by © Fernando Soave

I must tell you about a rich man's son at Niagara Falls. He was an indescribable specimen of anthropologic potency. He had a skull-cap on one side of his head, with a gold tassel in the top of it, and a gold-headed cane under his arm with more in it than in his head. It is a very difficult thing to describe that young man.

He wore an eye- glass that he could not see through, patent- leather boots that he could not walk in, and pants that he could not sit down in--dressed like a grasshopper. This human cricket came up to the clerk's desk just as I entered, adjusted his unseeing eye-glass, and spake in this wise to the clerk.

You see, he thought it was ``Hinglish, you know,'' to lisp. ``Thir, will you have the kindness to supply me with thome papah and enwelophs!'' The hotel clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled the envelopes and paper out of a drawer, threw them across the counter toward the young man, and then turned away to his books.

You should have seen that young man when those envelopes came across that counter. He swelled up like a gobbler turkey, adjusted his unseeing eye- glass, and yelled: ``Come right back here. Now thir, will you order a thervant to take that papah and enwelophs to yondah dethk.'' Oh, the poor, miserable, contemptible American monkey! He could not carry paper and envelopes twenty feet. I suppose he could not get his arms down to do it. I have no pity for such travesties upon human nature. If you have not capital I am glad of it. What you need is common sense, not copper cents.

The best thing I can do is to illustrate by actual facts well-known to you all. A. T. Stewart, a poor boy in New York, had $1.50 to begin life on. He lost 87 cents of that on the very first venture. How fortunate that young man who loses the first time he gambles. That boy said, ``I will never gamble again in business,'' and he never did. How came he to lose 87 cents? You probably all know the story how he lost it--because he bought some needles, threads, and buttons to sell which people did not want, and had them left on his hands, a dead loss. Said the boy, ``I will not lose any more money in that way.'' Then he went around first to the doors and asked the people what they did want. Then when he had found out what they wanted he invested his 62 cents to supply a known demand.

Study it wherever you choose--in business, in your profession, in your housekeeping, whatever your life, that one thing is the secret of success. You must first know the demand. You must first know what people need, and then invest yourself where you are most needed.

A. T. Stewart went on that principle until he was worth what amounted afterward to forty millions of dollars, owning the very store in which Mr. Wanamaker carries on his great work in New York. His fortune was made by his losing something, which taught him the great lesson that he must only invest himself or his money in something that people need. When will you salesmen learn it? When will you manufacturers learn that you must know the changing needs of humanity if you would succeed in life? Apply yourselves, as manufacturers or merchants or workmen to supply that human need. It is a great principle as broad as humanity.

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Copyright © Fernando Soave
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