Part Two In A Nutshell 17 страница

sacrifice and self-denial, were swept away simply because a widow or an orphan trusted

one of the slick crooks who rob women for a livelihood. "

If you want to protect your widow and your children, why not take a tip from J. P.

Morgan-one of the wisest financiers who ever lived. He left money in his will to sixteen

principal legatees. Twelve were women. Did he leave these women cash? No. He left

trust funds that ensured these women a monthly income for life.

Rule No. 8: Teach your children a responsible attitude toward money.

I shall never forget an idea I once read in Your Life magazine. The author, Stella Weston

Turtle, described how she was teaching her little girl a sense of responsibility about

money. She got an extra cheque-book from the bank and gave it to her nine-year-old

daughter. When the daughter was given her weekly allowance, she " deposited" the

money with her mother, who served as a bank for the child's funds. Then, throughout

the week, whenever she wanted a cent or two, she " drew a cheque" for that amount and

kept track of her balance. The little girl not only found that fun, but began to learn real

responsibility in handling her money.

This is an excellent method and if you have a son or daughter of school age, and you

want this child to learn how to handle money, I recommend it for your consideration.

Rule No. 9: II necessary, make a little extra money off your kitchen stove.

If after you budget your expenses wisely you still find that you don't have enough to

make ends meet, you can then do one of two things: you can either scold, fret, worry,

and complain, or you can plan to make a little additional money on the side. How? Well,

all you have to do to make money is to fill an urgent need that isn't being adequately

filled now. That is what Mrs. Nellie Speer, 37-09 83rd Street, Jackson Heights, New

York, did. In 1932, she found herself living alone in a three-room apartment. Her

husband had died, and both of her children were married. One day, while having some

ice-cream at a drug-store soda fountain, she noticed that the fountain was also selling

bakery pies that looked sad and dreary. She asked the proprietor if he would buy some

real home-made pies from her. He ordered two. " Although I was a good cook, " Mrs.

Speer said, as she told me the story, " I had always had servants when we lived in

Georgia, and I had never baked more than a dozen pies in my life. After getting that

order for two pies, I asked a neighbour woman how to cook an apple-pie. The soda-

fountain customers were delighted with my first two home-baked pies, one apple, one

lemon. The drugstore ordered five the next day. Then orders gradually came in from

other fountains and luncheonettes. Within two years, I was baking five thousand pies a

year-I was doing all the work myself in my own tiny kitchen, and I was making a

thousand dollars a year clear, without a penny's expense except the ingredients that

went into the pies. "

The demand for Mrs. Speer's home-baked pastry became so great that she had to move

out of her kitchen into a shop and hire two girls to bake for her: pies, cakes, bread, and

rolls. During the war, people stood in line for an hour at a time to buy her home-baked

foods.

" I have never been happier in my life, " Mrs. Speer said. " I work in the shop twelve to

fourteen hours a day, but I don't get tired because it isn't work to me. It is an adventure

in living. I am doing my part to make people a little happier. I am too busy to be

lonesome or worried. My work has filled a gap in my life left vacant by the passing of my

mother and husband and my home. "

When I asked Mrs. Speer if she felt that other women who were good cooks could make

money in their spare time in a similar way, in towns of ten thousand and up, she

replied: " Yes-of course they can! "

Mrs. Ora Snyder will tell you the same thing. She lives in a town of thirty thousand-

Maywood, Illinois. Yet she started in business with the kitchen stove and ten cents'

worth of ingredients. Her husband fell ill. She had to earn money. But how? No

experience. No skill. No capital. Just a housewife. She took the white of an egg and

sugar and made some candy on the back of the kitchen stove; then she took her pan of

candy and stood near the school and sold it to the children for a penny a piece as they

went home. " Bring more pennies tomorrow, " she said. " I'll be here every day with my

home-made candy. " During the first week, she not only made a profit, but had also put a

new zest into living. She was making both herself and the children happy. No time now

for worry.

