The young man's age; what does that mean? Is it a fad in the business world? Is it because we live so fast in these modern days that this human machinery wears out within a few score years, or is it that system has been so perfected in business that there is no value placed upon judgment drawn from the school of experience?

I think that in past generations the young blood was valued, but that objectional conditions made it impossible to give youth full sway. These drawbacks were: The unwillingness to accept the experience of older business generals as guides; the lack of practical training and the unwillingness to qualify in some one line. The old-time method of bringing a boy up in business was to let him float along, allowing him to be tossed against the rocks of difficulties until he became shy of all venture after he had gone through the whirlpool of business adversity, and if then he had wind enough to last, he was stamped a success. Generally, though, the man who came through was so covered with scars that his champion days were short-hardly worth the venture. To-day conditions are different; the course is marked out with danger signals set near the danger points, and before the young man sets sail he is given a chart showing his course. He reaches port safely, and has made better time, too.

The most successful business man is pacified with every proposition that comes before him. You can always tell the unsuccessful man by the shipshape way of dealing with important matters.

If he allows a man to generalize when bringing a proposition to him, it will show his lack of experience in knowing that the safeguard is definite information signed in ink.

No doubt many of our readers will remember the article that appeared in Common-Sense. To those who did not see it we will reprint it.

Abraham Lincoln said that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

It was P. T. Barnum who said that the American people liked to be humbugged. This expression doesn't speak very well of the American people, and if Barnum was living to-day maybe he wouldn't be so apt to make that remark, because his experience. would have been different. It was a lucky thing for Barnum that the laws were not as strict in his day as they are to-day.

There's a limit to all these "get-rich-quick" schemes. No man ever gets very far in his business if he is on the wrong track.

If the post office would look into a few more schools, it might be astonished to find that the claims are preposterous.

For instance :—

I read of an institution that guarantees positions to its students.

Every intelligent persons knows that such a guarantee isn't made in good faith, because the men who make such a guarantee know they cannot fulfill their promise. They might introduce one or two people. to prospective employers, but they cannot do more. than that, and when they claim more they are using

the mails to fraudulently imply that everyone who sends them money will secure a position.

BE PRACTICAL

I am sorry to say that family traits are handed down from generation to generation.

Sometimes these traits are obnoxious to society, but if they become so prominent as to stamp themselves upon the minds of people, they cannot do much harm; the only fear a person must have with these unfortunately born people is that their traits do not become sufficiently widespread to place that stamp upon them, and in such cases the unfortunately born creature might hurt an honest man with his blackguard.

Whenever you meet such a fellow don't cultivate his acquaintance, or he will disgust you with mankind. I am sorry to say that I have met such a fellow, and ever since the day I did not care to give him any business he has kept at my heels like a yellow cur, growling, snapping and biting.

If you ask me what's the cause of it, I could only reply: It's the nature of the animal. "You can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear," nor can you change the leopard's spots.

The whole family is built upon the same principle -unfortunately they happen to have dropped into the business I am in.

It isn't necessary to mention any names, because everyone who has had dealings with an advertising agency knows him, and knows the training his father has given him.

There was never a man who placed advertising through the agency with which he is connected who didn't find crooked work.

CHARACTER

E. T. P.

Character leads with an iron will-a firm, resolute mind, dependable upon no chance circumstances, no "ifs" or "buts."

Character quickly, promptly decides what shall be done, when occasion requires it, also directing the way how to do it.

A characteristic person is a person with a character that is termed stubborn, obstinate, selfwilled; but they can well afford to be so termed.

Character, like perseverance, knows no real defeat. When a failure occurs it is only to assemble the qualities of the individual for another day, that they may then shine with redoubled vigor and righteousness.

In trouble, character forms a balm, a soothing It exerts effect to the person having the quality. an influence otherwise unattainable. It lifts the mind to higher and nobler things.

Character gives credit to whom credit is due and is responsible for a far greater amount of work being done-not half done-but thoroughly done. Done with a zest-with concentrated energies and thought. Character is ready to answer a call at a moment's notice. With it the hardest battles have been fought and (will ever continue to be) with most unequal odds.

