Had a Cinch

1895

Couldn't Tell Funny Stories, but Knew a Trick Worth Two of That.

A drummer, as the word drummer is understood in these piping times of peace, is a man who tells you a funny story and incidentally takes your order for goods. A faculty of making himself "solid" with his customers socially is one of the most valuable features of a successful drummer's equipment. The commercial traveler is a hale fellow well met wherever he goes. There are houses whose trade is so firmly established and its hold upon their patrons so strong that their goods sell themselves almost, and the solicitor has very little soliciting to do. But even with houses of this character a smooth tongue and a ready wit count for much.

Occasionally there is a man who departs from the old lines, invents a method of his own and makes a great success of it.

"What has become of that man Jones who used to travel for you?" asked one Randolph street jobber of another the other day. "I suppose he has gone off the road. I always thought he never would make a success of it. He was too chilly. He was the chilliest man I ever saw."

"There's just where you're wrong," replied the other jobber, who deals in linseed oil. "He was the most successful traveling man I ever knew. When he was on the road, he kept us jumping to fill his orders. The only reason he isn't traveling for us today is that another house offered him a good deal bigger salary than we were willing to pay, and he is representing the other house now. He was very chilly, as you say. He was that way with everybody, his customers included. He never had a word to say to them about politics and couldn't tell a funny story if he tried. He never talked anything but oil. As soon as he got an order he walked out and never tried to conceal the fact that that was all he had come for. Yet his customers thought he was the best friend they had in the world.

"This is how he did it. As a cold blooded business proposition he decided that the strongest hold he could get on a man would be a hold on his pocketbook. He left the other drummers to do the amusing part of it, but he studied the oil market. He seemed besides to have an intuition about the fluctuations of prices which was almost prophetic. When he saw that oil was about to go up, he sat down and telegraphed to all his customers, 'Buy oil.' They followed his advice, and in nine cases out of ten they saved a lot of money by it. It only took a few experiences like this to convince them that it was a serious mistake to buy oil of anybody else. He was hardly a solicitor at all. When he told a man to buy, he bought." — Chicago Tribune.


Why They Went Off

"Are you loaded?" asked the pistol of the shotgun.
"No," said the latter; "I'm shot."
Then both exploded with laughter. — Philadelphia Call.

You Have A Beautiful Face (1916 Advertisement)

1916

(Click graphic for bigger view)

But Your Nose?

In this day and age attention to your appearance is an absolute necessity if you expect to make the most out of life. Not only should you wish to appear as attractive as possible, for your own self-satisfaction, which is alone well worth your efforts, but you will find the world in general judging you greatly, if not wholly, by your "looks," therefore it pays to "look your best" at all times.

Permit no one to see you looking otherwise; it will injure your welfare! Upon the impression you constantly make rests the failure or success of your life. Which is to be your ultimate destiny? My new Nose-Shaper, "Trados" (Model 22) corrects now ill-shaped noses without operation, quickly, safely and permanently. Is pleasant and does not interfere with one's daily occupation, being worn at night.

M. Trilety, Face Specialist.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Note: I doubt if Trilety is still in business, so please save your stamp.


Women and Love

Love is a candle which all women hope to light with a match.

Started In With "Enthusiasm"

1900

In an interview, Booker T. Washington tells the story of some of his early experiences at Tuskegee.

"After teaching in the ordinary way awhile, the impression began to grow upon me that I was largely throwing away my time, trying to give these students a book education without getting hold of them in their home life, and without teaching them how to care for their bodies, and inculcating in them habits of neatness, order and industry. Here it was that I conceived the idea of such a work as has followed."

"Had you any capital to start such a school with?"

"I had unbounded enthusiasm. I began looking around to see if I could get hold of some land. I found a farm near Tuskegee, that I thought would answer the purpose, but I couldn't buy real estate with enthusiasm, and I hadn't a cent of money. But my boldness led me to write to Gen. Marshall, the treasurer of Hampton, and ask him to loan me $500 to make a payment on that farm; and to my unbounded surprise he sent me a cheek for what I asked, and I wasn't long in getting the school moved."

