Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 28, Number 20, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 13 November 1897 — Page 7

1:*

EOMAKCE OF SUCCESS

HOW S. S. M'CLURE, THE MAGAZINE MAN, WON HIS WAY.

HI* Laborio Da Boyhood on Indiana Farm—Throajjh College With a Buck Saw—Schoolteacher, Peddler, Bicycle Initrnctor—Syndicate Pioneer.

[Special Correspondence.]

NEW YORK, NOV. ft.—This ir the story of a plneky country boy's fight to win his way from the farm to a place of his own in the great world. His name is McClure. He was born in the north of Ireland 40 years ago. He was baptized Samnel S., and he is now editor and publisher of the magazine that bears his name. If ever there was a life story the perusal of which should en courage every ambitious young man, no matter how great the obstacles with which he has to contend, here it is.

A circumstance of that early period stands out bold and distinct in his memory. Ha was taken to a large town by an older member of his family, and the

s. s, M'CLUBK.

two put up at a hotel. A Catholic priest, who read a good deal from a Latin book, was a guest of the house at the same time. The Latin book had a strange fascination for the lad, and before he slept that night he made a solemn resolve that some day he, too, would learn to read in Latin.

Life on the Farm.

The McClnre family removed to the United States when S. S. was 9 years old, settling on a farm in northern Indiana some 16 miles from Valparaiso. It was a good farm, but it had to be paid for, and the McClure boys, of whom S. S. was the oldest, had to help every summer in the fields. As a result he was able to enjoy not moro than four or five mouths' schooling each year.

But ho thauked his stars for what he could get aud buckled down harder to his work in the hope that sooner or later he would bo able to realize his ambition with regard to learning Latin. He helped plant and harvest the corn. He held the plow handles day after day every spring and fall and could draw as long a furrow between sun and sun as any man in the neighborhood. He did every sort of farm labor before he was 18, except tlio very heaviest, such as pitching hay and grain, for which, of course, he lacked the weight and muscle. But he "loaded" the hay, which is the same as "trimming" cargo on shipboard, and stacked tho grain and straw, and thue practically filled the place of a man on tho farm. This sort of life went on till he was 14, and then he determined that the timo had arrived for a change.

Education Ilcgun.

So, bidding adieu to the farm, he went, to Valparaiso, whero anew public school system was just being inaugurated. Ho arrived there quite a stranger, but after some inquiries found a place where ho could "do chores for his board" and attend high school, having passed its examination without difficulty. He did not leave Valparaiso for good until lie was nearly 18, but every summer ho went out to earn money for his winter expenses. Tho summer ho was 15 ho taught school fort 14 a month and boarded round. Another summer he worked in a grocery store While in Valparaiso ho spent a good deal of timo around tho oflioe of tho local paper, whero ho learned to set type, to turn tho crank of the printing press and to "lock up" a "form." Before ho left the place ho was "doing" local news items and occasional "editorials."

When bo was 1?, bis stepfather died, and be had to go back to the farm and help his brothers carry it on. He remained there only half a year, but it was a great six mouths for the farm, for, owing to good weather and the vigorous way in which it was worked, it that year yielded the biggest crops of oats and corn and hay in its history. When fall came, be left the farm for the second time, his purpose being strong to continue his education, aud went to Guleshnrg, Ills., tho seat of Knox college, 200 miles from his home. When he readied Oalesburg, young McClure had only 18 cents in his pocket, and he knew uot a soul in the whole town. His plans for the future were extremely misty as to Retail, but there was one idea strongly domiuant in his mind. "I knew," he mid the other day, "that Gale,*burg was situated in the midst of one of the most fertile counties in the United States. I knew that no one would bo allowed to starve when surrounded by such plenty, and I knew that if did not starve 1 should surely succeed in getting through college."

Colles* tile,

It was young McClure *s intention to work for his board while attending col* lege, as he had at Valparaiso, but it was a full month before he was able to find a home. In the meantime, having passed the eiatmuarions and been enrolled as a student, he occupied an unused. unfurnished room in one of the dormitories. He made an empty box serve as a chair, but he cannot now re

member "where he slept. He lived cm bread, crackers and grapes at an expense of not moro than 60 cents a week, which be earned by sawing wood with a buck saw. "I lost a good deal of time hunting for wood to saw and other work to do," said Mr. McClure in telling the story, "and so when I became a trustee of the college some years ago I inaugurated a plan by which townsfolk who have work that students can do to give out are registered and classified. Students at Knox college do not now have to waste time looking for odd jobs, and any student who is willing to do a little wholesome work can get through easily on $500 for the entire course.

