Chapter 9

The material pleasure seeker lives a life of convention, engagements, routine, action, strain and high tension.

The person who is so fortunate as to appreciate and follow mental pleasures, is serene, natural, happy and content.

A cozy room, loved ones around, music, books, love and social conversation, those are mental pleasures; those are best.

He who can pick up a book, and read things worth while, gets satisfaction unknown to those whose life is banquets, theaters, dances, automobiles, parties, bridge, clubs and society doings.

The lover of books and home can enjoy the play, because he only goes to plays worth while, and he doesn't overdo it.

The confirmed theater-goer is a pessimist; he roasts nearly every play, and he is universally bored.

Get the home reading habit. Don't over-do it. Call on friends, go to a good picture show once in a while; to good concerts; to good plays, but do not make this going out in the evening plan a habit. Let it be merely a dessert, or a rarity; like candy and ice cream, proper and enjoyable when taken in moderation.

When you get started reading worth-while books on science, on history, on geography, on travel, on natural history, you will get into an inexhaustible field of pleasure and satisfaction.

Any time you can pick up your book and be happy.

Waits in railway stations will be opportunities; trips on trains will be pleasant; evenings alone will be enjoyable, if you can get into a book you like.

Mental pleasures are best.

Material pleasures are merely passing pleasures.

PANAMA

The Man Who Found It and the Man Who Used It

Four hundred years ago Jim Balboa climbed a mountain peak on the Isthmus of Panama, and looked on the boundless Pacific and said: "I have this day discovered you, and henceforth the geographies will perpetuate this great event."

Little did Jim think that by 1914 ships of twenty thousand tons would sail through the impassable mountains.

Jim knew he had discovered something great, but little did he dream of the real greatness of the world's future. Little did he dream that the vast new continent on whose neck he stood was to hold the greatest nation of the twentieth century.

Gold, new territory for kings, new fields for the church--were the magnets which drew early navigators like Balboa to the land in the West across the Atlantic.

Those early adventurers little thought of exploiting their discoveries for the benefit of mankind.

It is a long time and a far cry from Capt. Balboa to Colonel Goethals, from the discoverer to the constructor, and it is our good fortune to see and enjoy a work beyond the wildest dreams of Columbus, Balboa, Cortez and the other wanderlust adventurers.

Not only that, but the Panama Canal, now opened to the world, was for years deemed a chimerical dream and an impossibility, by the world as well as by most Americans.

Every ditch digger, including the great De Lesseps, proved a failure, so to Yankee grit in the person of Goethals belongs the credit for the completed work which is now called the "Eighth Wonder of the World."

The Pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, are wonders, but we have a Yankee contractor who can duplicate them if anyone puts up the money for the job.

We do not build pyramids or hanging gardens because they serve no useful purpose.

The Panama Canal is a greater wonder and is a most practical benefit to mankind. It doubles our navy; it enables us to move supplies of every kind from one coast to the other quickly and less expensively.

It shortens the world's highway between the oceans and helps every human being.

Balboa's name will live in geographies as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, but Goethals' name will be remembered as the man who made most use of that discovery for the benefit of mankind.

The shades of Balboa and De Lesseps likely stalk around Panama at midnight and rub their eyes in amazement.

TODAY

The One Time in Our Keeping

As I walk on the old Santa Fe Trail each morning through Penn Valley Park in Kansas City, the marks of time are plainly visible.

Erosion of water and wind have bared the sedimentary rocks and exposed the layers in well defined pages so I may study this great rock-paged geology book, and indeed it's a pleasure to me.

Back of all is the grand plan of the Universe of which this earth is an atom. That plan is ruled by a Divine law and power.

For you or me to take a fragment of truth and attempt to pass it as a definite science, a complete religion or all truth, is an assumption which these records of countless ages frown upon as a hopeless, bootless task.

All science has some truth; all creeds, sects, isms and cults likewise have truth, but no branch or group possesses all truth.

