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Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah, 1862-1927

"The Young Man and the World"


Colonel Scott was a messenger-boy--just such a messenger-boy as you
may see any day running errands, carrying parcels, doing the humble
duties of one who serves and waits. From a messenger-boy with bundle
in his hand, to the general of an industrial army of thousands of men,
and the directing mind planning the expenditure of scores of millions
of dollars belonging to great capitalists--such was the career of
Thomas Scott.
Very well, why should you not do as well? "Because my competitors have
college education and I have not," do you answer? But, man, Colonel
Scott had no college education. "Because the other fellows have
friends and influence and I have none," do you protest? But neither
President Scott nor most monumental successes had friends or influence
to start with. Don't excuse yourself, then. Come! Buck up! Be a man!
"I am greatly troubled," said to me the general superintendent of one of
the most extensive railroad systems in the world as we rode from Des
Moines, Iowa, to Chicago. "I am greatly troubled," said he, "to find an
assistant superintendent. There are now under me seven young engineers,
every man a graduate of a college; four of them with uncommon ability,
and all of them relatives of men heavily interested in this network of
railroads.


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