"How have you since managed to get all your buildings and the other thousands of acres of land?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you how we got our first building, though. We pitched in and built it ourselves — yes, sir; people scoffed, but we even made our own bricks. The point at which we stuck was the burning of the bricks — none of us knew how to fire a kiln. We had no money to hire labor, but we had to have those bricks, and I owned a gold watch which I took to the pawnshop and got enough money to employ an experienced brick maker to burn the bricks."

"That was a heroic measure, sure. No doubt you cherished that watch as — "

"I have never got that watch out of pawn yet, but we are now manufacturing a million bricks a year. That was a pretty poor sort of building, but we builded self-respect and manhood into it, and when white people saw what we could do, we won their respect. Now we can put up a building that no one need be ashamed of. In our last building the steam heating apparatus and the electric light fixtures were put in by our own steamfitters and electricians. The plans were by an architect from our own school."

—The Ram's Horn, March 17, 1900, p. 14.

Fun Has a Valuable Side

1901

"Show me a man who does not appreciate humor," said John Kendrick Bangs to me, "and I will show you a man who is morbid, cynical, unresponsive to every call of nature. Such a man is worse than a pessimist and more to be pitied. Take some of the greatest and most successful men in the world. Humor has always played an important part in their lives. Often a funny incident has marked the turning point of a great man's career. Often some ridiculous condition has been the impetus of a new start in life."

Mr. Bangs is right. Did not Columbus' apparently hopeless task of standing an egg on end make thinkers of the wise men who sat around him? Was not George Washington credited with being a master of the truth because he once saw a boy punished for trying to jest with his father and finally became, as Mr. Bangs facetiously remarks, so "he couldn't tell a lie even if he saw one?" And didn't Johann Gutenberg invent the printing press by working out a theory which found its origin while he was playing leapfrog with some boys on damp ground? The impression made in the soil by the boys' feet is said to have given Gutenberg his first idea of the impression that could be made by types. — Robert Mackay in Success.

The Boy Who Learned the Way

1901

He was very young — about 13 — this boy who spent most of his time in the studios watching the artists draw and paint and wishing he could do the same.

"What kind of pencils do you use?" he said one day, and they gave him one of the kind. That night he tried to make a figure he had seen one of the artists draw. It seemed so easy. But he could not do the same kind of work.

"Perhaps I haven't the right kind of paper," he reasoned. "I will get a piece tomorrow." Even the right kind of paper did not help him any.

"I need a studio and an easel," was his next conclusion. "I have the desire; surely all I need now are the necessary surroundings."

A few years of impatient waiting passed before he secured the "necessary surroundings," and when he had them all and still found it impossible to draw the truth dawned upon him.

"I know what is wrong," he cried, throwing down his pencil. "I know nothing of the principles of art. I must learn them first."

He was still young when his name as a great painter was known on two continents. He had learned the "principle." A bit of brown paper and a burned match would then enable him to draw as easily as all the art essentials. — Ann Partlan in Success.

Failure

1901

"Failure," says Keats, "is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid."

Defeats and failures have played a great part in the history of success. It is not pleasant to think that more or less of defeat is absolutely necessary to great success. But that it is true every student of history knows. Defeats and failures are great developers of character. They are the gymnasia which have strengthened the muscles or manhood, the stamina, the backbone which have won victories. They have made the giants of the race by giving titanic muscles, brawny sinews, far reaching intellects.

How true it is that poverty often bides her charms under ugly masks! Thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door. She is often the only agent nature can employ to call a man out of himself and push him on toward the goal which she had fitted him to reach. Nature cares little for his ease and pleasure. It is the man she is after, and she will pay any price or resort to any expedient to lure him on. She masks her own ends in man's wants and urges him onward, oftentimes through difficulties and obstacles which are well nigh disheartening, but ever onward and upward toward the goal. — Register.

