Every man is judged by his home life.
What kind of a son are you? In answering this question which will be
asked to determine your character, the only answer possible to insure
favorable consideration is “a good son.”
The home life of the nation and of the race is vital. If you are a home
preserver or a home builder, your station in life is assured.
To sum up the requirements you should stand upon the platform open to
the eyes of all men as a good son, faithful brother, kind father,
helpful friend, and a good citizen. It is not difficult. Such virtues
come to be a habit if practiced faithfully.
It is easier to be all these than to be vicious, and wrong with your
parents, family, and relatives.
“Honor thy father and thy mother that the days may be long in the land
which I will give thee.”
Something of a promise, is it not? It is a promise that has been
strictly kept since the world began.
Your mother suffered for you; your father struggled for you, and you can
not repay them with ingratitude. You may be higher than they, better
educated, more of a social ornament, but you are theirs, and only the
vain, foolish and wicked would neglect them.
It does not pay to treat them with contumely and scorn because they do
not make the same fine appearance you do. There is no man or woman on
this earth of higher social value to you than your parents.
If you are a man of family, remember that you are building up a
posterity. You have fulfilled a noble mission, the greatest on earth.
They owe you something, but the indebtedness is mutual, you owe them
much.
_Do Not Drink Alcohol Or Form Other Bad Habits_
Drink is the curse of the age, and it has been truly said of it “A man
is a fool who will put that in his mouth which will steal his brains.”
The habit of drinking intoxicating liquors is not a mere personal vice,
it is public and affects every person belonging to or connected with
you.
Looked at from a business standpoint, it is a destroyer of opportunity,
and undermines the most brilliant prospects in life. It leads to moral
and physical death.
If you hope to win you must not drink intoxicating liquors, it matters
not whether you can stand them or not. They will get you finally,
besides that, nobody wants a man who drinks.
Drink brings on other habits that are destructive of character and
opportunity. A man who gambles will drink. Why? Because he knows he is
doing something he should not do, and the drink hardens his conscience.
The hardening process continues and he forms all sorts of bad habits.
The more he forms the more reckless he becomes, then it is a case of
“Good night” to everything decent and noble, or worth having.
There are few cures to bad habits. They become diseases in the course of
time, and fatal diseases, besides encouraging other diseases by reducing
the resisting power of the body.
There is a preventive to all bad habits, however, and only one—never
take your first drink of intoxicating liquor; never gamble for a first
stake; never taste the first dose of cocaine to know how it will affect
you. In other words: never begin a bad habit and it can not become your
master and crowd you out of the companionship of men.
_Do Not Be a Spendthrift_
The man who squanders his hard earned money is an enemy to himself.
By squandering money is meant expending it for something you do not need
and which is of no value, use, or merit.
“A penny saved is a penny earned” is a well known saying, also “Take
care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.”
Don’t imagine it looks big when a young man is with his companions and
throws his money right and left. Does he gain their respect? Never. They
look upon him as a fool and while they are willing to take advantage of
his “liberality,” it will always be noticed that they never reciprocate.
They are wiser than he.
It is not necessary to be a miser either, for that is the other extreme
and equally as reprehensible.
No man should live on crusts and hoard away his money for some public
administrator to find and spend in fees when he is dead.
Neither can a man waste his money and expect to have any left for the
rainy day that always comes to every mortal. Such a man says when he is
too old to earn money, and is kicked about from pillar to post without
friends or companions: “If I had only saved my money when I was young, I
might be a rich man now.” That is quite true, but you wasted your money
and you have reached the end of your chapter in life.
What do you want money for anyway? You can live on bread and water.
There is a great question in this idea. We have needs; we have rights to
be observed, to marry, to be decent, to live in healthy places, raise a
family and educate them. All these things make a man, an American
citizen, and if you throw away the money to make you these things, then
you can not become any of them. In that case you are—nothing. Do you
aspire to be a nonentity?