My fossil fish on the wall wiggled his tail thousands of years ago, very likely millions of years.

He lived and died in accordance with the plan of the Creator of the Universe and you are an atom and I am an atom in that Universe and governed by the power that gave life and crushed to death that fossil fish.

Verily we presume when we say, "we have all the truth; think as we do or you are lost."

The old world has not told its full story. The Universe of which this world is a part is still a deeper mystery.

We shall not know all truth until the great revealing time.

We cannot change the pages of the millions of years gone by. We can do very little to change the pages of the millions of years to come. What little we can do, we can only do TODAY.

Today is yours and mine; let's do the best we can with our possession in act and thought and word.

The sun goes down behind the sky-line on the West as it has done for millions of years. I lay aside my pen with a bigger view, a deeper appreciation of the Creator and a profounder faith in His wisdom and works than ever.

God made. God rules. God plans. And verily we are weaklings and foolish, who presume by selfish prayer to suggest to Him what He shall do.

Let us strive to be appreciative of Him and try to lift ourselves in sublime thought into the higher faith thought and realize that we are part of Him and His plan, and failure is impossible to us, if we keep up and on, doing good, speaking softly, dealing gently, showing kindness today and living in accordance with the big, broad, generous, charitable plan instead of the little, bigoted, narrow, selfish idea that we are sole possessors of truth and that the man who differs with us in belief is in error.

This chapter is about big things and in it is a big moral for all who are big enough to grasp it.

DAD

All for You, Old Man, and It's Timely

This is your inning, Dad.

There has been so many beautiful things written about Mother and all the rest of the family that it is high time we should tell you how we love you and how we appreciate you.

You've worked so hard; you've been so ambitious to do things for your loved ones, and they have accepted your sacrifices, work, and watchfulness as matter of fact.

You've had dreams of a some day when you would relax and play and enjoy, but you have set that some day too far ahead. You consider yourself after all your loved ones are more comfortable and happy, and time is passing, Dad; the marks of time are showing on your poor, tired head; the wrinkles of care are marking your face, and the roses are bleaching from your cheeks.

You are too unselfish, too much centered in that some day. Let's change things a bit, Dad. Sometimes the some day doesn't come.

You are entitled to, and it's your duty to have, happiness and pleasures and health and joys, right here now today.

Your loved ones do not want you to spend your health getting wealth. They don't want to see you worn out, tired, weary and unhappy in the evening of your life. Besides it's your duty to let them share responsibility and work out their own problems. They will be better if you let them gain knowledge by practical experience.

Come on, Dad; get in the group and enjoy things now and you will live longer and you will get more out of life and give more pleasure to your loved ones. Get in the game, Dad; let's see the old light and twinkle in your eyes; let's have the sunshine on your face; the love-light on your lips and the happiness in your heart. Come on, Dad, we all want you to do these things.

Leave your cares at the office; come on and play, and you will be so much better and stronger and so much more successful in your business.

Let's have the corners of your mouth turned up tonight at the supper table; be part of the family, Dad, not a poor, tired bread winner.

We don't want to hear any more sh--sh--or whispers when you come home. We don't want to feel that restraint and uncomfortable feeling; let's laugh and sing and love and play--let's make your home-coming a joyous event.

We all love you, Dad, but you haven't made it as comfortable as you might for us when we try to express our love. You've been too tired, too busy, too much occupied with those business thoughts.

Don't you see how we love you, and how we appreciate you? Don't you know that there is no one in the world who can take the place of Dad?

Keep your heart young, Dad; we will help if you only say "come on." We are waiting for the signal. Let's start the new schedule tonight; come on, Dad, what do you say?

CRYING BABIES

When They Cry There's a Reason; Find It

Now come the wise doctors with the injunction to let the baby cry. They tell us it's good for the baby's lungs and that the baby needs the exercise and all that sort of rot.

