Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers

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You honor yourself, and prove yourself worthy of a good mother
and of final success, when you do something for the mothers of
the world.

YOUR WORK IS YOUR BRAIN'S GYMNASIUM

For "buyers" in big stores,

For clerks in little stores,

For office boys,

For typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household domestics,
for all who are hired to work for others, this article is
intended.

There is no greater mistake than skimping your work--BECAUSE YOU
ARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH.

For your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of
honest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF.

Only one thing in the world can improve you and better your
condition, and that thing is your own effort.

You begin life with certain mental faculties, and with certain
muscular faculties. Their development or decay depends entirely
on yourself.

No work that you do is worthless. It will NEVER pay you to
neglect or slur the task that you have undertaken.

You may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself
at the expense of your employer. It is a dishonest thought, and
it is a stupid thought at the same time.

You may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when
you shirk your work you rob yourself first of all. ----

You may say that your employer pays you too little. Perhaps he
does. But that is no reason for hurting your moral character
through dishonesty. It is no excuse for failing to develop
yourself.

The store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your
mind what a gymnasium is to your muscles.

You enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING
THERE.

You do not say to yourself: "This gymnasium belongs to another
man. The profits go to him, and so I'll not work hard."

On the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gymnasium
gives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him,
although he makes you pay for the privilege. And you do your
very best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other
direction.

Act in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours.

There is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and
more successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally.

If you sweep an office, sweep it well. And begin punctually each
day, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an
office may be used later in governing a city.

Train your mind through your work, whatever it is.

Study the lives of those who have succeeded. You will see that
they did whatever they did as well as they could.

Edison was an ordinary telegraph operator. But he was not
content with merely working as others worked. He worked very
hard, devised means to make more valuable the instruments of his
employers. Soon he was an employer himself, and what is far
better than being an employer, he was a creator of new ideas and
a benefactor of the world. ----

Intelligent readers will not misinterpret this advice to mean
that they should OVERWORK themselves, or work regardless of
their own physical welfare.

The right course is this:

Do as much as you can in the present, without drawing on your
future reserves.

Don't work all night and then go on the next day. Such effort
impairs permanently your store of vitality, and that vitality is
your capital.

But never form the habit of neglecting work, of shamming and
lying instead of achieving honestly.

You may deceive one employer, or ten. But 36> you can't deceive
nature, and you can't deceive yourself.

You can form good habits only through regular work. You can
develop your faculties only through exercising them honestly and
systematically. ----

MERELY WORKING "FAIRLY WELL" IS NOT ENOUGH.

If you want to run a mile fast, you do not merely jog. You try
every day to run the mile faster than you did the day before. If
you want to learn to jump high, you strain your muscles and try
over and over to do what you can't do. Ultimately you achieve
it.

Keep that in mind when you work. Remember that you must wind
yourself up. The most watchful employer may discharge you. But
he cannot wind you up.

Be a self-winding machine, and keep yourself wound up.

Your hardest effort may fail to achieve greatness. But honest
work will at least make it impossible for you to be a failure.

Train your brain, nerves and muscles to regular, steady,
conscientious effort. Make up your mind that FOR YOUR OWN
SAKE you will make every effort your best effort.

You will soon find yourself a more successful, more
self-respecting, abler man or woman.

And here is an argument that should be more powerful with you
than self-interest:

Remember that the world needs honest, conscientious men and
women, able to do good work themselves and to people the earth
with children born of honest parents.

Make up your mind to be one of the world's HONEST citizens.

To improve the world begin by improving yourself.

THE STEEPLE, MOVING LIKE THE HAND OF A CLOCK

If you live in the suburbs you devote perhaps two hours each day
to travel. Two hours per day means practically one-fifth of your
active life.

How many readers make any use of those two hours, and feel each
day that they have been well spent? ----

Instead of being wasted, those hours should be among your best.
Never mind if you are clinging to a strap because companies are
licensed to exploit you. Never mind if you are tired and weary
when the day is ended. The tired brain often thinks better than
the fresh one. And man, so recently descended from the monkey
who had to think while hanging head down, ought to have no
trouble thinking as he hangs from his strap--head up. ----

Some in the cars play cards as they travel homeward. Others talk
gossip, and tens of thousands waste too much time on this and
other newspapers.