This quiet little housewife from Maywood, Illinois, was so ambitious that she decided to

branch out-to have an agent sell her kitchen-made candy in roaring, thundering

Chicago. She timidly approached an Italian selling peanuts on the street. He shrugged

his shoulders. His customers wanted peanuts, not candy. She gave him a sample. He

liked it, began selling her candy, and made a good profit for Mrs. Snyder on the first

day. Four years later, she opened her first store in Chicago. It was only eight feet wide.

She made her candy at night and sold it in the daytime. This erstwhile timid housewife,

who started her candy factory on her kitchen stove, now has seventeen stores-fifteen of

them in the busy Loop district of Chicago.

Here is the point I am trying to make. Nellie Speer, in Jackson Heights, New York, and

Mrs. Ora Snyder, in May-wood, Illinois, instead of worrying about finances, did

something positive. They started in an extremely small way to make money off the

kitchen stove-no overhead, no rent, no advertising, no salaries. Under these conditions,

it is almost impossible for a woman to be defeated by financial worries.

Look around you. You will find many needs that are not filled. For example, if you train

yourself to be a good cook, you can probably make money by starting cooking classes for

young girls right in your own kitchen. You can get your students by ringing door-bells.

Books have been written about how to make money in your spare time; inquire at your

public library. There are many opportunities for both men and women. But one word of

warning: unless you have a natural gift for selling, don't attempt door-to-door selling.

Most people hate it and fail at it.

Rule No. 10: Don't gamble-ever.

I am always astounded by the people who hope to make money by betting on the ponies

or playing slot machines. I know a man who makes his living by owning a string of these

" one armed bandits", and he has nothing but contempt for the foolish people who are so

naive as to imagine that they can beat a machine that is already rigged against them.

I also know one of the best known bookmakers in America. He was a student in my

adult-education classes. He told me that with all his knowledge of horse racing, he

couldn't make money betting on the ponies. Yet the facts are that foolish people bet six

billion dollars a year on the races-six times as much as our total national debt back in

1910. This bookmaker also told me that if he had an enemy he despised, he could think

of no better way of ruining him than by getting him to bet on the races. When I asked

him what would happen to the man who played the races according to the tipster

sheets, he replied: " You could lose the Mint by betting that way. "

If we are determined to gamble, let's at least be smart. Let's find out what the odds are

against us. How? By reading a book entitled How to Figure the Odds, by Oswald Jacoby-

an authority on bridge and poker, a top-ranking mathematician, a professional

statistician, and an insurance actuary. This book devotes 215 pages to telling you what

the odds are against your winning when you play the ponies, roulette, craps, slot

machines, draw poker, stud poker, contract bridge, auction pinochle, the stock market.

This book also give you the scientific, mathematical chances on a score of other

activities. It doesn't pretend to show how to make money gambling. The author has no

axe to grind. He merely shows you what the odds are against your winning in all the

usual ways of gambling; and when you see the odds, you will pity the poor suckers who

stake their hard-earned wages on horse races or cards or dice or slot machines. If you

are tempted to shoot craps or play poker or bet on horses, this book may save you a

hundred times-yes, maybe a thousand times-what it costs.

Rule No. 11: If we can't possibly improve our financial situation, let's be good to

ourselves and stop resenting what can't be changed.

If we can't possibly improve our financial situation, maybe we can improve our mental

attitude towards it. Let's remember that other people have their financial worries, too.

We may be worried because we can't keep up with the Joneses; but the Joneses are

probably worried because they can't keep up with the Ritzes; and the Ritzes are worried

because they can't keep up with the Vanderbilts.

Some of the most famous men in American history have had their financial troubles.

Both Lincoln and Washington had to borrow money to make the trip to be inaugurated as

President.

If we can't have all we want, let's not poison our days and sour our dispositions with

worry and resentment. Let's be good to ourselves. Let's try to be philosophical about it.

" If you have what seems to you insufficient, " said one of Rome's greatest philosophers,

Seneca, " then you will be miserable even if you possess the world. "

And let's remember this: even if we owned the entire United States with a hog-tight

fence around it, we could eat only three meals a day and sleep in only one bed at a

time.

