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INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER RUSSELL H.
CONWELL
Acres of Diamonds
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I am astonished
that so many people should care to hear this |
story over again.
Indeed, this lecture has become a study in
psychology; it often breaks all rules of
oratory, departs from the precepts of rhetoric,
and yet remains the most popular of any lecture
I have delivered in the fifty-seven years of my
public life.
I have sometimes
studied for a year upon a lecture and made
careful research, and then presented the lecture
just once — never delivered it again. I put too
much work on it. But this had no work on it —
thrown together perfectly at random, spoken
offhand without any special preparation, and it
succeeds when the thing we study, work over,
adjust to a plan, is an entire failure.
The "Acres of Diamonds" which I have mentioned
through so many years are to be found in this
city, and you are to find them. Many have found
them. And what man has done, man can do. I could
not find anything better to illustrate my
thought than a story I have told over and over
again, and which is now found in books in nearly
every library.
In 1870 we went down the Tigris River. We hired
a guide at Bagdad to show us Persepolis, Nineveh
and Babylon, and the ancient countries of
Assyria as far as the Arabian Gulf. He was well
acquainted with the land, but he was one of
those guides who love to entertain their
patrons; he was like a barber that tells you
many stories in order to keep your mind off the
scratching and the scraping. He told me so many
stories that I grew tired of his telling them
and I refused to listen — looked away whenever
he commenced; that made the guide quite angry.
I remember that toward evening he took his
Turkish cap off his head and swung it around in
the air. The gesture I did not understand and I
did not dare look at him for fear I should
become the victim of another story. But,
although I am not a woman, I did look, and the
instant I turned my eyes upon that worthy guide
he was off again. Said he, "I will tell you a
story now which I reserve for my particular
friends!" So then, counting myself a particular
friend, I listened, and I have always been glad
I did.
He said there once lived not far from the River
Indus an ancient Persian by the name of Al Hafed.
He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm
with orchards, grain fields and gardens. He was
a contented and wealthy man — contented because
he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was
contented. One day there visited this old farmer
one of those ancient Buddhist priests, and he
sat down by Al Hafed's fire and told that old
farmer how this world of ours was made.
He said that this world was once a mere bank of
fog, which is scientifically true, and he said
that the Almighty thrust his finger into the
bank of fog and then began slowly to move his
finger around and gradually to increase the
speed of his finger until at last he whirled
that bank of fog into a solid ball of fire, and
it went rolling through the universe, burning
its way through other cosmic banks of fog, until
it condensed the moisture without, and fell in
floods of rain upon the heated surface and
cooled the outward crust. Then the internal
flames burst through the cooling crust and threw
up the mountains and made the hills and the
valleys of this wonderful world of ours. If this
internal melted mass burst out and cooled very
quickly it became granite; that which cooled
less quickly became silver; and less quickly,
gold; and after gold diamonds were made. Said
the old priest, "A diamond is a congealed drop
of sunlight."
This is a scientific truth also. You all know
that a diamond is pure carbon, actually
deposited sunlight — and he said another thing I
would not forget: he declared that a diamond is
the last and highest of God's mineral creations,
as a woman is the last and highest of God's
animal creations. I suppose that is the reason
why the two have such a liking for each other.
And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he had
a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole
country, and with a mine of diamonds he could
place his children upon thrones through the
influence of their great wealth.
Al Hafed heard all about diamonds and how much
they were worth, and went to his bed that night
a poor man — not that he had lost anything, but
poor because he was discontented and
discontented because he thought he was poor. He
said: "I want a mine of diamonds!" So he lay
awake all night, and early in the morning sought
out the priest.
Now I know from experience that a priest when
awakened early in the morning is cross. He awoke
that priest out of his dreams and said to him,
"Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?"
The priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want
with diamonds?" "I want to be immensely rich,"
said Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go."
"Well," said the priest, "if you will find a
river that runs over white sand between high
mountains, in those sands you will always see
diamonds." "Do you really believe that there is
such a river?" "Plenty of them, plenty of them;
all you have to do is just go and find them,
then you have them." Al Hafed said, "I will go."
So he sold his farm, collected his money at
interest, left his family in charge of a
neighbor, and away he went in search of
diamonds.
He began very properly, to my mind, at the
Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went around
into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe,
and at last, when his money was all spent, and
he was in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he
stood on the shore of that bay in Barcelona,
Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling in through
the Pillars of Hercules and the poor, afflicted,
suffering man could not resist the awful
temptation to cast himself into that incoming
tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest,
never to rise in this life again.
When that old guide had told me that very sad
story, he stopped the camel I was riding and
went back to fix the baggage on one of the other
camels, and I remember thinking to myself, "Why
did he reserve that for his particular friends?"
There seemed to be no beginning, middle or end —
nothing to it. That was the first story I ever
heard told or read in which the hero was killed
in the first chapter. I had but one chapter of
that story and the hero was dead.
When the guide came back and took up the halter
of my camel again, he went right on with the
same story. He said that Al Hafed's successor
led his camel out into the garden to drink, and
as that camel put its nose down into the clear
water of the garden brook Al Hafed's successor
noticed a curious flash of light from the sands
of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled
out a black stone having an eye of light that
reflected all the colors of the rainbow, and he
took that curious pebble into the house and left
it on the mantel, then went on his way and
forgot all about it.
A few days after that, this same old priest who
told Al Hafed how diamonds were made, came in to
visit his successor, when he saw that flash of
light from the mantel. He rushed up and said,
"Here is a diamond — here is a diamond! Has Al
Hafed returned?" "No, no; Al Hafed has not
returned and that is not a diamond; that is
nothing but a stone; we found it right out here
in our garden." "But I know a diamond when I see
it," said he; "that is a diamond!"
