Show MARK TWAIN ON BUSINESS At the second annual dinner of the Poughkeepsle Eastman club Mark Twain was one of the speakers He was cheered when he came In He said la part Mr Cannon has furnished me with texts enough lo last as slow a speaker as myself all the rest of the night I took exception to the Introducing of Mr Cannon as a great financier as If he Were the only great financier present pres-ent I am a financier But my methods meth-ods are not tha same as Mr Cannons I cannot say that I have turned out the great business man that I thought I was when I began life But 1 am comaratlvely young yet and may learn I am inther Inclined to believe that what troubled me was that I got the big head earjy In the game I want to pxplajn to you a few points of difference differ-ence between the principles of business ns I see them and those that Mr Cannon Can-non believes In He says that the primary rule of business success IP loyalty to your employer em-ployer Thats all right as a theory What Is the mattcr with loyalty to yourself As nearly as I can understand under-stand Mr Cannons methods there Is one great drawback to them He wants you to work a great deal Diligence Is a good thing but taking things easy is milch more restful My Idea Is that the employer should be the busy man and lie employee the idle one The employer should be the worried man and the employee the happy one And why not He gets salary My plan Is Ito I-to get another man to do the work for me Theres more repose In that What 1 want Is repose first last and all the time I want to tell you of some of my experiences ex-periences In businesnand thenj I will l be In a position lo lay down some general gen-eral rules for the guidance of those who I want to succeed In business My first effdrt was about twentyfive years ago I took hold of an Invention don t know no y what It was all about hut some one came to me and told me that It was a good thing and that there was lots of money fn It He persuaded me 4 to Invest 15000 and I lived up to my i beliefs by engaging a man to develop It To make a long story short I sank 540COO In It Then I look up the publication of a book I called In a publisher and said ds to him I want you to publish this book along Hues which I shall lay down I am the employer and you are the employee 1 am going to show them some new kinks In the publishing busl r f 1 for money as you GO along which he did He drew on me for S5COOO Then I asked him to take the book and call It off But he refused to do that My next venture was with a machine ma-chine for dofnxr something or other T knew less about that than I did about the invention But I sunk 170000 In the business and I cant for the life of me recollect what It was the machine ma-chine was to do I was still undismayed You see one of tho strong points about my business busi-ness life was that T never gave up I undertook to publish Gen Grants book and mode 51l ° ° 0 ° in six months and lost It all inthe next six months My axlgrn In lo succeed In business avoid my example Mr Cannon says tha ilhere are three cardinal ules of business success They are diligence honesty and truthfulness truth-fulness Well diligence all right Let it go as a thory Hoocsty Is the best policy whon there Is the most monoy In It But truthfulness Is one of the most dangerous why this man ts misleading you |