information, is the man who will succeed in business. 2. But supposing that a young man has acquired this sense of values, he may yet ruin himself before he comes to the fruition of his talent if he will not practise economy. By economy I mean the economic conduct of his business. Examine your profit and loss account before you go out to conquer the financial world, and then go out for conquest—if the account justifies the enterprise. Too many men spend their time in laying down "pipe-lines" for future profits which may not arrive or only arrive for some newcomer who has taken over the business. There is nothing like sticking to one line of business until you have mastered it. A man who has learned how to conduct a single industry at a profit has conquered the obstacles which stand in the way of success in the larger world of enterprise. 3. Do not try to cut with too wide a swath. This last rule is the most important of all. Many promising young men have fallen into ruin from the neglect of this simple principle. It is so easy for premature ambition to launch men out into daring schemes for which they have neither the resources nor the experience. Acquire the knowledge of values, practise economy, and learn to read the minds of men, and your technique will then be perfected and ready for use on wider fields. The instinct for values, the habit of economy, the technique of business, are only three forms of the supreme quality of that judgment which is success. For these reasons it is the first £10,000 which counts. There is the real struggle, the test of character, and the warranty of success. Youth and strength are given us to use in that first struggle, and a man must feel those early deals right down to the pit of his stomach if he is going to be a great man of business. They must shake the very fibre of his being as the conception of a great picture shakes an artist. But the first ten thousand made, he can advance with greater freedom and take affairs in his stride. He will have the confidence of experience, and can paint with a big brush because all the details of affairs are now familiar to his mentality. With this assured technique nothing will check the career. "Why," says the innkeeper in an adaptation from Bernard Shaw's sketch of Napoleon in Italy, "conquering countries is like folding a tablecloth. Once the first fold is made, the rest is easy. Conquer one, conquer all." Such in effect is the career of the great captains of industry. Yet the man who attains, by the practice of these rules, a great fortune, may fail of real achievement and happiness. He may not be able to recognise that the qualities of the aspirant are not exactly the qualities of the man who has arrived. The sense of general responsibility must supersede the spirit of private adventure. The stability of credit becomes the watchword of high finance. Thus the great money master will not believe that periods of depression are of necessity ruinous. It is true that no great profits will be made in such years of depression. But the lean years will not last for ever. Industry during the period of deflation goes through a process like that of an over-fat man taking a Turkish bath. The extravagances are eliminated, new invention and energy spring up to meet the call of necessity, and when the boom years come again it finds industry, like a highly trained athlete, ready to pour out the goods and pay the wages. Economic methods are nurtured by depression. But when all has been said and done, the sceptic may still question us. Is the capacity to make money something to be desired and striven for, something worth having in the character, some proof of ability in the mind? The answer is "Yes." Money which is striven for brings with it the real qualities in life. Here are the counters which mark character and brains. The money brain is, in the modern world, the supreme brain. Why? Because that which the greatest number of men strive for will produce the fiercest competition of intellect. Politics are for the few; they are a game, a fancy, or an inheritance. Leaving out the man of genius who flares out, perhaps, once or twice in a century, the amount of ability which enables a man to cut a very respectable figure in a Cabinet is extraordinarily low, compared with that demanded in the world of industry and finance. The politician will never believe this, but it is so. The battles of the market-place are real duels, on which realities of life and death and fortune or poverty and even of fame depend. Here men fight with a precipice behind them, not a pension of £2,000 a year. The young men who go down into that press must win their spurs by no man's favour. But youth can triumph; it has the resolution when the mind is still plastic to gain that judgment which experience gives. My advice to the young men of to-day is simply this: Money is nothing but the fruit of resolution and intellect applied to the affairs of the world. To an unshakable resolution fortune will oppose no bar.


Type:other
👁 :104
WHY BE POOR?
