Old Gorgon Graham Part 11

The only favor that a good man needs is an opportunity to do the best work that's in him; and that's the only present you can make him once a week that will be a help instead of a hindrance to him. It's been my experience that every man has in him the possibility of doing well some one thing, no matter how humble, and that there's some one, in some place, who wants that special thing done. The difference between a fellow who succeeds and one who fails is that the first gets out and chases after the man who needs him, and the second sits around waiting to be hunted up.

When I was a boy, we were brought up to believe that we were born black with original sin, and that we bleached out a little under old Doc Hoover's preaching. And in the church down Main Street they taught that a lot of us were predestined to be d.a.m.ned, and a few of us to be saved; and naturally we all had our favorite selections for the first bunch. I used to accept the doctrine of predestination for a couple of weeks every year, just before the Main Street church held its Sunday-school picnic, and there are a few old rascals in the Stock Yards that make me lean toward it sometimes now; but, in the main, I believe that most people start out with a plenty of original goodness.

The more I deal in it, the surer I am that human nature is all off the same critter, but that there's a heap of choice in the cuts. Even then a bad cook will spoil a four-pound porterhouse, where a good one will take a chuck steak, make a few pa.s.ses over it with seasoning and fixings, and serve something that will line your insides with happiness. Circ.u.mstances don't make men, but they shape them, and you want to see that those under you are furnished with the right set of circ.u.mstances.

Every fellow is really two men--what he is and what he might be; and you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's dead. But a man in your position can do a whole lot toward furnishing the officiating clergyman with beautiful examples, instead of horrible warnings. The great secret of good management is to be more alert to prevent a man's going wrong than eager to punish him for it. That's why I centre authority and distribute checks upon it. That's why I've never had any Honest Old Toms, or Good Old d.i.c.ks, or Faithful Old Harrys handling my good money week-days and presiding over the Sabbath-school Sundays for twenty years, and leaving the old man short a hundred thousand, and the little ones short a superintendent, during the twenty-first year.

It's right to punish these fellows, but a suit for damages ought to lie against their employers. Criminal carelessness is a bad thing, but the carelessness that makes criminals is worse. The chances are that, to start with, Tom and d.i.c.k were honest and good at the office and sincere at the Sunday-school, and that, given the right circ.u.mstances, they would have stayed so. It was their employers' business to see that they were surrounded by the right circ.u.mstances at the office and to find out whether they surrounded themselves with them at home.

A man who's fundamentally honest is relieved instead of aggrieved by having proper checks on his handling of funds. And the bigger the man's position and the amount that he handles, the more important this is. A minor employee can take only minor sums, and the princ.i.p.al harm done is to himself; but when a big fellow gets into you, it's for something big, and more is hurt than his morals and your feelings.

I dwell a little on these matters, because I want to fix it firmly in your mind that the man who pays the wages must put more in the weekly envelope than money, if he wants to get his full money's worth. I've said a good deal about the importance of little things to a boss; don't forget their importance to your men. A thousand-dollar clerk doesn't think with a ten-thousand-dollar head; a fellow whose view is shut in by a set of ledgers can't see very far, and so stampedes easier than one whose range is the whole shop; a brain that can't originate big things can't forget trifles so quick as one in which the new ideas keep crowding out the old annoyances. Ten thousand a year will sweeten a mult.i.tude of things that don't taste pleasant, but there's not so much sugar in a thousand to help them down. The sting of some little word or action that wouldn't get under your skin at all, is apt to swell up one of these fellows' b.u.mp of self-esteem as big as an egg-plant, and make it sore all over.

It's always been my policy to give a little extra courtesy and consideration to the men who hold the places that don't draw the extra good salaries. It's just as important to the house that they should feel happy and satisfied as the big fellows. And no man who's doing his work well is too small for a friendly word and a pat on the back, and no fellow who's doing his work poorly is too big for a jolt that will knock the nonsense out of him.

