Office Boy Always Potential Boss

1910

By Jonas Howard

"Every office boy is a potential office manager. Every clerk is a potential head of the firm. The talk that the day of opportunity is past is all rot. The chance to 'work up' is as good as ever. It always is up to the boy."

These little extracts from the philosophy of James B. McMahon, whose recent election as first vice-president of the American Cotton Oil Company of New York supplemented his old position as vice-president of the N. K. Fairbank Company of Chicago, are worth the reading and remembering. The difference between them and the casual optimisms of the ordinary giver of "advice to the young" is that they emanate from a man who has the right to talk, especially along this line. Mr. McMahon does not say what he does simply because he believes it. He knows. Mr. McMahon began his career as an office boy with the firm of which he now comes near being the head.

The story of McMahon is a good, inspiring idea with which to begin the new year. It reeks with hope and optimism and has results to back it up. McMahon now is only 43 years old and from a start humble enough to suit anybody he has mounted pretty near to the heights of business success.

He was 14 when he began in the New York office of the Fairbank company. That was 28 years ago. There was nothing spectacular or meteoric about the boy. There are probably thousands of office kids around the country at this moment who show as much promise as did he. He was just a common office boy who had to work for a living and he did nothing but work, work hard, for his subsequent promotions.

He moved naturally from ordinary office boy to ordinary clerk and it wasn't until he was placed in charge of the export shipping business that the future began to promise much. There he displayed the ability that won him the confidence of his superiors and in 1896 he was appointed general sales manager and came to Chicago.

Chicago has been the scene of his most important activities, but he had won his spurs before he came here. It is easy enough to continue as a success; where the thousands fail is in making the big step upward.

Girls Travel On "Nerve"

Oct. 1910

Two Oklahoma Young Women Start Out Without Money on a Three-Years' Trip

Chicago. — "We are going around the world on our own endeavors and nerve for educational purposes and to see if two women can work their way in such an undertaking," said Miss Olive Adair and Miss Oralee List, two young women from Tulsa, Okla., who arrived at the Congress hotel, Chicago, from St. Louis, on the first part of their long journey.

They wore broad white satin sashes, with the words, in black letters, "Around-the-World Girls From Tulsa, Oklahoma," and their suitcases and traveling bags were decorated in similar manner. They wore light tan traveling gowns and black turbans. "We are going to make a tour of the world," they said, "and will earn our passage."

Miss List is a composer of music, and Miss Adair is a singer and a writer of short stories. "We started without one cent of money, earning our fare to Kansas City by singing on the streets and selling papers."

Patriotic Creed of the Good American

1920

Patriotic Creed of the Good American for the Welfare of Everybody

Composite by Federal Reserve Savings Directors

I believe in the United States of America.
My opportunity and hope depend upon her future.
I believe that her stability and progress rest upon the industry and thrift of her people.
Therefore, I will work hard and live simply.
I will spend less than I earn.
I will use my earnings with care.
I will save consistently.
I will invest thoughtfully.
To increase the financial strength of my country and myself I will buy government securities.
I will hold above barter the obligations my country thus incurs.
I will do these things to secure the greatness of America's future.
Let us have no financial slackers in this battle.

First Money Mark Twain Earned

1906

Marshall P. Wilder, in his book entitled The Sunny Side of the Street, says that he once asked Mark Twain if he could remember the first money he had ever earned.

"Yes," replied the famous humorist, "it was at school. There was a rule in our school that any boy marring his desk either with pencil or knife, would he chastised publicly before the whole school or pay a fine of $5.

"One day I had to tell my father that I had broken the rule, and had to pay a fine or take a public whipping, and he said:

" 'Sam, it would be too bad to have the name of Clemens disgraced before the whole school, so I'll pay the fine. But I don't want you to lose anything, so come upstairs.'

"I went upstairs with father and came down again feeling a tender spot with one hand and $5 in the other, and decided that as I had been punished once and got used to it, I wouldn't mind taking the other licking at school. So I did, and I kept the $5."