Before the second month was over he had found a place where he could work for his board. At the end of the college year he bad paid all his own expenses and had 6 to the good. The year he was 18 he worked all summer on a farm at $20 a month. He was offered $25 monthly if he would work eight months, but he declined this dazzling proposition, as it would interfere with his college work. One summer he pedaled needles and pins and tape. Another summer, after having mastered shorthand, he taught* that mystery to whoever desired to learn it. Owing to some dissensions in the board, he served as editor of the college paper, The Knox Student, during his last year at Galesburg. No one thought he could edit it, but his selection healed the quarrel, and to everybody's surprise he got out a very creditable little journal. He also acted as publisher, and in that capacity he secured advertisements and looked after the printing and the general expenses. While conducting The Knox Student he got up a history of western college journalism, which was much and favorably commented upon in western colleges generally.

S. S. McClure had no definite plans for the future when his college life w.as ended. Some of his classmates were going to study law, some intended entering journalism, others meant to teach and other to go into business. "What are you going to do, Sam?" asked a friend one day. 'I—why, 1 am going to Boston," he replied at random, not knowing what else to say.

And so it fell out that in June, 1882, when he was 25 years old, S. S. McClure stepped off a train in the Boston and Albany depot one pleasant, sunshiny morning. He had no personal acquaintances in the town and his purse was light. After several days' hard and unsuccessful search for a job, he noticed the name of a famous bicycle maker on a window and concluded to seek a place there. After a little parley with a clerk he succeeded in seeing the president of the company. He told this man that as publisher of a college paper in Galesburg he had printed some advertisements of the company's bicycles. The money for tho same had been promptly paid. He had then liked the way the house did business now he wanted to enter its employ. He was perfectly willing to do anything that was offered. The bicycle maker said that help was plenty and places scarce. Still he seemed impressed. 4

Would you wash windows and sweep floors?" he asked. Tho young man said he would willingly and was told to sit in the office for awhile.

This was on July 8, and McClure was told to wait on the supposition that more help might be needed than usual on the 4th at the bicycle rink controlled by tho company. Late in the afternoon he was informed that he might work next day and that his pay would be $1. His duties would bo to teach greenhorns how to ride the wheel. Now, McClure had never bestrid a bicycle in his life, and it was necessary that he should learn before the next morning. He was so anxious to work that this seemed an easy task. Indeed had any one asked him that afternoon whether he could navigate a transatlantic steamer he would have said yes, and tried it. He might have succeeded too. At all events, he fell off the wheel but once, and in less than ten minutes was sailing round and round the rink as though ho were a veteran wheelman. Next day when he went to work he was a veteran.

Syndicate and Magazine.

The job was to last only one day, but McClure stuck to it for weeks with a tenacity bom of desperaton. When there was no one to teach how to ride the wheel, be washed windows and swept floors. After awhile his employer, who often stopped to talk with him, suggested that he should edit a monthly periodical, to be called The Wheelman. McClure undertook this task and performed it creditably for some time, but at the end of a year and six months in Boston —in December, 1882—decided to come to New York.

Here he got work in a big printing house, where he had to look after proofs and attend to kindred duties. But he conldpsee no future in that place. So, after four or five months, he found a minor situation on the business staff of The Century Magazine writing circulars. advertisements, etc. Progress was slow there, too, and feeling that it would always remain so for him, he determined to start a syndicate for the famishing of fiction and other general matter to newspapers.

He got this notion from Mr. Dana of The Sun, who had purchased serial stories from Henry James, Bret Harte, W. D. Ho wells, etc., and sold them for simultaneous publication in several papers. This was in the fall of 1884, 13 years ago, and ever since that time the name of S. S. McClure has been familiar, alike to authors and publishers, as a dealer in literary wares. He had no capital at the beginning, and the money question was often a most serious problem with him. But he stuck to the line he had marked oat, worked early and late, systematised his duties, economised his minutes and won the fight.

Four year* ago, in 1893, he started his magazine. Today he is on the highroad to really phenomenal success.

DEXTXR MARSHALL.

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What It Bu Done For the Great State of California—It Furnl«h«:s Light, Beat and Irrigation—Streams Fed by Perpetual

Snow.

(Special Correspondence.]

REDLANDS, CaL, Nov. 3.—Water will do almost anything except revive the dead. Like rait, which the little boy declared to be that substance which made ffrjtatoes taste bad without it, water needs to be mixed with something else to show forth all its latent virtues. The old toper might object to this statement on the score that the less of it in his whisky the better he likes it But we were speaking of water, not whisky, and. again, the man who "topes" is not always in condition to pass an opinion.

