Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the manBurr, Agnes Rush
Religion
Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the man
Burr, Agnes Rush
Conwell, Russell H., 1843-1925; Minneapolis (Minn.) -- Biography
that bench in the park he had the most important, and to my mind, the
pleasantest part of that partnership business. He was watching the
ladies as they went by; and where is the man that wouldn't get rich
at that business? But when John Jacob Astor saw a lady pass, with her
shoulders back and her head up, as if she did not care if the whole
world looked on her, he studied her bonnet; and before that bonnet
was out of sight he knew the shape of the frame and the color of the
trimmings, the curl of the--something on a bonnet Sometimes I try to
describe a woman's bonnet, but it is of little use, for it would be
out of style to-morrow night. So John Jacob Astor went to the store
and said: "Now, put in the show window just such a bonnet as I
describe to you because," said he, "I have just seen a lady who likes
just such a bonnet. Do not make up any more till I come back." And he
went out again and sat on that bench in the park, and another lady of
a different form and complexion passed him with a bonnet of different
shape and color, of course. "Now," said he, "put such a bonnet as that
in the show window." He didn't fill his show window with hats and
bonnets which drive people away and then sit in the back of the store
and bawl because the people go somewhere else to trade. He didn't put
a hat or bonnet in that show window the like of which he had not seen
before it was made up.
In our city especially there are great opportunities for
manufacturing, and the time has come when the line is drawn very
sharply between the stockholders of the factory and their employés.
Now, friends, there has also come a discouraging gloom upon this
country and the laboring men are beginning to feel that they are being
held down by a crust over their heads through which they find it
impossible to break, and the aristocratic money-owner himself is so
far above that he will never descend to their assistance. That is the
thought that is in the minds of our people. But, friends, never in the
history of our country was there an opportunity so great for the poor
man to get rich as there is now and in the city of Philadelphia. The
very fact that they get discouraged is what prevents them from getting
rich. That is all there is to it. The road is open, and let us keep it
open between the poor and the rich. I know that the labor unions have
two great problems to contend with, and there is only one way to solve
them. The labor unions are doing as much to prevent its solving as are
the capitalists to-day, and there are positively two sides to it. The
labor union has two difficulties; the first one is that it began to
make a labor scale for all classes on a par, and they scale down a man
that can earn five dollars a day to two and a half a day, in order to
level up to him an imbecile that cannot earn fifty cents a day. That
is one of the most dangerous and discouraging things for the working
man. He cannot get the results of his work if he do better work or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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