Catagory:Reading
Author:Henry Ford Samuel Crowther
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Poverty springs from a number of sources, the more important of which are controllable. So does special privilege. I think it is entirely feasible to abolish both poverty and special privilege—and there can be no question but that their abolition is desirable. Both are unnatural, but it is work, not law, to which we must look for results. By poverty I mean the lack of reasonably sufficient food, housing, and clothing for an individual or a family. There will have to be differences in the grades of sustenance. Men are not equal in mentality or in physique. Any plan which starts with the assumption that men are or ought to be equal is unnatural and therefore unworkable. There can be no feasible or desirable process of leveling down. Such a course only promotes poverty by making it universal instead of exceptional. Forcing the efficient producer to become inefficient does not make the inefficient producer more efficient. Poverty can be done away with only by plenty, and we have now gone far enough along in the science of production to be able to see, as a natural development, the day when production and distribution will be so scientific that all may have according to ability and industry. The extreme Socialists went wide of the mark in their reasoning that industry would inevitably crush the worker. Modern industry is gradually lifting the worker and the world. We only need to know more about planning and methods. The best results can and will be brought about by individual initiative and ingenuity—by intelligent individual leadership. The government, because it is essentially negative, cannot give positive aid to any really constructive programme. It can give negative aid—by removing obstructions to progress and by ceasing to be a burden upon the community. The underlying causes of poverty, as I can see them, are essentially due to the bad adjustment between production and distribution, in both industry and agriculture—between the source of power and its application. The wastes due to lack of adjustment are stupendous. All of these wastes must fall before intelligent leadership consecrated to service. So long as leadership thinks more of money than it does of service, the wastes will continue. Waste is prevented by far-sighted not by short-sighted men. Short-sighted men think first of money. They cannot see waste. They think of service as altruistic instead of as the most practical thing in the world. They cannot get far enough away from the little things to see the big things—to see the biggest thing of all, which is that opportunist production from a purely money standpoint is the least profitable. Service can be based upon altruism, but that sort of service is not usually the best. The sentimental trips up the practical. It is not that the industrial enterprises are unable fairly to distribute a share of the wealth which they create. It is simply that the waste is so great that there is not a sufficient share for everyone engaged, notwithstanding the fact that the product is usually sold at so high a price as to restrict its fullest consumption. Take some of the wastes. Take the wastes of power. The Mississippi Valley is without coal. Through its centre pour many millions of potential horsepower—the Mississippi River. But if the people by its banks want power or heat they buy coal that has been hauled hundreds of miles and consequently has to be sold at far above its worth as heat or power. Or if they cannot afford to buy this expensive coal, they go out and cut down trees, thereby depriving themselves of one of the great conservers of water power. Until recently they never thought of the power at hand which, at next to nothing beyond the initial cost, could heat, light, cook, and work for the huge population which that valley is destined to support. The cure of poverty is not in personal economy but in better production. The "thrift" and "economy" ideas have been overworked. The word "economy" represents a fear. The great and tragic fact of waste is impressed on a mind by some circumstance, usually of a most materialistic kind. There comes a violent reaction against extravagance—the mind catches hold of the idea of "economy." But it only flies from a greater to a lesser evil; it does not make the full journey from error to truth. Economy is the rule of half-alive minds. There can be no doubt that it is better than waste; neither can there be any doubt that it is not as good as use. People who pride themselves on their economy take it as a virtue. But what is more pitiable than a poor, pinched mind spending the rich days and years clutching a few bits of metal? What can be fine about paring the necessities of life to the very quick? We all know "economical people" who seem to be niggardly even about the amount of air they breathe and the amount of appreciation they will allow themselves to give to anything. They shrivel—body and soul. Economy is waste: it is waste of the juices of life, the sap of living. For there are two kinds of waste—that of the prodigal who throws his substance away in riotous living, and that of the sluggard who allows his substance to rot from non-use. The rigid economizer is in danger of being classed with the sluggard. Extravagance is usually a reaction from suppression of expenditure. Economy is likely to be a reaction from extravagance. Everything was given us to use. There is no evil from which we suffer that did not come about through misuse. The worst sin we can commit against the things of our common life is to misuse them. "Misuse" is the wider term. We like to say "waste," but waste is only one phase of misuse. All waste is misuse; all misuse is waste. It is possible even to overemphasize the saving habit. It is proper and desirable that everyone have a margin; it is really wasteful not to have one—if you can have one. But it can be overdone. We teach children to save their money. As an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that has a value. But it is not positive; it does not lead the child out into the safe and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. To teach a child to invest and use is better than to teach him to save. Most men who are laboriously saving a few dollars would do better to invest those few dollars—first in themselves, and then in some useful work. Eventually they would have more to save. Young men ought to invest rather than save. They ought to invest in themselves to increase creative value; after they have taken themselves to the peak of usefulness, then