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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 1917)
12 THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAJf, PORTLAND, JULY 29, 1917, There Is No Hope for the Man Whose Ambition Is Weaker Than His Self - Consciousness ( 1 Tr? H ITF f tt T f 1 Tp, - t a No Shame to Fail, fi f if ' A ' I J 3 but It Is a Shameful Y j JL JBL V I II . ' ' JJ Tr kotImwt rMififi.a,it. mmmmiw rmm Junk Heaps and Gold Mines BY HERBERT KAUFMAN The junk heaps of one generation are the gold mines of the next. Uselessness is a temporary phase in the history of all matter. Sooner or later the Sons of Ad am find unsuspected values in all their throwaways. "We grow long-headed as we grow short-handed." Needs stimulate deeds. Knack is born of lack. Appetites, science and business become investigative under stress. Each period is forced to discover a fresh application for partially exploited resources. Every century has indicted the preceding cycle of neglecting manifest opportunity. What Tomorrow will do Yesterday could have accomplished. No generation ever realizes its possibilities. Necessity suckles ingenuity. Had papyrus existed in sufficient quantity for the graphic arts the breaking down of wood fiber into news-stock would probably never have occurred to a single mind. Because fodder crops were suddenly too expensive and the meat demand too extensive, cattle raisers had to find grain alternates: whereupon cotton seed disclosed its nutritious quali ties and a new source of wealth appeared. While cleanliness was a rare habit, the olive tree and the grease bucket sufficed for the soapmaker's requirements, but as soon as hygiene established a world-wide case, we had no recourse but to snoop about odd corners of the globe and paw through the refuse bin to obtain another lot of substances. And behold! Superior oils were waiting in the cocoanut arid the cotton seed, and millions' worth of glycerine ready for processing in their very tankage. We are prone to make use of the nearest and frequently the dearest raw product. We sel dom search or research in advance of a rising market. Experience is weary of teaching the same time-worn lessons. We regularly wait until famine begins to stalk the near horizons until production is threat ened by a petering-out of some essential element, and then, after a preventable stretch of eco nomic disorder and social hardship, promptly play Jack Horner and exultantly exhibit the plum that could have been pulled out of Nature's pie all along. Get your thinking caps on. Invent means to prevent misery. Governmental control of scarce stuffs, however ably directed, won't solve the tangle of problems now complicating the business of living. There are more metals than we've smelted in the ores now employed by the crafts and sciences. Despised weeds are filled with drug bases, industrial chemicals, glues, binders and fertil izers. Coal-tar and gasoline miser many another secret. Edible roots, herbs, berries and plants are staring at us over four thousand miles of fertile continent. - The seas are full of delicious, wholesome fish, which prejudice and ignorance alone keep there. Alfalfa and timothy are potential and probably excellent breadstuffs. We boast of our ability to meet emergency on her own terms and invariably to win the game. We brag of the battles our wits have won for a glorious century and a half. If ever we were challenged to make good that vaunt, the moment is right here. Dig, Delve and DELIVER; it can be done. We must have more fuel, more food, more building materials. We must find them where they were not supposed to be. Every farm, every forest, every mine, every work bench, every kitchen range offers a chance for a gleaner of possibility. Help out! VI Verses FJUfclYim Who told you that your place was there, Or can it be that you do not care Enough to rouse yourself and dare For something: better? Men who play Unnoted parts until they're gray And are content with failure's pay Can seldom find a cause to blame The circumstances of the game. Defeat brings them no sense of shame. They chose the courses they pursue. Yours is one case we have in view. Prove that we're wrong. If it's untrue : Get out and do. Reasonable and Treasonable Prices IT IS as vital to victory that we have shrewd entrepreneurs behind the lines as it is important to place shrewd strategists in the field. Com merce after all is our abiding trade. While military exigencies deserve the right of way, at the same time trade demands competent administration. Ninety odd millions of us must go on as usual, must have the means to exploit enterprises occupations to provide livelihood outlets for products and produce. The subtraction of so much high-willed and well-drilled labor from essential vocations requires a super-average degree of enthusiasm and alertness of the civilian remainder. We must not only furnish our forces with tremendous commissary and munition stores, but provide stay-at-homes with all requirements. When the flags are furled and the drums are stilled and khaki's doffed for overalls and office coats, the mechanic must find room for his dexterity, the young merchant ready capital for his plans, the clerk an instantly avail able position. Therefore, no one can criticise you for making money while sounder or braver men are making history. But we do despise and con demn and we do list with Judas and Benedict Arnold and every dastard of the same ilk, all men and bodies of men who seek a selfish advantage in the Nation's dire situation. Promotion and management deserve a proper wage. Energy is entitled to a fair return. But to ask more now for a dollar or an hour or an article than its just worth is blackmail and extortion. We will stand for reasonable profits but not for treasonable ones. COPYRIGHT. 