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Show Howe About: Spending Public Money One Critic's End O. O. Mclntyre By ED HOWE A MAN growled at me lately because be-cause I so frequently denounce river Improvement. "Look at the Rhine," he said ; "improvement has undoubtedly un-doubtedly been profitable there." And I replied: "The Germans have been practically using the Rhine more than fifty years. I have lived on the Missouri Mis-souri river longer than that, seen money wasted on its improvement every year, and not a single steamboat. steam-boat. That's what I grumble about: the American plan of spending public pub-lic -money, and getting nothing out of it" The most merciless critic I ever knew and, I may add, the ablest has been a charge on the county many years as an inmate of the poor house . . . And not one of those he criticised so severely Is in the poor house with him. There was a dull man named Iem Whalen the critic was particularly particular-ly severe with, but Lem kept at work in his dull way, and is now a leading citizen. a A lesson with which I have been greatly impressed Is that everything worth while requires hard work and enthusiasm, no man can succeed at anything and be idle, shiftless and thoughtless. There is a man in New York named O. O. Mclntyre who has succeeded as a writer. That he Is unusual must be admitted, but It depresses de-presses me to read of his great industry. in-dustry. When he walks about, goes to a theater, or to a dinner, he is at work; looking for something to write about. It is said of the poor farmers that they work from sun to sun. Mclntyre Mc-lntyre does it, and, in addition, works half the night Some one has recently written of the real Thos. A. Edison, who became so famous the entire world paid him tribute. He turns out to have been quite an ordinary man; very untidy, often unreasonable, chewing tobacco constantly and spitting wildly, but he was a great worker. He moved a bed into his shop that he might economize on the time reouired for rest ; and had a better time working than others have playing. Good work provides the good times we hear of, and are always al-ways looking for vainly in vacations, in night clubs, at card tables and on golf fields. I believe In a fight when It becomes necessary to effectively resent wrong. The most absurd, useless and unnatural unnat-ural sentence ever written was the advice to love our enemies. No one does It ; no one should do it. From the beginning of time men have, on proper occasion, hanged enemies for the common good, but some one (who hated his enemies) did not neglect, as a literary novelty, to advise others to love them. I have never been able to understand why more than half that Is written or spoken today Is wrong, useless and unnatural. The most Important and profitable work a man may engage in Is managing manag-ing himself as efficiently as possible: intelligent endeavor to avoid harmful mistakes. A mistake is a terr'ble thing; a careless man may blunder into one that will punish him all his life a mild one frequently humiliates for months or years. A noted man named Haldane. connected con-nected with the most famous of England's Eng-land's universities, once wrote that the most Interesting study he knew anything about was his own body. Although Al-though familiar with all the sciences, the details of which awe us so much this highly educated man confesses no scientific experiment Interests him as much, or pays as well, as study of his own body. Ft Is a statement that should sober the careless and Illiterate. Every day I am ashamed because the ancients knew so much F have not yet discovered. They warned us of the Importance of temperance, but we have Interpreted It as warning against rum; and manufactured a more villainous vil-lainous rum to show contempt for the nuisance of the ancients. Old men are, not always wise, but most apt to acquire wisdom. An old farmer, an old mechanic, an old trapper, trap-per, an old doctor, has had opportunities oppor-tunities he has sometimes taken ad vantage of. I made n few resolutions for the new year, and hope to accomplish a little with some of them. F am actually a better man now than F was ten years ago, because of my poor attempts to Improve a very much better man than I was twenty, thirty or forty years ago. although still ashamed. A doctor once said to me: "The trouble with men who sny they will cut down on their smoking, which would be enough. Is that they never do It," F actually cut down a little on my bad habits as a result of my worthy resolves. The African busbnicn of today are said to be almost exactly like the very earliest races of men. They have no Idea whatever of what we call morals, but bebnve better than higher peoples or nations, ns n mere matter of con venlence. We should nil be oneour aged that our earliest ancestors had o much nnturnl sense and decency, and try to get back lo It. Cfc 1J), Hell (trnAtrM. U'NV Snvl,,. |