You can't afford to give your men a real grievance, no matter how small it is; for a man who's got nothing to occupy thin but his work can accomplish twice as much as one who's busy with his work and a grievance. The average man will leave terrapin and champagne in a minute to chew over the luxury of feeling abused. Even when a man isn't satisfied with the supply of real grievances which life affords, and goes off hunting up imaginary ones, like a blame old gormandizing French hog that leaves a full trough to root through the woods for truffles, you still want to be polite; for when you fire a man there's no good reason for doing it with a yell.

Noise isn't authority, and there's no sense in ripping and roaring and cussing around the office when things don't please you. For when a fellow's given to that, his men secretly won't care a cuss whether he's pleased or not. They'll jump when he speaks, because they value their heads, not his good opinion. Indiscriminate blame is as bad as undiscriminating praise--it only makes a man tired.

I learned this, like most of the sense I've got--hard; and it was only a few years ago that I took my last lesson in it. I came down one morning with my breakfast digesting pretty easy, and found the orders fairly heavy and the kicks rather light, so I told the young man who was reading the mail to me, and who, of course, hadn't had anything special to do with the run of orders, to buy himself a suit of clothes and send the bill to the old man.

Well, when the afternoon mail came in, I dipped into that, too, but I'd eaten a pretty tony luncheon, and it got to finding fault with its surroundings, and the letters were as full of kicks as a drove of Missouri mules. So I began taking it out on the fellow who happened to be handiest, the same clerk to whom I had given the suit of clothes in the morning. Of course, he hadn't had anything to do with the run of kicks either, but he never put up a hand to defend himself till I was all through, and then he only asked:

"Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Say, Mr. Graham, don't you want that suit of clothes back?"]

Of course, I could have fired him on the spot for impudence, but I made it a suit and an overcoat instead. I don't expect to get my experience on free pa.s.ses. And I had my money's worth, too, because it taught me that it's a good rule to make sure the other fellow's wrong before you go ahead. When you jump on the man who didn't do it, you make sore spots all over him; and it takes the spring out of your leap for the fellow who did it.

One of the first things a boss must lose is his temper--and it must stay lost. There's about as much sense in getting yourself worked up into a rage when a clerk makes a mistake as there is in going into the barn and touching off a keg of gunpowder under the terrier because he got mixed up in the dark and blundered into a chicken-coop instead of a rat-hole. Fido may be an all-right ratter, in spite of the fact that his foot slips occasionally, and a cut now and then with a switch enough to keep him in order; but if his taste for chicken develops faster than his nose for rats, it's easier to give him to one of the neighbors than to blow him off the premises.

Where a few words, quick, sharp, and decisive, aren't enough for a man, a cussing out is too much. It proves that he's unfit for his work, and it unfits you for yours. The world is full of fellows who could take the energy which they put into useless cussing of their men, and double their business with it.

Your affectionate father,

JOHN GRAHAM.

No. 13

From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of Graham & Company, Denver. The young man has been offered a large interest in a big thing at a small price, and he has written asking the old man to lend him the price.

XIII

CHICAGO, June 4, 1900.

_Dear Pierrepont_: Judging from what you say about the Highfaluting Lulu, it must be a wonder, and the owner's reason for selling--that his lungs are getting too strong to stand the climate--sounds perfectly good. You can have the money at 5 per cent, as soon as you've finally made up your mind that you want it, but before you plant it in the mine for keeps, I think you should tie a wet towel around your head, while you consider for a few minutes the bare possibility of having to pay me back out of your salary, instead of the profits from the mine. You can't throw a stone anywhere in this world without hitting a man, with a spade over his shoulder, who's just said the last sad good-byes to his bank account and is starting out for the cemetery where defunct flyers are buried.

While you've only asked me for money, and not for advice, I may say that, should you put a question on some general topic like, "What are the wild waves saying, father?" I should answer, "Keep out of watered stocks, my son, and wade into your own business a little deeper."

Though, when you come to think of it, these continuous-performance companies, that let you in for ten, twenty, and thirty cents a share, ought to be a mighty good thing for investors after they've developed their oil and gold properties, because a lot of them can afford to pay 10 per cent. before they've developed anything but suckers.

