HOW TO GET A PLACE.
You Can Get It--Positions Yawning for Young Men--Any Young Man May
Become Rich--Men Who Began at the Bottom and Reached the Top--How
A. T. Stewart Got His Start--John Jacob Astor’s Secret of
Success--How Stephen Girard’s Drayman Made a Fortune--$100,000 for
Being Polite--How One Man’s Error Made Another Man’s
Fortune--Secret of the Bon Marché in Paris--How Edison Succeeded--A
Sure Way to Rise--How a Young Man Got His Salary Increased
$2,000--A Sharp Yankee Peddler.
Young men are often discouraged because the desirable places all seem to
be filled. But remember there is always room for the right man. Says a
New York millionaire: “I hold that any young man, possessing a good
constitution and a fair degree of intelligence, may become rich.” Says
another business man: “I have made a personal canvass of a dozen of the
largest business houses in five different commercial and professional
lines to see to what extent there exist openings for young men.” In only
two of the houses approached were the heads of the firms satisfied the
positions of trust in those houses were filled by capable men. And in
each of these two houses I was told that “of course, if the right sort
of a young man came along who could tell us something about our business
we did not already know, we should not let him slip through our fingers.
Positions can always be created. In four of the houses, positions had
been open for six months or more, and the sharpest kind of a lookout
kept for possible occupants. These positions commanded salaries all the
way from $2,000 to $5,000 a year. In the publishing business, I know of
no less than six positions actually yawning for the men to come and fill
them--not clerical positions, but positions of executive authority.
Young men are desired in these places because of their progressive ideas
and capacity to endure work.”
Another prominent man who interviewed the heads of several large firms
writes in a recent periodical as follows: “It is not with these firms a
question of salary; it is a question of securing the highest skill with
the most perfect reliability. This being secured, almost any salary to
be named will be cheerfully paid. A characteristic of the business world
to-day is that its institutions, empires in themselves, have grown to be
too large for the handling of ordinary men. These institutions are
multiplying in excess of the number of men whose business skill is broad
and large enough to direct and command them. Hence, the really
commanding business brain is at an immense premium in the market. A
salary of $50,000 a year as president of a railroad or manufacturing
company at first sight seems exorbitant; but the payment of such a
salary usually means pure business. The right or the wrong man at the
head of a great business interest means the making or the unmaking of
fortunes for the stockholders. Only a single glance at the industrial
world is needed to show that here is room for the advent of genius of
the first order. This world, seething like a caldron, is boiling to the
brim with questions of the most vexing and menacing kind.”
Look at the men who reached the top of fortune’s ladder, and see under
what discouraging circumstances they began. James Fisk, called the
Prince of the Erie, rose to that position from a ragged newsboy.
Stephen Girard began on nothing, and became the greatest millionaire of
his time. Young men, would you scorn to row a boat for a living?
Cornelius Vanderbilt plied a boat between Staten Island and New York.
Would you tramp the country as a surveyor for a map? Jay Gould began in
that way, and forty years later satisfied certain doubters of his
financial standing by showing them certificates of stocks worth
$80,000,000. Do you fear to have your hands calloused with ax or saw?
John W. Mackay, who acquired a fortune of $20,000,000, started in life
as a shipwright. Is it beneath your social station to handle butter and
eggs? “Lucky” Baldwin, the multi-millionaire, kept a country store and
made his first venture by taking his goods overland in a cart to Salt
Lake City. Are your fingers too delicate for the broom handle? A. T.
Stewart began his business career by sweeping out the store. Do you
abhor vile odors? Peter Cooper made $6,000,000 in the glue business.
Tens of thousands are looking for a place. Most of them have had places,
but could not keep them. If you follow all the rules below, having
obtained a place, you will never need to seek one again. The place will
seek you. Employers are in search of the qualities herein to be
considered, and they are willing to pay liberally for them. They are
qualities that come high everywhere. If you possess them, you can in a
short time command your own price. But do not scorn to take the humblest
place. Merit, like murder, will out. Be sure you have the winning cards
and wait.