will be time enough to think of laying aside, as a fixed policy, a certain substantial share of income. You are not "saving" when you prevent yourself from becoming more productive. You are really taking away from your ultimate capital; you are reducing the value of one of nature's investments. The principle of use is the true guide. Use is positive, active, life-giving. Use is alive. Use adds to the sum of good. Personal want may be avoided without changing the general condition. Wage increases, price increases, profit increases, other kinds of increases designed to bring more money here or money there, are only attempts of this or that class to get out of the fire—regardless of what may happen to everyone else. There is a foolish belief that if only the money can be gotten, somehow the storm can be weathered. Labour believes that if it can get more wages, it can weather the storm. Capital thinks that if it can get more profits, it can weather the storm. There is a pathetic faith in what money can do. Money is very useful in normal times, but money has no more value than the people put into it by production, and it can be so misused. It can be so superstitiously worshipped as a substitute for real wealth as to destroy its value altogether. The idea persists that there exists an essential conflict between industry and the farm. There is no such conflict. It is nonsense to say that because the cities are overcrowded everybody ought to go back to the farm. If everybody did so farming would soon decline as a satisfactory occupation. It is not more sensible for everyone to flock to the manufacturing towns. If the farms be deserted, of what use are manufacturers? A reciprocity can exist between farming and manufacturing. The manufacturer can give the farmer what he needs to be a good farmer, and the farmer and other producers of raw materials can give the manufacturer what he needs to be a good manufacturer. Then with transportation as a messenger, we shall have a stable and a sound system built on service. If we live in smaller communities where the tension of living is not so high, and where the products of the fields and gardens can be had without the interference of so many profiteers, there will be little poverty or unrest. Look at this whole matter of seasonal work. Take building as an example of a seasonal trade. What a waste of power it is to allow builders to hibernate through the winter, waiting for the building season to come around! And what an equal waste of skill it is to force experienced artisans who have gone into factories to escape the loss of the winter season to stay in the factory jobs through the building season because they are afraid they may not get their factory places back in the winter. What a waste this all-year system has been! If the farmer could get away from the shop to till his farm in the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons (they are only a small part of the year, after all), and if the builder could get away from the shop to ply his useful trade in its season, how much better they would be, and how much more smoothly the world would proceed. Suppose we all moved outdoors every spring and summer and lived the wholesome life of the outdoors for three or four months! We could not have "slack times." The farm has its dull season. That is the time for the farmer to come into the factory and help produce the things he needs to till the farm. The factory also has its dull season. That is the time for the workmen to go out to the land to help produce food. Thus we might take the slack out of work and restore the balance between the artificial and the natural. But not the least benefit would be the more balanced view of life we should thus obtain. The mixing of the arts is not only beneficial in a material way, but it makes for breadth of mind and fairness of judgment. A great deal of our unrest to-day is the result of narrow, prejudiced judgment. If our work were more diversified, if we saw more sides of life, if we saw how necessary was one factor to another, we should be more balanced. Every man is better for a period of work under the open sky. It is not at all impossible. What is desirable and right is never impossible. It would only mean a little teamwork—a little less attention to greedy ambition and a little more attention to life. Those who are rich find it desirable to go away for three or four months a year and dawdle in idleness around some fancy winter or summer resort. The rank and file of the American people would not waste their time that way even if they could. But they would provide the team-work necessary for an outdoor, seasonal employment. It is hardly possible to doubt that much of the unrest we see about us is the result of unnatural modes of life. Men who do the same thing continuously the year around and are shut away from the health of the sun and the spaciousness of the great out of doors are hardly to be blamed if they see matters in a distorted light. And that applies equally to the capitalist and the worker. What is there in life that should hamper normal and wholesome modes of living? And what is there in industry incompatible with all the arts receiving in their turn the attention of those qualified to serve in them? It may be objected that if the forces of industry were withdrawn from the shops every summer it would impede production. But we must look at the matter from a universal point of view. We must consider the increased energy of the industrial forces after three or four months in outdoor work. We must also consider the effect on the cost of living which would result from a general return to the fields. We have, as I indicated in a previous chapter, been working toward this combination of farm and factory and with entirely satisfactory results. At Northville, not far from Detroit, we have a little factory making valves. It is a little factory, but it makes a great many valves. Both the management and the mechanism of the plant are comparatively simple because it makes but one thing. We do not have to search for skilled employees. The skill is in the machine. The people of the countryside can work in the plant part of the time and on the farm part of the time, for mechanical farming is not very laborious. The plant power is derived from water. Another plant on a somewhat larger scale is in building at Flat Rock, about fifteen miles from Detroit. We have dammed the river. The dam also serves as a bridge for the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railway, which was in need of a new bridge at that point, and a road for the public—all