Unlucky Men

1901

"The unlucky men are all kin; they all have certain qualities alike," says An American Mother in The Ladies' Home Journal. "They have eyes keen to look into the root of things, but which also dream dreams and see visions; they have hot human blood, they love or hate in no half way measure. To each of them, too, comes at times — no matter what the business or pursuit may be by which they strive to push their way among men and to grow rich — a sudden disgust of it, heartfelt and real, a contempt for the work and for its successes. They dream of something before them better than money or office, and they try to clutch at it. So they go through life groping for success with one hand and for their dream with the other, and they lose both. We must choose either God or Mammon as master and keep faith with him if we mean to succeed."

Do and Think

1917

If you wish to be or do anything great in this world you will find every hour and every day an opportunity in some way. If nothing else the lull in routine is opportunity to study up for future reference and use.

If your mind is full of plans and ideas for carrying them out you can make almost any situation or circumstance work in to help you.

It is not so much how you go at a thing as to get at it.

Begin by doing something. Do and think at the same time. That think will help in the next do, and by always doing what you know how to do, first, you will find the next step easier.

It is not the talkers and the arguers who accomplish the most in this world.

Try some plan while the next one is talking about it, and you will be surprised at how easy it is to keep in the front row of the procession. — Minneapolis Tribune.

Fine Home-Made Violin

1905

Kentuckian's Instrument He Wouldn't Trade for a "Strad"

H. H. C. Q. James of Bullitt county, who is an expert performer on the violin, finished making a new violin last Monday, and played on it Tuesday and thinks it has got the best tone of any that he ever heard. The lightest touch of the bow will produce a clear, even and well-sustained sound.

He made the top of cedar and the back and ribs of maple. Two years ago he cut a cedar tree that was known to be seventy-five years old, and sawed from the first cut the piece with which he made the top of the violin, and at the same time he cut the maple, and after thoroughly seasoning he has, with a specially-shaped knife, and a file, made what he considers one of the finest-toned violins he ever heard.

All of his friends are congratulating him on his success and as the violin ages Mr. James expects it to improve in tone. — Salt River (Ky.) Tiger.

Wise Words — "Whatever Love Undertakes"

1896

Whatever love undertakes to do, it does well.

A sunbeam in the heart is bound to light the face.

Some people might as well be crazy; they have no sense.

Labor is drudgery only when we do not put heart in our work.

A pessimist is not blind, yet he can not see even a bright prospect.

It is to live twice when we enjoy the recollections of our former life.

Some people prepare their excuses before they make their failures.

Everyone believes in friends until he has had occasions to try them.

Nothing succeeds like success. It can convert a traitor into a patriot in five seconds.

When we come close to a giant, he often turns out to be only a common man on stilts.

A little lovers' quarrel or two is a good thing by which to take each other's measure.

It is a question with many bright young men whether they will practice law, medicine or deception.

Never lie in bed thinking that the cat that is howling in the back yard will grow weary and go away.

A single man has nobody but himself to blame if things go wrong. A married man can blame it all to his wife.

It is not in the power of a good man to refuse making another happy, where he has both ability and opportunity. — The South-West.

Short Shorts

1900

Conventional Wisdom

The duelist's aim is at the point of honor.

Some business men only win financial success through failures.

The fresh young man is generally not worth his salt.

If a lazy man is comfortable he is happy.

The woman who is fond of home isn't necessarily homely.

A vain woman is like a street piano — she is full of airs.

Never judge a man by his relatives — they are not of his own selection.

Every man who isn't prominent imagines he will be some day.

The boy who works in a bowling alley earns his pin money.

The aristocratic dentist should be a man of excellent extraction.

There are few people who think they are worse than they really are.

Wit is a diamond in the rough that is polished by adversity.

The only step from the sublime to the ridiculous is usually a short one.

