was employed by one of the largest publishing houses
in the country to make a study of America's captains of industry. The
real purpose of the study was to discover some industry or some man that
could be helped greatly through national advertising. In connection with
that study of those captains of industry, I tabulated their ancestry.
These were the seventy greatest manufacturers, merchants and railroad
builders, the leading men who have made America by developing the
fields, the forests, the mines and the industries. What did I find? I
found that only five per cent. of these captains of industry are the
sons of bankers; only ten per cent. of them are the sons of
manufacturers; fifteen per cent. of them are the sons of merchants,
while over thirty per cent. of them are the sons of poor preachers and
farmers.

Why is it that ministers' sons hold a much more important place in the
industrial development of America than the sons of bankers? The
ministers' sons inherit no wealth, they have no more than their share of
college education; they are not especially religious as the world
measures religion. In fact, there is an old saying about "ministers'
sons and deacons' daughters." I would be false to my reputation as a
statistician to hold up these captains of industry as saintly examples
for young men to follow. But the fact remains nevertheless that these
men are creating America to-day. Now, what's the reason?

The reason is that these men have a combination of the two traits
already mentioned and a third added thereto;--namely, the habit of work.
They have inherited a certain rugged integrity from their mothers and a
gift of vision from their fathers which, when combined with the habit of
work--forced upon them by their family's meager income--means _power_.
Integrity is a dry seed until put in the ground of faith and allowed to
grow. But faith with works is prosperity.

A man may be honest and wonder why he does not get ahead; a man may have
vision and still remain only a dreamer; but when integrity and vision
are combined with hard work, the man prospers. It is the same with
classes and nations.

It has been said that genius is the author of invention. Statistics do
not support this statement. The facts show that industry is the mother
of invention. Struggle, sacrifice and burning midnight oil have produced
the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the printing press, the steam
engine, the electric motor, the telephone