Then together they rushed to the garden and
stirred up the white sands with their fingers
and found others more beautiful, more valuable
diamonds than the first, and thus, said the
guide to me, were discovered the diamond mines
of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mines
in all the history of mankind, exceeding the
Kimberley in its value. The great Kohinoor
diamond in England's crown jewels and the
largest crown diamond on earth in Russia's crown
jewels, which I had often hoped she would have
to sell before they had peace with Japan, came
from that mine, and when the old guide had
called my attention to that wonderful discovery
he took his Turkish cap off his head again and
swung it around in the air to call my attention
to the moral.
Those Arab guides have a moral to each story,
though the stories are not always moral. He said
had Al Hafed remained at home and dug in his own
cellar or in his own garden, instead of
wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death — a
strange land, he would have had "acres of
diamonds" — for every acre, yes, every shovelful
of that old farm afterwards revealed the gems
which since have decorated the crowns of
monarchs. When he had given the moral to his
story, I saw why he had reserved this story for
his "particular friends." I didn't tell him I
could see it; I was not going to tell that old
Arab that I could see it. For it was that mean
old Arab's way of going around such a thing,
like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did
not dare say directly, that there was a certain
young man that day traveling down the Tigris
River that might better be at home in America. I
didn't tell him I could see it.
I told him his story reminded me of one, and I
told it to him quick. I told him about that man
out in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch
out there. He read that gold had been discovered
in Southern California, and he sold his ranch to
Colonel Sutter and started off to hunt for gold.
Colonel Sutter put a mill on the little stream
in that farm and one day his little girl brought
some wet sand from the raceway of the mill into
the house and placed it before the fire to dry,
and as that sand was falling through the little
girl's fingers a visitor saw the first shining
scales of real gold that were ever discovered in
California; and the man who wanted the gold had
sold his ranch and gone away, never to return.
I delivered this lecture two years ago in
California, in the city that stands near that
farm, and they told me that the mine is not
exhausted yet, and that a one- third owner of
that farm has been getting during these recent
years twenty dollars of gold every fifteen
minutes of his life, sleeping or waking. Why,
you and I would enjoy an income like that!
But the best illustration that I have now of
this thought was found here in Pennsylvania.
There was a man living in Pennsylvania who owned
a farm here and he did what I should do if I had
a farm in Pennsylvania - he sold it. But before
he sold it he concluded to secure employment
collecting coal oil for his cousin in Canada.
They first discovered coal oil there. So this
farmer in Pennsylvania decided that he would
apply for a position with his cousin in Canada.
Now, you see, the farmer was not altogether a
foolish man. He did not leave his farm until he
had something else to do.
Of all the simpletons the stars shine on there
is none more foolish than a man who leaves one
job before he has obtained another. And that has
especial reference to gentlemen of my
profession, and has no reference to a man
seeking a divorce. So I say this old farmer did
not leave one job until he had obtained another.
He wrote to Canada, but his cousin replied that
he could not engage him because he did not know
anything about the oil business. "Well, then,"
said he, "I will understand it." So he set
himself at the study of the whole subject. He
began at the second day of the creation, he
studied the subject from the primitive
vegetation to the coal oil stage, until he knew
all about it. Then he wrote to his cousin and
said, "Now I understand the oil business." And
his cousin replied to him, "All right, then,
come on."
That man, by the record of the country, sold his
farm for eight hundred and thirty-three dollars
— even money, "no cents." He had scarcely gone
from that farm before the man who purchased it
went out to arrange for watering the cattle and
he found that the previous owner had arranged
the matter very nicely. There is a stream
running down the hillside there, and the
previous owner had gone out and put a plank
across that stream at an angle, extending across
the brook and down edgewise a few inches under
the surface of the water. The purpose of the
plank across that brook was to throw over to the
other bank a dreadful-looking scum through which
the cattle would not put their noses to drink
above the plank, although they would drink the
water on one side below it.
Thus that man who had gone to Canada had been
himself damming back for twenty-three years a
flow of coal oil which the State Geologist of
Pennsylvania declared officially, as early as
1870, was then worth to our state a hundred
millions of dollars. The city of Titusville now
stands on that farm and those Pleasantville
wells flow on, and that farmer who had studied
all about the formation of oil since the second
day of God's creation clear down to the present
time, sold that farm for $833, no cents — again
I say, "no sense."
But I need another illustration, and I found
that in Massachusetts, and I am sorry I did,
because that is my old state. This young man I
mention went out of the state to study — went
down to Yale College and studied mines and
mining. They paid him fifteen dollars a week
during his last year for training students who
were behind their classes in mineralogy, out of
hours, of course, while pursuing his own
studies. But when he graduated they raised his
pay from fifteen dollars to forty-five dollars
and offered him a professorship. Then he went
straight home to his mother and said, "Mother, I
won't work for forty-five dollars a week. What
is forty-five dollars a week for a man with a
brain like mine! Mother, let's go out to
California and stake out gold claims and be
immensely rich." "Now," said his mother, "it is
just as well to be happy as it is to be rich."
But as he was the only son he had his way — they
always do; and they sold out in Massachusetts
and went to Wisconsin, where he went into the
employ of the Superior Copper Mining Company,
and he was lost from sight in the employ of that
company at fifteen dollars a week again. He was
also to have an interest in any mines that he
should discover for that company. But I do not
believe that he has ever discovered a mine — I
do not know anything about it, but I do not
believe he has. I know he had scarcely gone from
the old homestead before the farmer who had
bought the homestead went out to dig potatoes,
and he was bringing them in a large basket
through the front gateway, the ends of the stone
wall came so near together at the gate that the
basket hugged very tight. So he set the basket
on the ground and pulled, first on one side and
then on the other side.
Our farms in Massachusetts are mostly stone
walls, and the farmers have to be economical
with their gateways in order to have some place
to put the stones. That basket hugged so tight
there that as he was hauling it through he
noticed in the upper stone next the gate a block
of native silver, eight inches square; and this
professor of mines and mining and mineralogy,
who would not work for forty-five dollars a
week, when he sold that homestead in
Massachusetts, sat right on that stone to make
the bargain. He was brought up there; he had
gone back and forth by that piece of silver,
rubbed it with his sleeve, and it seemed to say,
"Come now, now, now, here is a hundred thousand
dollars. Why not take me? " But he would not
take it. There was no silver in Newburyport; it
was all away off — well, I don't know where; he
didn't, but somewhere else — and he was a
professor of mineralogy.
