CHAPTER XXXIII
AS A LECTURER
His Wide Fame as a Lecturer. Date of Entrance on Lecture Platform.
Number of Lectures Given. The Press on His Lectures. Some Instances of
How His Lectures Have Helped People. Address at Banquet to President
McKinley.
In the maze of this church, college and hospital work, Dr. Conwell finds time to lecture from one hundred to two hundred and twenty-five times in a year. Indeed, he frequently leaves Philadelphia at midnight after a Sunday of hard work, travels and lectures as far as Kansas and is back again for Friday evening prayer meeting and for his duties the following Sunday.
As a lecturer, he is probably known to a greater number of people than he is as a preacher, for his lecturing trips take him from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Since he began, he has delivered more than six thousand lectures.
He has been on the lecture platform since the year 1862, giving on an average of two hundred lectures in a year. In addition, he has addressed many of the largest conventions in America and preaches weekly to an audience of more than three thousand. So that he has undoubtedly addressed more people in America than any man living. He is to-day one of the most eminent and most popular figures on the lecture platform of this country, the last of the galaxy of such men as Gough, Beecher, Chapin. "There are but ten real American lecturers on the American platform to-day," says "Leslie's Weekly." "Russell Conwell is one of the ten and probably the most eminent."
His lectures, like his sermons, are full of practical help and good sense. They are profusely illustrated with anecdote and story that fasten the thought of his subject. He uses no notes, and gives his lecture little thought during the day. Indeed, he often does not know the subject until he hears the chairman announce it. If the lecture is new or one that he has not given for many years, he occasionally has a few notes or a brief outline before him. But usually he is so full of the subject, ideas and illustrations so crowd his mind that he is troubled with the wealth, rather than the dearth, of material. He rarely gives a lecture twice alike. The main thought, of course, is the same. But new experiences suggest new illustrations, and so, no matter how many times one hears it, he always hears something new. "That's the third time I've heard Acres of Diamonds," said one delighted auditor, "and every time it grows better."
Perhaps the best idea of his lectures can be gleaned from the press notices that have appeared, though he never keeps a press notice himself, nor pays any attention to the compliments that may have been paid him. These that have been collected at random by friends by no means cover the field of what has been said or written about him.
Speaking of a lecture in 1870, when he toured England, the London
"Telegraph" says:
"The man is weirdly like his native hills. You can hear the cascades and the trickling streams in his tone of voice. He has a strange and unconscious power of so modulating his voice as to suggest the roar of the tempest in rocky declivities, or the soft echo of music in distant valleys. The breezy freshness and natural suggestiveness of varied nature in its wild state was completely fascinating. He excelled in description, and the auditor could almost hear the Niagara roll as he described it, and listened to catch the sound of sighing pines in his voice as he told of the Carolinas."
"The lecture was wonderful in clearness, powerful, and eloquent in delivery," says the London "News." "The speaker made the past a living present, and led the audience, unconscious of time, with him in his walks and talks with famous men. When engrossed in his lecture his facial expression is a study. His countenance conveys more quickly than his words the thought which he is elucidating, and when he refers to his Maker, his face takes on an expression indescribable for its purity. He seems to hold the people as children stare at brilliant and startling pictures."
"It is of no use to try to report Conwell's lectures," is the verdict of the Springfield "Union." "They are unique. Unlike anything or any one else. Filled with good sense, brilliant with new suggestions, and inspiring always to noble life and deeds, they always please with their wit. The reader of his addresses does not know the full power of the man."
"His stories are always singularly adapted to the lecturer's purpose. Each story is mirth-provoking. The audience chuckled, shook, swayed, and roared with convulsions of laughter," says the "London Times." "He has been in the lecture field but a few years, yet he has already made a place beside such men as Phillips, Beecher, and Chapin."
"The only lecturer in America," concludes the Philadelphia "Times," "who can fill a hall in this city with three thousand people at a dollar a ticket."
The most popular of all his lectures is "Acres of Diamonds," which he has given 3,420 times, which is printed, in part, at the end of the book. But his list of lectures is a long one, including:
"The Philosophy of History."
"Men of the Mountains."
"The Old and the New New England."
"My Fallen Comrades."
"The Dust of Our Battlefields."
"Was it a Ghost Story?"
"The Unfortunate Chinese."
"Three Scenes in Babylon."
"Three Scenes from the Mount of Olives."
"Americans in Europe."
"General Grant's Empire."
"Princess Elizabeth."
"Guides."
"Success in Life."
"The Undiscovered."
"The Silver Crown, or Born a King."
"Heroism of a Private Life."
"The Jolly Earthquake."
"Heroes and Heroines."
"Garibaldi, or the Power of Blind Faith."
"The Angel's Lily."
"The Life of Columbus."
"Five Million Dollars for the Face of the Moon."
"Henry Ward Beecher."
"That Horrid Turk."
"Cuba's Appeal to the United States."
"Anita, the Feminine Torch."
"Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men and Women."
His lecturing tours now are confined to the United States, as his church duties will not permit him to go farther afield, but so wide is his fame that a few years ago he declined an offer of $39,000 for a six months' engagement In Australia. This year (1905) he received an offer of $50,000 for two hundred lectures in Australia and England.
He lectures, as he preaches, with the earnest desire ever uppermost to help some one. He never goes to a lecture engagement without a definite prayer to God that his words may be so directed as to do some good to the community or to some individual. When he has delivered "Acres of Diamonds," he frequently leaves a sum of money with the editor of the leading paper in the town to be given as a prize for any one who advances the most practical idea for using waste forces in the neighborhood. In one Vermont town where he had lectured, the money was won by a young man who after a careful study of the products of the neighborhood, said he believed the lumber of that section was especially adapted to the making of coffins. A sum of $2,000 was raised, the water power harnessed and a factory started.
A man in Michigan who was on the verge of bankruptcy, having lost heavily in real estate speculation, heard "Acres of Diamonds," and started in, as the lecture advises, right at home to rebuild his fortunes. Instead of giving up, he began the same business again, fought a plucky fight and is now president of the bank and a leading financier of the town.
A poor farmer of Western Massachusetts, finding it impossible to make a living on his stony place, had made up his mind to move and advertised his farm for sale. He heard "Acres of Diamonds," took to heart its lessons. "Raise what the people about you need," it said to him. He went into the small fruit business and is now a rich man.
The man who invented the turnout and switch system for electric cars received his suggestion from "Acres of Diamonds."
A baker heard "Acres of Diamonds," got an idea for an improved oven and made thousands of dollars from it.
A teacher in Montrose, Pennsylvania, was so impressed with the practical ideas in the now famous lecture that he determined to teach what his pupils most needed to know. Being in a farming district, he added agricultural chemistry to their studies with such success that the next year he was elected principal of one of the Montrose schools and shortly afterward was appointed Superintendent of Education and President of the State University of Ohio.
But incidents by the hundreds could be related or practical, helpful results that flow from Dr. Conwell's lectures.
There is yet another side of their helpfulness that the world knows little about. In his early lecturing days, he resolved to give his lecture fees to the education of poor boys and faithfully through all these years has that resolve been kept The Redpath Lyceum Bureau has paid him nearly $300,000, and more than $200,000 of this has gone directly to help those poor in purse who hunger after knowledge, as he himself did in those days at Wilbraham when help would have been so welcome. The balance has been given to Temple College, which in itself is the strongest and most helpful hand ever stretched out to those struggling for an education.
In addition to his lectures, he is called upon to make innumerable addresses at various meetings, public gatherings and conventions. Those who have never heard him speak may gather some idea of the impression he makes by the following letter written by a gentleman who attended the banquet given to President McKinley at the G.A.R. encampment in Philadelphia in 1899:
"At the table with the President was Russell H. Conwell, and no one near me could tell me who he was. We mistook him for the new Secretary of War, until Secretary Root made his speech. There was a highly intelligent and remarkably representative audience of the nation at a magnificent banquet in the hall decorated regardless of cost.
"The addresses were all specially good and made by men specially before the nation. Yet all the evening till after midnight there were continuous interruptions and much noise of voices, dishes, and waiters. Men at distant tables laughed out often. It was difficult to hear at best, the acoustics were so bad. The speakers took it as a matter of course at such a 'continuous performance.' Some of the Representatives must have thought they were at home in the House at Washington. They listened or not, as they chose. The great hall was quiet only when the President gave his address, except when the enclosed remarks were made long after midnight, when all were worn out with speeches.
"When, about the last thing, Conwell was introduced by the chairman, no one heard his name because of the noise at the tables. Two men asked me who he was. But not two minutes after he began, the place was still and men craned their necks to catch his words. I never saw anything so magical. I know how you would have enjoyed it. Its effect was a hot surprise. The revelers all worn; the people ready to go home; the waiters impatient; the speech wholly extemporaneous. It was a triumph that did honor to American oratory at its best. The applause was decisive and deafening. I never heard of anything better done under such circumstances.
"None of the morning papers we could get on the train mentioned either Conwell or his great speech. Perhaps Conwell asked the reporters to suppress it. I don't know as to that. But it was the first thing we looked for. Not a word. There is no clue to account for that. Yet that is the peculiarity of this singular life: one of the most public, one of the most successful men, but yet one of the least discussed or written about. He was to us as visitors the great feature of that banquet as a speaker, and yet wholly ignored by the press of his own city. The United States Senator Penrose seemed only to know in a general way that Conwell was a great benefactor and a powerful citizen and preacher. Conwell is a study. I cogitated on him all day. I was told that he marched throughout the great parade in the rear rank of his G.A.R. post. It is the strangest case of a private life I have ever heard mentioned. The Quakers will wake up resurrection day and find out Conwell lived in Philadelphia. It is startling to think how measureless the influence of such a man is in its effect on the world. Through forty years educating men, healing the sick, caring for children, then preaching to a great church, then lecturing in the great cities nearly every night, then writing biographies; and also an accessible counselor to such masses of young people!"
The address referred to in the foregoing letter was taken down in shorthand, and was substantially as follows:
"Comrades: I feel at this moment as Alexander Stephens said he felt at the close of the war of 1865, and it can well be illustrated by the boasting athlete who declared he could throw out twenty men from a neighboring saloon in five minutes. He requested his friend to stand outside and count as he went in and threw them out. Soon a battered man was thrown out the door far into the street. The friend began his count and shouted, 'One!' But the man in the street staggered to his feet and angrily screamed, 'Stop counting! It's me!' When this feast opened I was proudly expecting to make a speech, but the great men who have preceded me have done all and more than I intended to do. The hour is spent—they are sounding 'taps' at the door. I could not hope to hold your attention. It only remains for me to do my duty in behalf of Meade Post, and do it in the briefest possible space.
"Comrades of Boston and New York, you have heard the greetings when you entered the city—you have seen the gorgeous and artistic decorations on halls and dwellings—you have heard the shouts of the million and more who pressed into the streets, waved handkerchiefs from the stands, and looked over each other's heads from all the windows and roofs throughout that weary march. Here you see the lovely decorations, the most costly feast, and listen to the heart-thrilling, soul-subduing orchestra. All of these have already spoken to you an unmistakable message of welcome. Knowing this city as I do, I can say to you that not one cornet or viol, not one hymn or shout, not one wave in all the clouds which fair hands rolled up, not one gun of all that shook the city, not one flush of red on a dear face of beauty, not one blessing from the aged on his cane, not one tear on the eyelids which glowed again as your march brought back the gleam of a morning long since dead, not one clasp of the hand, not one 'God bless you!' from saint or priest in all this fair city, but I believe has been deeply, earnestly, sincere.
"This repast is not the result of pride—is not arranged for gluttony or fashion. No political scheme inspired its proposal, and no ulterior motive moved these companions to take your arm. The joy that seems to beam in the comrade's eye and unconsciously express itself in word and gesture, is real. It is the hearty love of a comrade who showed his love for his country by battle in 1862, and who only finds new ways in time of peace for expressing the same character now. The eloquence of this night has been unusually, earnestly, practically patriotic and fraternal. It has been the utterance of hearts beating full and strong for humanity. Loyalty, fraternity, and charity are here in fact. It is true, honest, heart. Such fraternal greetings may be as important for liberty and justice as the winning of a Gettysburg. For the mighty influence of the Grand Army of the Republic is even more potent now than it was on that bloody day. Peace has come and the brave men of the North recognize and respect the motives and bravery of that Confederate army which dealt them such fearful blows believing they were in the right. But the glorious peace we enjoy and the greatness of our nation's name and power are due as much to the living Grand Army as to the dead. I am getting weary of being counted 'old,' but I am more tired of hearing the soldier overpraised for what he did in 1861. You have more influence now than then, and are better men in every sense. At Springfield, Illinois, they illustrated the growth of the city by telling me that in 1856 a lunatic preacher applied to Mr. Lincoln for his aid to open the legislative chamber for a series of meetings to announce that the Lord was coming at once. Mr. Lincoln refused, saying, 'If the Lord knew Springfield as well as I do, he wouldn't come within a thousand miles of it.' But now the legislative halls are open, and every good finds welcome in that city. The world grows better—cities are not worse. The nation has not gone backward, and all the good deeds did not cease in 1865. The Grand Army of the Republic, speaking plainly but with no sense of egotism, has been praised too much for the war and too little for its heroism and power in peace. Does it make a man an angel to eat hardtack? Or does it educate in inductive philosophy to chase a pig through a Virginia fence? Peace has its victories no less renowned than war.
"The Grand Army is not growing old. You all feel younger at this moment than you did at the close of the day's march. Your work is not finished. You were not fossilized in 1865. The war was not a nurse, nor was it a very thorough schoolmaster. It did serve, however, to show to friends and country what kind of men America contained. Not I nor you perhaps can take this pleasing interpretation to ourselves, but looking at the five hundred thousand men who outlived the war, we see that they were the same men before the war and have remained the same since the war. Their ability, friendship, patriotism, and religion were better known after they had shown their faith by deeds, but their identity and character were in great measure the same.
"Many of our Presidents have been taken from the ranks of the army. But it would be a mockery of political wisdom to declare that a free, intelligent people elect a chief executive simply to reward him for having been in the war of 1861. Captain Garfield, Lieutenant Hayes, Major McKinley, and General Grant were not put at the head of the nation as one would vote a pension. They were elected because the people believed them to be the very best statesmen they could select for the office. For a time every foreign consul except four was a soldier. Two-thirds of Congress had been in the army. Twenty-nine governors in the same year had been in military service. Nine presidents of universities had been volunteers in 1863. Three thousand postmasters appointed in one year were from the army. Cabinet officers, custom-house officers, judges, district attorneys, and clerks in public offices were almost exclusively selected from army men. Could you look in the face of the nations and declare that with all our enterprise, learning, progress, and common sense, we had such an inadequate idea of the responsibilities of government that we elected men to office who were incapable, simply because they had carried a gun or tripped over a sword! No, no. The shrewd Yankee and the calculating Hoosier are not caught with such chaff. They selected these officers as servants of the nation because the war had served to show what sort of men they were.
"In short, they appointed them to high positions because they were true men. They are just as true men now. They are as patriotic, as industrious, as unselfish, as brave to-day as they were in the dark days of the rebellion. Their efforts are as honest now as they were then, to perpetuate free institutions and maintain the honor of the flag.
"They have endowed colleges, built cathedrals, opened the wilderness to railroads, filled the American desert with roses, constructed telephone, telegraph, and steamship lines. They have stood in classroom and in the pulpit by the thousand; they have honored our courts with their legal acumen; they have covered the plains with cities, and compelled the homage of Europe to secure our scholars, our wheat and our iron. The soldier has controlled the finances of banking systems and revolutionized labor, society, and arts with his inventions. They saw poor Cuba, beautiful as her surf and femininely sweet as her luscious fruits, tortured in chains. They saw her lovely form through the blood that covered her, and Dewey, Sampson, Schley, Miles, Merritt, Sigsbee, Evans, Philip, Alger, and McKinley of the Grand Army led the forces to her rescue. The Philippines in the darkness of half-savage life were brought unexpectedly under our colors because Dewey and his commanders were in 1898 just the same heroes they were in 1864.
"At the bidding of Meade Post, then, I welcome you and bid you farewell. This gathering was in the line of duty. Its spectacle has impressed the young, inspired the strong man, and comforted the aged. The fraternity here so sincerely expressed to-night will encourage us all to enfold the old flag more tenderly, to love our country more deeply, and to go on in every path of duty, showing still the spirit of '61 wherever good calls for sacrifice or truth for a defender."
CHAPTER XXXIV
AS A WRITER
His Rapid Method of Working. A Popular Biographical Writer. The Books
He Has Written.
Still the minutes are not full. The man who learned five languages while going to and from his business on the street cars of Boston finds time always to crowd in one thing more. Despite his multitude of other cares, Dr. Conwell's pen is not idle. It started to write in his boyhood days and it has been writing ever since.
His best known works are his biographies. Charles A. Dana, the famous editor and publisher of the New York "Sun," just before his death, wrote to Harper Brothers recommending that Mr. Conwell be secured to write a series of books for an "American Biographical Library," and in his letter said:
"I write the above of my own notion, as I have seldom met Mr. Conwell; but as a writer of biographies he has no superior. Indeed, I can say considerately, that he is one of America's greatest men. He never advertises himself, never saves a newspaper clipping concerning himself, never keeps a sermon of his own, and will not seek applause. You must go after him if you want him. He will not apply to you. His personal history is as fascinating as it is exceptional. He took himself as a poor back country lad, created out of the crude material the orator which often combines a Webster with Gough, and made himself a scholar of the first rank. He created from nothing a powerful university of high rank in Philadelphia, especially for the common people. He created a great and influential church out of a small unknown parish. He has assisted more men in securing an education than any other American. He has created a hospital of the first order and extent. He has fed the poor and housed large numbers of orphans. He has written many books and has addressed more people than any other living man. To do this without writing or dictating a line to advertise himself is nothing else than the victory of a great genius. He is a gem worth your seeking, valuable anywhere. I say again that I regard Russell H. Conwell, of Philadelphia, as America's greatest man in the best form. I cannot do your work; he can."
His most successful biography, his "Life of Charles H. Spurgeon," was written in a little more than two weeks. In fact, it was not written at all, it was dictated while on a lecturing trip. When Spurgeon died, a publisher telegraphed Dr. Conwell if he would write a biography of the great London preacher. Dr. Conwell was traveling at the time in the West, lecturing. He wired an affirmative, and sent for his private secretary. It was during the building of the College when great financial responsibilities were resting on him, and he was lecturing every night to raise money for the college building fund. His secretary accompanied him on the lecture trip. Dr. Conwell dictated the book on the train during the day, the secretary copied it from his notes at night while Dr. Conwell lectured. At the end of two weeks the book of six hundred pages was nearly completed. It had a sale of 125,000 copies in four months. And all the royalties were given to a struggling mission of Grace Baptist Church.
[Illustration: TEMPLE COLLEGE]
His biography of Elaine was written almost as rapidly. In a few hours after Blaine was nominated as candidate of the Republican party for the presidency. Dr. and Mrs. Conwell boarded a train and started for Augusta, Maine. In three weeks the book was completed.
He has worked at times from four o'clock in the morning until twelve at night when work pressed and time was short.
His life of Bayard Taylor was also written quickly. He had traveled with Taylor through Europe and long been an intimate friend, so that he was particularly well fitted for the work. The book was begun after Taylor's death, December 19, 1878, in Germany, and completed before the body arrived in America. Five thousand copies were sold before the funeral.
Dr. Conwell presided at the memorial service held in Tremont Temple, Boston. Many years after, in a sermon preached at The Temple, he thus described the occasion:
"When Bayard Taylor, the traveler and poet, died, great sorrow was felt and exhibited by the people of this nation. I remember well the sadness which was noticed in the city of Boston. The spontaneous desire to give some expression to the respect in which Hr. Taylor's name was held, pressed the literary people of Boston, both writers and readers, forward to a public memorial in the great hall of Tremont Temple. As a friend of Mr. Taylor's I was called upon to preside at that memorial gathering. That audience of the scholarly classes was a wonderful tribute to a remarkable man, and one for which. I feel still a keen sense of gratitude. I remember asking Mr. Longfellow to write a poem, and to read it, and standing on the broad step at his front door, in Cambridge, he replied to my suggestion with the sweet expression: 'The universal sorrow is almost too sacred to touch with a pen.'
"But when the evening came, although Professor Longfellow was too ill to be present, his poem was there. The great hall was crowded with the most cultivated people of Boston. On the platform sat many of the poets, orators and philosophers, who have since passed into the Beyond. When, after several speeches had been made, I arose to introduce Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the pressure of the crowd was too great for me to reach my chair again, and I took for a time the seat which Dr. Holmes had just left, and next to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Never were words of poet listened to with a silence more respectfully profound than were the words of Professor Longfellow's poem as they were so touchingly and beautifully read by Dr. Holmes:
"'Dead he lay among his books,
The peace of God was in his looks!
