classes where students were a year or more older than I was. I wanted to be the best student or the best athlete in the class, and the challenge was heightened by the disparity of our age differences as the gap remained throughout my education.
During my eight years in Central Valley’s public school I gained some experience in public speaking at township events and various student gatherings. On one occasion I delivered the oration “O’ Captain, My Captain” at the public gazebo in town. I was plenty nervous, but I had memorized the poem well enough to recite it. I think I was eleven years old at the time, but I remember the occasion. I came to understand then that public speaking is a talent which encourages the development of other communication skills. This is of considerable value to people hoping to succeed in the world of business.
Looking back, I developed an urgent sense of wanting to be successful in life. I had no idea what that would involve, of course, but I had no shortage of ambition. I felt pretty good about my chances for success. I had an instinctive liking for people, and I wanted people to like me in return, being gregarious and outgoing and always reaching out to people to make friends. I also had a strong competitive drive. I wanted not only to be a good student, but also to excel in athletics. I thought winning was important. I didn’t play in organized sporting events just to be a participant. What was important was winning the game or being on the winning team.
Around this time, Grandmother was insistent that her three grandchildren should receive as fine an education as possible. She wanted us to go to high school somewhere other than in Central Valley and began looking for a boarding school that could provide each of us with a springboard to a college education. In 1937, she found the perfect answer. She determined that Claire would go to the Northfield Seminary in Massachusetts, the sister school of the Mount Hermon School for Boys, which is where I was to be sent two years later. Grandmother then began to sell her personal assets to obtain the necessary funds for our education.
Tragedy struck when Grandmother suffered a severe heart attack and died in 1938. It was a terrible blow to all of us, but to me at eleven years old, it was absolutely shattering. Now, with only Dad left, I knew that I would be required, more and more to rely on myself. I learned confidence is born of integrity and fair dealing and is the reward for honesty and performance.
Being a former teacher, high school principal, and college graduate, Dad knew the advantages of having a good education, and he wanted me to have the best. In early September of 1939, Dad and I drove to the Mount Hermon School in northern Massachusetts. Our trip coincided with Germany’s invasion of Poland, the beginning of World War II. Both events proved to be important in determining my future.
Unfortunately, being away from home those first few weeks was tough on me.
Dad had to return the school to give me a firm talking to. Finally, he turned to me and said, “Jimmy, I’m not going to take you home with me. You are going to stay here and tough it out, so you had better prepare yourself to do that.” I knew his heart was breaking seeing me in such a dreadful emotional state. He told me that Mount Hermon was the right experience for me. There was nothing to do but force myself to straighten up and get on with it.
During the next few days I gradually came out of my terrible state of depression and began to get caught up in the excitement of the school activities. I threw myself into athletics, classes, studying, meeting other boys, making new friends, eating good food, and generally enjoying my new home. I began to think of Mount Hermon as my new home away from home, and this helped to trigger a sense of independence and self-reliance that I had never known before. This newfound confidence, and the opportunity to learn and to grow, was inspirational for my first year.
Returning to Mount Hermon in September of 1940, I was filled with expectations and very happy to be back. I was given a work assignment in the kitchen at West Hall. Working in the dining hall and helping prepare food for a community of six hundred boys and faculty members was my first food-service experience, and I recall enjoying it.
In May of 1942, I was elected president of our class for the upcoming senior year. I was also in the midst of planning to go on to college, yet in the background was the war and the likelihood of my entering the service. Seniors were given aptitude tests to assist school counselors in helping determine a student’s most appropriate career path and the best university to attend.
My test results were revealing. I was advised to pursue a business career connected with sales or marketing. I had a liking for people and believed that I had developed some worthwhile interpersonal skills as a result of my Mount Hermon experience, which coincided nicely with this career path. I was interested in books written about the 1800s, when many of the early and great American fortunes were built. Horatio Alger stories were popular during the Depression years and the 1940s, and I enjoyed reading these books and the success stories they told. Stories about Vanderbilt, Astor, Jay Gould, E.H. Harriman, James J. Hill, Rockefeller, and Flagler fascinated me. Books about Wall Street, finance, and the building of the railroads and the great industrial companies were of special interest. I wanted to know more about the “robber barons” and more about the great fortunes made by men such as J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and others. The answers were in books and I read a lot of them.
My career goal after leaving Mount Hermon and entering college was to build a successful business career for myself, and I hoped to get rich in the process. Some would argue that perhaps there is something wrong with someone making a lot of money. Some believe that when a person becomes wealthy, he always does so at the expense of others. Nothing was further from the truth, of course, but it is hard to convince a great many people about that.
The unfortunate fact is that there are all too many greedy and dishonest businessmen who take advantage of situations that enable them to profit at the expense of the public. There is no way to effectively and totally control that in a democratic and free society.
I still believe that the pursuit of success in business and the accumulation of wealth that usually accompanies it is a worthy personal goal deserving of respect. Handling newfound wealth is a totally different matter. When the accumulation of wealth becomes an obsession and a goal unto itself, it can work to a person’s disadvantage often causing personal misery along with the loss of a worthwhile set of values. I have seen many people in this situation. The problem usually begins with establishing the wrong priorities and focusing on self as opposed to becoming involved with activities that help to enrich the lives of others.
I was particularly fortunate to have had that part of my long-term goals in mind even as a teenager. I needed to find a college that was affordable and offered me the kind of education that could assist me in starting my own business career. I decided on Cornell University and asked what they offered in the way of business training. I learned that the only school at Cornell that offered a business program was the School of Hotel Administration. I applied for admission and my application was accepted.
At the graduation ceremonies at Mount Hermon, I gave the class president’s address, and 149 friends and classmates received their diplomas. It was the end of one era but the beginning of another. I was reaching for the next rung in the ladder, and I had a clear destination in mind.
Jim in his Navy uniform, 1944
During World War II, the educational format at most universities, including Cornell, was a year-round trimester program as a means of speeding up the educational process. I didn’t expect to be called up until sometime in 1944. Until then a college education was my number one
