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Show CZIZ! "Every offieo lioy ii a potential office mnmiKi r. Every clerk is a potential liend Of flCQ BoV f ",0 iirm' 1,10 ,""t ""' ''" portunity ia past is all rot. The chance AlWflVS ,0 'nn'k "I1' ' B""l ever. It ulwnyt 1 OtCntial These little extracts from the philoso- IVOSS '''' ' a"lp MeMahon, whose recent i. . . slectiiin ju first vico-pnwident of thu Amer- ican Cotton Oil Company of New York By JONAS HOWARD supplemented his old position as vice-presU dent of the X. K. Fairhank Company of IJ Chicago, nro worth the rending ami re-nienihcring. re-nienihcring. The difference between them and the casual optimisms of the ordinary giver of "advice to the young" is that they emanate from a man who has the right to talk, especially j) along this line. Mr. McMahon doca not say what ho doea limply because ' do believes it. lie knows. Mr. McMuhou began his career aa an nflice 1 boy with tho firm of which he now conies near being the head. , The story of McMahon is a good, inspiring idea with which to begin ' the new year. It recks with hopo and optimism and has results to back it ' up. McMahon now ia only 43 yearn old and from a atari humble enough to suit anybody he has mounted pretty near to the heighta of busineaa success. Ho was 14 when he began in the New York office of tho Fairhank company. That was 28 yeare ago. There was nothing spectacular or meteoric about the boy. There are probably thousands of office kids h around tho country at this moment who show aa much promise as did he. Ho waa just a common office boy who had to work for a living and ho did nothing but work, work hard, for his aulwequent promotions. He moved naturally from ordinary office boy to ordinary clerk and it wasn't until he waa placed in charge of tho export shipping business that the future began to promise much. There he displayed the ability that won him the confidence of his superiors and in 181MJ he waa appointed general sales manager and came to Chicago. Chicago has been the scene of his most important activities, hut he had won hie spurs before ho came here. It is easy enough to continue ts a aucccva; where tho thousands fail ia in making tho big atep upward. |