A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After

by Edward William Bok

Such a man in a position of importance seems often not to see that he has it within his power to advance the fortunes of younger men by stepping out when he has served his time, while by refusing to let go he often works dire injustice and even disaster to his younger associates.

The sad fact is that in all too many instances the average American business man is actually afraid to let go because he realizes that out of business he should not know what to do. For years he has so excluded all other interests that at fifty or sixty or seventy he finds himself a slave to his business, with positively no inner resources. Retirement from the one thing he does know would naturally leave such a man useless to himself and his family, and his community: worse than useless, as a matter of fact, for he would become a burden to himself, a nuisance to his family, and, when he would begin to write "letters" to the newspapers, a bore to the community.

It is significant that a European or English business man rarely reaches middle age devoid of acquaintance with other matters; he always lets the breezes from other worlds of thought blow through his ideas, with the result that when he is ready to retire from business he has other interests to fall back upon. Fortunately it is becoming less uncommon for American men to retire from business and devote themselves to other pursuits; and their number will undoubtedly increase as time goes on, and we learn the lessons of life with a richer background. But one cannot help feeling regretful that the custom is not growing more rapidly.

A man must unquestionably prepare years ahead for his retirement, not alone financially, but mentally as well. Bok noticed as a curious fact that nearly every business man who told him he had made a mistake in his retirement, and that the proper life for a man is to stick to the game and see it through--"hold her nozzle agin the bank" as Jim Bludso would say--was a man with no resources outside his business. Naturally, a retirement is a mistake in the eyes of such a man; but oh, the pathos of such a position: that in a world of so much interest, in an age so fascinatingly full of things worth doing, a man should have allowed himself to become a slave to his business, and should imagine no other man happy without the same claims!

It is this lesson that the American business man has still to learn; that no man can be wholly efficient in his life, that he is not living a four-squared existence, if he concentrates every waking thought on his material affairs. He has still to learn that man cannot live by bread alone. The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living. Life is something more than these, and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life--service for others.

Some men argue that they can give this service and be in business, too. But service with such men generally means drawing a check for some worthy cause, and nothing more. Edward Bok never belittled the giving of contributions--he solicited too much money himself for the causes in which he was interested--but it is a poor nature that can satisfy itself that it is serving humanity by merely signing checks. There is no form of service more comfortable or so cheap. Real service, however, demands that a man give himself with his check. And that the average man cannot do if he remains in affairs.

Particularly true is this to-day, when every problem of business is so engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so exacting as are these. Besides, if his business has seemed important enough to demand his entire attention, are not the great uplift questions equally worth his exclusive thought? Are they easier of solution than the material problems?

A man can live a life full-square only when he divides it into three periods:

First: that of education, acquiring the fullest and best within his reach and power;

Second: that of achievement: achieving for himself and his family, and discharging the first duty of any man, that in case of his incapacity those who are closest to him are provided for. But such provision does not mean an accumulation that becomes to those he leaves behind him an embarrassment rather than a protection. To prevent this, the next period confronts him: