I can see no preference, so far as the disagreeable parts of the game go, whether a man be poor or prosperous.

The poor man plays his part manfully; the rich must. The grasping business man is a vastly different type from the fair business man. The grasping man begins his day with a prayer that he may lose no time or no opportunity in his battle for success.

The honest workingman ends his day with grace before meat, conscious that he has justly earned a dinner.

Now, a man must live within the walls of himself, and I ask you, Which one of these two men really gets the greater satisfaction out of life?

I am not sorry for the honest, industrious individual; I am bowed in pity for the poor devil that's rich.

In this country, and at the moment, there seems to be a widespread, coöperative plan to find fault. Now, this situation is not all one-sided. The workingmen have got good reason to holler in many cases. Things are upset, abnormal. The trouble is, the Old World has spilled the beans. About the only way that we can come to a sane conclusion with reference to the man who should be happy is by comparison.

The other night friends invited me to a roof dinner, on one of the high-tower hotels in New York. There, in the most conspicuous position, 'mid flowers, with wine and with two women, sat a simpering son of a big business man-a pale, putty-skinned, basking batch of shattered nerves and spent brain. (Oh, if I could only cut loose here!) This boob, this afterthought, was “blowing” enough money to furnish food for a dozen or more starving humans.

The picture was too prosperous for me to dwell upon, and my eyes closed, and my long years of experience brought, in my imagination, directly before me, a few pages in the leaves of Time-pages written on the eventual of this sicklooking, silver-spooned son of a worthy mother.

He had older grown. He was now fifty, and in my imagination I could see him sitting on a fertilizer heap, over near the edge of the boneyard, just on the outskirts of the city. There he sat, in rags, gnawing on a bone that was partly covered with meat-meat left by some other son with silver spoons in his teeth-trench.

In my circle of acquaintances there are hundreds of young

men who are poor, or in modest means; and for this situation I am grateful, satisfied, pleased. What a blessing it is to be born poor and with sense!

Over in Europe there are men gnawing on the scraps of putrid flesh, sucking the marrow from the bones of dead horses.

The population of Poland two years ago was thirty million; today it is twenty million. There are but few children left under seven.

Years ago the Old World had a Lazarus. Today it has an army of men who are not expecting the crumbs from a rich man's table; they are willing to struggle, battle, suffer and starve for the crumbs that fall to the dogs.

And this situation only emphasizes the position of that money-spending, cynical, sarcastic, manicured man that I saw "blowing" and refusing to help a friend in need.

Young man, I want you to compare your position with that of the chap who is dumped into this world, unwelcomed but rich, unwanted and without mental resources. This failure, from the first, is bound to have a much harder time than you will ever have. Take heart.

Envy not the boy with a doting mother and a dotage dad. ᄆ

THIS IS YOU

IT is not doing the thing: it is overdoing it. What does it profit a man to gain all of the fun in life in one short season, and lose his health in the victory?

Just about the time the usual man gets position and profit, his hand is no longer steady, his eyes are dim, his mind is clouded, and eventually the break comes. Then they put him in the wheel chair or the narrow, dark, eternal cell.

You are extremely careful of your auto, you are mindful of your employees, you watch your balance in the bank; but you let your physical integrity run down.

You overwork, overplay, overeat, overdrink, oversmoke and undersleep.

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RETARDED MY AMBITION

DRIVING a pair of mules on the Erie Canal, when a boy, probably retarded my ambition to become an active church worker.

SOME ONE WILL

'HE new study of vocational psychology will soon be called a science. The idea that puts a boy where he belongs is a practical plan, and should receive the serious consideration of every thoughtful parent.

There are too many pig-stickers in the pulpit. The world supports a lot of bone-pickers in the garb of actors.

It's genius we want, not gall. It's efficiency, not ego, that the world is calling for. It's proficiency, and not pull, that you will be compelled to depend upon.

When the doctors arrived, the Indian medicine men took to the tall timber. When the world calls for intelligent help, it does not want ragpickers.

But perhaps I can offer a simple solution with reference to your personal situation, and it is this: Make, say, ten carbon copies of a list of questions that you would like to have answered-questions covering your individual faults or virtues.

Send these carbon copies in the mail to, say, ten men and women whom you consider your friends, and ask them to fill out the answers.

Out of the list, some one is bound to tell you the truth, and if you are a big and broad man the truth is bound to help you. ᄆ

THREE THOUGHTS

THE wisest man, King Solomon, was hopelessly married. Dope this out.

An expert says, "A kiss is nothing but a thrill." I would like to know what more he wants.

There is no patent on inverting an c..cuse, and this probably accounts for the self-styled clever man who would pose as a genius. ᄆ

GERMOPHOBIACS

THE supreme aim in life of some folks seems to be to dodge disease germs. These people are called “germophobiacs.”

Disease may come, but it is a well-known fact that it is more apt to come to persons whose nerves are kept on edge by fear, than to those who go about their business oblivious of the imaginary alarms with which so many persons are

AFRAID TO BE HAPPY

OU probably recall the neurasthenic who seemed to be getting on pretty well in the world, and this surprised him. He suddenly exclaimed: "This won't do. I'm a sick man. What right have I to be happy?"

There's the man with a good job who can't shake off the thought that a younger chap will push him out ten years hence. There's the young wife who wonders if Harry will love her when her hair turns gray. And there's Harry himself, who is convinced Young Wife will be cheated out of his life insurance in case of his death.

There's the business man who pauses in the midst of unparalleled prosperity to give way to fear of a slump when the war ends.

There's the mother who, with her children rosy-cheeked and chubby-limbed, shudders at the colds they are sure to have next winter.

The fear of unhappiness is no more widespread than the fear of happiness. Thousands and thousands of well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed folk, fortunate in their work and in their friends, seem to regard their well-being as a sort of charm that will be broken, if for a moment they give way to rejoicing. They are afraid to be happy.

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HE MARCHES YOU

MR. VAN AMBURGH, in his new book, "By the Side of the Road," makes this statement: "I have tried to make this work bigger and broader than any single street; tried to touch the octaves in human activities, and the lost chord in human hearts."

Mr. Van Amburgh has, with his pen, brushed away the drifted snows of adversity so that the tendrils of your better self may get the sunlight of life. In his own way, he marches you past the problems of life, up, up on the hill, where the sun of your own conscience may shine to show the way for the less fortunate.

"By the Side of the Road" is by all odds his best effort.

Cloth, one dollar; de luxe, two dollars. No agents.

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IT is costing in cash thirty-six billion dollars a year to run

the hell on earth in the Old World.

YOU BIG LUMP

TRANGE how so many people in this world carry around the idea that now, right now, is a very trying hour; that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, will be all sunshine!

Why think that tomorrow will be such a success, such a marvelous day, when you can make only a failure out of today?

Success is not all in the future. Success is not an indefinable, unmeasurable mystery.

Did you ever seriously consider the mutability of what we call time? Today is the very hour that you said yesterday would be bright.

Yesterday you looked forward eagerly for today, and now you have it, and it doesn't suit you.

Happiness is not in your cash on hand, in your new-model car, in your new-found friend, in your material toys. Happiness is in the heart; and if you have a heart and are not happy, the fault is in you.

You say, "Oh, it's all well enough to talk like this, but if you were in my boots it would seem different."

In your "boots"! There are millions of men as good as you, and better than I, whose boots are filled with blood, whose underclothes are filthy; men with flesh rotting, with eyes eaten out, with arms blown off, with legs ripped loose; men with hands spattered with the brains of dying comrades. And most of these men have families, mothers and sweethearts, who are in want and distress.

And you, you great, big healthy lump of bone and beef; you, you cringing, crying titman—there you sit and whine, and solicit pity.

You say that Fate is handing you a hard role to play, that you are not happy. Are you blind? Are you paralyzed? Can you walk, talk? Have you a job?

You may feel that you are having it hard, but, in comparison with some humans, you are in a front row, watching the world in the greatest play ever put on.

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THE old statement that the truth will live prompts me to observe that a lie seems to have the habit of sticking around for months longer than the plain facts.