* * * * *
Let the lifeless body rest,
He is gone who was its guest.—
Gone as travelers haste to leave
An inn, nor tarry until eve!
Traveler, in what realms afar,
In what planet, in what star,
In what vast, aerial space,
Shines the light upon thy face?
In what gardens of delight
Rest thy weary feet to-night—'
* * * * *
"Before Dr. Holmes resumed his seat, Mr. Emerson whispered in my ear, in his epigrammatic style, 'This is holy Sabbath time.'"
Among the books which Dr. Conwell has written are:
"Lessons of Travel."
"Why and How Chinese Emigrate."
"Nature's Aristocracy."
"History of the Great Fire in Boston."
"The Life of Gen. U.S. Grant."
"Woman and the Law."
"The life of Rutherford B. Hayes."
"History of the Great Fire in St. Johns."
"The Life of Bayard Taylor."
"The Life, Speeches, and Public Service of James A. Garfield."
"Little Bo."
"Joshua Gianavello."
"The Life of James G. Blaine."
"Acres of Diamonds."
"Gleams of Grace."
"The Life of Charles H. Spurgeon."
"The New Day."
The manuscript which he prepared most carefully was the "Life of
Daniel Manin," which was destroyed by fire when his home at Newton
Centre was burned. He had spent much time and labor collecting data on
Italian history for it, and the loss was irreparable.
"Joshua Gianavello" is a biographical story of the great Waldensian chieftain who loved religions liberty and feared neither inquisition nor death. It is dedicated to "the many believers in the divine principle that every person should have the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; and to the heroic warriors who are still contending for religious freedom in the yet unfinished battle."
The same powerful imagination that pictures so realistically to his lecture and church audiences the scenes and people he is describing, makes them live in his books. His style holds the reader by its vividness of description, its powerful delineation of character and emotion.
His latest book, "The New Day," is an amplification of his great lecture, "Acres of Diamonds." It is not only delightful reading but it is full of practical help for the affairs of everyday life. For no matter in what field Dr. Conwell works, this great desire of his life—to help his brother man—shines out.
CHAPTER XXXV
A HOME COMING
Reception Tendered by Citizens of Philadelphia in Acknowledgment of
Work as Public Benefactor.
One more scene in the life of this man who, from a barefoot country boy with no advantages, has become one of the most widely known of the preachers, lecturers and writers of the day, as well as the founder of a college and hospital holding an honored position among the institutions of the country.
In 1894, acting upon the advice of his physician, Dr. Conwell went abroad. It is no unusual thing for pastors to go abroad, nor for members of their church and friends to see them off. But for Grace Baptist Church personally to wish its pastor "Bon voyage" is something of an undertaking. A special train was chartered to take the members to New York. Here a steamer engaged for the purpose awaited them, and twelve hundred strong, they steamed down the harbor alongside the "New York" that Dr. Conwell's last glimpse of America might be of the faces of his own church family.
On his return six hundred church members met him and gave him a royal welcome, and a large reception was held in The Temple to show how glad were the hearts of his people that he was restored to them in health.
But it was not enough. The people of Philadelphia said, "This man belongs to us." In all parts of the city, in all walks of life, were men and women who had studied at Temple College, whose lives were happier, more useful because of the knowledge they had gained there, for whom he had opened these college doors. The Samaritan Hospital had sent forth people by the hundreds whose bodies had been healed and their spirits quickened because his kindly heart had foreseen their need and his generous hands labored to help it. Everywhere throughout the whole city was felt the leaven of his work, and the people as a body said, "We will show our appreciation of the work he has done for Philadelphia, we will show that we recognize him as one of the city's greatest benefactors and philanthropists."
A committee of twenty-one citizens was formed, of which the Mayor, Edwin S. Stuart, was chairman, and a reception was tendered Dr. and Mrs. Conwell and the others of his party in the name of the citizens of Philadelphia. It was given at the Academy of Fine Arts. With its paintings and statuary, its broad sweeping staircases, it made a magnificent setting for the throngs of men and women who crowded to pay their respects to this man who had lived among them, doing good.
The line of waiting guests reached for two blocks and more and for hours moved in steady procession before the receiving party. At last the final farewell was said and on toward midnight Dr. Conwell stepped into the carriage waiting to take him home.
But the affair was not over. The college boys felt that shaking hands in formal fashion did not express sufficiently their loyalty and devotion, their joy in the return of their beloved "Prex." They unharnessed the horses, and with college cheers and yells triumphantly drew their president all the way from the Academy of Fine Arts to his home, a distance of two miles. As they passed Temple College, their enthusiasm broke all bounds and they drew up the carriage at the Doctor's residence, two blocks beyond the College, with a yell and a flourish that fairly lifted the neighbors from their beds.
It was in every way a homecoming and a welcome that proved how wide-reaching has been the work Dr. Conwell has done, how deeply it has touched the lives of thousands of people in Philadelphia. This spontaneous act of appreciation was but the tribute paid by grateful hearts.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE PATH THAT HAS BEEN BLAZED
Problems that Need Solving. The Need of Men Able to Solve Them.
"O do not pray for easy lives
Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for
Tasks equal to your powers. Pray
For powers equal to your tasks.
Then the doing of your work shall be
No miracle. But you shall be a miracle,
Every day you shall wonder at yourself,
At the richness of life that has come to you
By the Grace of God."
wrote that great preacher, Phillips Brooks.
The world does not want easy lives but strong men. Every age has its problems. Every age needs men with clear moral vision, strong hands, humane hearts to solve these problems. Character, not the fortune of birth, qualifies for leadership in such a work. And such work ever waits, the world over, to be done. In every large city of the country are thousands crying for better education, the suffering poor are holding up weak hands for help, men and women morally blind, are asking for light to find Christ—the Christ of the Bible, not the Christ of dogma and creed, religion pure and undefiled, the church in the simplicity of the days of the apostles, the church that reaches out a helping hand to all the needs of humanity.
Institutional churches are needed, not one, but many of them, in the cities, churches that help men to grapple with the stern actualities of everyday life, churches that preach by works as well as by word, churches in which the man in fustian is as welcome as the one in broadcloth, churches whose influence reaches into the highways and byways and compels people to come in by the very cordiality and kindness of the invitation, churches that help people to live better and more happily in this world, while at the same time preparing them for the world to come.
"In no other city in the country is there such an example of the quickening force of a united and working church organization as is given by the North Broad Street Temple, Philadelphia," says an editorial writer in the Philadelphia "Press." "Twenty such churches in this city of 1,250,000 people would do more to evangelize it and re-awaken an interest in the vital truths of Christianity than the hundreds of church organizations it now has. The world is demanding more and better returns from the church for the time and money given it. Real, practical Christian work is what is asked of the church. The sooner it conforms to this demand, the more quickly it will regain its old influence and be prepared to make effective its fight against evil."
Hospitals are needed that heal in the name of Christ, that heal ills of the body and at the same time by the spirit of love that permeates, by the Christian spirit that animates all connected with them, cure the ills of the soul and send the sufferers away rejoicing in spirit as well as in body, with a brighter outlook on the world and increased faith in humankind.
