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Show An Essay on pish and the American Way By George Peck How many times of late have voli been told that America no long"' k n lmld of opportunity; that we have no new frontiers; that the little fellow has no chance today to carve out a niche (or himself; that big business -reedilv has gobbled up all that jS icft; and that therefore, the American System of Free enterprise enter-prise Is out-moded, has served its purpose, should be junked and some new system adopted? Constant repetition of false statements very often gives them an air of truth. So, unfortunately, some of us have come to believe that our Founding Fathers simply were a lucky band of pioneers, forced by persecution to flee Europe, Eu-rope, who accidently stumbled across America a wilderness replete re-plete with undeveloped natural resources re-sources and fertile acres. The general gen-eral situation, however, has not changed one lota. In the 18th Century, the United States was a land of opportunity. Today in 1941, it is a land of greater opportunity op-portunity for all. What these apostles apos-tles of gloom overlook, is the Founding Fathers had to do some careful planning and a lot of hard work in building America into the World's finest country. Natural resources, then as now, "availeth naught' if brains and sweat do not develop them. We have listened to these pessimists pes-simists and have been greatly unimpressed. un-impressed. Constantly in our daily contacts, we meet men whose lives and experiences give the lie to thes "things-are-different-now" depredators. de-predators. We would like to say a few words about one of these. Here is where we get around to talking about the fish, j Can you remember away back to the year 1936? If so, you will k recall that while there was some I talk of war in Europe, no one in . America seriously bleieved there would be one. Most certainly, no Defense Program was contemplated. contemplat-ed. We were still in the depths of the depression millions of men were out of work. It seemed an have made infrcciuent pilgrimages to the emporium presided over by this Adoph Flimhner who calls himself "The King of The iiarh time we have gone t'.rjre. the place has been a bit bigger, every table occupied and a standing-line waiting to be seated. The other evening, we dropped in on this successful restaurateur at rather a late hour. Once aain we found the place was enlarged. We also found that Adolph has been helping to solve the' unemployment unem-ployment problems the number of employees having grown from two Jn 1930 to forty-two today. We were not surprised at this further fur-ther progress because from time to time we had been reading about this wonderful sea-food restaurant restaur-ant on the East Cide. Oh! Yes! the newspaper boys had discovered discov-ered the place and were giving it a lot of free publicity. We found Adolph on the job as usual but with time for a chat. Success had not gone to his head. We offered of-fered our congratulations. He accepted ac-cepted them with a "You ain't seen nothing yet." We went on to tell of his plans for future expansion. ex-pansion. This time we sowed no seeds of pessimism; we now believe be-lieve he will carry through What's the secret of this man's success in a deprcsion pci'ic:', in a country where opportvrii'wr. are supposed to be non-existent? Ve'll let Adolph have the last word, let him answer that question, ""ou know, Peek, I came here' from another country. From where doesn't matter. I'm an American no. There is no other country in the world where a fellow even with my ideas, brains and energy, starting with no capital could have built a business such as this from a dump into a real restaurant restaur-ant in the short span of five years. America, no longer a land of opportunity! Look around you. You remember this 1 place five years ago. There's your answer. I'M glad you are going to write about me in your column. I have a message for America. Tell the American people how grateful I am how much I appreciate the opportunity she has given me." On second thought, we'll not let Adolph have the last word. Someone Some-one might entertain .the idea that perhaps he has climbed to suc- cess by exploiting is hired help. I j On our way out, two young ladies j behind the counter (not the old , j pine counter but one of hard ; . wood), said good-night to us. They were the first two girls Adolph , hired five years ago. This lead us I to believe, Adolph in addition to i j being a pretty smart business man, must also be a pretty good'l sort of boss. i I unfavorable time to launch a new n I business, but even in that depres- k I sion year we ran across a man I ' ' courageous enough to undertake l just such a venture. j Strolling along Third Avenue one 1 1 evening in 1936, we saw a new 1 1 restaurant over it was a sign reading: "King of The Sea." We beg pardon, did we say restaur- ' ant? This place scarcely deserved J I ' the dignity which that name impliesit im-pliesit simply was a hole-in-the walL There was a cheap pine , counter with at the most, ten I stools in front of it a counter j boy behind it in the rear a colored col-ored boy cooking the fish and a genial looking gentleman superin-tneding superin-tneding and abetting the efforts of these other two, who turned out to be Adolph Flashner, the proprietor of this imposing (?) cafe. We ate there that evening. We found the fish fresh and well-cooked. well-cooked. We talked to the owner or rather he talked to us. He told j of his plans. Some day he was j going to have a big restaurant on this very spot. He would serve fish so fresh and so tastily cook- i. ed that all New York would beat a pathway to his door. We suggested sug-gested maybe this was not a propitious pro-pitious time for building a shack into a palace. He laughted us to scorn with: "Tliere isn't anything a man can't do here in America, 1 who has an idea, the determination determina-tion to stick to that idea, the brains to carry it out, and the willingness to shed a few drops of sweat." During the past five years we |