PICTURE ADVERTISING By George L. Richards, Sec'y Chicago Photo Engraving Co.

Picture advertising is commonly supposed to be a modern contrivance used for the purpose of attracting attention.

The truth is, the ancients made use of pictures in the centuries before the Christian era, and the stone tablets excavated in old Babylon and Assyria, in Asia, prove to be stone tablets of greatest historic value. So in Egypt and Greece the old dynasties give up their secrets to the modern scholar, who deciphers the text by the assistance and suggestions of the carved figures of Pharohs shown in processions of men and animals having to do with their business as well as their religions and governmental affairs.

In our own country the carved picture rocks of the Indians in the west and southwest give us correct ideas of these "first families," as do also the Aztec remains in sculptured rocks and inscriptions recently excavated in Mexico.

These all teach us that there is nothing new under the sun-except modern methods of using old ideas. The modern merchant and advertiser may, if he will, use anything, ancient or modern, beautiful or ugly, whether in sky or earth or sea, animal, mineral or vegetable, provided only it is appropriate, and is appropriately used. Not every man has the wisdom. Not all ability, nor have they had it thrust upon them to invent picture advertising and this is abundantly proved to the observing person by the monstrosities of modern advertising. Millions of money are wasted by ignorant and injudicious men who "think they think," but whose judgment is of no value because uneducated. How wise, therefore, are

they who specialize this important matter and seek first to instruct themselves in the fundamental principles of this ancient and modern science of adversing with pictures.

Since pictures may be and are used for commercial purposes and made to do service in the interest of publicity, i. e., money-making, it is well to recognize that there are pictures and there are pictures. Things may be made into pictures, and ideas may be made into pictures. Of the first it should be said. that they ought to be presented as attractively as possible, and this lesson has now been well learned. by even the novice in advertising. But if ideas are to be made into pictures that is quite another matter, and method must be followed.

The idea must be appropriate and happy in ception. It must be artistic in form and execution. It must be in good taste, and, in the best sense, it must be witty and much to the point, not farcical or grotesque or merely humorous. It should have the power of presenting the idea in a way wholly new and unexpected, as does, for instance, the two children in "Wool Soap," of the Gibraltar Rock of the Prudential Insurance company. The good picture advertisement is an invention. It is new and fresh, and inspiring as a spring morning. It gives pleasure to the giver and the receiver. It helps to turn the drudgery of business into a delight.

Picture advertising of the kind here described must be tested and made to pay. It has to carry a big load because it must pay for itself and a good margin beside.

The success of the modern business man who uses picture advertising is the best evidence that the right kind of picture advertising pays.

Yet there is a final thing to do, viz.: to Persist and to persist. "Keep everlastingly at it." The force of this observation is in the application, "the effort must be a continuous performance; always something new, and always something attractive." Many a business house has good office help, good salesmen, good goods, good shipping facilitie's. They need only wise, worthy, original, appropriate and persistent picture advertising, and success is sure. And with all these try "common-sense" methods.

Blame is the lazy man's wages.

Common sense can only be appreciated by those who possess it.

The man who shuns labor is a hard worker. Laziness has few advocates but many followers.

The man who is a hard worker by his own say so produces very little.

A man's success in life depends upon himself. He is sent out into the world to make a mark or a blot. If he succeeds in his purpose he is credited with having "had it in him;" if he fails everyone says: "I told you so."

A POOR BOY'S COUNTRY

By J. E. Downing.

A statement that meets with ready acceptance in shallow and unthinking minds, is that a young man, unaided by wealth is debarred by reason of his station from the success rightly due him.. That the power of money has been withheld him is an oft quoted defense for the shortcomings and aimless dispositions of many a young man, who, blinded by the seemingly facinating opportunities of position and wealth, pleads a limited sphere for operatings in the attainment of the rank to which he may aspire. Any reference to careers of eminence attained by men growing up amid surroundings affording meagre opportunities, is received with allowance, and the honor and glory of the success of such men is sought to be belittled by insinuations. The position is stubbornly defended— that ultimate success in life for a boy, is dependant upon the ability of his parents to provide a substantial financial foundation as a basis of operation and requisite to his dawning ambitions. One of the most striking examples of the unsoundness of the above theory, an illustration very much in point, is found in the biography of Senator J. P. Dolliver, for more than a decade a member of the House of Representatives, with a national reputation as an orator and one of the most brilliant of then many able men in Congress today.

After years of study in the public schools of his native state, together with his older. brother, he was sent to the University of West Virginia. His love for out-door sports, of which fishing was his favorite, mingled with his student life; and hastening home from the university he would repair to the banks of the Monongahela and employ the time between bites by lying upon the banks translating portions of Caesar's Commentaries preparatory to the next day's lesson. A copy of Caesar's Gaelic Wars, is still extant in the family, marked by yellowish finger prints derived from hands muddied by toying with festive angle-worm as dug from the clay soil of West Virginia gardens. Graduating from the university at 17, a boy in age, and more so in appearance, he came to Illinois and applied

for a school in the rural districts of De Kalb County. He employed the interval in waiting a decision of the school directors upon his application as teacher, in working at manual labor for a neighboring farmer. It was while employed in. digging potatoes; barefooted and clad in a pair of overalls that the school directors found him, when they sought an interview relative to his employment as teacher of the district school. It is related that the directors were so impressed with his ready. adaptability to life, that, without subjecting him to any examination as to his literary attainments, they employed him at once upon the recommendation of his farmer friend in whose employ they found him. Spare moments during his career as a teacher were employed in reading law, after which he sought a new location in the west. It is

within the memory of his Fort Dodge, Iowa, friends that while waiting for clients, during the "starvation period," so familiar to every young attorney who undertakes to enter the profession of law unbacked by wealth, social standing or influential friends; that he lived in a most precarious way, in meager quarters over a barber shop in the old Garmore block. Here he had limited but essential arrangements for "batching it," and many are. the stories told by his associates of an early day, of tomatoes and corn cooked in the original packages and served in primitive style, demanded by the one plate, one knife, one spoon and tin cup, which constituted the sole utensils of his not overstocked cupboard. Perhaps the memory of these early experiences guided him in his famous. apothegm; that this is "A poor man's government and a poor boy's country."

Senator Dolliver defends this statement with the following statement: "There is nothing that can hide the beneficent fact that this country will remain, as it always has been, a poor boy's country and whatever party administers it. It will remain the poor man's government."

We belong to a money-getting race. Our people are intuitively opposed to every scheme old or new, We have inherited a certain confidence in ourselves which even poverty cannot eradicate; a confidence that invites us into the arena where men are fighting for the prizes of life and raffling for its chances. We may not be victorious. in the battle, we may not be fortunate in the lottery; but we are slow to call in the doctors of socialism to heal the wounds of our defeat or to repair the failure of our luck. That joy of the contest, that exhilaration of the game, follows us even in old age; and after all hope for ourselves is gone, we live in the prospects of our children. It is not true, and it never was true, that the sons of the rich are crowding the sons of the poor, out of the opportunities of life. On the other hand, the possession of wealth without having earned it, so uniformly damages the energy of the young man, that it amounts to a handicap upon him, a discrimination. against him in the race of life. Otherwise how does it happen that every eminent man in public. life of this generation has come up to honor through the tribulation of poverty? How does it come to pass that every great banker, every great merchant, every great artist-every man conspicuous in any department of influence or culture-how does it happen that every one of them walked into town from the country?

This same doctrine holds true in the life and example of Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, the present secretary of the treasury, who was a hard-headed Vermont farmer boy who come to the little town of Dennison, Iowa, about twenty-five years ago. While seated upon a barrel in a grocery store, partaking of a one-course luncheon of crackers and cheese, he addressed this remark to a farmer who had just entered:

"Any work out your way?"

'What kind of work are you looking for?" asked the farmer.

"Not particular, anything to be doing something," was the reply.

He worked on a farm, then taught school, sold nursery supplies, paid his way through college, studied law, and was painstakingly practicing what he had learned in life's university.

A Magnificent type of grit, courage and ambition, in most beautifully portrayed in the life of Hon. Geo. E. Roberts, the present director of the U. S. mint, at Washington, D. C. It is not often that a man gets the good things of public life by reason of deserving them. They commonly come to the men who go after them. Probably Iowa affords no better example of the reward of real merit than in the national prominence Mr. Roberts has attained. He is a statesman, but he did not discover it until other people told him so. He is one of the shrewdest politicians in the state, but he has devoted his organizing and managerial abilities to the cause of his friends. His present position was by appointment unsolicited, a reward of merit to his ability and special fitness. By close application to a study and by never ceasing zeal, he has attained a high place in the affairs of the nation.

It is only the incapable man who thinks there is no chance now-days. It's a mistake for a man. to wait for a great idea before he believes in the proposition. The seemingly insignificant things develope into big success when push and determination are behind them.

Advertising is a great, grand, growing art!

A CONSTRUCTIVE ART-Building the mighty mills of mercantile industry-the faculties of mind whereby men and women are fitted for fierce competition's fray! A DEVELOPING ART-developing a business fiberstout-strenuous-an ability to master men-competent, successful workers in its limitless domain! It develops anxious appetite for useful information!

AN ELEVATING ART-elevating the public, the merchants, the ad. men and women-the tone of tradethe whole latent life of buying and bargaining!

A BEAUTIFYING ART-changing dim windows into pleasing pictures-dead walls into living voices-faces of color-the darkness of dull trade to the cheer of cash callers!

A UTILIZING ART-taking the best of all other arts, forging the selected stock into irresistible engines of profit-producing power!

AN IMPERATIVE ART-more than a necessity-an art that must be followed!

Human life on this planet is dependent upon daily replenishings-likewise business life must frequently and continuously appropriate the progressive power of this salient, suggestive art!

Thus the youthful giant strongly strides! Watch his proud poise! Catch the masterful magnetism of his majestic movement!

You see know this already? Well, is it not the most gigantic fact of all-it's not so much the lack of knowledge, but the lack of that happy faculty of getting into gear with the mightiest movement of the twentieth century-Publicity, process of progress!

Edward C Aiken

Editorial Exchange

In this department we will endeavor to give each month in "Common Sense" some of the best paragraphs taken from the editorial columns of the leading newspapers of the country.

Never cater to a jealous friend. Never hide your regard, admiration or affection for some other friend for fear of arousing the demon. Take the demon by the horns and control it. Be loving, loyal and kind to your friend, but praise worthy traits in others freely, admire what is admirable, show affection. where you feel it, and compel the jealous demon to depart from your friend's heart.

If it does not depart, the friend is not worth keeping. Such friendship is only self-love, and lacks all the qualities of greatness and nobility.

Are we not too critical of the faults in people, and not appreciative enough of the good qualities which they possess?

Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps you have the fault yourself that you see so quickly in others? Otherwise how do you know it?

We do not like to have unkind things said of us by others, yet if we ourselves say unkind things, we become one with that habit of thought, and so call forth such remarks, which adversely affect us mentally and therefore physically.

Let us keep the mind clear and bright, fill it with wholesome thoughts of life, and be kindly in our feelings toward others.

Be kind. That is the great point after all. If we love to think, to say and to do kind things, we are one with the good deeds and the good people of the world.

The.habits of men reflect real opinions of women with whom they associate. No man has the courage to endure the contempt of women.

It is women's influence, example and censure that have gradually civilized men. The hideous American habit of chewing tobacco thrived only until women decided against it. Drunkenness dies out as women discountenance and refuse to endure it.

There is no rule by which we can recognize the cradle of greatness. Alexander was bred in a palace, Lincoln in a Kentucky log cabin. Cromwell's youth was spent in middle-class comfort in England. George Washington grew up in the illimitable solitudes of the Virginia mountains. Napoleon in a prosperous lawyer's mansion in Corsica.

But one point of resemblance we find in the boyhood of all great men-all had mothers of strongly marked character, women whose characteristics we find later cropping out in the actions of t he sons they fitted for eminence.