Try this experiment: Make up your mind to devote your hours of
travel to thinking. The brain, like the muscles, needs definite
and well-planned exercise. It must be methodical and regular.
There is no limit to its possible results. You would be glad to
spend your two travelling hours in a gymnasium on wheels. Make
of your homeward car a mental gymnasium. Each night or morning,
take up some one line of thought and follow it to its end--or as
far as your mind can take you. Learn to observe, to study, to
reflect. Don't look at your fellow passengers as calves look at
each other on the way to the slaughter house.

Look, as a human being, at other human beings. There they sit or
stand or hang. Some chatter, others scowl, fret, fume, complain,
brag, grin or otherwise express the strange emotions that move us
here.

They are all ghosts, as Carlyle tells you, imprisoned for a time
in coverings of flesh, and a car packed full of real ghosts
passing over the earth on their quick journey to the grave ought
to stir you. ----

The giggling shopgirls whose life of misery is still a joke to
them--blessed youth!--should interest you deeply. And the negro,
too, with a tired black face, resting for the next day's
slavery--slavery on a wage basis, but slavery all the same.
Possibly you despise his thick lips. But those lips are carved
on every sphinx in Egypt's sand, and if you could go back far
enough you would find the ancestors of that negro, before the
days of the Pharaohs, laying the foundations of your religion and
locating the stars in heaven. At that time your forbears were
gibbering cave savages, sharpening bones and gnawing raw flesh.
When you see the negro on the opposite seat, the ill-starred one
who has gone down in the human race while we have gone up, think
about him, study him, speculate as to his ultimate end--and your
own. Don't merely say to yourself, "That's a plain negro," and
go on chewing gum. ----

The pictures that flash by your car windows should help you to
think.

The train rumbles over the switches, and in the dusk a swinging
lantern tells you that a man is at work, guiding you safely when
your work is done. Can't you take an interest in that human
atom, representing the Power that swings our tiny sun in space,
lighting us on our journey toward the constellation Hercules?
----

A black steeple is outlined against the dark-blue sky of the
evening. That is a finger of stone, built by man to point
everlastingly toward Infinite Power. It now points "upward." In
twelve hours--as the earth slowly turns--it will be pointing
"downward." But there is no upward or downward in the carpentry
of the universe. In the twenty-four hours, as it turns round
with the earth, that steeple points toward all the corners of
space, and constantly it points toward Eternal Wisdom and Justice
in every corner. ----

This is tiresome? All right, then we'll stop. But whether we
tire or interest you, remember:

As a man thinks, so he grows. Think, study, use all the hours
that separate your croupy cradle from your gloomy grave. Those
hours are few.

CULTIVATE THOUGHT--TEACH YOUR BRAIN TO WORK EARLY

Two centuries back a young man of twenty-three sat in the quiet
of the evening--THINKING.

His body was quiet; his vitality, his life, all his powers, were
centred in his brain.

Above, the moon shone, and around him rustled the branches of the
trees in his father's orchard.

From one of the trees an apple fell.

No need to tell you that the young man was Newton; that the fall
of the apple started in his READY brain the thought that led
to his great discovery, giving him fame to last until this earth
shall crumble.

How splendid the achievement born that moment! How fortunate for
the world and for the youth Newton, that at twenty-three his
brain had cultivated the HABIT OF THOUGHT! ----

Our muscles we share with everything that lives--with the oyster
clinging to his rock, the whale ploughing through cold seas, and
our monkey kinsman swinging from his tropical branch.

These muscles, useful only to cart us around, help us to do
slave work or pound our fellows, we cultivate with care.

We run, fence, ride, walk hard, weary our poor lungs and gather
pains in our backs building the muscles that we do not need.

Alone among animals, we possess a potentiality of mind
development unlimited.

And for that, with few exceptions, we care nothing. ----

Most of us, sitting in Newton's place and seeing the apple fall,
would merely have debated the advisability of getting the apple
to eat it--just the process that any monkey mind would pass
through.

