A good front is a distinct asset. A good front is made up of neat,
clean clothes, on a clean body, the whole housing a clean mind. A man
with clean clothes on a dirty body, or dirty clothes on a clean body,
is not wanted anywhere in the business world; and there is no place in
the heavens above or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth,
that has room for the man with the dirty mind.
But with the clean mind inside the clean body, and neat, simple, clean
clothes on the outside of it, the young man has all the essentials
of a good front. Anything more is superfluous and tends to make him
ridiculous. Simplicity is the keynote.
This moralizing on the value of front is suggested by observations
and comparisons of the habits of certain Chicago millionaires, and
the ways of some of their cheap clerks, the latter having exaggerated
ideas of putting up a false appearance of prosperity.
These comparisons were so striking that they attracted the attention
of Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge, and during the course of his
regular work he found time to tabulate a little, with startling
results.
The detective found that there are in Chicago many young men living
on very meager salaries, who have such exaggerated notions of the
value of a prosperous appearance that they overshoot the mark, and
frequently, as result of trying, as they think, to "look like a
millionaire," they often succeed in looking very much like the famous
animal with very long ears and a loud voice which one spoke to the
prophet Baalam.
[Illustration: (Man in top hat walking next to man in buggy)]
"It is easy to distinguish the real millionaire," said the great
detective, in discussing this subject. "If he wants to get anywhere
in a great city and his automobile happens to be engaged, he takes
the same means of getting there as does the toiler in the mills or
factory; he walks, or he rubs elbows on the street cars with the
laboring men, many of whom never know that they are brushing against
the owner of millions."