“Who does not make mistakes? Why, if I were to think only of the mistakes I have made, I should be miserable indeed.”
I have heard it said a hundred times that Mr. Wanamaker started when success was easy. Here is what he says himself about it:—
“I think I could succeed as well now as in the past. It seems to me that the conditions of to-day are even more favorable to success than when I was a boy. There are better facilities for doing business, and more business to be done. Information in the shape of books and newspapers is now in the reach of all, and the young man has two opportunities where he formerly had one.
“We are much more afraid of combinations of capital than we have any reason for being. Competition regulates everything of that kind. No organization can make immense profits for any length of time without its field soon swarming with competitors. It requires brain and muscle to manage any kind of business, and the same elements which have produced business success in the past will produce it now, and will always produce it.”
PUBLIC SERVICE
With the exception of his term of service as postmaster-general of the United States in President Harrison’s cabinet—a service which was marked by great executive ability and the institution of many reforms,—Mr. Wanamaker has devoted his attention almost entirely to his business and his church work.
Yet as a citizen he has always taken a most positive course in opposition to the evils that threaten society. He has been forever prompted by his religious convictions to pursue vice either in the “dive,” or in municipal, state or national life. He hates a barroom, but he hates a treasury looter far more fiercely. His idea of Christian duty was evidently derived from the scene wherein the Master took a scourge and drove the corrupt traders and office-holders out of the temple. It is vigorous, it is militant; but it makes enemies. Consequently, Mr. Wanamaker is not without persistent maligners; getting himself well hated by the worst men in the community.
INVEST IN YOURSELF
Mr. Wanamaker’s views of what life is for are well expressed in the following excerpt from one of his addresses to young men.
In the course of his address, he related that he was once called upon to invest in an expedition to recover Spanish mahogany and doubloons from the Spanish Main, which, for half a century, had lain under the rolling waves in sunken frigates. “But, young men,” he continued, “I know of better expeditions than this right at home, deep down under the sea of neglect and ignorance and discouragement. Near your own feet lie treasures untold, and you can have them all for your own by earnest watch and faithful study and proper care.