I have heard it said a hundred times that Mr. Wanamaker started when
success was easy. Here is what he says himself about it:—
“I think I could succeed as well now as in the past. It seems to me
that the conditions of to-day are even more favorable to success than
when I was a boy. There are better facilities for doing business,
and more business to be done. Information in the shape of books and
newspapers is now in the reach of all, and the young man has two
opportunities where he formerly had one.
“We are much more afraid of combinations of capital than we have any
reason for being. Competition regulates everything of that kind. No
organization can make immense profits for any length of time without
its field soon swarming with competitors. It requires brain and muscle
to manage any kind of business, and the same elements which have
produced business success in the past will produce it now, and will
always produce it.”
I have heard others marvel at the unbroken upward course of Mr.
Wanamaker’s career, and lament that they so often make mistakes. But
hear him:—
“Who does not make mistakes? Why, if I were to think only of the
mistakes I have made, I should be miserable indeed.”