They augment this with the statement that if we soothe or coddle our babies they will get the habit and require our attention always before they go to sleep.

Old Mother Nature has been pretty successful in raising animals. Let the kitten, dog, pig or chicken give the sign of pain or distress and the mother will hasten to its offspring and nestle it.

When a baby cries, it's because it's hungry, or too warm or too hot or too uncomfortable, or it has pain or distress. It's just nature's instinct given by God to the helpless infant that it may call attention to its trouble. The doctor would complain if uncomfortable. The doctor or the parent can help himself, but the baby can use its only signal, a cry.

When baby cries it should be taken up and soothed. Don't pay any attention to the doctor who says the baby cries to be petted; baby can't reason in its infant days; its little brain hasn't reached the reasoning powers.

Doctors constantly protest and warn us against over exertion on the part of children and even adults; yet they tell us to let the few-weeks-old baby cry, which is the most violent and extreme exertion it can put forth.

Crying puts a strain on all the baby's vital organs and its delicate, fragile blood vessels and heart. There have been thousands of babies who have had irreparable damage done to their constitutions because of this cold-blooded, heartless fad of the doctors, to let baby cry.

Many a mother's heart is torn and wrung because of the doctor's order, "Let the baby cry."

The mother is worked up into an excited nervous condition by the doctor's inhuman order to let the baby cry, and this same doctor tells her not to become excited because it will have a bad effect on her nursing baby. Just read this paragraph over again and see if the doctor hasn't crossed his logic wires and insulted common sense.

The doctors become calloused; they are used to seeing pain and suffering. It's easy for them to endure pain in others, and easy for them to give them heartless orders.

And generally the doctor who affects most knowledge about baby rearing is the one who has no babies of his own.

Dr. Walls of Chicago is one of the most eminent child specialists in the world and he agrees with my conclusions in this matter and so does most every really great child specialist I know.

When baby cries, find the reason; change its position; see if there is a pin sticking; find out whether it's heat, cold, hunger or pain.

There's a reason why babies cry. My wife is emphatic on that point and she has reared three mighty fine babies, and I have watched and helped her.

GIRL

Be a Know Girl, Not a Show Girl

Girl, what a wonderful creature you can be. What a glorious success you can make of your life, if you get the right start, the right hands to help you, the right hearts to love you, and the right eyes to watch you, the right thoughts to make you, and the right ideals to guide you.

There are so many influences to spoil you, so much convention, so much artificiality, so much snobbery, so much caste, so much foolish frivolity.

Then there are the wrong examples, the wrong grooming, the wrong environments, the wrong influences surrounding you, that it is not to be wondered why so many girls lose their heads and make a fizzle of their young lives.

The fizzle is generally because daddy and mamma have a lot of foolish notions about bringing up the girls. Especially is this so if the parents are wealthy.

Here is the history of many a rich girl. She is born without welcome, fed on a bottle, reared by a nurse, grows up in a nursery, estranged from her mother, later on sent away to school, mixes with a lot of other rich girls, gets lots of foolish notions, false estimates, and prejudiced views. She graduates and comes home and there are a lot of "doings" which she attends, then comes the show-off which is called a debut.

She is shown off like a filly at the horse show, and some high-collared young man wins her head although she thinks it's her heart. She thinks it's the thing to marry, and he is such "a swell fellow," he is such "good company," and he "dances so well,"--these qualities win her head.

So the girl marries, has children, husband goes broke and the girl awakens to the necessity of coming down from her pedestal, facing stern necessity, and raising her children as her mother should have raised her.

That's the picture of the poor rich girl whose parents are to blame for the nonsense she got in her head.

But, you, Girl, you are going to learn your cooking on a gas range instead of a chafing dish; you'll learn to bake bread before fudge; you'll learn how to cook solids before you learn to make salads.

You will study simplicity, sentiment, sense, sereneness, sweetness, rather than envy, frills, feathers and foolishness.