A Newton, a BRAIN TRAINED TO THINK, sees the apple drop, asks
himself why the moon does not drop also. And he discovers the
law of gravitation which governs the existence of every material
atom in the universe. ----

Young men who read this, start in NOW to use your brains.
Take nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon stays
in her appointed place or that the poor starve and freeze amid
plenty.

Think of the things which are wrong and of the possibilities of
righting them. Study your own weaknesses and imperfections.
There is power in your brain to correct them, if you will
develop that power.

As surely as you can train your arm to hold fifty pounds out
straight, just so surely can you train your brain to deal with
problems that now would find you a gaping incompetent.

You may not be a Newton. But if you can condescend to aim at
being an inferior Sandow, can't you afford to try even harder to
be an inferior Newton?

Don't be a muscular monkey. Be a low-grade philosopher, if you
can't be high-grade, and find how much true pleasure there is
even in inferior brain gymnastics. ----

Take up some problem and study it:

There goes a woman, poor and old. She carries a heavy burden
because she is too sad and weak to fight against fate, too honest
to leave a world that treats her harshly.

There struts a youngster, rich and idle.

How many centuries of hell on earth will it take to put that
woman's load on that other broad, fat, idle back?

Answer that one question, better still, TRANSFER THE LOAD, and
your life will not have been wasted. ----

It is THOUGHT that moves the world. In Napoleon's BRAIN
are born the schemes that murder millions and yet push
civilization on. The mere soldier, with gold lace and sharp
sword, is nothing--a mere tool.

It is the concentrated thought of the English people under
Puritan influence that makes Great Britain a sham monarchy and a
real republic now.

It is the thought of the men of independent MIND in this country
that throws English tea and English rule overboard forever.

Don't wait until you are old. Don't wait until you are ONE DAY
older. Begin NOW.

Or, later, with a dull, fuzzy, useless mind, you will realize
that an unthinking man might as well have been a monkey, with fur
instead of trousers, and consequent freedom from mental
responsibility or self-respect.

THE WIND DOES NOT RULE YOUR DESTINY

"There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four
which I know not.

"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon
a rock; THE WAY OF A SHIP IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, and the way
of a man with a maid."

At sunset a long train of cars waited on a bridge as a sailing
ship passed through the draw.

The ship sailed up the river toward the cold Winter sun; another
ship sailed past it going in the OPPOSITE direction.

Only ONE wind was blowing. Yet, of those two ships blown by
the same wind, moved by the same power, one sailed EAST and
one WEST.

It may be of use to you in your career to think for a few minutes
about these two ships and the lesson which they teach--especially
to young men. ----

The man who has sailed, in his life's journey, toward failure and
disaster looks always with envy, sometimes with hatred, and very
often with an intense sensation of injustice, at the man who
passes him going in exactly the opposite direction.

Yet the FORCES that move men bound toward success are exactly
the same as those that move other men to failure, humiliation and
defeat.

It is all a question of the way in which you use the forces
within you--just as on shipboard it is all a question of the use
of the common wind which blows.

IT IS A QUESTION OF THE USE OF THE RUDDER.

Two ships pass, each with its sails filled out by the same wind.
The difference in direction is accounted for by the handling of
the rudder and the adjustment of the sails.

What the force of the wind is to the ship, our varying emotions,
passions, ambitions, appetites and aspirations are to us. All of
these constitute the power which may be called HUMAN FORCE.

This power differs in different individuals, as the wind differs
on different days. It may blow from the east or the west or the
north or the south. However it may blow, it can be forced, by
proper steering, to send the ship in any direction desired.

It is harder to beat against the wind, of course, and many men
have hard struggles to steer themselves to a good port in the
face of an adverse start, a hard beginning, or inclinations
difficult to overcome. ----

But in all of us the force exists which can be made to move us in
the right direction--the force within us can be MADE to obey
our will, if the will be strong and the hand on the rudder
steady. This can be proved--for instance:

There is a certain force in human beings called LOVE. This
force leads sometimes, and happily it leads usually, to
domesticity, morality, care of children and lifelong devotion.
Then the force is used properly.