To lessen financial worries, let's try to follow these eleven rules:

1. Get the facts down on paper.

2. Get a tailor-made budget that really fits your needs 1

3. Learn how to spend wisely.

4. Don't increase your headaches with your income.

5. Try to build credit, in the event you must borrow.

6. Protect yourself against illness, fire, and emergency expenses.

7. Do not have your life-insurance proceeds paid to your widow in cash.

8. Teach your children a responsible attitude towards money.

9. If necessary, make a little extra money off your kitchen stove.

10. Don't gamble-ever.

11. If we can't possibly improve our financial situation, let's be good to ourselves and

stop resenting what can't be changed.

------------------------------

Part Ten - " How I Conquered Worry"

32 True Stories

~~~~

Six Major Troubles Hit Me All At Once

BY C. I. BLACK WOOD

Proprietor, Blackwood-Davis Business College Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

In the summer of 1943, it seemed to me that half the worries of the world had come to

rest on my shoulders.

For more than forty years, I had lived a normal, carefree life with only the usual

troubles which come to a husband, father, and business man. I could usually meet these

troubles easily, but suddenly-wham! wham!! wham!!! wham! !!! WHAM! !!!! WHAM!!!!!!

Six major troubles hit me all at once. I pitched and tossed and turned in bed all night

long, half dreading to see the day come, because I faced these six major worries.

1. My business college was trembling on the verge of financial disaster because all the

boys were going to war; and most of the girls were making more money working in war

plants without training than my graduates could make in business offices with training.

2. My older son was in service, and I had the heart-numbing worry common to all

parents whose sons were away at war.

3. Oklahoma City had already started proceedings to appropriate a large tract of land

for an airport, and my home- formerly my father's home-was located in the centre of

this tract. I knew that I would be paid only one tenth of its value, and, what was even

worse, I would lose my home; and because of the housing shortage, I worried about

whether I could possibly find another home to shelter my family of six. I feared we

might have to live in a tent. I even worried about whether we would be able to buy a

tent.

4. The water well on my property went dry because a drainage canal had been dug near

my home. To dig a new well would be throwing five hundred dollars away because the

land was probably being appropriated. I had to carry water to my livestock in buckets

every morning for two months, and I feared I would have to continue it during the rest

of the war.

5. I lived ten miles away from my business school and I had a class B petrol card: that

meant I couldn't buy any new tyres, so I worried about how I could ever get to work

when the superannuated tyres on my old Ford gave up the ghost.

6. My oldest daughter had graduated from high school a year ahead of schedule. She had

her heart set on going to college, and I just didn't have the money to send her. I knew

her heart would be broken.

One afternoon while sitting in my office, worrying about my worries, I decided to write

them all down, for it seemed no one ever had more to worry about than I had. I didn't

mind wrestling with worries that gave me a fighting chance to solve them, but these

worries all seemed to be utterly beyond my control. I could do nothing to solve them. So

I filed away this typewritten list of my troubles, and, as the months passed, I forgot that

I had ever written it. Eighteen months later, while transferring my files, I happened to

come across this list of my six major problems that had once threatened to wreck my

health. I read them with a great deal of interest-and profit. I now saw that not one of

them had come to pass.

Here is what had happened to them:

1. I saw that all my worries about having to close my business college had been useless

because the government had started paying business schools for training veterans and

my school was soon filled to capacity.

2. I saw that all my worries about my son in service had been useless: he was coming

through the war without a scratch.

3. I saw that all my worries about my land being appropriated for use as an airport had

been useless because oil had been struck within a mile of my farm and the cost for

procuring the land for an airport had become prohibitive.

4. I saw that all my worries about having no well to water my stock had been useless

because, as soon as I knew my land would not be appropriated, I spent the money

necessary to dig a new well to a deeper level and found an unfailing supply of water.

5. I saw that all my worries about my tyres giving out had been useless, because by

recapping and careful driving, the tyres had managed somehow to survive.

6. I saw that all my worries about my daughter's education had been useless, because

just sixty days before the opening of college, I was offered-almost like a miracle-an

auditing job which I could do outside of school hours, and this job made it possible for

me to send her to college on schedule.

I had often heard people say that ninety-nine per cent of the things we worry and stew

and fret about never happen, but this old saying didn't mean much to me until I ran

across that list of worries I had typed out that dreary afternoon eighteen months

previously.

I am thankful now that I had to wrestle in vain with those six terrible worries. That

experience has taught me a lesson I'll never forget. It has shown me the folly and

tragedy of stewing about events that haven't happened-events that are beyond our

control and may never happen.

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Ask yourself: How do I

KNOW this thing I am worrying about will really come to pass?

