I remember, in a moment of discouragement, talking to Theodore Roosevelt as to the difficulty of arousing the American public.

"Very difficult," he returned. "The Americans are slowly aroused; like all peaceable peoples they are slow to anger. But," he added, "believe me, when the American people do get aroused and into action, you want to get from under, and quick at that!"

THE

VI

HE great pity is that a wider expression of this idealism does not translate itself into concrete service. It is true that we see more and more of it all the time. The spirit of service is neither dead nor declining; on the contrary, it is alive to-day as never before. But we want and need its life quickened.

It is an acid test that a man faces when he reaches the crossroads-and every successful man does. His conscience must then decide whether he will go farther in the business world, or, whether, having got the share to which he is entitled, he will devote the rest of his life to the service of others. But it is the acid test that proves men. Cyrus W. Field proved it when at thirty-four he retired from money-making and laid the Atlantic cable. Herbert Hoover signally proved it in the present generation when at forty he retired from active business and devoted himself to those works of public service which will count him among the greatest Americans of his day.

IT

VII

T HAS been my lot to know a number of what the world calls "big business" men-men who allowed themselves to become so immersed in money-making as to have practically no time to live. They became business giants-whose names were those to conjure with in finance and commerce. But I have yet to meet one who was ready to concede that the feverish, unrelenting chase after wealth and power was worth the sacrifice. On the contrary, in every case the opposite opinion was expressed. "The trouble

is," said one of the best-known of the money-kings, "once you get going it is so difficult to stop. You become part of responsibilities that you must see through, and the next seems to be interlocked with the one just before. You haven't time for the real things of life, for the things that really count. And the worst of it is you do not realize it until it is too late. You have amassed what you have been years striving for, and then when you get what you thought you wanted you find that it isn't at all what you thought it would be. There is no doubt of it that a man obsessed with the idea of material success sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. You honestly believe that money can and will do anything, only to find out when it is too late that all that it can do is to bring certain material comforts, and you don't need a fortune for those. Beyond that point, there is nothing but disappointment and afterregrets.'

How true is the proverb: "With all thy getting, get understanding.'

TH

VIII

HE argument is often advanced that all cannot amass the means to enable them to stop. But many men can, and more could if they better regulated their lives. It is a question of storing up for the day that comes to all; of living not within one's means, but of applying ordinary thrift, and that is only common sense applied to spending. A man must store mentally as well. Money is not of much use to a man unless he knows how to use it. The trouble with the average business man is that he gives all his waking hours to his business and its problems. He lets no outside breezes blow over him. He has no time with his family; no time to interest himself in the business of citizenship. He knows only one thingbusiness. What is the result? When the time comes when he might retire he cannot do it because he has built up for himself no outside interests. He has no inner resources. He is afraid to retire because he would not know what to do, which is very much like the maid who, being urged

62

to use more system in her work and get through, so that she might have some time to herself, answered: "What's the use? When work's done, there ain't anything else to do." A man should work to the limit; that is natural to a man. He should be constructive, and he should

erect something lasting during his life.

time. There is no place in the world for the idler or the shirker. But work for what and for whom? For himself, for the dollar all his life?

IX

AMAN'S first duty is to be a good prod

vider for his family. He should work to the limit to see that his family is safely provided for in case of incapacity or if he passes away. A man cannot be a good citizen until he is first a good husband and father. But then he reaches the crossroads. One leads on along the same way he has come-more dollars, more power, more success. He cannot stop. Just one more deal, he says to the wife who urges him to slack up because he has enough. But that one deal leads on to more deals. He is a slave to business. And he ends up by working himself out. He becomes a care to his family and a bore to himself. And what good has he done? Amassed a fortune? True, but what good is it to him? What good is it to his family? They can eat only so much, and wear just so many clothes. What has he done for others? Given checks? What good does that do a man?

It is the other road which leads to the fuller life. It is the road that leads to service; that recognizes that a man is his brother's keeper; that he has obligations to his friends, his community, and his country; that life is not all self; that giving does not mean the mere giving of money; that a man must go along with his money. He must give of himself. That takes thought; it takes time; it calls for freedom of movement. Where is a man, after all, in the scheme of things if he finds he has more money than time? Time is infinitely more precious if he

uses it right. Certainly the opportunities are there. Never was there a time when so many chances for service beckoned to a man to go out and do something for his fellow men.

X

IT MATTERS little what such a man a vas.

It depends upon his tastes and his interests. He will soon find that his problem is not what to do, but which to do. To retire from an active job after one feels that he has done his duty by it means a busy life, but a life filled with an entire change of thought, of a different viewpoint. Where all a man's thought has been centered on himself now he turns and thinks of others.

The whole question of service simmers down to this: For fifty years or more a man has practically said, "All for one." Is he now ready to say: "One for all"? As he answers that question so does he proclaim himself to himself, his family, and his community. In the one direction lies further material achievement; in the other he takes into his heart and carries out in his life the spirit of the greatest word in the English language.

I

XI

HAVE always found myself firmly resting in this belief: that as man is born an immortal soul, he should give himself over to something that is immortal. I have said in my book "Two Persons" that man creates an immortality of the hand and brain as God creates an immortality of the soul. That is, man can create his immortality in his works. That is the immortality possible with every man. And the only immortal things, as Dr. Drummond says, are these: "Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love." And in man's work in the world, love translates itself concretely in service. That is eternal, immortal. To serve others is to live forever. "They may rest from their labors" but "their works do follow them."

W

HEN the three American members of the Reparations Commis

sion returned from their great work of formulating the Dawes plan, General Dawes was asked by the newspaper reporters about the work, and he replied:

"See Young. He knows more about it than anybody else."

And the reporters sought out Owen D. Young, a tall, reticent man with exceedingly luminous eyes, who is credited with the real authorship of the fundamentals of the plan. The dynamic energy of Dawes won successful support for the plan as its features were developed by Young, the quiet conciliator. On the voyage to Europe Young drew up an outline of proposals, and Dawes approved and fought for them with the success now so well known.

This tall, quiet man now displays a courage greater than that required in mere authorship when he accepts temporarily the post of Agent General of Reparations, and sets out to create the machinery and the atmosphere that will make the Dawes plan work. It is the a conciliator

and apostle of constructive philosophy, and those who know the quiet man say he will not fail.

Though his work as Vice-President of the General Electric Company and later as chairman of the boards of both the General Electric and the Radio Corporation of America made him a familiar figure in business in the last ten years, Mr. Young was not widely known to the general public until the world learned of his successful work on the Dawes plan. Yet Mr. Young, in 1918, at the age of fortythree, was chosen chairman of the board of

the General Electric Company, one of the largest manufacturing corporations in the country.

His selection for that post was made largely because of two preeminent qualities: One, the ability to pick out and state simply the fundamentals of any exceedingly complicated problem, like German reparations; and the other, his aptitude in harmonizing violently opposing factions.

Mr. Young's associates in the General Electric Company say that he is a philosopher and an intensely practical idealist who has so much faith in his fellow men that he invariably accepts as sincere any statement made to him. If he cannot trust a man's word he will not talk to him: that has always been one of his business tenets.

"Sometime it may get me into trouble," he has said, "but so far I have never had cause to regret it. If I cannot deal with men that way, I will not deal with them at all. So far, that confidence has never been misplaced."

MAKING A HARD JOB EASY

IS ability to master and simplify com

plicated financial problems attracted attention in the field of public utilities. when he was a member of the law firm of Tyler and Young of Boston, and in 1913 Charles A. Coffin, founder of the General Electric Company, invited him to become vice-president in charge of the legal department.

Soon after he joined the General Electric a disagreement arose among some of the officers with regard to the course the organization should take in handling a new piece of apparatus that had been offered to them. Mr. Young did not want to get into the controversy; he did