Colleges are needed the length and breadth of this land, wherever the poor and ignorant sit in darkness. In every town of five thousand or more, a college for working people on the lines of the Temple College would be thronged with eager, rejoicing students. And the world is the better for every man and woman raised to a higher plane of living. Any life, no matter how sordid and narrow, how steeped in ignorance, if swept sweet and clean by God's love, if awakened by ambition and then given the opportunity to grow, can be changed into beauty, sweetness and usefulness. And such work is worth while.
The way has been blazed, the path has been pointed out, it only remains for those who follow after to walk therein. And if they walk therein, they will gain that true greatness and deep happiness which Phillips Brooks says comes ever "to the man who has given his life to his race, who feels that what God gives him, He gives him for mankind."
ACRES OF DIAMONDS
Dr. Conwell's most famous lecture and one of his earliest has been given at this writing (October, 1905) 3420 times. The income from it if invested at regular rates of interest would have amounted very nearly to one million dollars.
PERSONAL GLIMPSES OF CELEBRATED MEN AND WOMEN
Is Dr. Conwell's latest lecture. It is a backward glance over his own life in which he tells in his inimitable fashion many of its most interesting scenes and incidents. It is here published for the first time.
ACRES OF DIAMONDS.[A]
[Footnote A: Reported by A. Russell Smith and Harry E. Greager.]
[Mr. Conwell's lectures are all delivered extemporaneously and differ greatly from night to night.—Ed.]
I am astonished that so many people should care to hear this story over again. Indeed, this lecture has become a study in psychology; it often breaks all rules of oratory, departs from the precepts of rhetoric, and yet remains the most popular of any lecture I have delivered in the forty-four years of my public life. I have sometimes studied for a year upon a lecture and made careful research, and then presented the lecture just once—never delivered it again. I put too much work on it. But this had no work on it—thrown together perfectly at random, spoken offhand without any special preparation, and it succeeds when the thing we study, work over, adjust to a plan is an entire failure.
The "Acres of Diamonds" which I have mentioned through so many years are to be found in Philadelphia, and you are to find them. Many have found them. And what man has done, man can do. I could not find anything better to illustrate my thought than a story I have told over and over again, and which is now found in books in nearly every library.
In 1870 we went down the Tigris River. We hired a guide at Bagdad to show us Persepolis, Nineveh and Babylon, and the ancient countries of Assyria as far as the Arabian Gulf. He was well acquainted with the land, but he was one of those guides who love to entertain their patrons; he was like a barber that tells you many stories in order to keep your mind off the scratching and the scraping. He told me so many stories that I grew tired of his telling them and I refused to listen—looked away whenever he commenced; that made the guide quite angry, I remember that toward evening he took his Turkish cap off his head and swung it around in the air. The gesture I did not understand and I did not dare look at him for fear I should become the victim of another story. But, although I am not a woman, I did look, and the instant I turned my eyes upon that worthy guide he was off again. Said he, "I will tell you a story now which I reserve for my particular friends!" So then, counting myself a particular friend, I listened, and I have always been glad I did.
He said there once lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by the name of Al Hafed. He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm with orchards, grain fields and gardens. He was a contented and wealthy man—contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented. One day there visited this old farmer one of those ancient Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Al Hafed's fire and told that old farmer how this world of ours was made. He said that this world was once a mere bank of fog, which is scientifically true, and he said that the Almighty thrust his finger into the bank of fog and then began slowly to move his finger around and gradually to increase the speed of his finger until at last he whirled that bank of fog into a solid ball of fire, and it went rolling through the universe, burning its way through other cosmic banks of fog, until it condensed the moisture without, and fell in floods of rain upon the heated surface and cooled the outward crust. Then the internal flames burst through the cooling crust and threw up the mountains and made the hills of the valley of this wonderful world of ours. If this internal melted mass burst out and cooled very quickly it became granite; that which cooled less quickly became silver; and less quickly, gold; and after gold diamonds were made. Said the old priest, "A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight."
This is a scientific truth also. You all know that a diamond is pure carbon, actually deposited sunlight—and he said another thing I would not forget: he declared that a diamond is the last and highest of God's mineral creations, as a woman is the last and highest of God's animal creations. I suppose that is the reason why the two have such a liking for each other. And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he had a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole county, and with a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth. Al Hafed heard all about diamonds and how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man—not that he had lost anything, but poor because he was discontented and discontented because he thought he was poor. He said: "I want a mine of diamonds!" So he lay awake all night, and early in the morning sought out the priest. Now I know from experience that a priest when awakened early in the morning is cross. He awoke that priest out of his dreams and said to him, "Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?" The priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want with diamonds?" "I want to be immensely rich," said Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go." "Well," said the priest, "if you will find a river that runs over white sand between high mountains, in those sands you will always see diamonds." "Do you really believe that there is such a river?" "Plenty of them, plenty of them; all you have to do is just go and find them, then you have them." Al Hafed said, "I will go." So he sold his farm, collected his money at interest, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds. He began very properly, to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went around into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all spent, and he was in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the shore of that bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling in through the Pillars of Hercules and the poor afflicted, suffering man could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.
When that old guide had told me that very sad story, he stopped the camel I was riding and went back to fix the baggage on one of the other camels, and I remember thinking to myself, "Why did he reserve that for his particular friends?" There seemed to be no beginning, middle or end—nothing to it. That was the first story I ever heard told or read in which the hero was killed in the first chapter. I had but one chapter of that story and the hero was dead. When the guide came back and took up the halter of my camel again, he went right on with the same story. He said that Al Hafed's successor led his camel out into the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose down into the clear water of the garden brook Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the sands of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled out a black stone having an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the rainbow, and he took that curious pebble into the house and left it on the mantel, then went on his way and forgot all about it. A few days after that, this same old priest who told Al Hafed how diamonds were made, came in to visit his successor, when he saw that flash of light from the mantel. He rushed up and said, "Here is a diamond—here is a diamond! Has Al Hafed returned?" "No, no; Al Hafed has not returned and that is not a diamond; that is nothing but a stone; we found it right out here in our garden." "But I know a diamond when I see it," said he; "that is a diamond!"
Then together they rushed to the garden and stirred up the white sands with their fingers and found others more beautiful, more valuable diamonds than the first, and thus, said the guide to me, were discovered the diamond mines of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mines in all the history of mankind, exceeding the Kimberley in its value. The great Kohinoor diamond in England's crown jewels and the largest crown diamond on earth in Russia's crown jewels, which I had often hoped she would have to sell before they had peace with Japan, came from that mine, and when the old guide had called my attention to that wonderful discovery he took his Turkish cap off his head again and swung it around in the air to call my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have a moral to each story, though the stories are not always moral. He said had Al Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar or in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange land, he would have had "acres of diamonds"—for every acre, yes, every shovelful of that old farm afterwards revealed the gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs. When he had given the moral to his story, I saw why he had reserved this story for his "particular friends." I didn't tell him I could see it; I was not going to tell that old Arab that I could see it. For it was that mean old Arab's way of going around a thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did not dare say directly, that there was a certain young man that day traveling down the Tigris River that might better be at home in America. I didn't tell him I could see it.