I do not know of anything I would enjoy better
than to take the whole time tonight telling of
blunders like that I have heard professors make.
Yet I wish I knew what that man is doing out
there in Wisconsin. I can imagine him out there,
as he sits by his fireside, and he is saying to
his friends. "Do you know that man Conwell that
lives in Philadelphia?" "Oh, yes, I have heard
of him." "And do you know that man Jones that
lives in that city?" "Yes, I have heard of him."
And then he begins to laugh and laugh and says
to his friends, "They have done the same thing I
did, precisely." And that spoils the whole joke,
because you and I have done it.
Ninety out of every hundred people here have
made that mistake this very day. I say you ought
to be rich; you have no right to be poor. To
live in Philadelphia and not be rich is a
misfortune, and it is doubly a misfortune,
because you could have been rich just as well as
be poor. Philadelphia furnishes so many
opportunities. You ought to be rich. But persons
with certain religious prejudice will ask, "How
can you spend your time advising the rising
generation to give their time to getting money —
dollars and cents — the commercial spirit?"
Yet I must say that you ought to spend time
getting rich. You and I know there are some
things more valuable than money; of course, we
do. Ah, yes! By a heart made unspeakably sad by
a grave on which the autumn leaves now fall, I
know there are some things higher and grander
and sublimer than money. Well does the man know,
who has suffered, that there are some things
sweeter and holier and more sacred than gold.
Nevertheless, the man of common sense also knows
that there is not any one of those things that
is not greatly enhanced by the use of money.
Money is power.
Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but
fortunate the lover who has plenty of money.
Money is power: money has powers; and for a man
to say, "I do not want money," is to say, "I do
not wish to do any good to my fellowmen." It is
absurd thus to talk. It is absurd to disconnect
them. This is a wonderfully great life, and you
ought to spend your time getting money, because
of the power there is in money. And yet this
religious prejudice is so great that some people
think it is a great honor to be one of God's
poor. I am looking in the faces of people who
think just that way.
I heard a man once say in a prayer-meeting that
he was thankful that he was one of God's poor,
and then I silently wondered what his wife would
say to that speech, as she took in washing to
support the man while he sat and smoked on the
veranda. I don't want to see any more of that
kind of God's poor. Now, when a man could have
been rich just as well, and he is now weak
because he is poor, he has done some great
wrong; he has been untruthful to himself; he has
been unkind to his fellowmen. We ought to get
rich if we can by honorable and Christian
methods, and these are the only methods that
sweep us quickly toward the goal of riches.
I remember, not many years ago, a young
theological student who came into my office and
said to me that he thought it was his duty to
come in and "labor with me." I asked him what
had happened, and he said: "I feel it is my duty
to come in and speak to you, sir, and say that
the Holy Scriptures declare that money is the
root of all evil." I asked him where he found
that saying, and he said he found it in the
Bible. I asked him whether he had made a new
Bible, and he said, no, he had not gotten a new
Bible, that it was in the old Bible. "Well," I
said, "if it is in my Bible, I never saw it.
Will you please get the textbook and let me see
it?"
He left the room and soon came stalking in with
his Bible open, with all the bigoted pride of
the narrow sectarian, who founds his creed on
some misinterpretation of Scripture, and he puts
the Bible down on the table before me and fairly
squealed into my ear, "There it is. You can read
it for yourself." I said to him, "Young man, you
will learn, when you get a little older, that
you cannot trust another denomination to read
the Bible for you." I said, "Now, you belong to
another denomination. Please read it to me, and
remember that you are taught in a school where
emphasis is exegesis." So he took the Bible and
read it: "The love of money is the root of all
evil." Then he had it right.
The Great Book has come back into the esteem and
love of the people, and into the respect of the
greatest minds of earth, and now you can quote
it and rest your life and your death on it
without more fear. So, when he quoted right from
the Scriptures he quoted the truth. "The love of
money is the root of all evil." Oh, that is it.
It is the worship of the means instead of the
end. Though you cannot reach the end without the
means. When a man makes an idol of the money
instead of the purposes for which it may be
used, when he squeezes the dollar until the
eagle squeals, then it is made the root of all
evil. Think, if you only had the money, what you
could do for your wife, your child, and for your
home and your city. Think how soon you could
endow the Temple College yonder if you only had
the money and the disposition to give it; and
yet, my friend, people say you and I should not
spend the time getting rich. How inconsistent
the whole thing is. We ought to be rich, because
money has power.
I think the best thing for me to do is to
illustrate this, for if I say you ought to get
rich, I ought, at least, to suggest how it is
done. We get a prejudice against rich men
because of the lies that are told about them.
The lies that are told about Mr. Rockefeller
because he has two hundred million dollars — so
many believe them; yet how false is the
representation of that man to the world. How
little we can tell what is true nowadays when
newspapers try to sell their papers entirely on
some sensation! The way they lie about the rich
men is something terrible, and I do not know
that there is anything to illustrate this better
than what the newspapers now say about the city
of Philadelphia.
A young man came to me the other day and said,
"If Mr. Rockefeller, as you think, is a good
man, why is it that everybody says so much
against him?" It is because he has gotten ahead
of us; that is the whole of it — just gotten
ahead of us. Why is it Mr. Carnegie is
criticized so sharply by an envious world!
Because he has gotten more than we have. If a
man knows more than I know, don't I incline to
criticize somewhat his learning? Let a man stand
in a pulpit and preach to thousands, and if I
have fifteen people in my church, and they're
all asleep, don't I criticize him? We always do
that to the man who gets ahead of us. Why, the
man you are criticizing has one hundred
millions, and you have fifty cents, and both of
you have just what you are worth.
