your effort
on a thing which ends in a petty triumph unless you are satisfied with
a life of petty success. Be sure that before you go into an enterprise
you see your way clear to stay through to a successful end. Look
ahead. It is surprising how many bright business men go into important
undertakings with little or no study of the controlling conditions
they risk their all upon.

Study diligently your capital requirements, and fortify yourself fully
to cover possible set-backs, because you can absolutely count on
meeting set-backs. Be sure that you are not deceiving yourself at any
time about actual conditions. The man who starts out simply with the
idea of getting rich won't succeed; you must have a larger ambition.
There is no mystery in business success. The great industrial leaders
have told again and again the plain and obvious fact that there can be
no permanent success without fair dealing that leads to wide-spread
confidence in the man himself, and that is the real capital we all
prize and work for. If you do each day's task successfully, and stay
faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I
talk so much about, and keep your head clear, you will come out all
right, and will then, perhaps, forgive me for moralizing in this
old-fashioned way. It is hardly necessary to caution a young man who
reads so sober a book as this not to lose his head over a little
success, or to grow impatient or discouraged by a little failure.

PANIC EXPERIENCES

I had desired to retire from business in the early nineties. Having
begun work so young, I felt that at fifty it was due me to have
freedom from absorption in active business affairs and to devote
myself to a variety of interests other than money making, which had
claimed a portion of my time since the beginning of my business
career. But 1891-92 were years of ominous outlook. In 1893 the storm
broke, and I had many investments to care for, as I have already
related. This year and the next was a trying period of grave anxiety
to everyone. No one could retire from work at such a time. In the
Standard we continued to make progress even through all these panic
years, as we had large reserves of cash on account of our very
conservative methods of financing. In 1894 or 1895 I was able to carry
out my plans to be relieved from any association with the actual
management of the company's affairs. From that time, as I have said, I
have had little or no pa