Successward: A Young Man's Book for Young Men

by Edward William Bok

One rule should be positive with every young man: the midnight hours should be passed in sleep; and by these hours I mean eleven and twelve o'clock. If a young man makes it a rule to be asleep by eleven and up by seven, he chooses the course which hundreds of the most successful men of the day have chosen. The loss of vitality brought by less than eight hours' sleep may not be felt or noticed at present, but the process of sleeping is only nature's banking system of principal and interest. A mind capable of the fulfilment of its highest duties should be receptive to ideas, quick to comprehend, instantaneous in its conception of a point. With a fresh mind and a clear brain a young man has two of the greatest levers of success. These cannot be retained under social indulgences. The dissipation of a night has its invariable influence upon the work of the morrow. I do not preach total abstinence of any habits to which human nature is prone. Every man ought to know what is good for him and what is injurious to his best interests. But an excess of anything is injurious, and a young man on the threshold of a business career cannot afford to be excessive in a single direction. He should husband his resources. He will need them all. For no success is easily made in these days. Appearances are tremendously deceptive in this respect. We see men making what we choose to regard and what are known as quick successes, because at a comparatively early age they acquire position or means. But one needs only to study the conditions of the business life of to-day to see how impossible it is to achieve any success except by the severest patience and by the very hardest work. No young man need approach a business career with the idea that its achievement is easy. The histories of successful men tell us all too clearly the lessons of the patience and efforts of years. Some men compass a successful career in less time than others. And if the methods employed are necessarily different, the requirements are precisely the same. It is a story of hard work in every case, of close application, and of a patient mastery of the problem in hand. Advantages of education will come in at times and push one man ahead of another. But a practical business knowledge is apt to be a greater possession.

"But," says some young fellow, "what are the social pleasures and indulgences which injuriously affect a young man's success?" Only one general answer can be given, and it is this: any social pleasure or indulgence which affects a young man's health affects his success. Good health is the foundation of all possible success in life; affect the one and you affect the other.

I presume it is safe to say that no single element in social life has injured so many young men as an indulgence in intoxicating liquors, and I shall treat of this first. And in doing so I shall take the matter entirely away from the moral standpoint, and place it simply on its best and wisest basis, that of principle. Many a writer—too many, alas!—has held forth on this subject of wine-drinking and young men, and pointed out its moral aspects. This is all very well as far as it goes; but I think that if more writers placed their young-men readers on their honor in this matter it would be infinitely better. It is not a question of whether it is right or wrong for a young man to indulge in spirituous drinks, so far as his success is concerned. It simply amounts to one thing: he absolutely cannot do it. And I can say this to every young fellow from my own experience and observation as a young man who, when he started out, did not know exactly what position to take.

I was about sixteen years old, if I remember rightly, when I began attending public dinners and assemblages in the capacity of a newspaper reporter. Wines were then more freely used at dinners than now, and I soon saw that I must make up my mind whether at these gatherings I should partake of wines or decline them. I had been trained to the belief that it was always best to err on the safe side, and as I sat down to my first public dinner—a New England dinner in Brooklyn—I shielded the wine-glasses set before me as the waiters came to my plate, and this practice I have followed ever since.

At first my principle never to touch liquor or spirits of any kind directed to me the chaffings of my friends. I was told it looked "babyish"; that I could not expect to go out much and keep to my principle; that I would often find it considered discourteous to refuse a simple glass of wine tendered by my hostess. But I made up my mind that there was no use of having a principle unless one stuck to it. And I soon saw that people respected me the more for it. And just let me say right here to all young men: I never lost one friend by my refusals, but I made scores of friendships—of men, from one who has occupied the presidential chair down; of women, among whom are the best and most famous in our land to-day.

I honestly believe that a young man who starts out in life with a fixed principle—whether it be that he will not drink, or smoke, or indulge in anything which in his heart he feels is not good for him, or in which he does not conscientiously believe—and adheres to that principle, no matter under what circumstances he may be placed, holds in his hand one of the most powerful elements of success in the world to-day. There is a great deal of common sense abroad in this world of ours, and a young man with a good principle is always safe to depend upon it. The men and women whose friendships are worth having are the men and women who have principles themselves, and respect them in others, especially when they find them in a young man.

Another thing which led me to make up my mind never to touch liquor was the damage which I saw wrought by it upon some of the finest minds with which it was ever my privilege to come in contact; and I concluded that what had resulted injuriously to others might prove so to me. I have seen, even in my few years of professional life, some of the smartest—yea, brilliant—literary men dethroned from splendid positions owing to nothing else but their indulgence in wine. I have known men with salaries of thousands of dollars per year, occupying positions which hundreds would strive a lifetime to attain, come to beggary from drink. Only recently there applied to me, for any position I could offer him, one of the most brilliant editorial writers in the newspaper profession—a man who, two years ago, easily commanded one hundred dollars for a single article in his special field. That man became so unreliable from drink that editors are now afraid of his articles; and although he can to-day write as forcible editorials as at any time during his life, he sits in a cellar in one of our cities writing newspaper wrappers for one dollar per thousand. And that is only one instance of several I could recite here. I do not hold my friend up as a "terrible example"; he is but a type who convinced me, and may convince others, that a clear mind and liquor do not go together.

I know it is said, when one brings up such an instance as this, "Oh well, that man drank to excess. One glass will hurt no one." How do these people know that it will not? One drop of kerosene has been known to throw into flame an almost hopeless fire, and one glass of liquor may fan into a flame a smoldering spark hid away where we never thought it existed. The spark may be there and it may not. Why take the risk? Liquor to a healthy young man will never do him the least particle of good; it may do him harm. The man for whom I have absolutely no use is the man who is continually asking a young man to "just have a little; one glass, you know." A man who will wittingly urge a young man whom he knows has a principle against liquor is a man for whom a halter is too good.

Then, as I looked around and came to know more of people and things, I found the always unanswerable argument in favor of a young man's abstinence, i.e., that the most successful men in America to-day are those who seldom, if ever, lift a wine-glass to their lips. Becoming interested in this fact, I had the curiosity to personally inquire into it, and of twenty-eight of the leading business men in the country whose names I selected at random, twenty-two were abstainers. I made up my mind that there was some reason for this. If liquor brought safe pleasures, why did these men abstain from it? If, as some say, it is a stimulant to a busy man, why did not these men, directing the largest business interests in this country, resort to it? And when I saw that these were the men whose opinions in great business matters were accepted by the leading concerns of the world, I concluded that their judgment in the use of liquor would satisfy me. If their judgment in business matters could command the respect and attention of the leaders of trade on both sides of the sea, their decision as to the use of liquor was not apt to be wrong. At least, it was good enough for me.

As opportunities have come to me to go into homes and public places, I find that I do not occupy a solitary position. The tendency to abstain from liquor is growing more and more among young men of to-day. The brightest young men I know, who are filling positions of power and promise, never touch a drop of beer, wines, or intoxicants of any sort. And the young man who to-day makes up his mind that he will be on the safe side and adhere to strict abstinence will find that he is not alone. He has now the very best element in business and social life in the largest cities of our land with him.