So long as gold-mining with a pen and a little fancy paper continues to be such a profitable industry, a lot of fellows who write a pretty fair hand won't see any good reason for swinging a pick. They'll simply pa.s.s the pick over to the fellow who invests, and start a new prospectus.

While the road to h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions, they're something after all; but the walls along the short cuts to Fortune are papered with only the prospectuses of good intentions--intentions to do the other fellow good and plenty.

I don't want to question your ability or the purity of your friends'

intentions, but are you sure you know their business as well as they do? Denver is a lovely city, with a surplus of climate and scenery, and a lot of people there go home from work every night pushing a wheelbarrow full of gold in front of them, but at the same time there is no surplus of _that_ commodity, and most of the fellows who find it have cut their wisdom teeth on quartz. It isn't reasonable to expect that you're going to buy gold at fifty cents on the dollar, just because it hasn't been run through the mint yet.

I simply mention these things in a general way. There are two branches in the study of riches--getting the money and keeping it from getting away. When a fellow has saved a thousand dollars, and every nickel represents a walk home, instead of a ride on a trolley; and every dollar stands for cigars he didn't smoke and for shows he didn't see--it naturally seems as if that money, when it's invested, ought to declare dividends every thirty days. But almost any scheme which advertises that it will make small investors rich quick is like one of these Yellowstone geysers that spouts up straight from Hades with a boom and a roar--it's bound to return to its native brimstone sooner or later, leaving nothing behind it but a little smoke, and a smell of burned money--your money.

If a fellow would stop to think, he would understand that when money comes in so hard, it isn't reasonable to expect that it can go out and find more easy. But the great trouble is that a good many small investors don't stop to think, or else let plausible strangers do their thinking for them. That's why most young men have tucked away with their college diploma and the picture of their first girl, an impressive deed to a lot in Nowhere-on-the-Nothingness, or a beautiful certificate of stock in the Gushing Girlie Oil Well, that has never gushed anything but lies and promises, or a lovely receipt for money invested in one of these discretionary pools that are formed for the higher education of indiscreet fools. While I reckon that every fellow has one of these certificates of membership in The Great Society of Suckers, I had hoped that you would buy yours for a little less than the Highfaluting Lulu is going to cost you. Young men are told that the first thousand dollars comes hard and that after that it comes easier. So it does--just a thousand dollars plus interest easier; and easier through all the increased efficiency that self-denial and self-control have given you, and the larger salary they've made you worth.

It doesn't seem like much when you take your savings' bank book around at the end of the year and get a little thirty or forty dollars interest added, or when you cash in the coupon on the bond that you've bought; yet your bank book and your bond are still true to you. But if you'd had your thousand in one of these 50 per cent. bleached blonde schemes, it would have lit out long ago with a fellow whose ways were more coaxing, leaving you the laugh and a mighty small lock of peroxide gold hair. If you think that saving your first thousand dollars is hard, you'll find that saving the second, after you've lost the first, is h.e.l.l and repeat.

You can't too soon make it a rule to invest only on your own _know_ and never on somebody else's say so. You may lose some profits by this policy, but you're bound to miss a lot of losses. Often the best reason for keeping out of a thing is that everybody else is going into it. A crowd's always dangerous; it first pushes prices up beyond reason and then down below common sense. The time to buy is before the crowd comes in or after it gets out. It'll always come back to a good thing when it's been pushed up again to the point where it's a bad thing.

It's better to go slow and lose a good bargain occasionally than to go fast and never get a bargain. It's all right to take a long chance now and then, when you've got a long bank account, but it's been my experience that most of the long chances are taken by the fellows with short bank accounts.

You'll meet a lot of men in Chicago who'll point out the corner of State and Madison and tell you that when they first came to the city they were offered that lot for a hundred dollars, and that it's been the crowning regret of their lives that they didn't buy it. But for every genuine case of crowning regret because a fellow didn't buy, there are a thousand because he did. Don't let it make you feverish the next time you see one of those Won't-you-come-in-quick-and-get-rich-sudden ads. Freeze up and on to your thousand, and by and by you'll get a chance to buy a little stock in the concern for which you're working and which you know something about; or to take that thousand and one or two more like it, and buy an interest in a nice little business of the breed that you've been grooming and currying for some other fellow. But if your money's tied up in the sudden--millionaire business, you'll have to keep right on clerking.