The flustrated bride usually has all sorts of presence except presence of mind.

He who lacks time to make also lacks time to mend.

A woman who probably speaks from experience says a husband who can be led isn't worth leading.

You will observe that men who post as fancy whistlers seldom amount to much.

Return good for evil. If your enemy heaps coals of fire on your head, pile chunks of ice on his.

The Cheerful Man

1906

By O.S. Marden

The cheerful man is pre-eminently a useful man.

The cheerful man sees that everywhere the good outbalances the bad, and that every evil has its compensating balm.

A habit of cheerfulness enables one to transmute apparent misfortunes into real blessings.

He who has formed a habit of looking at the bright side of things, has a great advantage over the chronic dyspeptic who sees no good in anything.

The cheerful man's thought sculptures his face into beauty and touches his manner with grace.

It was Lincoln's cheerfulness and sense of humor that enabled him to stand under the terrible load of the civil war.

If we are cheerful and contented all nature smiles with us; the air is balmier, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly and the sun, moon and the stars are more beautiful. All good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer. High-minded cheerfulness is found in great souls, self-poised and confident in their own heaven-aided powers.

Serene cheerfulness is the great preventive of humanity's ills.

Grief, anxiety and fear are the great enemies of human life and should be resisted as we resist the plague. Cheerfulness is their antidote.

Without cheerfulness there can be no healthy action, physical, mental or moral, for it is the normal atmosphere of our being. — Success.

Nuggets — "Genius is Inspiration"

1907

Genius is inspiration. Talent is perspiration.

Do not measure your enjoyment by the amount of money spent in producing it.

Education turns the wild sweetbrier into the queenly rose.

A vigorous initiative and strong self faith make up the man of power.

Be sure that the honors you are striving for are not really dishonors.

What men get and do not earn is often a curse instead of a blessing.

You can purchase a man's labor, but you've got to cultivate his good will.

Ignorance itself is a disease, the deepest, most treacherous and damning malady of the soul.

Worry poisons the mind just as much as a deadly drug would poison the body and just as surely.

While you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both. — Success Magazine.

Chasing Rainbows — Happiness Out of Reach

1907

Folks to Whom Happiness Is Always Just Out of Reach

How many people go through life deluded with the conviction that if they could only get a little more money, get into a little more comfortable position, own a little better home, or if they could only get over the particular trouble that is annoying them at the time, they would be happy.

I know a man who had a very hard boyhood, suffered great poverty, who is now fifty years old, and he has always honestly relieved that if he could only get the particular thing he was after or get over the particular difficulty that was annoying him at the moment he would be perfectly happy, but he is the same anxious, restless, expectant spirit today as when a youth.

He has been quite successful and has done some very remarkable things, but he is invariably in hot water. There is always something that nettles him or destroys his happiness, and, although he is a well meaning man, he has made his family, his employees and everybody about him very unhappy because he is always fretting and worrying, always borrowing trouble. — Success.

Travesty on Real Falstaff

1915

Yarmouth has a claim upon all Englishmen quite independently of its associations with the breakfast bloater, remarks a writer in St Nicholas. For it was the home of Shakespeare's Falstaff, who appears to have been a man of exemplary piety. The Falstaffs were an old Yarmouth family.

"A Falstolfe or Falstaff," writes John Richard Green, "was bailiff of Yarmouth in 1281. Another is among the first of its representatives in parliament, and from that the members of that family filled the highest municipal offices. John Falstolfe, a man of considerable account in the town, purchased lands at the close of the fourteenth century in Caistor, and became the father of Sir John Falstolfe, who, after a distinguished military career, was luckless enough to give his name to Shakespeare's famous character. In Yarmouth, however, he was better known as a benefactor to the great church of St. Nicholas.


Failures as Stepping Stones

John Wanamaker, in a recent address in Philadelphia, urged his audience to persevere.

