Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

The latter are more liable to youthful and enervating excesses, as they have the means to indulge in nocturnal amusements that are not conducive either to clear brains or active habits during the day.

Night dancing and late suppers, with some of their social concomitants, when habitually indulged, don’t contribute to business success. I know how this is myself, and therefore speak feelingly; but I don’t lay myself open to the charge of egotism when I say that I have never permitted the habit to get the better of me.

I am not setting myself up as a censor of other men’s habits, nor attempting to utter mere moral or religious cant. I am simply discussing the question from a scientific and physical standpoint, and I say that these habits don’t contribute to business success, but, on the contrary, form one of the greatest hindrances to it. They make any man, no matter how strong he may be, physically unfit for ordinary business. These “recreations” up town, however attractive and delightful they may be, don’t fit a young man for business down town. The line must be drawn somewhere. Let us draw it, say, at Fourteenth street.

There has been much said and written about Civil Service Reform by various authorities from President Cleveland down to Dorman B. Eaton and the Custom House officials. The great rule to follow is to give merit its true reward This draws out the best efforts of the recipient, where real merit is found, and keeps the drones beyond the pale of competition. It develops the qualities that are worthy of being encouraged, and keeps worthless pretense in its true position. This is the role I have adhered to in my office, and it works like a charm. My office, though not quite so large as the Custom House or Post Office of New York city, I think affords a fair test of what could be done on the largest possible scale.

If public office is a public trust, and we have the high authority of President Cleveland and of the New York Tribune for saying so, I think it can be administered on the same business principles that have contributed to the success of some of the largest and most successful firms in the world; and among these, I think I can say without egotism, as the matter is capable of demonstration, that the house of which I have the honor to be the head, stands second to none in the attributes to which I have referred.

The reader may say, “This is a puff for his own house.” Well, even so. If it is, it is true, and will bear the strictest investigation. So I don’t see why I should feign any false modesty about the assertion. It would be sheer affectation to do so.

Collegiate education is a great question for debate among literary men, journalists and business men, as to its utility in forming the character of youth for business life. As the college curriculum and training stand at present, the ordinary course is not in general calculated to make a good business man. It is erroneously regarded by some people as a kind of substitute for business training in the earlier years of a young man’s life. There could be no greater mistake in the beginning of a business career. It is in many instances not only a hindrance, but absolutely fatal to success. To put a young man in an office fresh from college, on a level with one of the same age who has been training in business methods since he left the common school, is demoralizing to both.

I wish to have it distinctly understood that in the foregoing remarks I have not made any attempt to cast the slightest reflection on the personal attributes and abilities of any young man in any line of life or status of society, and I make this statement perfectly independent of the mere social incident as to whether the young man in question may part his hair in the middle or assume other dudish airs. That is his business, and I have no right to trench on the sacred precincts of his individuality, nor do I mean to do so. As a rule I stick to my own business. I simply intend to imply that when a dude happens to come into my office, where I think he will find the most æsthetic appointments in the way of furniture and the business arrangements, if he should, upon thus entering into my employment, come to the sudden conclusion that this æstheticism of office furnishing implied any plea for idleness or assumption of airs on his part, he would very soon experience a rude awakening from his charmed lethargy of conceit, and if he were not prepared to undertake in a calm and appreciative tone of mind the first lessons of business industry, I would politely bid him an affectionate adieu, and on parting tell him very kindly that though his great natural gifts might be thoroughly adapted to shine in another sphere of life, he was both by nature and education totally unfitted to play the most humble part in a business career, such as that of which my firm affords a fair and most successful example.

The same remarks will apply to any other young man who does not appreciate his vocation, and try to know himself as old Seneca taught.

I don’t insidiously single out the dude for an odious comparison. The remark will apply just as appropriately to the young man who is better fitted for a blacksmith or a farmer, or perhaps a preacher, than a business man or a financier.