The same human passion leads to murder, suicide, theft, to almost
all forms of crime.

There is another human passion called AMBITION.

This human force of ambition, with a Lincoln's conscience to
guide it, saves a republic.

The same force guided by Benedict Arnold seeks to betray the
nation. ----

Consider yourself a ship launched on the sea of life under
certain conditions--but with the essential condition in your own
control.

The wind may be feeble, you may drift for a while or move very
slowly--move at least in the right direction.

The wind may blow a gale, and you may feel, as so many do, that
you cannot control your emotions and your appetites. But if that
comes show at least as much interest in yourself as a sailor does
in his ship. Take in sail and fight the storm, instead of going
willingly to destruction. ----

Four things puzzled and impressed the wise man that wrote the
nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs.

Think to-day about the third of these things:

"The way of a ship in the midst of the sea"

The way of a human being in the midst of life is like that of a
ship on the ocean.

Make up your mind that your own way at least shall be controlled
by the rudder of conscience, and learn from the passing ships a
lesson of use in your own life.

ONE OF THE MANY CORPSES IN THE JOHNSTOWN MINE

The widow says to the mine owner: "Here he is, dead--killed
working for you. Where were you when he was killed? Driving in
your carriage, enjoying the difference between his EARNINGS
and his PAY. Was one dollar and thirty cents per day too much
to pay him for this risk? Was it too much to let him save
something for us--who now have nothing? Is there nothing to
arbitrate when the man who risks his life and gets nothing asks
arbitration of the man who risks nothing and gets all? ----

There are many men in America--honest and sincere--who believe
that strikers are nearly always right, that failure of a strike
is a calamity.

Other men, less numerous, but also honest and sincere, consider
strikes an evil. They believe that labor unionism threatens
"capital," threatens national energy, and our national industrial
supremacy. ----

Let us endeavor to take a clear view of the strike question, and
to discuss--as free from bias as may be possible--some of the
main viewpoints of those interested.

We may, at the start, accept two statements as sound:

First. The employer wants as much money as he can possibly get.

Second. The workman wants as much money as HE can possibly get.

It is impossible for both or for either to win absolutely. The
success of one must leave the other penniless.

Let us look at the matter of a coal strike only, for simplicity's
sake.

In a coal mine you have three factors:

First. The COAL given to men--presumably for the use of mankind
in general--by Divine Providence.

Second. The WORKMEN who dig the coal, haul it, screen it, etc.

Third. The OWNER, who through money, or intelligence, or both,
gets control of mines and works them for his profit.

The mine owner resents the suggestion that he and his men are
partners.

Ought he to resent that suggestion? We think not.

Miners without any capitalist could certainly get coal out of the
ground.

The capitalist without miners could not possibly get coal out of
the ground.

The labor is at least as important as the mine. ----

The capitalist who wishes to acquire a mine is willing to grant
certain rights and conditions to him who has the MINE for sale.
He treats with that person as with an equal.

WHY WILL HE NOT GRANT RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE
LABOR FOR SALE?

If a hundred men own the mine, and elect a certain agent to
represent them in the sale, the capitalist will willingly treat
with that agent EVEN THOUGH HE BE NOT ONE OF THE ACTUAL MINE
OWNERS. It becomes simply a question of the agent's AUTHORITY.

Why does the capitalist haughtily refuse to treat with the
accredited agent of the men who have the LABOR for sale,

Is it not because he resents the workman's attempt at
emancipation and equality? Is it not because the capitalist in
his heart demands SUBMISSION from the man who works for a
daily wage?

Is it not because the powerful among us fail to admit that
workers have passed from slavery to equality?

A man owns vast mining properties. He lives in New York and in
Newport. Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his
mines. He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted. He means well.
He does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He
does not notice the hollow chests of young children with the
pores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of coal
dust.

This owner--who rules and draws his profits from Newport--has one
bitter complaint against his striking men. He cannot forgive
them BECAUSE THEY CALL IN A LABOR LEADER FROM CHICAGO TO SETTLE
A LABOR DISPUTE IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Imagining himself most condescending, he expresses willingness to
treat personally and individually with his men. But he will not
tolerate interference "with my business" on the part of the
workmen's agent, whom he calls "an agitator from Chicago."