One of the richest men in this country came into
my home and sat down in my parlor and said: "Did
you see all those lies about my family in the
papers?" "Certainly I did; I knew they were lies
when I saw them." "Why do they lie about me the
way they do?" "Well," I said to him, "if you
will give me your check for one hundred
millions, I will take all the lies along with
it." "Well," said he, "I don't see any sense in
their thus talking about my family and myself.
Conwell, tell me frankly, what do you think the
American people think of me?" "Well," said I,
"they think you are the blackest hearted villain
that ever trod the soil!" "But what can I do
about it?" There is nothing he can do about it,
and yet he is one of the sweetest Christian men
I ever knew. If you get a hundred millions you
will have the lies; you will be lied about, and
you can judge your success in any line by the
lies that are told about you. I say that you
ought to be rich.
But there are ever coming to me young men who
say, "I would like to go into business, but I
cannot." "Why not?" "Because I have no capital
to begin on." Capital, capital to begin on!
What! young man! Living in Philadelphia and
looking at this wealthy generation, all of whom
began as poor boys, and you want capital to
begin on? It is fortunate for you that you have
no capital. I am glad you have no money. I pity
a rich man's son. A rich man's son in these days
of ours occupies a very difficult position. They
are to be pitied. A rich man's son cannot know
the very best things in human life. He cannot.
The statistics of Massachusetts show us that not
one out of seventeen rich men's sons ever die
rich. They are raised in luxury, they die in
poverty. Even if a rich man's son retains his
father's money, even then he cannot know the
best things of life.
A young man in our college yonder asked me to
formulate for him what I thought was the
happiest hour in a man's history, and I studied
it long and came back convinced that the
happiest hour that any man ever sees in any
earthly matter is when a young man takes his
bride over the threshold of the door, for the
first time, of the house he himself has earned
and built, when he turns to his bride and with
an eloquence greater than any language of mine,
he sayeth to his wife, "My loved one, I earned
this home myself; I earned it all. It is all
mine, and I divide it with thee." That is the
grandest moment a human heart may ever see. But
a rich man's son cannot know that. He goes into
a finer mansion, it may be, but he is obliged to
go through the house and say, "Mother gave me
this, mother gave me that, my mother gave me
that, my mother gave me that," until his wife
wishes she had married his mother.
Oh, I pity a rich man's son. I do. Until he gets
so far along in his dudeism that he gets his
arms up like that and can't get them down.
Didn't you ever see any of them astray at
Atlantic City? I saw one of these scarecrows
once and I never tire thinking about it. I was
at Niagara Falls lecturing, and after the
lecture I went to the hotel, and when I went up
to the desk there stood there a millionaire's
son from New York. He was an indescribable
specimen of anthropologic potency. He carried a
goldheaded cane under his arm — more in its head
than he had in his. I do not believe I could
describe the young man if I should try. But
still I must say that he wore an eye-glass he
could not see through; patent leather shoes he
could not walk in, and pants he could not sit
down in — dressed like a grasshopper!
Well, this human cricket came up to the clerk's
desk just as I came in. He adjusted his unseeing
eye-glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk,
because it's "Hinglish, you know," to lisp: "Thir,
thir, will you have the kindness to fuhnish me
with thome papah and thome envelopehs!" The
clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled out
a drawer and took some envelopes and paper and
cast them across the counter and turned away to
his books.
You should have seen that specimen of humanity
when the paper and envelopes came across the
counter — he whose wants had always been
anticipated by servants. He adjusted his
unseeing eye-glass and he yelled after that
clerk: "Come back here, thir, come right back
here. Now, thir, will you order a thervant to
take that papah and thothe envelopehs and carry
them to yondah dethk." Oh, the poor, miserable,
contemptible American monkey! He couldn't carry
paper and envelopes twenty feet. I suppose he
could not get his arms down. I have no pity for
such travesties of human nature. If you have no
capital, I am glad of it. You don't need
capital; you need common sense, not copper
cents.
A. T. Stewart, the great princely merchant of
New York, the richest man in America in his
time, was a poor boy; he had a dollar and a half
and went into the mercantile business. But he
lost eighty-seven and a half cents of his first
dollar and a half because he bought some needles
and thread and buttons to sell, which people
didn't want.
Are you poor? It is because you are not wanted
and are left on your own hands. There was the
great lesson. Apply it whichever way you will it
comes to every single person's life, young or
old. He did not know what people needed, and
consequently bought something they didn't want,
and had the goods left on his hands a dead loss.
A. T. Stewart learned there the great lesson of
his mercantile life and said "I will never buy
anything more until I first learn what the
people want; then I'll make the purchase." He
went around to the doors and asked them what
they did want, and when he found out what they
wanted, he invested his sixty-two and a half
cents and began to supply a "known demand." I
care not what your profession or occupation in
life may be; I care not whether you are a
lawyer, a doctor, a housekeeper, teacher or
whatever else, the principle is precisely the
same. We must know what the world needs first
and then invest ourselves to supply that need,
and success is almost certain.
A. T. Stewart went on until he was worth forty
millions. "Well," you will say, "a man can do
that in New York, but cannot do it here in
Philadelphia." The statistics very carefully
gathered in New York in 1889 showed one hundred
and seven millionaires in the city worth over
ten millions apiece. It was remarkable and
people think they must go there to get rich. Out
of that one hundred and seven millionaires only
seven of them made their money in New York, and
the others moved to New York after their
fortunes were made, and sixty- seven out of the
remaining hundred made their fortunes in towns
of less than six thousand people, and the
richest man in the country at that time lived in
a town of thirty-five hundred inhabitants, and
always lived there and never moved away. It is
not so much where you are as what you are. But
at the same time if the largeness of the city
comes into the problem, then remember it is the
smaller city that furnishes the great
opportunity to make the millions of money.