"Every successful man," he said, "has probably had more failures, far more failures, than the nonentity has had.

"Success, after all, is nothing more than failure with a new coat of paint."

Grafting In a New Root — Renew Your Old Life, Do Something New

1921

By DR. WM. E. BARTON

IF THE top of a tree dies down, or does not bear a satisfactory kind of fruit, new branches can be grafted in. But what if it be the root that dies? Is there any way of grafting in a new root?

In Riverside, California, stand the two parent navel orange trees. If I have the information correctly, the entire navel orange industry on the Pacific coast began with the successful propagation of that kind of orange from these two trees.

One of them stands on Magnolia avenue, and the other was transplanted by President Theodore Roosevelt, and stands in front of the Mission Inn.

Both these trees are very old and manifestly dying. But they are trying the experiment of creating a new root for one of them. If that succeeds, I presume they will do the same for the other.

They take a vigorous young tree, cut off its top, plant it as close to the old tree as possible and at an angle, and graft the top into the side of the old tree a little above the root.

They have grafted in several such young roots, and they appear to be growing and to be saving the life of the old tree.

Such an undertaking lends itself to reflection. There are men who are dying at the top because they have not sufficient root. Why not dig down near the root, and put in a new one?

You can learn Greek at forty, or study Browning at fifty, or become an expert on psychoanalysis at sixty, or make yourself either a learned man or a fool at seventy.

Maybe you do not care for those particular studies — in that case there are others.

Why should not a man who lacked opportunities, in his youth for higher education, set about it in middle life, and pursue a course of good reading? Why not study astronomy, or botany, or literature?

Many men die a good many years before the undertaker carts them away. A man begins to die when he ceases to grow. Why not graft in a new root?

Writer Says Age Doesn't Matter, Keep Going for Success

1921

Emerson Hough Says No "Dead Line" at 40, Former S.U.I. Man

By DALE E. CARRELL

There has long been a sort of "unwritten law," or at least common belief, that if a man didn't make his mark in the world or achieve real success by the time he was 40, he never would. After 40, it has been held, a man simply fights to hold his own or start down-grade.

But, along comes Emerson Hough, and proceeds to rip to pieces this so-called iron-clad rule which would end man's climbing of the ladder of fame at the age of 40. Mr. Hough very emphatically says, there is no dead line at two score "milestones," and the noted author points to his own life as an example and illustration to prove his point.

Emerson Hough is well known personally to many Iowans and Iowa City and University people for he is a graduate of S. U. I, having won his degree in 1880, just 41 years ago. The University of Iowa is very proud of her eminent alumnus and he is just as proud of his alma mater. And, those who do not know Mr. Hough personally, know him thru having read his delightful novel, "The Mississippi Bubble," which made him famous, almost overnight. Therefore, Mr. Hough's declaration will make Hawkeyes, especially, sit up and take notice.

Mr. Hough is now 63 years age and his big success in life did not come until he was 45. Up to the time that success came, he had tried numerous occupations and couldn't make good, or keep happy in any of them, but the former S. U. I. man never once gave up. He soon found, in writing, the real star to follow and he hitched his wagon to it. He is now an author and wealthy. He says "It is within your soul — this question of achievement. It is not decided by the clock or the calendar."

Mr. Hough's statement should hearten a lot of fellows who haven't really found themselves after the 40 mark has been passed, and his own career should serve to inspire confidence and instill new energy in some of the faithful plodders who have almost given up hope. Hough didn't give up during the days of adversity — that is the main thing to remember. Keep on trying and even if you are nearer 60 than you are 40, you can still strike, in the vernacular of the oil field, a "gusher" in some field of endeavor, that means real success. Let no one set a "dead line" for you — you have everything to say about that yourself. The movie director continually yells for "action" when he is making the film you are soon to enjoy on the screen. If you can provide plenty of "action" in your struggle for success, you will not only achieve it, but keep pushing that "dead line" farther and farther away. There is no "dead line" at 40!

