Roosevelt’s honesty, and yet he must sign a voucher for his salary, just the same as the cheapest government employee. The justices of the United States Supreme Court, who are considered to be the soul of honor, and are the final arbiters of all great questions, must also sign a receipt for their salaries.
If every child in America had a thorough business training, tens of thousands of promoters, long-headed, cunning schemers, who have thriven on the people’s ignorance, would be out of an occupation.
I believe that the business colleges are among the greatest blessings in American civilization to-day, because through their teaching they have been the means of saving thousands of homes, and have made happy and comfortable tens of thousands of people who might otherwise be living in poverty and wretchedness.
This ignorance of practical business principles is very common among professional men. I know clergymen, journalists, authors, doctors, teachers, men in every profession, who are constantly subjected to serious embarrassment by their incapacity in business matters. Some of them do not know how to interpret the simplest business forms.
Not long ago, a Harvard graduate, occupying a very important position as a teacher, went to the president of a commercial school and asked him to give him some lessons on how to handle money, notes, etc. He said that when he went to his bank and asked them how much money he had there, they laughed at him; and that when a bank draft came to him he did not know what to do with it.
Nothing will stand you in better stead, in the hard, cold practical everyday world, than a good, sound business education. You will find that your success in any trade, occupation, or profession will depend as much on your general knowledge of men and affairs as on your technical training.
No matter what your vocation may be, you must be a business man first, or you will always be placed at a great disadvantage in the practical affairs of life. We cannot entirely ignore the money side of existence any more than we can the food side, and the very foundation of a practical, successful life is the ability to know how to manage the money side effectively.
It is infinitely harder to save money and to invest it wisely than to make it, and, if even the most practical men, men who have had a long training in scientific business methods, find it a difficult thing to hold on to money after they make it, what is likely to happen to people who have had practically no training in business methods?
Chapter XIV.
Sizing Up People
AFTER Alexander the Great had conquered the Persians he became suddenly very ill. One of his generals sent him a letter saying that his attending physician had resolved to poison him. He read the letter without the slightest sign of emotion, and put it under his pillow. When the physician came and prepared medicine, Alexander said he would not take it just then, but told him to put it where he could reach it, and at the same time gave him the letter from his general. Alexander raised himself on his elbow, and watched the physician’s face with the most searching scrutiny, looking into his very soul; but he did not see in it the slightest evidence of fear or guilt. He immediately reached for the medicine bottle, and, without a word, drank its contents. The amazed physician asked him how he could do that after receiving such a letter. Alexander replied, “Because you are an honest man."
Alexander was a remarkable student of human nature. He knew men, and the motives which actuated them. He could read the human heart as an open book.
The art of all arts for the leader is this ability to measure men, to weigh them, to “size them up,” to estimate their possibilities, to place them so as to call out their strength and eliminate their weakness.
This is the epitaph which Andrew Carnegie has chosen for himself: “Here lies a man who knew how to get around him men much cleverer than himself.”
People wonder how a Morgan, a Harriman, a Ryan, a Wanamaker, can carry on such prodigious enterprises. The secret lies in their ability to project themselves through a mighty system, and to choose men who will fit the places they are put in, men who can carry out their employer’s programme to the letter.
Marshall Field was always studying his employees and trying to read their futures. Nothing escaped his keen eye. Even when those about him did not know that he was thinking of them, he was taking their measure at every opportunity. His ability to place men, to weigh and measure them, to pierce all pretense, amounted to genius. When he missed a man from a certain counter, he would often ask his manager what had become of him. When told that he was promoted, he would keep track of him until he missed him again, and then would ask where he was. He always wanted to see how near the man came to his estimate of him. He thus kept track of men of promise in his employ and watched their advancement. In this way, he became an expert in human nature reading.
Mr. Field would sometimes pick out a man for a position the choice of whom his advisers would tell him they thought a mistake; but he was nearly always right, because he had greater power of discernment than the others. He did not pay much attention to the claims of the applicant, or to what he said, because he could see through the surface and measure the real man. He had a wonderful power for taking a man’s mental caliber. He could see in which direction his strength lay, and he could see his weak points as few men could.
A man who had been his general manager for many years, once resigned very suddenly to go into business for himself. Without the slightest hesitation or concern, Mr. Field called to his office a man whom he had been watching, unknown to the man, for a long time. With very few words, he made him general manager. And so great was his confidence that he had measured the man correctly, that the very next day he sailed for Europe. He did not think it necessary to wait and see how his new manager turned out. He believed he had the right man and that he could trust him. He was not disappointed.
Men who are capable of succeeding in a large way are shrewd enough to know that they do not “know it all,” shrewd enough to employ men who are strong where they are weak, to surround themselves with men who have the ability which they lack, who can supplement their weakness and shortcomings with strength and ability. Thus, in their combined power, they make an effective force.
Many men, because of their inability to read human nature, duplicate their own weaknesses in their employees, thus multiplying their chances of failure. Few men are able to see their own weaknesses and limitations, and tKose who do not, surround themselves with men who have the same weak links in their character, and the result is that their whole institution is weak.
The leader must not only be able to judge others, but he must also be able to read himself, to take an inventory of his own strong points and weak points.
Men who have been elected to high office or to fill very important positions at the head of great concerns because of their recognized ability have often disappointed the expectations of those who placed their hopes in them, simply because they could not read people. They may have been well educated, well posted, strong intellectually, may have had a great deal of general ability; but they lacked the skill to read men, to measure them, to weigh them, to place them where they belonged.
Grant was cut out for a general, a military leader; but when he got into the White House he felt out of place, he was shorn of his great power. He could not use his greatest ability. He was obliged to depend too much upon the advice of friends. The result was that, as President, he did not maintain the high reputation he had made as a general.
If he had had the same ability to read politicians and to estimate men for government positions that he had for judging of military ability,