I told him his story reminded me of one, and I told it to him quick. I told him about that man out in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch out there. He read that gold had been discovered in Southern California, and he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter and started off to hunt for gold. Colonel Sutter put a mill on the little stream in that farm and one day his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway of the mill into the house and placed it before the fire to dry, and as that sand was falling through the little girl's fingers a visitor saw the first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in California; and the man who wanted the gold had sold this ranch and gone away, never to return. I delivered this lecture two years ago in California, in the city that stands near that farm, and they told me that the mine is not exhausted yet, and that a one-third owner of that farm has been getting during these recent years twenty dollars of gold every fifteen minutes of his life, sleeping or waking. Why, you and I would enjoy an income like that!
But the best illustration that I have now of this thought was found here in Pennsylvania. There was a man living in Pennsylvania who owned a farm here and he did what I should do if I had a farm in Pennsylvania—he sold it. But before he sold it he concluded to secure employment collecting coal oil for his cousin in Canada. They first discovered coal oil there. So this farmer in Pennsylvania decided that he would apply for a position with his cousin in Canada. Now, you see, this farmer was not altogether a foolish man. He did net leave his farm until he had something else to do. Of all the simpletons the stars shine on there is none more foolish than a man who leaves one job before he has obtained another. And that has especial reference to gentlemen of my profession, and has no reference to a man seeking a divorce. So I say this old farmer did not leave one job until he had obtained another. He wrote to Canada, but his cousin replied that he could not engage him because he did not know anything about the oil business. "Well, then," said he, "I will understand it." So he set himself at the study of the whole subject. He began at the second day of the creation, he studied the subject from the primitive vegetation to the coal oil stage, until he knew all about it. Then he wrote to his cousin and said, "Now I understand the oil business." And his cousin replied to him, "All right, then, come on." That man, by the record of the county, sold his farm for eight hundred and thirty-three dollars—even money, "no cents." He had scarcely gone from that farm before the man who purchased it went out to arrange for the watering the cattle and he found that the previous owner had arranged the matter very nicely. There is a stream running down the hillside there, and the previous owner had gone out and put a plank across that stream at an angle, extending across the brook and down edgewise a few inches under the surface of the water. The purpose of the plank across that brook was to throw over to the other bank a dreadful-looking scum through which the cattle would not put their noses to drink above the plank, although they would drink the water on one side below it. Thus that man who had gone to Canada had been himself damming back for twenty-three years a flow of coal oil which the State Geologist of Pennsylvania declared officially, as early as 1870, was then worth to our State a hundred millions of dollars. The city of Titusville now stands on that farm and those Pleasantville wells flow on, and that farmer who had studied all about the formation of oil since the second day of God's creation clear down to the present time, sold that farm for $833, no cents—again I say "no sense."
But I need another illustration, and I found that in Massachusetts, and I am sorry I did, because that is my old State. This young man I mention went out of the State to study—went down to Yale College and studied Mines and Mining. They paid him fifteen dollars a week during his last year for training students who were behind their classes in mineralogy, out of hours, of course, while pursuing his own studies. But when he graduated they raised his pay from fifteen dollars to forty-five dollars and offered him a professorship. Then he went straight home to his mother and said, "Mother, I won't work for forty-five dollars a week. What is forty-five dollars a week for a man with a brain like mine! Mother, lets go out to California and stake out gold claims and be immensely rich." "Now" said his mother, "it is just as well to be happy as it is to be rich."
But as he was the only son he had his way—they always do; and they sold out in Massachusetts and went to Wisconsin, where he went into the employ of the Superior Copper Mining Company, and he was lost from sight in the employ of that company at fifteen dollars a week again. He was also to have an interest in any mines that he should discover for that company. But I do not believe that he has ever discovered a mine—I do not know anything about it, but I do not believe he has. I know he had scarcely gone from the old homestead before the farmer who had bought the homestead went out to dig potatoes, and as he was bringing them in in a large basket through the front gateway, the ends of the stone wall came so near together at the gate that the basket hugged very tight. So he set the basket on the ground and pulled, first on one side and then on the other side. Our farms in Massachusetts are mostly stone walls, and the farmers have to be economical with their gateways in order to have some place to put the stones. That basket hugged so tight there that as he was hauling it through he noticed in the upper stone next the gate a block of native silver, eight inches square; and this professor of mines and mining and mineralogy, who would not work for forty-five dollars a week, when he sold that homestead in Massachusetts, sat right on that stone to make the bargain. He was brought up there; he had gone back and forth by that piece of silver, rubbed it with his sleeve, and it seemed to say, "Come now, now, now, here is a hundred thousand dollars. Why not take me?" But he would not take it. There was no silver in Newburyport; it was all away off—well, I don't know where; he didn't, but somewhere else—and he was a professor of mineralogy.
I do not know of anything I would enjoy better than to take the whole time to-night telling of blunders like that I have heard professors make. Yet I wish I knew what that man is doing out there in Wisconsin. I can imagine him out there, as he sits by his fireside, and he is saying to his friends, "Do you know that man Conwell that lives in Philadelphia?" "Oh, yes, I have heard of him." "And do you know that man. Jones that lives in that city?" "Yes, I have heard of him." And then he begins to laugh and laugh and says to his friends, "They have done the same thing I did, precisely." And that spoils the whole joke, because you and I have done it.
Ninety out of every hundred people here have made that mistake this very day. I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor. To live in Philadelphia and not be rich is a misfortune, and it is doubly a misfortune, because you could have been rich just as well as be poor. Philadelphia furnishes so many opportunities. You ought to be rich. But persons with certain religious prejudice will ask, "How can you spend your time advising the rising generation to give their time to getting money—dollars and cents—the commercial spirit?" Yet I must say that you ought to spend time getting rich. You and I know there are some things more valuable than money; of course, we do. Ah, yes! By a heart made unspeakably sad by a grave on which the autumn leaves now fall, I know there are some things higher and grander and sublimer than money. Well does the man know, who has suffered, that there are some things sweeter and holier and more sacred than gold. Nevertheless, the man of common sense also knows that there is not any one of those things that is not greatly enhanced by the use of money. Money is power. Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money. Money is power; money has powers; and for a man to say, "I do not want money," is to say, "I do not wish to do any good to my fellowmen." It is absurd thus to talk. It is absurd to disconnect them. This is a wonderfully great life, and you ought to spend your time getting money, because of the power there is in money. And yet this religious prejudice is so great that some people think it is a great honor to be one of God's poor. I am looking in the faces of people who think just that way. I heard a man once say in a prayer meeting that he was thankful that he was one of God's poor, and then I silently wondered what his wife would say to that speech, as she took in washing to support the man while he sat and smoked on the veranda. I don't want to see any more of that kind of God's poor. Now, when a man could have been rich just as well, and he is now weak because he is poor, he has done some great wrong; he has been untruthful to himself; he has been unkind to his fellowmen. We ought to get rich if we can by honorable and Christian methods, and these are the only methods that sweep us quickly toward the goal of riches.