—Iowa City Press-Citizen, Iowa City, IA April 11, 1921, p. 1.

Pittsburg Boy Takes Boating Bet, Threatened by Tramp

1897

IN A SKIFF

A Pittsburg Boy Made a Trip to This City.

He Made the Trip In Eighty Hours Actual Working Time and Thereby Wins His Expenses and a $25 Wager—Exciting Experience Enroute.

There arrived in the city Wednesday a couple of young men—John Phin and Godfrey Nelson by name—who have led an exciting life for the past two weeks.

The pair left Pittsburg just two weeks ago Wednesday in a small pine skiff, and one of them—Nelson— rowed the entire distance—four hundred miles—to the Portsmouth wharf. It appears that the young men are employed in one of the Pittsburg rolling mills. They belong to an athletic club, and a wager was recently made that Nelson could not row from Pittsburg to Portsmouth in eighty-five hours, actual working time. If he succeeded in doing it he was to receive his expenses and $25. He took up the offer and two weeks ago started on his trip. Phin came along to represent the club and see that he did not shirk his work and tie onto a passing boat. They covered ground rapidly, and when they rounded into the wharf here the actual rowing time was just eighty hours. They immediately wired the result to their friends in Pittsburg. They spent the morning here and left this afternoon for Cincinnati. They expect to return to Pittsburg on one of the packets the first of the week.

Mr. Nelson, who is a very pleasant gentleman, said to a Times reporter that the trip was a pleasant one and at times exciting. At a point near Marietta a tramp endeavored to take possession of the boat and was for dumping Nelson and his partner in the river. Nelson pulled a gun and bluffed the fellow off, however. They also had some trouble with shanty boatmen. Nelson has been tramping about the country for several years in the summer time and working in the Pittsburg mills in the winter. He is an expert oarsman and a fine walker.

—The Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, OH, July 17, 1897, p. 1.

The World Owes You a Living; Hustle and Collect It

1917

Flashlights

About all that jealousy asks to make trouble is a chance.

Fair as women are, even they are no excuse for the so-called ladies' man.

No matter how much a man may neglect his wife it always makes him mad to discover that some other man is slightly interested in her.

This world may owe you a living, but if you don't care-enough for it to hustle round and collect it, the world isn't going to do any worrying.

Luck doesn't play nearly so big a part in the other fellow's success as you imagine.


Little Things Worth Knowing

The best marksmen are generally those with blue or gray eyes.

German silver is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. There is no silver in it.

There are fifteen technical colleges in Queensland, with 8,000 students in attendance.

Under perfect conditions watercress may be made to flower and seed within eight days of planting.

The Jollier (humor column)

1922

A big wheat crop is predicted. Say it with flour.

These June nights are even better than the famous Arabian nights.

Nineteen seniors at an Ohio girls' college are engaged. And yet people ask: "Does education help?"

A success is a self-starter. A failure is a self-stopper.

Hint to Ireland: An alley-apple a day won't keep the doctor away.

At the time of going to press another movie star was married.

In Indiana, a janitor stole $80,000 from the bank. This was the best he ever cleaned up.

An optimist is a man who plants an orchard near a school house.

Thanks to radio broadcasting sermons, a man can stay at home and claim he has been at church.

One way to keep a daughter at home is to feed her on onions.

A school of politics for women has opened. First lesson should be smoking bum cigars.

It's an unlucky angler who doesn't even catch one to lie about.

Americans in Germany say they are charged too much. Germans want them to feel at home.

This business revival could stand a little more shouting.

The only objection to living in the country is you have to go to town for your vacation.

No girl buying clothes wants the most she can get for her money.

In Detroit, a madman whipped his landlord and escaped. But all mad men can't do that.

We will investigate Turkish atrocities. The Turks will be glad to give a demonstration.

—The Coshocton Tribune, Coshocton, Ohio, June 19, 1922, page 4.