God's noblest woman's calling is the work for children and home.

To cook and sew is a higher duty and better occupation than bridge parties and society.

Not that you must cook and sew, my dear, but that you can if necessary.

With the ability to cook and sew you can properly direct the cook or seamstress, and they will respect you for your education.

The painted, powdered, tinsel, fluff, feathers and furebelow girl may be dashing now and you may envy her, but you, with your quiet, sweet, simple, sensible ways--you will win real love, real respect, real affection, real pleasures, real satisfaction, in all the days to come; you will make a success of your life.

Frills and feathers may be an attraction to the girl who makes the fizzle of her life, but sweetness and simplicity, and sentiment and sense, are precious jewels that will endure for all time.

Be that sweet girl. Do not be the "show" kind, or the blow kind, be the real "know" kind, and you will grow in the hearts of all who love reality and hate artificiality. We all love the "know" kind--the sweet, simple, sensible girl who knows.

So here's my hand, little sister, little daughter, little girl, and to you here are also the sweetest thoughts of mine heart, for I picture you through eyes, and through a heart, that sees two sweet little girls of my very own.

I am going to stick mighty close to my girls and try to bring them up to be real girls who will be loving, lovable and loved.

So then here is the hope that you, girl, will start right, keep right and end right. I want you to think of sense, sentiment, and simplicity rather than dances, dollars, duds and doings.

I want your life to be one of poise, happiness and serenity instead of noise, worry and nerves.

This little message is all for you--GIRL.

SPECULATION

You Can't Earn Your Board on the Board of Trade

I've been riding through the golden wheat belt of Kansas, and estimated the new wealth; for that which grows is the only real profit or wealth. All else are trades, speculation or bookkeeping accounts.

The farmer plants the wheat. God makes it grow and we eat it.

But in a big building in an amphitheater in the city, is a crowd of wild men in shirt sleeves, perspiring, shouting, making signs, clawing the air. This crowd never raised wheat, but they raise pandemonium. It's the board of trade; its job is getting the wheat from the farm to you and me who require it to live.

I've recently visited the biggest food market in the world, the Chicago Board of Trade. Below the gallery sat a nice dignified elderly man who wrote a note on a slip of paper, folded it and gave it to a boy.

The boy was off like a shot to the wheat pit; he gave it to another white-haired young-faced man of cultured, refined, even scholarly bearing, so different from the row raisers in the pit.

This nice man was the floor man for a big grain commission house; he read the message, and then did the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act. He turned red, purple, and green. His neck swelled, he threw back his head and screamed while he held up his hand and five fingers. Each finger meant 5,000 bushels of wheat; five fingers meant 25,000 bushels to sell. In an instant, like a pack of wolves, the other crazy men raised their hands with bent and twisted fingers, the sign language of the pit.

The old man made a sign, the wheat was sold. He was Dr. Jekyll again; he yawned and was composed once more.

Soon a boy came with another slip, and the old man went mad again. I asked my host if it wasn't pretty busy today; he said "no, it's a dull market."

That 25,000 bushels of wheat was sold half a dozen times. Every broker who handled it got a commission. The buying and selling was speculation.

Outside the board were the hangers on, the down-and-outs, the has-beens, who used to be in the pit and throw fits like the nice old man I've described.

These has-beens have the speculation bug, and hope they can come back some day and make fortunes out of lucky guesses.

The only ones who make money on the board of trade are the company who rents offices, the cigar man, the lunch man, and the telegraph operators, and the commission men who get one-eighth of a cent a bushel either way the market goes. Some of these commission men get the speculation bug and go broke, and yet there are callow youths and business men and clerks and other outsiders who believe they are smart enough to speculate on the Board of Trade. That belief helps fatten our penitentiaries.

No outsider ever made money on the Board of Trade if he stayed with the game. And the speculators on the inside graduate to the down-and-out class if they play long enough. There's a group of millionaires who control them and all others are pikers.