in one construction. We are going to make our glass at this point. The damming of the river gives sufficient water for the floating to us of most of our raw material. It also gives us our power through a hydroelectric plant. And, being well out in the midst of the farming country, there can be no possibility of crowding or any of the ills incident to too great a concentration of population. The men will have plots of ground or farms as well as their jobs in the factory, and these can be scattered over fifteen or twenty miles surrounding—for of course nowadays the workingman can come to the shop in an automobile. There we shall have the combination of agriculture and industrialism and the entire absence of all the evils of concentration. The belief that an industrial country has to concentrate its industries is not, in my opinion, well-founded. That is only a stage in industrial development. As we learn more about manufacturing and learn to make articles with interchangeable parts, then those parts can be made under the best possible conditions. And these best possible conditions, as far as the employees are concerned, are also the best possible conditions from the manufacturing standpoint. One could not put a great plant on a little stream. One can put a small plant on a little stream, and the combination of little plants, each making a single part, will make the whole cheaper than a vast factory would. There are exceptions, as where casting has to be done. In such case, as at River Rouge, we want to combine the making of the metal and the casting of it and also we want to use all of the waste power. This requires a large investment and a considerable force of men in one place. But such combinations are the exception rather than the rule, and there would not be enough of them seriously to interfere with the process of breaking down the concentration of industry. Industry will decentralize. There is no city that would be rebuilt as it is, were it destroyed—which fact is in itself a confession of our real estimate of our cities. The city had a place to fill, a work to do. Doubtless the country places would not have approximated their livableness had it not been for the cities. By crowding together, men have learned some secrets. They would never have learned them alone in the country. Sanitation, lighting, social organization—all these are products of men's experience in the city. But also every social ailment from which we to-day suffer originated and centres in the big cities. You will find the smaller communities living along in unison with the seasons, having neither extreme poverty nor wealth—none of the violent plagues of upheave and unrest which afflict our great populations. There is something about a city of a million people which is untamed and threatening. Thirty miles away, happy and contented villages read of the ravings of the city! A great city is really a helpless mass. Everything it uses is carried to it. Stop transport and the city stops. It lives off the shelves of stores. The shelves produce nothing. The city cannot feed, clothe, warm, or house itself. City conditions of work and living are so artificial that instincts sometimes rebel against their unnaturalness. And finally, the overhead expense of living or doing business in the great cities is becoming so large as to be unbearable. It places so great a tax upon life that there is no surplus over to live on. The politicians have found it easy to borrow money and they have borrowed to the limit. Within the last decade the expense of running every city in the country has tremendously increased. A good part of that expense is for interest upon money borrowed; the money has gone either into non-productive brick, stone, and mortar, or into necessities of city life, such as water supplies and sewage systems at far above a reasonable cost. The cost of maintaining these works, the cost of keeping in order great masses of people and traffic is greater than the advantages derived from community life. The modern city has been prodigal, it is to-day bankrupt, and to-morrow it will cease to be. The provision of a great amount of cheap and convenient power—not all at once, but as it may be used—will do more than anything else to bring about the balancing of life and the cutting of the waste which breeds poverty. There is no single source of power. It may be that generating electricity by a steam plant at the mine mouth will be the most economical method for one community. Hydro-electric power may be best for another community. But certainly in every community there ought to be a central station to furnish cheap power—it ought to be held as essential as a railway or a water supply. And we could have every great source of power harnessed and working for the common good were it not that the expense of obtaining capital stands in the way. I think that we shall have to revise some of our notions about capital. Capital that a business makes for itself, that is employed to expand the workman's opportunity and increase his comfort and prosperity, and that is used to give more and more men work, at the same time reducing the cost of service to the public—that sort of capital, even though it be under single control, is not a menace to humanity. It is a working surplus held in trust and daily use for the benefit of all. The holder of such capital can scarcely regard it as a personal reward. No man can view such a surplus as his own, for he did not create it alone. It is the joint product of his whole organization. The owner's idea may have released all the energy and direction, but certainly it did not supply all the energy and direction. Every workman was a partner in the creation. No business can possibly be considered only with reference to to-day and to the individuals engaged in it. It must have the means to carry on. The best wages ought to be paid. A proper living ought to be assured every participant in the business—no matter what his part. But, for the sake of that business's ability to support those who work in it, a surplus has to be held somewhere. The truly honest manufacturer holds his surplus profits in that trust. Ultimately it does not matter where this surplus be held nor who controls it; it is its use that matters. Capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. Capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labour better and the reward of daily labour more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life. Unless we in our industries are helping to solve the social problem, we are not doing our principal work. We are not fully serving.