I remember, not many years ago a young theological student who came into my office and said to me that he thought it was his duty to come in and "labor with me." I asked him what had happened, and he said: "I feel it is my duty to come in and speak to you, sir, and say that the Holy Scriptures declare that money is the root of all evil." I asked him where he found that saying, and he said he found it in the Bible. I asked him whether he had made a new Bible, and he said, no, he had not gotten a new Bible, that it was in the old Bible. "Well," I said, "if it is in my Bible, I never saw it. Will you please get the text-book and let me see it?" He left the room and soon came stalking in with his Bible open, with all the bigoted pride of the narrow sectarian, who founds his creed on some misinterpretation of Scripture, and he puts the Bible down on the table before me and fairly squealed into my ear, "There it is. You can read it for yourself." I said to him, "Young man, you will learn, when you get a little older, that you cannot trust another denomination to read the Bible for you." I said, "Now, you belong to another denomination. Please read it to me, and remember that you are taught in a school where emphasis is exegesis." So he took the Bible and read it: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Then he had it right. The Great Book has come back into the esteem and love of the people, and into the respect of the greatest minds of earth, and now you can quote it and rest your life and your death on it without more fear. So, when he quoted right from the Scriptures he quoted the truth. "The love of money is the root of all evil." Oh, that is it. It is the worship of the means instead of the end, though you cannot reach the end without the means. When a man makes an idol of the money instead of the purposes for which it may be used, when he squeezes the dollar until the eagle squeals, then it is made the root of all evil. Think, if you only had the money, what you could do for your wife, your child, and for your home and your city. Think how soon you could endow the Temple College yonder if you only had the money and the disposition to give it; and yet, my friend, people say you and I should not spend the time getting rich. How inconsistent the whole thing is. We ought to be rich, because money has power. I think the best thing for me to do is to illustrate this, for if I say you ought to get rich, I ought, at least, to suggest how it is done. We get a prejudice against rich men because of the lies that are told about them. The lies that are told about Mr. Rockefeller because he has two hundred million dollars—so many believe them; yet how false is the representation of that man to the world. How little we can tell what is true nowadays when newspapers try to sell their papers entirely on some sensation! The way they lie about the rich men is something terrible, and I do not know that there is anything to illustrate this better than what the newspapers now say about the city of Philadelphia. A young man came to me the other day and said, "If Mr. Rockefeller, as you think, is a good man, why is it that everybody says so much against him?" It is because he has gotten ahead of us; that is the whole of it—just gotten ahead of us. Why is it Mr. Carnegie is criticised so sharply by an envious world? Because he has gotten more than we have. If a man knows more than I know, don't I incline to criticise somewhat his learning? Let a man, stand in a pulpit and preach to thousands, and if I have fifteen people in my church, and they're all asleep, don't I criticise him? We always do that to the man who gets ahead of us. Why, the man you are criticising has one hundred millions, and you have fifty cents, and both of you have just what you are worth. One of the richest men in this country came into my home and sat down in my parlor and said: "Did you see all those lies about my family in the paper?" "Certainly I did; I knew they were lies when I saw them." "Why do they lie about me the way they do?" "Well", I said to him, "if you will give me your check for one hundred millions, I will take all the lies along with it" "Well," said he, "I don't see any sense in their thus talking about my family and myself. Conwell, tell me frankly, what do you think the American people think of me?" "Well," said I, "they think you are the blackest-hearted villain that ever trod the soil!" "But what can I do about it?" There is nothing he can do about it, and yet he is one of the sweetest Christian men I ever knew. If you get a hundred millions you will have the lies; you will be lied about, and you can judge your success in any line by the lies that are told about you. I say that you ought to be rich. But there are ever coming to me young men who say, "I would like to go into business, but I cannot." "Why not?" "Because I have no capital to begin on." Capital, capital to begin on! What! young man! Living in Philadelphia and looking at this wealthy generation, all of whom began as poor boys, and you want capital to begin on? It is fortunate for you that you have no capital. I am glad you have no money. I pity a rich man's son. A rich man's son in these days of ours occupies a very difficult position. They are to be pitied. A rich man's son cannot know the very best things in human life. He cannot. The statistics of Massachusetts show us that not one out of seventeen rich men's sons ever die rich. They are raised in luxury, they die in poverty. Even if a rich man's son retains his father's money even then he cannot know the best things of life.
A young man in our college yonder asked me to formulate for him what I thought was the happiest hour in a man's history, and I studied it long and came back convinced that the happiest hour that any man ever sees in any earthly matter is when a young man takes his bride over the threshold of the door, for the first time, of the house he himself has earned and built, when he turns to his bride and with an eloquence greater than any language of mine, he sayeth to his wife, "My loved one, I earned this home myself; I earned it all. It is all mine, and I divide it with thee." That is the grandest moment a human heart may ever see. But a rich man's son cannot know that. He goes into a finer mansion, it may be, but he is obliged to go through the house and say, "Mother gave me this, mother gave me that, my mother gave me that, my mother gave me that," until his wife wishes she had married his mother. Oh, I pity a rich man's son. I do. Until he gets so far along in his dudeism that he gets his arms up like that and can't get them down. Didn't you ever see any of them astray at Atlantic City? I saw one of these scarecrows once and I never tire thinking about it. I was at Niagara Falls lecturing, and after the lecture I went to the hotel, and when I went up to the desk there stood there a millionaire's son from New York. He was an indescribable specimen of anthropologic potency. He carried a gold-headed cane under his arm—more in its head than he had in his. I do not believe I could describe the young man if I should try. But still I must say that he wore an eye-glass he could not see through; patent leather shoes he could not walk in, and pants he could not sit down in—dressed like a grasshopper! Well, this human cricket came up to the clerk's desk just as I came in. He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk, because it's "Hinglish, you know," to lisp: "Thir, thir, will you have the kindness to fuhnish me with thome papah and thome envelopehs!" The clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled out a drawer and took some envelopes and paper and cast them across the counter and turned away to his books. You should have seen that specimen of humanity when the paper and envelopes came across the counter—he whose wants had always been anticipated by servants. He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass and he yelled after that clerk: "Come back here thir, come right back here. Now, thir, will you order a thervant to take that papah and thothe envelopes and carry them to yondah dethk." Oh, the poor miserable, contemptible American monkey! He couldn't carry paper and envelopes twenty feet. I suppose he could not get his arms down. I have no pity for such travesties of human nature. If you have no capital, I am glad of it You don't need capital; you need common sense, not copper cents.
