“IF a bootblack does all the good he possibly can for his fellowmen, his life has been just as successful as that of the millionaire who helps thousands.”
That was what Darius Ogden Mills said when I asked him to give me his idea of a successful life. His next reply was quite as epigrammatic.
“What, Mr. Mills, do you consider the keynote of success?”
“Work,” he replied, quickly and emphatically. “Work develops all the good there is in a man; idleness all the evil. Work sharpens all his faculties and makes him thrifty; idleness makes him lazy and a spendthrift. Work surrounds a man with those whose habits are industrious and honest; in such society a weak man develops strength, and a strong man is made stronger. Idleness, on the other hand, is apt to throw a man into the company of men whose only object in life usually is the pursuit of unwholesome and demoralizing diversions.”
Mr. Mills is quite averse to being interviewed, but when I told him that his words would be carried to many thousands of young men, and probably do considerable good in the way of encouragement and inspiration, he consented to a brief talk.
AN AGE OF OPPORTUNITIES.
I asked Mr. Mills when he would be ready for me, and he replied:—
“I am just as ready now as I ever will be. There is no time like the present.”
Like an oasis in the desert is the experience of a man, the accumulation of whose wealth has been on lines parallel with the conducive rather than counter to the welfare of mankind. This is what Mr. Mills says on the subject:—
“A man can, in the accumulation of a fortune, be just as great a benefactor of mankind as in the distribution of it. In organizing a great industry, one opens up fields of employment for a multitude of people who might otherwise be practically helpless, giving them not only a chance to earn a living for themselves and their families, but also to lay by a competency for old age. All honest, sober men, if they have half a chance, can do that; but only a small percentage can ever become rich. Now the rich man, having acquired his wealth, knows better how to manage it than those under him would, and having actual possession, he has the power to hold the community of his employees and their interests together, and prevent disintegration, which means disaster so much oftener to the employee than to the employer.”