The best illustration that I can give is in
reference to John Jacob Astor, who was a poor
boy and who made all the money of the Astor
family. He made more than his successors have
ever earned, and yet he once held a mortgage on
a millinery store in New York, and because the
people could not make enough money to pay the
interest and the rent, he foreclosed the
mortgage and took possession of the store and
went into partnership with the man who had
failed. He kept the same stock, did not give
them a dollar of capital, and he left them alone
and he went out and sat down upon a bench in the
park.
Out there on that bench in the park he had the
most important, and, to my mind, the pleasantest
part of that partnership business. He was
watching the ladies as they went by; and where
is the man that wouldn't get rich at that
business? But when John Jacob Astor saw a lady
pass, with her shoulders back and her head up,
as if she did not care if the whole world looked
on her, he studied her bonnet; and before that
bonnet was out of sight he knew the shape of the
frame and the color of the trimmings, the curl
of the — something on a bonnet. Sometimes I try
to describe a woman's bonnet, but it is of
little use, for it would be out of style
tomorrow night.
So John Jacob Astor went to the store and said:
"Now, put in the show window just such a bonnet
as I describe to you because," said he, "I have
just seen a lady who likes just such a bonnet.
Do not make up any more till I come back." And
he went out again and sat on that bench in the
park, and another lady of a different form and
complexion passed him with a bonnet of different
shape and color, of course. "Now," said he, "put
such a bonnet as that in the show window."
He didn't fill his show window with hats and
bonnets which drive people away and then sit in
the back of the store and bawl because the
people go somewhere else to trade. He didn't put
a hat or bonnet in that show window the like of
which he had not seen before it was made up.
In our city especially, there are great
opportunities for manufacturing, and the time
has come when the line is drawn very sharply
between the stockholders of the factory and
their employees. Now, friends, there has also
come a discouraging gloom upon this country and
the laboring men are beginning to feel that they
are being held down by a crust over their heads
through which they find it impossible to break,
and the aristocratic money owner himself is so
far above that he will never descend to their
assistance. That is the thought that is in the
minds of our people. But, friends, never in the
history of our country was there an opportunity
so great for the poor man to get rich as there
is now and in the city of Philadelphia. The very
fact that they get discouraged is what prevents
them from getting rich. That is all there is to
it. The road is open, and let us keep it open
between the poor and the rich.
I know that the labor unions have two great
problems to contend with, and there is only one
way to solve them. The labor unions are doing as
much to prevent its solving as are capitalists
today, and there are positively two sides to it.
The labor union has two difficulties; the first
one is that it began to make a labor scale for
all classes on a par, and they scale down a man
that can earn five dollars a day to two and a
half a day, in order to level up to him an
imbecile that cannot earn fifty cents a day.
That is one of the most dangerous and
discouraging things for the working man. He
cannot get the results of his work if he do
better work or higher work or work longer; that
is a dangerous thing, and in order to get every
laboring man free and every American equal to
every other American, let the laboring man ask
what he is worth and get it — not let any
capitalist say to him: "You shall work for me
for half of what you are worth"; nor let any
labor organization say: "You shall work for the
capitalist for half your worth."
Be a man, be independent, and then shall the
laboring man find the road ever open from
poverty to wealth.
The other difficulty that the labor union has to
consider, and this problem they have to solve
themselves, is the kind of orators who come and
talk to them about the oppressive rich. I can in
my dreams recite the oration I have heard again
and again under such circumstances. My life has
been with the laboring man. I am a laboring man
myself. I have often, in their assemblies, heard
the speech of the man who has been invited to
address the labor union. The man gets up before
the assembled company of honest laboring men and
he begins by saying: "Oh, ye honest, industrious
laboring men, who have furnished all the capital
of the world, who have built all the palaces and
constructed all the railroads and covered the
ocean with her steamships. Oh, you laboring men!
You are nothing but slaves; you are ground down
in the dust by the capitalist who is gloating
over you as he enjoys his beautiful estates and
as he has his banks filled with gold, and every
dollar he owns is coined out of the heart's
blood of the honest laboring man." Now, that is
a lie, and you know it is a lie; and yet that is
the kind of speech that they are hearing all the
time, representing the capitalists as wicked and
the laboring man so enslaved.
Why, how wrong it is! Let the man who loves his
flag and believes in American principles
endeavor with all his soul to bring the
capitalists and the laboring man together until
they stand side by side, and arm in arm, and
work for the common good of humanity.
He is an enemy to his country who sets capital
against labor or labor against capital.
Suppose I were to go down through this audience
and ask you to introduce me to the great
inventors who live here in Philadelphia. "The
inventors of Philadelphia," you would say, "why,
we don't have any in Philadelphia. It is too
slow to invent anything." But you do have just
as great inventors, and they are here in this
audience, as ever invented a machine. But the
probability is that the greatest inventor to
benefit the world with his discovery is some
person, perhaps some lady, who thinks she could
not invent anything.
Did you ever study the history of invention and
see how strange it was that the man who made the
greatest discovery did it without any previous
idea that he was an inventor? Who are the great
inventors? They are persons with plain,
straightforward common sense, who saw a need in
the world and immediately applied themselves to
supply that need. If you want to invent
anything, don't try to find it in the wheels in
your head nor the wheels in your machine, but
first find out what the people need, and then
apply yourself to that need, and this leads to
invention on the part of people you would not
dream of before. The great inventors are simply
great men; the greater the man the more simple
the man; and the more simple a machine, the more
valuable it is.
Did you ever know a really great man? His ways
are so simple, so common, so plain, that you
think any one could do what he is doing. So it
is with the great men the world over. If you
know a really great man, a neighbor of yours,
you can go right up to him and say, "How are
you, Jim, good morning, Sam." Of course you can,
for they are always so simple.
