Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1920 — Americanism [ARTICLE]

Americanism

By LEONARD WOOD

Everybody likes and respects ■ self-made men. It ii » great 1 deal bettor te bo made that way than not to be nee de at all.— Oliver Wendell Mplme.. . IF AMERICANS Md not like selfmade men they would be in a constant state of robeiMrm against the commandment which tells yon to lore jtnir neighbor. One es the glories of this country is that M Is the land of opportunities. Self-made men are the product of the equality of opportunity, America la full of such men. If It were not for the possibilities which Ue tn the field of American opportunity few- immigrants would care to come here and few American-born youths would like to live here? The chance to “make one’s self' is the American chanee and it is a chance taken in a lottery where there are a thousand fold more prizes than blanks There is something which might be said about the self-made man which perhaps ordinarily is not said nor even thought about. Every American who amounts to anything is a self-made man. Some of them are not so called simply because they may have been born to riches, but no child born to riches ever made anything of himself unless he underwent the process of seif-making. don’t think of men as men unless they are worthy. It Is harder at times for a boy bom to wealth to make anything of himself than it is for a boy, born to poverty. In one case the incentive to effort is absent, while In the other it Is sharply present America is full of incentives for-the acquirement of manhood In all that the word implies. It is safe enough to say that pinetenths of the men of worthy lives in America are men who have nude themselves and their lives v. orthy. There is no royal road to mi nhood. It is ai fairly easy road, h«»wi ver, for the man who takes the oceash nal stumble and the occasional hard i.-nock with true American philosophy and who keeps on unfaltering. Ame. lca is a land of opportunity. Self-mai-e men are a part of Its worthy heritage. L The Home Economic Club will meet at the Domestic Science room of the Rensselaer high school, Saturday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock. A demonstration wiH be given. Advertise in the Republican.