~~~~

I Can Turn Myself in to a Shouting Optimist Within an Hour

Roger W. Babson

Famous Economist Babson Park, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts

When I find myself depressed over present conditions, I can, within one hour, banish

worry and turn myself into a shouting optimist.

Here is how I do it. I enter my library, close my eyes, and walk to certain shelves

containing only books on history. With my eyes still shut, I reach for a book, not knowing

whether I am picking up Prescott's Conquest of Mexico or Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve

Caesars. With my eyes still closed, I open the book at random. I then open my eyes and

read for an hour; and the more I read, the more sharply I realise that the world has

always been in the throes of agony, that civilisation has always been tottering on the

brink. The pages of history fairly shriek with tragic tales of war, famine, poverty,

pestilence, and man's inhumanity to man. After reading history for an hour, I realise

that bad as conditions are now, they are infinitely better than they used to be. This

enables me to see and face my present troubles in their proper perspective as well as to

realise that the world as a whole is constantly growing better.

Here is a method that deserves a whole chapter. Read history! Try to get the viewpoint

of ten thousand years-and see how trivial your troubles are, in terms of eternity.

~~~~

How I Got Rid Of An Inferiority Complex

Elmer Thomas

United States Senator from Oklahoma

When I was fifteen I was constantly tormented by worries and fears and self-

consciousness. I was extremely tall for my age and as thin as a fence rail. I stood six

feet two inches and weighed only 118 pounds. In spite of my height, I was weak and

could never compete with the other boys in baseball or running games. They poked fun

at me and called me " hatch-face". I was so worried and self-conscious that I dreaded to

meet anyone, and I seldom did, for our farmhouse was off the public road and

surrounded by thick virgin timber that had never been cut since the beginning of time.

We lived half a mile from the highway; and a week would often go by without my seeing

anyone except my mother, father, and brothers and sisters.

I would have been a failure in life if I had let those worries and fears whip me. Every

day and every hour of the day, I brooded over my tall, gaunt, weak body. I could hardly

think of anything else. My embarrassment, my fear, was so intense that it is almost

impossible to describe it. My mother knew how I felt. She had been a school-teacher, so

she said to me: " Son, you ought to get an education, you ought to make your living with

your mind because your body will always be a handicap. "

Since my parents were unable to send me to college, I knew I would have to make my

own way; so I hunted and trapped opossum, skunk, mink, and raccoon one winter; sold

my hides for four dollars in the spring, and then bought two little pigs with my four

dollars. I fed the pigs slop and later corn and sold them for forty dollars the next fall.

With the proceeds from the sale of the two hogs I went away to the Central Normal

College-located at Danville, Indiana. I paid a dollar and forty cents a week for my board

and fifty cents a week for my room. I wore a brown shirt my mother had made me.

(Obviously, she used brown cloth because it wouldn't show the dirt. ) I wore a suit of

clothes that had once belonged to my father. Dad's clothes didn't fit me and neither did

his old congress gaiter shoes that I wore-shoes that had elastic bands in the sides that

stretched when you put them on. But the stretch had long since gone out of the bands,

and the tops were so loose that the shoes almost dropped off my feet as I walked. I was

embarrassed to associate with the other students, so I sat in my room alone and

studied. The deepest desire of my life was to be able to buy some store clothes that fit

me, clothes that I was not ashamed of.

Shortly after that, four events happened that helped me to overcome my worries and

my feeling of inferiority. One of these events gave me courage and hope and confidence

and completely changed all the rest of my life. I'll describe these events briefly:

First: After attending this normal school for only eight weeks, I took an examination and