When I wrote the life of General Garfield, one
of his neighbors took me to his back door, and
shouted, "Jim, Jim, Jim!" and very soon "Jim"
came to the door and General Garfield let me in
— one of the grandest men of our century. The
great men of the world are ever so. I was down
in Virginia and went up to an educational
institution and was directed to a man who was
setting out a tree. I approached him and said,
"Do you think it would be possible for me to see
General Robert E. Lee, the President of the
University?" He said, "Sir, I am General Lee."
Of course, when you meet such a man, so noble a
man as that, you will find him a simple, plain
man. Greatness is always just so modest and
great inventions are simple.
I asked a class in school once who were the
great inventors, and a little girl popped up and
said, "Columbus." Well, now, she was not so far
wrong. Columbus bought a farm and he carried on
that farm just as I carried on my father's farm.
He took a hoe and went out and sat down on a
rock. But Columbus, as he sat upon that shore
and looked out upon the ocean, noticed that the
ships, as they sailed away, sank deeper into the
sea the farther they went. And since that time
some other "Spanish ships" have sunk into the
sea. But as Columbus noticed that the tops of
the masts dropped down out of sight, he said:
"That is the way it is with this hoe handle; if
you go around this hoe handle, the farther off
you go the farther down you go. I can sail
around to the East Indies." How plain it all
was. How simple the mind — majestic like the
simplicity of a mountain in its greatness. Who
are the great inventors? They are ever the
simple, plain, everyday people who see the need
and set about to supply it.
I was once lecturing in North Carolina, and the
cashier of the bank sat directly behind a lady
who wore a very large hat. I said to that
audience, "Your wealth is too near to you; you
are looking right over it." He whispered to his
friend, "Well, then, my wealth is in that hat."
A little later, as he wrote me, I said,
"Wherever there is a human need there is a
greater fortune than a mine can furnish." He
caught my thought, and he drew up his plan for a
better hat pin than was in the hat before him
and the pin is now being manufactured. He was
offered fifty-two thousand dollars for his
patent. That man made his fortune before he got
out of that hall. This is the whole question: Do
you see a need?"
I remember well a man up in my native hills, a
poor man, who for twenty years was helped by the
town in his poverty, who owned a widespreading
maple tree that covered the poor man's cottage
like a benediction from on high. I remember that
tree, for in the spring — there were some
roguish boys around that neighborhood when I was
young — in the spring of the year the man would
put a bucket there and the spouts to catch the
maple sap, and I remember where that bucket was;
and when I was young the boys were, oh, so mean,
that they went to that tree before that man had
gotten out of bed in the morning, and after he
had gone to bed at night, and drank up that
sweet sap, I could swear they did it.
He didn't make a great deal of maple sugar from
that tree. But one day he made the sugar so
white and crystalline that the visitor did not
believe it was maple sugar; thought maple sugar
must be red or black. He said to the old man:
"Why don't you make it that way and sell it for
confectionery?" The old man caught his thought
and invented the "rock maple crystal," and
before that patent expired he had ninety
thousand dollars and had built a beautiful
palace on the site of that tree. After forty
years owning that tree he awoke to find it had
fortunes of money indeed in it. And many of us
are right by the tree that has a fortune for us,
and we own it, possess it, do what we will with
it, but we do not learn its value because we do
not see the human need, and in these discoveries
and inventions that is one of the most romantic
things of life. I have received letters from all
over the country and from England, where I have
lectured, saying that they have discovered this
and that, and one man out in Ohio took me
through his great factories last spring, and
said that they cost him $680,000, and, said he,
"I was not worth a cent in the world when I
heard your lecture 'Acres of Diamonds'; but I
made up my mind to stop right here and make my
fortune here, and here it is." He showed me
through his unmortgaged possessions. And this is
a continual experience now as I travel through
the country, after these many years. I mention
this incident, not to boast, but to show you
that you can do the same if you will.
Who are the great inventors? I remember a good
illustration in a man who used to live in East
Brookfield, Mass. He was a shoemaker, and he was
out of work and he sat around the house until
his wife told him "to go out doors." And he did
what every husband is compelled by law to do —
he obeyed his wife. And he went out and sat down
on an ash barrel in his back yard. Think of it!
Stranded on an ash barrel and the enemy in
possession of the house! As he sat on that ash
barrel, he looked down into that little brook
which ran through that back yard into the
meadows, and he saw a little trout go flashing
up the stream and hiding under the bank. I do
not suppose he thought of Tennyson's beautiful
poem:
"Chatter, chatter as I flow,
To join the brimming river,
Men may come, and men
may go, But I go on forever."
But as this man looked into the brook, he leaped
off that ash barrel and managed to catch the
trout with his fingers, and sent it to
Worcester. They wrote back that they would give
a five dollar bill for another such trout as
that, not that it was worth that much, but they
wished to help the poor man. So this shoemaker
and his wife, now perfectly united, that
five-dollar bill in prospect, went out to get
another trout. They went up the stream to its
source and down to the brimming river, but not
another trout could they find in the whole
stream; and so they came home disconsolate and
went to the minister. The minister didn't know
how trout grew, but he pointed the way. Said he,
"Get Seth Green's book, and that will give you
the information you want."
They did so, and found all about the culture of
trout. They found that a trout lays thirty-six
hundred eggs every year and every trout gains a
quarter of a pound every year, so that in four
years a little trout will furnish four tons per
annum to sell to the market at fifty cents a
pound. When they found that, they said they
didn't believe any such story as that, but if
they could get five dollars apiece they could
make something. And right in that same back yard
with the coal sifter up stream and window screen
down the stream, they began the culture of
trout. They afterwards moved to the Hudson, and
since then he has become the authority in the
United States upon the raising of fish, and he
has been next to the highest on the United
States Fish Commission in Washington. My lesson
is that man's wealth was out here in his back
yard for twenty years, but he didn't see it
until his wife drove him out with a mop stick.