WHY should he feel so badly about it?

If the Pennsylvania workman is willing to let a NEWPORT man
manage the capitalistic end, should not that Newport man allow a
CHICAGO labor leader to manage the labor end?

Is not one explanation the fact that the owner considers his
workmen, in every possible respect, financially, morally,
legally, ethically and eternally, his inferiors?

If one mine owner disagrees with another, each will treat with
the other's chosen agent, whether he be Tom Reed, corporation
lawyer from Maine; Joe Choate, corporation lawyer from New York,
or Levy, corporation lawyer from Chicago.

Why not accord to the workman the right to choose his accredited
representative?

So much for the much-talked-of "interference in MY business by
labor agitators."

What about the interests of the country? There are in
Pennsylvania, let us say, one hundred square miles of coal lands
OWNED BY ONE MAN, and WORKED BY TEN THOUSAND MEN.

The working of this mining region develops an annual net profit,
perhaps, of five million dollars, AFTER the workmen have been
paid as little as they will work for.

The owner lives in a house of a hundred rooms.

The miner's family lives in two rooms. The owner has a yacht, a
private car, a fast automobile, fine carriages, many servants.

The miner WALKS. He has a wife who cooks, sews, scrubs,
washes, mends while he and his boys work in the mines.

We wish to arouse no "maudlin sympathy" for the miner, no
"anarchist loathing" of the owner.

We ask an answer to this question:

Which would be better for America: to let one man have five
millions a year, and keep ten thousand men on the edge of want;
or to let the one (and, if you choose, SUPERIOR) man have one
million a year, and divide the four millions among ten thousand
families, adding four hundred dollars to the income of each
family? That is a plain, simple question.

Remember, we suggest and advocate no COMPULSION. We state a
situation. The STRIKER is trying to get a little more for
himself and family. The OWNER is trying to keep the vast sum
for himself and his family. Each is convinced of the
righteousness of his cause. The striker does not try to TAKE
AWAY money or property from the owner. He simply strikes,
saying:

"I will not work for less than such a sum, unless you starve
me into working."

He calls upon YOU, the public, to give him moral support. He
entreats other workmen not to take his place while he strikes.

It is for YOU, the public, and for YOU, the idle, hard-pressed
workmen, to answer conscientiously the question:

Is it better for one man to have four extra MILLIONS a year, or
for each of ten thousand families to have four extra HUNDREDS a
year, that they need sadly and sorely?

If this question were answered as Christ would answer it, there
would be no smug respectabilities scoffing at the striker. There
would be no heartless scabs taking the places of men struggling
to support wives and children.

Leave out sentimentality, if you will, and Christianity, and our
hollow pretence of following Him who called every poor man "my
brother."

What about the cold utility? Four millions more for an owner
mean what?

Some bogus antiquities, and perhaps a bogus title brought to
America.

Another palace, with a dissatisfied owner.

A dissipated son; money spent by this son to promote vice, and by
the father to corrupt legislation. Four hundred dollars more for
a workman's family mean wholesome food for children. And the
children go to school and have a chance.

This sum means a self-respecting life for a father, and for the
mother it means everything. She can hire some woman to help her
when her babies come. She can give her husband and her children
good food, rejoice in their comfort, add good, healthy citizens
to the nation. ----

The owner in his struggle makes various statements of which only
a few must be answered, and very briefly, for the sake of the
impatient reader.

"If capital goes on granting the demands of union labor there
will be no more capital, no more big manufactures, our prosperity
will die as England's prosperity is dying--killed by union
labor!"

Thus speaks the indignant, would-be patriotic and unselfish
capitalist. Let us see:

What becomes of the established FACT that a nation is
prosperous in proportion as the average individual citizen
(NOT its few millionaires) is prosperous? There are nowhere
on earth stronger labor unions than in the United States. There
are no such unions in Mexico, none such in South America, none
as powerful in Canada. Why are we not eclipsed industrially by
those countries?

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