A.T. Stewart, the great princely merchant of New York, the richest man in America in his time, was a poor boy; he had a dollar and a half and went into the mercantile business. But he lost eighty-seven and a half cents of his first dollar and a half because he bought some needles and thread and buttons to sell, which people didn't want. Are you poor? It is because you are not wanted and are left on your own hands. There was the great lesson. Apply it whichever way you will it comes to every single person's life, young or old. He did not know what people needed, and consequently bought something they didn't want, and had the goods left on his hands a dead loss. A.T. Stewart earned there the great lesson of his mercantile life and said, "I will never buy anything more until I first learn what the people want; then I'll make the purchase." He went around to the doors and asked them what they did want, and when he found out what they wanted, he invested his sixty-two and a hall cents and began to supply "a known demand." I care not what your profession or occupation in life may be; I care not whether you are a lawyer, a doctor, a housekeeper, teacher or whatever else, the principle is precisely the same. We must know what the world needs first and then invest ourselves to supply that need, and success is almost certain. A.T. Stewart went on until he was worth forty millions. "Well," you will say, "a man can do that in New York, but cannot do it here in Philadelphia." The statistics very carefully gathered in New York in 1889 showed one hundred and seven millionaires in the city worth over ten millions apiece. It was remarkable and people think they must go there to get rich. Out of that one hundred and seven millionaires only seven of them made their money in New York, and the others moved to New York after their fortunes were made, and sixty-seven out of the remaining hundred made their fortunes in towns of less than six thousand people, and the richest man in the country at that time lived in a town of thirty-five hundred inhabitants, and always lived there and never moved away. It is not so much where you are as what you are. But at the same time if the largeness of the city comes into the problem, then remember it is the smaller city that furnishes the great opportunity to make the millions of money. The best illustration that I can give is in reference to John Jacob Astor, who was a poor boy and who made all the money of the Astor family. He made more than his successors have ever earned, and yet he once held a mortgage on a millinery store in New York, and because the people could not make enough money to pay the interest and the rent, he foreclosed the mortgage and took possession of the store and went into partnership with the man who had failed. He kept the same stock did not give them a dollar of capital, and he left them alone and went out and sat down upon a bench in the park. Out there on that bench in the park he had the most important, and to my mind, the pleasantest part of that partnership business. He was watching the ladies as they went by; and where is the man that wouldn't get rich at that business? But when John Jacob Astor saw a lady pass, with her shoulders back and her head up, as if she did not care if the whole world looked on her, he studied her bonnet; and before that bonnet was out of sight he knew the shape of the frame and the color of the trimmings, the curl of the—something on a bonnet Sometimes I try to describe a woman's bonnet, but it is of little use, for it would be out of style to-morrow night. So John Jacob Astor went to the store and said: "Now, put in the show window just such a bonnet as I describe to you because," said he, "I have just seen a lady who likes just such a bonnet. Do not make up any more till I come back." And he went out again and sat on that bench in the park, and another lady of a different form and complexion passed him with a bonnet of different shape and color, of course. "Now," said he, "put such a bonnet as that in the show window." He didn't fill his show window with hats and bonnets which drive people away and then sit in the back of the store and bawl because the people go somewhere else to trade. He didn't put a hat or bonnet in that show window the like of which he had not seen before it was made up.
In our city especially there are great opportunities for manufacturing, and the time has come when the line is drawn very sharply between the stockholders of the factory and their employés. Now, friends, there has also come a discouraging gloom upon this country and the laboring men are beginning to feel that they are being held down by a crust over their heads through which they find it impossible to break, and the aristocratic money-owner himself is so far above that he will never descend to their assistance. That is the thought that is in the minds of our people. But, friends, never in the history of our country was there an opportunity so great for the poor man to get rich as there is now and in the city of Philadelphia. The very fact that they get discouraged is what prevents them from getting rich. That is all there is to it. The road is open, and let us keep it open between the poor and the rich. I know that the labor unions have two great problems to contend with, and there is only one way to solve them. The labor unions are doing as much to prevent its solving as are the capitalists to-day, and there are positively two sides to it. The labor union has two difficulties; the first one is that it began to make a labor scale for all classes on a par, and they scale down a man that can earn five dollars a day to two and a half a day, in order to level up to him an imbecile that cannot earn fifty cents a day. That is one of the most dangerous and discouraging things for the working man. He cannot get the results of his work if he do better work or higher work or work longer; that is a dangerous thing, and in order to get every laboring man free and every American equal to every other American, let the laboring man ask what he is worth and get it—not let any capitalist say to him: "You shall work for me for half of what you are worth;" nor let any labor organization say: "You shall work for the capitalist for half your worth." Be a man, be independent, and then shall the laboring man find the road ever open from poverty to wealth. The other difficulty that the labor union has to consider, and this problem they have to solve themselves, is the kind of orators who come and talk to them about the oppressive rich. I can in my dreams recite the oration I have heard again and again under such circumstances. My life has been with the laboring man. I am a laboring man myself. I have often, in their assemblies, heard the speech of the man who has been invited to address the labor union. The man gets up before the assembled company of honest laboring men and he begins by saying: "Oh, ye honest, industrious laboring men, who have furnished all the capital of the world, who have built all the palaces and constructed all the railroads and covered the ocean with her steamships. Oh, you laboring men! You are nothing but slaves; you are ground down in the dust by the capitalist who is gloating over you as he enjoys his beautiful estates and as he has his banks filled with gold, and every dollar he owns is coined out of the hearts' blood of the honest laboring man." Now, that is a lie, and you know it is a lie; and yet that is the kind of speech that they are all the time hearing, representing the capitalists as wicked and the laboring men so enslaved. Why, how wrong it is! Let the man who loves his flag and believes in American principles endeavor with all his soul to bring the capitalist and the laboring man together until they stand side by side, and arm in arm, and work for the common good of humanity.
He is an enemy to his country who sets capital against labor or labor against capital.
Suppose I were to go down through this audience and ask you to introduce me to the great inventors who live here in Philadelphia. "The inventors of Philadelphia," you would say "Why we don't have any in Philadelphia. It is too slow to invent anything." But you do have just as great inventors, and they are here in this audience, as ever invented a machine. But the probability is that the greatest inventor to benefit the world with his discovery is some person, perhaps some lady, who thinks she could not invent anything. Did you ever study the history of invention and see how strange it was that the man who made the greatest discovery did it without any previous idea that he was an inventor? Who are the great inventors? They are persons with plain, straightforward common sense, who saw a need in the world and immediately applied themselves to supply that need. If you want to invent anything, don't try to find it in the wheels in your head nor the wheels in your machine, but first find out what the people need, and then apply yourself to that need, and this leads to invention on the part of people you would not dream of before. The great inventors are simply great men; the greater the man the more simple the man; and the more simple a machine, the more valuable it is. Did you ever know a really great man? His ways are so simple, so common, so plain, that you think any one could do what he is doing. So it is with the great men the world over. If you know a really great man, a neighbor of yours, you can go right up to him and say, "How are you, Jim, good morning, Sam." Of course you can, for they are always so simple.
When I wrote the life of General Garfield, one of his neighbors took me to his back door, and shouted, "Jim, Jim, Jim!" and very soon "Jim" came to the door and General Garfield let me in—one of the grandest men of our century. The great men of the world are ever so. I was down in Virginia and went up to an educational institution and was directed to a man who was setting out a tree. I approached him and said, "Do you think it would be possible for me to see General Robert B. Lee, the President of the University?" He said, "Sir, I am General Lee." Of course, when you meet such a man, so noble a man as that, you will find him a simple, plain man. Greatness is always just so modest and great inventions are simple.