I remember meeting personally a poor carpenter
of Hingham, Massachusetts, who was out of work
and in poverty. His wife also drove him out of
doors. He sat down on the shore and whittled a
soaked shingle into a wooden chain. His children
quarreled over it in the evening, and while he
was whittling a second one, a neighbor came
along and said, "Why don't you whittle toys if
you can carve like that?" He said, "I don't know
what to make!"
There is the whole thing. His neighbor said to
him: "Why don't you ask your own children?" Said
he, "What is the use of doing that? My children
are different from other people's children." I
used to see people like that when I taught
school. The next morning when his boy came down
the stairway, he said, "Sam, what do you want
for a toy?" "I want a wheelbarrow." When his
little girl came down, he asked her what she
wanted, and she said, "I want a little doll's
wash-stand, a little doll's carriage, a little
doll's umbrella," and went on with a whole lot
of things that would have taken his lifetime to
supply. He consulted his own children right
there in his own house and began to whittle out
toys to please them.
He began with his jack-knife, and made those
unpainted Hingham toys. He is the richest man in
the entire New England States, if Mr. Lawson is
to be trusted in his statement concerning such
things, and yet that man's fortune was made by
consulting his own children in his own house.
You don't need to go out of your own house to
find out what to invent or what to make. I
always talk too long on this subject. I would
like to meet the great men who are here tonight.
The great men! We don't have any great men in
Philadelphia. Great men! You say that they all
come from London, or San Francisco, or Rome, or
Manayunk, or anywhere else but there — anywhere
else but Philadelphia — and yet, in fact, there
are just as great men in Philadelphia as in any
city of its size. There are great men and women
in this audience.
Great men, I have said, are very simple men.
Just as many great men here as are to be found
anywhere. The greatest error in judging great
men is that we think that they always hold an
office. The world knows nothing of its greatest
men. Who are the great men of the world? The
young man and young woman may well ask the
question. It is not necessary that they should
hold an office, and yet that is the popular
idea. That is the idea we teach now in our high
schools and common schools, that the great men
of the world are those who hold some high
office, and unless we change that very soon and
do away with that prejudice, we are going to
change to an empire. There is no question about
it. We must teach that men are great only on
their intrinsic value, and not on the position
they may incidentally happen to occupy. And yet,
don't blame the young men saying that they are
going to be great when they get into some
official position.
I ask this audience again who of you are going
to be great? Says a young man: "I am going to be
great." "When are you going to be great?" "When
I am elected to some political office." Won't
you learn the lesson, young man; that it is
prima facie evidence of littleness to hold
public office under our form of government?
Think of it. This is a government of the people,
and by the people, and for the people, and not
for the officeholder, and if the people in this
country rule as they always should rule, an
officeholder is only the servant of the people,
and the Bible says that "the servant cannot be
greater than his master."
The Bible says that "he that is sent cannot be
greater than he who sent him." In this country
the people are the masters, and the
officeholders can never be greater than the
people; they should be honest servants of the
people, but they are not our greatest men. Young
man, remember that you never heard of a great
man holding any political office in this country
unless he took that office at an expense to
himself. It is a loss to every great man to take
a public office in our country. Bear this in
mind, young man, that you cannot be made great
by a political election.
Another young man says, "I am going to be a
great man in Philadelphia some time." "Is that
so? When are you going to be great?" "When there
comes another war! When we get into difficulty
with Mexico, or England, or Russia, or Japan, or
with Spain again over Cuba, or with New Jersey,
I will march up to the cannon's mouth, and amid
the glistening bayonets I will tear down their
flag from its staff, and I will come home with
stars on my shoulders, and hold every office in
the gift of the government, and I will be
great." "No, you won't! No, you won't; that is
no evidence of true greatness, young man." But
don't blame that young man for thinking that
way; that is the way he is taught in the high
school. That is the way history is taught in
college. He is taught that the men who held the
office did all the fighting.
I remember we had a Peace Jubilee here in
Philadelphia soon after the Spanish War. Perhaps
some of these visitors think we should not have
had it until now in Philadelphia, and as the
great procession was going up Broad Street I was
told that the tally-ho coach stopped right in
front of my house, and on the coach was Hobson,
and all the people threw up their hats and swung
their handkerchiefs, and shouted "Hurrah for
Hobson!" I would have yelled too, because he
deserves much more of his country that he has
ever received. But suppose I go into the high
school tomorrow and ask, "Boys, who sunk the
Merrimac?" If they answer me "Hobson," they tell
me seven-eighths of a lie — seven- eighths of a
lie, because there were eight men who sunk the
Merrimac. The other seven men, by virtue of
their position, were continually exposed to the
Spanish fire while Hobson, as an officer, might
reasonably be behind the smoke-stack.
Why, my friends, in this intelligent audience
gathered here tonight I do not believe I could
find a single person that can name the other
seven men who were with Hobson. Why do we teach
history in that way? We ought to teach that
however humble the station a man may occupy, if
he does his full duty in his place, he is just
as much entitled to the American people's honor
as is a king upon a throne. We do teach it as a
mother did her little boy in New York when he
said, "Mamma, what great building is that?"
"That is General Grant's tomb." "Who was General
Grant?" "He was the man who put down the
rebellion." Is that the way to teach history?
Do you think we would have gained a victory if
it had depended on General Grant alone. Oh, no.
Then why is there a tomb on the Hudson at all?
Why, not simply because General Grant was
personally a great man himself, but that tomb is
there because he was a representative man and
represented two hundred thousand men who went
down to death for this nation and many of them
as great as General Grant. That is why that
beautiful tomb stands on the heights over the
Hudson.
I remember an incident that will illustrate
this, the only one that I can give tonight. I am
ashamed of it, but I don't dare leave it out. I
close my eyes now; I look back through the years
to 1863; I can see my native town in the
Berkshire Hills, I can see that cattle-show
ground filled with people; I can see the church
there and the town hall crowded, and hear bands
playing, and see flags flying and handkerchiefs
streaming — well do I recall at this moment that
day.