A man's fortune should grow like a tree, in rings around the parent trunk. It'll be slow work at first, but every ring will be a little wider and a little thicker than the last one, and by and by you'll be big enough and strong enough to shed a few acorns within easy reaching distance, and so start a nice little nursery of your own from which you can saw wood some day. Whenever you hear of a man's jumping suddenly into prominence and fortune, look behind the popular explanation of a lucky chance. You'll usually find that these men manufactured their own luck right on the premises by years of slow preparation, and are simply realizing on hard work.

Speaking of manufacturing luck on the premises, naturally calls to mind the story of old Jim Jackson, "dealer in mining properties," and of young Thornley Harding, graduate of Princeton and citizen of New York.

Thorn wasn't a bad young fellow, but he'd been brought up by a nice, hard-working, fond and foolish old papa, in the fond belief that his job in life was to spend the income of a million. But one week papa failed, and the next week he died, and the next Thorn found he had to go to work. He lasted out the next week on a high stool, and then he decided that the top, where there was plenty of room for a bright young man, was somewhere out West.

Thorn's life for the next few years was the whole series of hard-luck parables, with a few chapters from Job thrown in, and then one day he met old Jim. He seemed to cotton to Thorn from the jump. Explained to him that there was nothing in this digging gopher holes in the solid rock and eating Chinaman's grub for the sake of making n.i.g.g.e.rs' wages.

Allowed that he was letting other fellows dig the holes, and that he was selling them at a fair margin of profit to young Eastern capitalists who hadn't been in the country long enough to lose their roll and that trust in Mankind and Nature which was Youth's most glorious possession. Needed a bright young fellow to help him--someone who could wear good clothes and not look as if he were in a disguise, and could spit out his words without chewing them up. Would Thorn join him on a grub, duds, and commission basis? Would Thorn surprise his skin with a boiled shirt and his stomach with a broiled steak? You bet he would, and they hitched up then and there.

They ran along together for a year or more, selling a played-out mine now and then or a "promising claim," for a small sum. Thorn knew that the mines which they handled were no Golcondas, but, as he told himself, you could never absolutely swear that a fellow wouldn't strike it rich in one of them.

There came a time, though, when they were way down on their luck. The run of young Englishmen was light, and visiting Easterners were a little gun-shy. Almost looked to Thorn as if he might have to go to work for a living, but he was a tenacious cuss, and stuck it out till one day when Jim came back to Leadville from a near-by camp, where he'd been looking at some played-out claims.

Jim was just boiling over with excitement. Wouldn't let on what it was about, but insisted on Thorn's going back with him then and there.

Said it was too big to tell; must be taken in by all Thorn's senses, aided by his powers of exaggeration.

It took them only a few hours to make the return trip. When Jim came within a couple of miles of the camp, he struck in among some trees and on to the center of a little clearing. There he called Thorn's attention to a small, deep spring of muddy water.

"Thorn," Jim began, as impressive as if he were introducing him to an easy millionaire, "look at thet spring. Feast yer eyes on it and tell me what you see."

"A spring, you blooming idiot," Thorn replied, feeling a little disappointed.

"You wouldn't allow, Thorn, to look at it, thet thar was special pints about thet spring, would you?" he went on, slow and solemn. "You wouldn't be willin' to swar thet the wealth of the Hindoos warn't in thet precious flooid which you scorn? Son," he wound up suddenly, "this here is the derndest, orneriest spring you ever see. Thet water is rich enough to be drunk straight."

Thorn began to get excited in earnest now. "What is it? Spit it out quick?"

"Watch me, sonny," and Jim hung his tin cup in the spring and sat down on a near-by rock. Then after fifteen silent minutes had pa.s.sed, he lifted the cup from the water and pa.s.sed it over. Thorn almost jumped out of his jack-boots with surprise.