“What marked traits have the influential men, with whom you have been
associated, possessed, which most impressed you?”
“A habit of thinking and acting for themselves. No end of people are
ruined by taking the advice of others. This may answer temporarily,
but in the long run it is sure to be disastrous. Any man who hasn’t
ability to judge for himself would better get a comfortable clerkship
somewhere, letting some one of more ambition and ability do the
thinking necessary to run the business.”
“Are the opportunities for making money as numerous to-day as they were
when you started in business?”
“Yes, the progress of science and invention has increased the
opportunities a thousandfold, and a man can find them wherever he seeks
them, in the United States in particular. It has caused the field of
employment of labor of all kinds to expand enormously, thus creating
opportunities which never existed before. It is no longer necessary for
a man to go to foreign countries or distant parts of his own country
to make money. Opportunities come to him in every quarter. There is
hardly a point in the country so obscure that it has not felt the
revolutionizing influence of commercial enterprise. Probably railroads
and electricity are the chief instruments in this respect. Other
industries follow closely in their wake.”