The people had turned out to receive a company
of soldiers, and that company came marching up
on the Common. They had served out one term in
the Civil War and had reenlisted, and they were
being received by their native townsmen. I was
but a boy, but I was captain of that company,
puffed out with pride on that day — why, a
cambric needle would have burst me all to
pieces.
As I marched on the Common at the head of my
company, there was not a man more proud than I.
We marched into the town hall and then they
seated my soldiers down in the center of the
house and I took my place down on the front
seat, and then the town officers filed through
the great throng of people, who stood close and
packed in that little hall. They came up on the
platform, formed a half circle around it, and
the mayor of the town, the "chairman of the
selectmen" in New England, took his seat in the
middle of that half circle.
He was an old man, his hair was gray; he never
held an office before in his life. He thought
that an office was all he needed to be a truly
great man, and when he came up he adjusted his
powerful spectacles and glanced calmly around
the audience with amazing dignity. Suddenly his
eyes fell upon me, and then the good old man
came right forward and invited me to come up on
the stand with the town officers. Invited me up
on the stand! No town officer ever took notice
of me before I went to war. Now, I should not
say that. One town officer was there who advised
the teachers to "whale" me, but I mean no
"honorable mention."
So I was invited up on the stand with the town
officers. I took my seat and let my sword fall
on the floor, and folded my arms across my
breast and waited to be received. Napoleon the
Fifth! Pride goeth before destruction and a
fall. When I had gotten my seat and all became
silent through the hall, the chairman of the
selectmen arose and came forward with great
dignity to the table, and we all supposed he
would introduce the Congregational minister, who
was the only orator in the town, and who would
give the oration to the returning soldiers.
But, friends, you should have seen the surprise
that ran over that audience when they discovered
that this old farmer was going to deliver that
oration himself. He had never made a speech in
his life before, but he fell into the same error
that others have fallen into, he seemed to think
that the office would make him an orator. So he
had written out a speech and walked up and down
the pasture until he had learned it by heart and
frightened the cattle, and he brought that
manuscript with him, and, taking it from his
pocket, he spread it carefully upon the table.
Then he adjusted his spectacles to be sure that
he might see it, and walked far back on the
platform and then stepped forward like this. He
must have studied the subject much, for he
assumed an elocutionary attitude; he rested
heavily upon his left heel, slightly advanced
the right foot, threw back his shoulders, opened
the organs of speech, and advanced his right
hand at an angle of forty-five.
As he stood in this elocutionary attitude this
is just the way that speech went, this is it
precisely. Some of my friends have asked me if I
do not exaggerate it, but I could not exaggerate
it. Impossible! This is the way it went;
although I am not here for the story but the
lesson that is back of it:
"Fellow citizens—" As soon as he heard his
voice, his hand began to shake like that, his
knees began to tremble, and then he shook all
over. He coughed and choked and finally came
around to look at his manuscript. Then he began
again: "Fellow citizens, we — are — we are — we
are — we are — we are very happy — we are very
happy — we are very happy — to welcome back to
their native town these soldiers who have fought
and bled — and come back again to their native
town. We are especially — we are especially — we
are especially — we are especially pleased to
see with us today this young hero" (that meant me)
— "this young hero who in imagination" (friends,
remember, he said that; if he had
not said "in imagination" I would not be egotistical enough
to refer to it) — "this young hero who, in
imagination, we have seen leading his troops —
leading — we have seen leading — we have seen
leading his troops on to the deadly breach. We
have seen his shining — his shining — we have
seen his shining — we have seen his shining —
his shining sword — flashing in the sunlight as
he shouted to his troops, 'Come on!'"
Oh dear, dear, dear, dear! How little that good,
old man knew about war. If he had known anything
about war, he ought to have known what any
soldier in this audience knows is true, that it
is next to a crime for an officer of infantry
ever in time of danger to go ahead of his men.
I, with my shining sword flashing in the
sunlight, shouting to my troops: "Come on." I
never did it. Do you suppose I would go ahead of
my men to be shot in the front by the enemy and
in the back by my own men? That is no place for
an officer. The place for the officer is behind
the private soldier in actual fighting.
How often, as a staff officer, I rode down the
line when the rebel cry and yell was coming out
of the woods, sweeping along over the fields,
and shouted, "Officers to the rear! Officers to
the rear!" and then every officer goes behind
the line of battle, and the higher the officer
rank, the farther behind he goes. Not because he
is any the less brave, but because the laws of
war require that to be done. If the general came
up on the front line and were killed you would
lose your battle anyhow, because he has the plan
of the battle in his brain, and must be kept in
comparative safety.
I, with my "shining sword flashing in the
sunlight." Ah! There sat in the hall that day
men who had given that boy their last hardtack,
who had carried him on their backs through deep
rivers. But some were not there; they had gone
down to death for their country. The speaker
mentioned them, but they were but little
noticed, and yet they had gone down to death for
their country, gone down for a cause they
believed was right and still believe was right,
though I grant to the other side the same that I
ask for myself. Yet these men who had actually
died for their country were little noticed, and
the hero of the hour was this boy.
Why was he the hero? Simply because that man
fell into the same foolishness. This boy was an
officer, and those were only private soldiers. I
learned a lesson that I will never forget.
Greatness consists not in holding some office;
greatness really consists in doing some great
deed with little means, in the accomplishment of
vast purposes from the private ranks of life,
that is true greatness.
He who can give to this people better streets,
better homes, better schools, better churches,
more religion, more of happiness, more of God,
he that can be a blessing to the community in
which he lives tonight will be great anywhere,
but he who cannot be a blessing where he now
lives will never be great anywhere on the face
of God's earth. "We live in deeds, not years, in
feeling, not in figures on a dial; in thoughts,
not breaths; we should count time by heart
throbs, in the cause of right." Bailey says: "He
most lives who thinks most."
If you forget everything I have said to you, do
not forget this, because it contains more in two
lines than all I have said. Baily says: "He most
lives who thinks most, who feels the noblest,
and who acts the best."
More History
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