was given a third-grade certificate to teach in the country public schools. To be sure,

this certificate was good for only six months, but it was fleeting evidence that

somebody had faith in me-the first evidence of faith that I ever had from anyone except

my mother.

Second: A country school board at a place called Happy Hollow hired me to teach at a

salary of two dollars per day, or forty dollars per month. Here was even more evidence

of somebody's faith in me.

Third: As soon as I got my first cheque I bought some store clothes-clothes that I wasn't

ashamed to wear. If someone gave me a million dollars now, it wouldn't thrill me half as

much as that first suit of store clothes for which I paid only a few dollars.

Fourth: The real turning point in my life, the first great victory in my struggle against

embarrassment and inferiority occurred at the Putnam County Fair held annually in

Bain-bridge, Indiana. My mother had urged me to enter a public-speaking contest that

was to be held at the fair. To me, the very idea seemed fantastic. I didn't have the

courage to talk even to one person-let alone a crowd. But my mother's faith in me was

almost pathetic. She dreamed great dreams for my future. She was living her own life

over in her son. Her faith inspired me to enter the contest. I chose for my subject about

the last thing in the world that I was qualified to talk on: " The Fine and Liberal Arts of

America". Frankly, when I began to prepare a speech I didn't know what the liberal arts

were, but it didn't matter much because my audience didn't know, either.

I memorised my flowery talk and rehearsed it to the trees and cows a hundred times. I

was so eager to make a good showing for my mother's sake that I must have spoken with

emotion. At any rate, I was awarded the first prize. I was astounded at what happened.

A cheer went up from the crowd. The very boys who had once ridiculed me and poked

fun at me and called me hatchet-faced now slapped me on the back and said: " I knew

you could do it, Elmer. " My mother put her arms around me and sobbed. As I look back

in retrospect, I can see that winning that speaking contest was the turning point of my

life. The local newspapers ran an article about me on the front page and prophesied

great things for my future. Winning that contest put me on the map locally and gave me

prestige, and, what is far more important, it multiplied my confidence a hundredfold. I

now realise that if I had not won that contest, I probably would never have become a

member of the United States Senate, for it lifted my sights, widened my horizons, and

made me realise that I had latent abilities that I never dreamed I possessed. Most

important, however, was the fact that the first prize in the oratorical contest was a

year's scholarship in the Central Normal College.

I hungered now for more education. So, during the next few years-from 1896 to 1900-I

divided my time between teaching and studying. In order to pay my expenses at De

Pauw University, I waited on tables, looked after furnaces, mowed lawns, kept books,

worked in the wheat and cornfields during the summer, and hauled gravel on a public

road-construction job.

In 1896, when I was only nineteen, I made twenty-eight speeches, urging people to vote

for William Jennings Bryan for President. The excitement of speaking for Bryan aroused

a desire in me to enter politics myself. So when I entered De Pauw University, I studied

law and public speaking. In 1899 I represented the university in a debate with Butler

College, held in Indianapolis, on the subject " Resolved that United States Senators

should be elected by popular vote. " I won other speaking contests and became editor-in-

chief of the class of 1900 College Annual, The Mirage, and the university paper, The

Palladium.

After receiving my A. B. degree at De Pauw, I took Horace Greeley's advice-only I didn't

go west, I went south-west. I went down to a new country: Oklahoma. When the Kiowa,

Comanche, and Apache Indian reservation was opened, I home-steaded a claim and

opened a law office in Lawton, Oklahoma. I served in the Oklahoma State Senate for

thirteen years, in the lower House of Congress for four years, and at fifty years of age, I

achieved my lifelong ambition: I was elected to the United States Senate from

Oklahoma. I have served in that capacity since March 4, 1927. Since Oklahoma and