Type:Event
👁 :
Biden signs with Los Angeles talent agency
Catagory:News
Author:Samantha Granville BBC News, Los Angeles
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

Former US President Joe Biden has signed with a Los Angeles talent agency - marking a significant step in shaping his post-presidency career. The signing marks a reunion with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which previously represented him from 2017 to 2020. "President Biden is one of America's most respected and influential voices in national and global affairs," Richard Lovett, co-chair of CAA, said in a statement. "His lifelong commitment to public service is one of unity, optimism, dignity, and possibility," Mr Lovett said. "We are profoundly honored to partner with him again." The talent agency also has ties to former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.Mr Biden, 82, has remained largely quiet about his plans following his five-decade career in public service, but when leaving the White House in January, he reassured supporters saying, "We're leaving office, we're not leaving the fight." With only two weeks having passed since his departure from office, there's no clear indication that he has a new book or project in the works.During his previous stint signed to the talent agency, he published his memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose in 2017. The book, which chronicled the loss of his eldest son, Beau, became a New York Times number one bestseller and inspired his American Promise book tour, widely seen as a stepping stone to his 2020 presidential bid. While keeping a relatively low profile, the former president has been spotted around his Delaware home and remains in contact with former aides and associates. He also recently became a great-grandfather, with the birth of his granddaughter, Naomi's son. Though CAA is usually tied with big movie stars and A-list celebrities, it's not uncommon for the agency to also work with politicians and social advocacy groups. The Obamas' partnership with CAA through their production company, Higher Ground has led to the creation of award-winning films and television shows, including the Oscar-winning documentary, American Factory. Additionally, former presidential nominee and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed with CAA to represent her book projects, including Hard Choices, which chronicled her tenure as America's top diplomat.


Type:Technology
👁 :2
Trump sows uncertainty - and Xi Jinping sees an opportunity
Catagory:News
Author:Laura Bicker China correspondent
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

If China was angry at the United States for imposing an extra 10% tariff on all Chinese goods, it did a good job of hiding it. It urged Washington to start talks after repeated warnings that there would be no winners in a trade war. It held its fire until midnight in Washington - and then just as the tariffs on China kicked in, Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs of 10-15%, starting 10 February, on various US imports, including coal, crude oil and large cars. The Chinese government may have remained calm in the hope of doing a deal with Washington to avoid further tariffs - and to keep the relationship between the world's two largest economies from spiralling out of control. After all, US President Donald Trump agreed to reprieves with Canada and Mexico just hours before the tariffs on them took effect. Trump and China's President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week. The US levy will sting - especially because it adds to a slew of tariffs Trump imposed in his first term on tens of billions of dollars of Chinese imports. And China's population is already concerned about their sluggish economy. Beijing and Washington have gone toe-to-toe on tariffs before. But a lot has changed since Trump 1.0. For one, the Chinese economy is not as reliant on the US as it was back in 2020. Beijing has strengthened its trade agreements across Africa, South America and South East Asia. It is now the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries. A deal could still be in the offing but the additional 10% may not offer the leverage that Trump wants, says Chong Ja Ian from Carnegie China.President Xi Jinping may also see a bigger opportunity here. Trump is sowing division in his own backyard, threatening to hit even the European Union (EU) with tariffs - all in his first month in office. His actions may have other US allies wondering what is in store for them. In contrast, China will want to appear a calm, stable and perhaps more attractive global trade partner. "Trump's America-first policy will bring challenges and threats to almost all countries in the world," says Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre. "From the perspective of US-China strategic competition, a deterioration of US leadership and credibility will benefit China. it is unlikely to turn well for China on the bilateral level, but Beijing surely will try to make lemonade..."As a leader of the world's second-largest economy, Xi has made no secret of his ambition for China to lead an alternative world order. Since the end of the Covid pandemic, he has travelled extensively, and he has supported major international institutions such as the World Bank and agreements such as the Paris climate accords. Chinese state media have portrayed this as embracing countries across the world and deepening diplomatic ties. Before that, when Trump halted US funding to the WHO in 2020, China pledged additional funds. Expectations are high that Beijing may step in to fill America's shoes again, following Washington's exit from the WHO. The same applies for the aid freeze that is causing such chaos in countries and organisations that have long depended on US funding - China may wish to fill the gap, despite an economic downturn.


