THE' SUNDAY OREGOXTAX. P01TLAJt DECEMBER 3, 1916.
Vanity Blinds You, but
Doesn't Blindfold the
Outsider.
A Man's Work Must
. Always Cover More
Than His Wage.
1
Verses i
12
J
Herbert Kaufman w. ;
7 . v
Y
r
7
You had a show, but were too
slow,
Tomorrow'U bring another
though.
Succes holds auction every day,
Don't throw the next big chance
away
Through hesitation. Bid the
price.
Procrastination must pay twice.
Delay compounds the final cost.
Time knows how many times
you've lost.
The clock's a mint and minutes
gold.
What's promptly bought is
cheaply sold.
It's ten to one, your worst -mistake
Lay in some risk you wouldn't
make.
Hump or Bump
BECAUSE this was a poor man's land, America,
was forced to make for itself the many things
which it could not afford to purchase abroad.
Necessity fired inventiveness isolation fanned the
flame and a blend of bloods and brains utterly unlike
any existing mixture, furnished a unique imagination,
which made free play with virgin wealths of the richest
continent man ever encountered.
The dreams of peasants and menials thralled
through centuries of oppression, found space and took
wing in the boundless reaches of a new, free world.
Here awaited land and raw materials for the trans
lation of any idea within the compass of human rea
soning. We could afford experiments on unprecedented
scales. With millions of square miles and the contents
therein free for the taking caution and conservation
seemed unnecessary.
It was impossible that mere man could consume the
yields of mine, field and forest rapidly enough to offset
the productiveness of the country.
And so we became the supreme spendthrift among
nations, vandalizing opportunity with no prescience of
an on-rushing day which would find our hands scrap
ing the bottom of apparently inexhaustible treasure
chests.
. We have been ingenious and inefficient, far
yisioned and short sighted opulent and wasteful, en
terprising and blundering.
We have burned more forest wealth, thrown more
money into junk piles and rubbish heaps, destroyed
the arability of more acres than a century of scientific
effort will replace.
In producing the billions we possess we've dissi
pated the sources of even vaster fortunes.
Now, with a population exceeding a hundred mil
lion, we face tremendous diminishments in every'
quarter. The high cost of living, of building, of every
thing, is merely a prelude to incalculable economic dis
turbances, which may only be aborted by a prompt
acknowledgment of National negligence. .
The universe has changed its methods. Europe
no longer persists in her backward ways.
America's advantage of priority in the adoption and
general installation of time and labor-saving machin
ery is rapidly waning.
We were the latest of the great powers and could
begin with an entirely up-to-date equipment. We had
no investment in antiquated paraphernalia. Just as
the last man to buy an automobile selects the most
recent model, we outfitted our young factories solely
with engines and devices of improved type.
The Yankee notion was to accomplish , the utmost
work in the fewest minutes. We discovered speed and
capitalized it for millions of millions. We put the hour
glass on a dividendJpaying basis. The sands of time
were gold El Dorado was at last, located in the clock.
We moved fastest and went farthest in fifty years,
grew to be the leading manufacturers of the earth.
American . machinery dominated from Montevideo
Results Establish the Value of Theories
BY HERBERT KAUFMAN. "
Don't estimate mere knowledge too highly. It is very desirable and advantageous to be
well informed, but please remember that human text-books can usually do more than printed
ones.
An accurate memory :does not necessarily imply intellectualism. The glibbest parrot
may hardly be credited with brain-power because it can repeat a stock of phrases.
Similarly, many students and pedants are incompetent souls, despite their erudition.
Information without imagination is impractical junk. Learning is wasted if it is not earn
ing or turning something..
Unapplied facts are as useless in a high-brow as on a'librarv shelf.
Results alone establish the value of theories.
The schooled man deserves to be bossed until he proves that he cart find paths as well as
follow them.
Education is simply a journey over beaten tracks.
It is well to know what has been done, but far more essential to show what was left undone.
Acquaintance with the best practice, familiarity with fundamentals and precedents, abil
ity to pursue routine through complicated mazes, are not extraordinary gifts
Turn to the "situations wanted" and you'll find columns of applicants for places requir
ing such qualities.
But "about the scarcest commodity in town is the knack of thinking along new lines of
anticipating the next logical move.
If you can see changes coming and meet them half way, Opportunity will lock arms
with you. ".
We know thousands who've passed University examinations but who can't examine
the future.
Ready-to-wear intelligence is quite inexpensive probably the lowest-priced service in
the market.
Brains stuffed by formula seldom exhibit brilliance and resource.
Whatever is easily duplicated is sold cheap, but individuality is precious and correspond
ingly paid for. .
The trained man is not necessarily a. superior article. If the right stuff was not in him at
'the start, polish couldn't take its place. Coaching hasn't counted unless the spirit of original-
ity was awakened and stimulated.
Private ideas are far more in demand than general scholarship. Only independent minds
can pioneer for progress. The men who scent and invent as the emergency arises eventually
find colleges teaching others what they find for themselves.
The whopping chores of civilization are regularly handled by folks who can regard situ
ations with undrilled eyes.
Edison and Ford, for instance, were not handicapped by borrowed vision. They had no
Alma Mater except dear Old Mother Necessity. But for that matter, the whole caboodle of
'em, clear-back to Stephenson and Watt, considered possibilities from unacademic viewpoints.
Tutors do benefit pupils capable of succeeding without mental valets, but no individual
lacking native enterprise was ever .equipped for big tasks by listening to lectures on previous
performances.
If you can look on your own hook you won't need a guide book you'll probably inspire
one before you're through.
i 1 ' 11
to Osaka. It invaded the German shops, reaped the crops of Siberia replaced the con
traptions with which plodding and painstaking hordes sweated out the merchandise of
distant empires. ' J ' .
We played Frankenstein reduced the handicap under which the foreign industries
were staggering acted schoolmaster to the seven races and neglected to learn what
they had to teach. (
It's time to open your eyes, America ! War has elevated the "pauper labor" of yes
terday to peers and equals. . r '
. The first salvo of the Great Conflict pronounced the end of handcraft in Europe.
The entire Continent is now a fabric of machinery. - .
Twenty million men are battling at the front, but f if ty million are fighting the
. hours as efficiently on a firing line of their own.
' Never before in history has such a multitude been drilled to strive in concert to
utilize the engines of power -to extract the maximum of energy from themselves to
accept unexpected conditions with fortitucfe and enthusiasm. Industrial Europe is
being reborn, revitalized, revised and re-visioned. .
. For every man who falls on the field, a woman stands ready to rise and take his place.
Disaster has erased the sex line.. There will be no shortage in the ranks of labor
when the fatherlands drop the rifle to take up the tool.
COPYRIGHT; 1916. BY HERBERT KAUFMAN. GREAT BRITAIN AND ALL OTHER RIGHTS RESERVED.
Colloquially speaking, where are we apt to get off
during the next decade, in face of these facts?
Don't let's deceive ourselves. We are not in proper
stride. Individual organizations have not been re
modeled to cope with the hardest rivalry business will
ever encounter, nor have anything like adequate meas
ures been taken to combine cognate groups for defense
of common interests.
We continue to be self-assured without the right to
self-assurance are neither studying the map nor the
moment.
If our regulation of domestic affairs is so inad
equate that top-notch wages don't meet the still mount
ing price of necessities, how shall we answer what
shall we do when an incredibly competent Europe
stands challenging at our gates?
It's a plain case of hump or bump. ;