CHAPTER IX
GENIUS PLUS INITIATIVE
Genius is twenty per cent idea, thirty per cent talent, and fifty per cent _initiative_. Ideas are small in themselves when reduced to _brass tacks_, but when we put the steam behind they often turn into something tremendous.
Even a fool may have an idea, but it takes _brains and pep_ to put one over.
Most every one has had a notion worth while, but in most cases they hold it cheap on the theory that if it really amounted to anything some _genius_ would have thought of it long ago and put it into practical use. There is where _initiative_ was lacking--perhaps talent as well--but initiative would have brought in talent _from the outside_.
The word genius has been largely misapplied. Many men who were merely astute in one way or another have been placarded with the label of genius. But the _real genius_ is one whose idea has saved something for his fellow man in _time_, _labor_, and _money_. Who would have thought forty years ago that the whispering cups which children talked into, and by means of which they could hear each other’s voices a distance of fifty or a hundred feet, would turn into the greatest labor-saving device in all the world! Such has been the fact ever since the telephone became an everyday utility.
The principle was discovered in a toy--the practical, every-day application as a labor-saving device was to come--but it came soon. A genius brought it about by inventing a transmitter which enlarged the sound waves when vibrated over electrically charged wires. Just as simple as water boiling in a tea kettle--which, by the way, led to the _steam engine_.
_Steam, steel, and electricity!_--the playground of the world’s greatest inventors--_where genius abounds_. Here were born our captains of industry, our fabulous fortunes, our _empire building resources_. Intertwined with these three great principles the _super-genius_ has romped and played with nature’s secrets until the age in which we live is one of _touch the button_--and some labor-saving device does the rest.
We think it wonderful to live in the present age of genius. Nothing seems lacking. But what snails we’ll seem to those who come along _a hundred years from now_. Do we think that Arizona will lack for rain when she needs it--even fifty years hence? Surely the _drudgery of the horse_ will have passed into oblivion. Mr. Ford to the rescue! Having taken him out of the roadway, he most certainly will not allow the horse to go on slaving in the plough field. That blessing is already in process of solution.
The real period for the genius is in the foreground. The hardships of the past are over. Capital is ready and waiting eagerly for the new idea no matter how small, _or how big_. Genius has but to shake off inertia, _build up initiative_ and make full use of its talents. There isn’t a stumbling block in sight. _The road is clear_--and every added facility helps that much toward making everybody’s life worth while.