You can't beat the Board of Trade; it's not in the cards.

STARS

A Little Study of the Universe

Tonight I am in the Ozarks and old Mother Earth is passing through the belt of meteoric dust, that great mysterious sea in the universe through which we pass every year about the middle of November.

It is midnight. I will not reach my destination until 1:30 in the morning. Two fellow passengers in the car, after cussing their luck, have finally gone to Snoozeland, while I call the passing hours opportunity.

I look out into the night and marvel at the countless stars in the infinite black void, and wonder how closely those stars may be connected with humanity.

That they are connected I have no doubt, for truly "the sun, the moon, the stars, and endless space as well, are parts, are things, like me, that cometh from and runneth by one grand power of which I am in truth a part, an atom though I be."

How many stars are there? Well, let's get ready to appreciate number. I can see about 3,000; with opera glasses I could see 30,000.

The late Franklin Adams photographed the whole canopy with 206 photographs. He counted the stars by mathematical plans, and gives the conclusion that there are 1,600,000,000 stars, and that number is just about the number of humans on this earth. So then there is one star for each of us.

Each of those stars, practically speaking, is larger than the earth. Many have human beings who think and reason like we do. Multiply the 1,600,000,000 population on this earth by any portion of the 1,600,000,000 stars that may have thinking creatures on them; multiply that total by the millions of years and millions of generations that have passed out of existence.

Think of these numbers and limitless boundaries and then tell me that one little man, on one little star we call earth, has a strangle-hold on truth, and that his viewpoint, his ism, his little dogma, his narrow creed, is all sufficient, and that he can give me and you and them definite rules and patterns for our belief.

Verily, little protoplasm, you have another guess. We can by experience and tests prove two and two make four. We can by practice and experience prove that love, kindness, help, gentleness, sympathy, cheer and courage bring happiness.

These are tangible things; but when one wee Willie with sober face tells you and me and others that he has the truth about the definite, full workings of God's plans and purposes, I think of the greatness of 1,600,000,000 stars each with 1,600,000,000 humans and of the unnumbered generations gone by, and say, verily we must live TODAY and do the best we can today in act and thought and word.

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow is unknown; where we have been, where we will be, we know not. Where we are today we know, and God in His great plan knows only the final answer as to our future estate.

He will take us and hold us and place us in His keeping and according to His purpose, even though we do not or cannot follow or believe any one of the little man-formed creeds, isms or cults as the measure and rule for our beliefs.

Those stars testify to the certainty of God, and I believe in Him.

LEADERS

Are Ever Subject to Backbiters

When a man by his brains or by fortunate combination or circumstances arises to a position of prominence he becomes a target for the envious and a pattern for the imitator.

Emulation and envy are ever alert in trying to steal the fruits of the leader or doer of things.

The man who makes a name gets both reward and punishment. The reward is his satisfaction in being a producer, a help to the world, and the glory that comes from widespread recognition and publicity of his accomplishment. The punishment is the slurs, the enmity, the envy and the detraction, to say nothing of the downright lies which are told about him.

When a man writes a great book, builds a great machine, discovers a great truth or invents a useful article, he becomes a target for the envious few.

If he does a mediocre thing he is unnoticed; if his work is a masterpiece, jealousy wags its tongue and untruth uses its sting.

Wagner was jeered. Whistler was called a mere charlatan. Langley was pronounced crazy. Fulton and Stephenson were pitied. Columbus faced mutiny on his ship on the eve of his discovery of land. Millet starved in his attic. Time has passed, and the backbiters are all in unmarked graves. The world until its end will enjoy Wagner's music, Whistler and Millet's painting will attract artists from all over the world, and inventors will reverence the names of Fulton and Stephenson.

The leader is assailed because he has done a thing worth while; the slanderers are trying to equal his feat, but their imitations serve to prove his greatness.

Because jealous ones cannot equal the leader they seek to belittle him.