The first duty of a human being in this world is to take himself off
other people's backs. I would go to work at something for which my
fellow men would be willing to pay. I would not wait for an Ideal
Job. The only ideal job I ever heard of was the one some other
fellow had.
It is quite important to find the best thing to do. It is much more
important to find something to do. If I were a young artist, I would
paint soap advertisements, if that were all opportunity offered,
until I got ahead enough to indulge in the painting of madonnas and
landscapes. If I were a young musician, I would rather play in a
street band than not at all. If I were a young writer, I would do
hack work, if necessary, until I became able to write the Great
American Novel.
I would go to work. Nothing in all this world I have found is so
good as work.
I believe in the wage system as the best and most practical means of
coördinating human effort. What spoils it is the large indigestible
lumps of unearned money that, because of laws that originated in
special privilege, are injected into the body politic, by
inheritance and other legal artificialities.
If I were twenty-one I would resolve to take no dollar for which I
had not contributed something in the world's work. If a
philanthropist gave me a million dollars I would decline it. If a
rich father or uncle left me a fortune, I would hand it over to the
city treasury. All great wealth units come, directly or indirectly,
from the people and should go to them. All inheritance should be
limited to, say, $100,000. If Government would do that there would
be no trouble with the wage system.
If I were twenty-one I would keep clean of endowed money. The
happiest people I have known have been those whose bread and butter
depended upon their daily exertion.