Type:Technology
👁 :2
UK not choosing between US and EU, says Starmer
Catagory:News
Author:Kate Whannel Political reporter
Posted Date:02/04/2025
Posted By:utopia online

The UK is "not choosing between the US and the EU", Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said after President Donald Trump threatened the European Union with trade tariffs. Over the weekend, Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico - which have both since been paused - and said he would take similar action against the EU but suggested a deal could be "worked out" with the UK. Asked if he would be willing to water down attempts to forge closer ties with the EU in exchange for keeping the US on side, Sir Keir said both relationships were important to the UK. "Now, that for me isn't new, I think that's always been the case and will be the case for many, many years to come," he added. The prime minister told a press conference in Brussels it was "early days" when it came to tariff talks with the US and that he backed "open and strong trading relations". Sir Keir was in Belgium to meet Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte and attend talks with EU leaders - the first PM to do so since Brexit. Asked about tensions between the US and the EU, Rutte said there were "always issues between allies" but that would "not get in the way of our collective determination to keep our deterrent strong". On Ukraine, he said Nato - the military alliance of Western countries - had to "not only sustain but continue to step up our support" to ensure Ukraine could negotiate with Russia from "a position of strength". He added that spending 2% of national income on defence was "not enough to keep us safe" and that there was "no time to waste" in boosting funding. Currently Nato asks every member country to spend a least 2% of GDP on defence, however it is thought only 23 of the 32 members meet the target. Sir Keir said the UK currently spends 2.3% and that his government would shortly be setting out "the path" towards reaching 2.5%. Speaking at a European Council dinner, the prime minister called for more military collaboration between the UK and Europe including by improving military mobility and logistics across Europe, focusing on research and development and deepening industrial collaboration. He also said there should be more co-operation to protect against state threats and sabotage, including on subsea infrastructure. This comes after the UK issued a warning to Russia last month after a spy ship was spotted near undersea cables. While defence is the focus of his Brussels trip, for Sir Keir it is also part of an ongoing bid to "reset" UK-EU relations. The UK government wants to forge stronger links with the EU - but that could anger the US and risk the UK getting caught up in a trade war. Similarly, the EU might object to Sir Keir siding with the US rather than its European neighbours. Earlier, No 10 said the prime minister trusted Trump and pointed to "a really constructive early set of conversations" between the two men. "We've got a fair and balanced trading relationship which benefits both sides of the Atlantic," the spokesman added. "It's worth around £300bn and we are each other's single largest investors, with £1.2tn invested in each other's economies." Reform UK leader Nigel Farage the prime minister's commitment to industrial collaboration with the EU showed he was "a rejoiner at heart". The UK should be negotiating a free trade deal with the US instead, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, claiming the EU was "diminishing every year". "If we start to tie ourselves to industrial collaboration, as it appears was agreed last night, then we find ourselves with less flexibility in doing deals with countries like America. "My fear is we tie ourselves to EU law." Referance:https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e1wnvkzeyo


Type:Technology
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