117. BY HERBERT KAIFJU.1V, GREAT BRITAIN AND ILL OTHER RIGHTS RESERVK9 Girls They Leave Behind WE DO not know his name he did not sign the letter. But on the verge pf sailing for "some where in France," the boy wrote and asked us to say a word for the soldiers and sailors who "left their girls behind them," giving a clear field to hang back rivals. "I'm not afraid," he said. "We must die somewhere, sometime and I'd rather go down under the Stars and Stripes than a falling safe or a joy-rider's automobile. Lots of people do every day. "What held me back from enlisting earlier was a girl that I certainly do love an awful lot. "I asked her to write to me regularly and promise not to get married to anybody while I was away. And she said she liked me too much for that. "But you know how it is when you are not on hand with the glad talk and the theater tickets and she doesn't see you for months they get used to missing you. "And I thought if somebody like you would print a little something suggesting that if every girl whose steady was ready to fight for America, would promise him that she'd pass up the others while he was at the front, it would help thousands of young fellows to make up their minds. I saw an article in the paper which you wrote about 'cuckoos,' meaning doctors and lawyers ornery enough to steal the practice of doctors and lawyers who were away fighting. But I think the worst 'cuckoo' of all is the slacker who snitches a sol dier's sweetheart. That's a good name for them, too. Will you please write something that will hit the mark?" (But after reading his letter, we're sure that the boy himself has done that. So we've reprinted it in the hope that it may catch the eye of "all the girls they left behind them.") "Even as You and I" CROOKES invented the tube in which Roentgen produced the X-ray. Years afterward Cooper Hewitt asked the Scotch scientist where he hap pened to be when the German announced his discovery. "In South Africa hunting for gold," was the answer. Too many folks go too far afield for their fortunes. If we peer hard enough, it's usually to be found near the nose. The Pennsylvanian who sold his farm to speculate in oil, only to hear within a month that the year s record gusher was located on the property the Mexican who begged in his own 'dobe doorway, when all the while the mud of. his hut was filled with the tailings of a carelessly worked mine, are not excep tional cases. Merchants by the score have experienced bank .ruptcy on the sites which immediately after turned their successors into millionaires. Most of us abandon investments and projects too soon or are content with superficial returns. Discarded shoes frequently have a lot of wear still left in them and undervalued proposi tions regularly carry observing, patient thinkers to wealth and distinction. Remember Crookes and properly develop your spe cialty. Intensive study of your own game will gener ally enable you to find a new light. Don't leave it for the next man. Get in on the Sky Floor A BILLION dollars' worth of aeroplanes within the next five years is not a far-flung prophecy. The enormous sum recently appropriated by Con gress to purchase wings for an overhead army, will establish another vast industry with all the standard izations characteristic of great commercial ventures. Once we begin to turn out sound, light engines upon a considerable scale, the remarkable record of the automobile will probably be repeated. The wish to soar the clouds is one of the oldest hankerings of the race and as soon as the big white mechanical birds come down to average purse-reach, the star-roads will be crowded with human beings. It isn't a bit too early to pick a likely location and be ready to secure the local agency for one of the hundred makes soon destined to command popular favor. You've often kicked yourself because you didn't foresee the vogue of the automobile. Well, the hand writing's on the heavens read it and heed it. Save your money and stand prepared to get in on the sky floor. Your chance to get rich is in plane sight. Cheap, reliable "upstairs roadsters" are rapidly drawing near. The Open Book TEMPER, anger and worry are talons on the hand of Time. Those who cannot control themselves, cannot conceal the accusative lines. Students of human nature read from plainly printed types. Heart-to-heart talks with the mirror explain many a reveal ing fact. In one way or another, features proclaim personality. We grow to look what we are. When did you last take an honest peep at the glass?