Water judiciously applied has been the salvation of southern California. The problem confronting the settlers here was how to get from a dry but generous soil the dormant elements of fertility. It was solved by their going to the hills and mountains and tapping the streams which, fed by perpetual snows, had been running to waste ever since the period of creation.

Those who have seen a California stream—or the place where the stream ought to be—may recall that, like an ardent honeymoon, it is short, though it may have been sweet. Some one—I find the expression in Kate Sanborn's book, though Kate did not originate it —declared that all the rivers and streams of southern California ran bottom upward. This axiom, like many another terse expression of the people, is almost strictly true. No matter how fiercely, tumultuously, the mountain streams may flow, starting out on their wild career in the region of springs and snow banks, after they have reached the plains where the refreshing influence of their society is imperatively necessary they dive beneath the porous soil or sand and disappear.

You come, perchance, to a wide waste of sand or gravel, where, if you should have the misfortune to get lost, you would perish of thirst and are told that it is the bed of a stream. If it

shows an inw. or two of water on it, the southern Californian tells yon that if congress did its duty that stream would be made navigable and goes wild with joy if he happens to kind a fish in it. That being the character of the average lowland river and the Californian Mohammeds not being able to bring the mountains to the plains, they took counsel with common sense and themselves went to the mountains.

I might mention scores of towns and at least one city which have been indebted to water for their creation and their subsequent prosperity. While disclaiming any intention to make invidious distinctions, yet as it is necessary to confine my observation, in a limited article, to one or two examples, I select in the first instance the case of this flourishing town of Redlands. It has been called the Magic City, although perhaps not any more entitled to this designation than many another in this state, but in ten years, or from 1887 to 1807, it sprang at a bound from a simple country hamlet to a prosperous town, lighted by electricity, with hundreds of beautiful homes and 50,000 acres covered with orange groves.

Fourteen years ago last m6nth the great Bear valley dam was begun and completed a little over a year later- The town site is mountain surrounded on all sides except the west. Great snow covered peaks, such as those of San Bernar-

BEAR VAU.EY WATERWORKS FLUME.

dino, Gray Back and Old Baldy, rise skyward, attaining to an altitude of from 6,000 to 12,000 feet. Over behind old San Bernardino was. the partly drained bed of an ancient lake, which had once burst its bounds and riven a canyon through the mountain wall. It Is 6,030 feet above the sea and the stream flowing from it, called Bear creek, wasted itself in the larger torrent of Santa Ana river. Across the mouth of the canyon, where at one time ages ago the natural barrier had been bom away, an artificial dam was erected 63 feet high, thus impounding the waters of a lake now fife miles long and a mile in width, with water enough for irrigating 30,000 acres of land. By means of

TERRE HAUTE SATURDAY JJVEKTNGh MAEL, NOVEMBER 13, 1897.

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IT MAKES DESERTS TO REJOICE AND HILLS TO BLOSSOM.

PIPE LINE. BEAR VALLEY WATERWORKS.

cement conduits and snbsid-

jary reservoirs, the water is conducted to the valleys and lower foothills, and

there distributed, (thus converting what had bewa practically a desert section into a gtoen and blossoming garden.

The most notable instance of what water can do under intelligent guidance is on the outskirts of Red lauds, between the town and San Timoteo canyon. Such trite phrases as Edens and Paradises have long since been worn threadbare in describing the beauties of the Canyon Crest park, evoked from the soil of a formerly barren hillside by the Messrs. Smiley, natives of and summer residents in New York. Selecting 160 acres of the average soil of this section, they have, wholly through the influence of water acting upon it, converted a waste and barren tract into one of the most beautiful of parks. Here we find nearly all the trees and flowers of tropics and semitropics, acres of roses, gardens of geraniums and chrysanthemums, groves of olives, oranges, lemons, eucalypti, -pepper trees—in fact, running through the whole range of northern and southern flora, and all has been created within the space of seven years' time.

There is another aspect of this water problem, and, like the irrigation question, it is commercial. This is an age of utilities, and the prospect of that enormons volume of water in the Santa Ana canyon going to waste has appealed to another combination of business men, who have formed a company to hitch it to the car of electrical progress. In a small way—that is, for the lighting of Redlands—the Santa Ana river has been utilized to secure a current, but latterly it is proposed to furnish electricity to all the towns and cities within the tadins of 100 miles. Even Los Angelos, 75 miles away, as well as Pasadena, is to be provided with all its electric power from this canyon, conducted over cables, and guaranteed to yield not less than 5,000 horsepower.

There are other canyons with their streams descending to the lowlands, some of which have already been brought into the service of the electricians, but none in this section with the flow and fall of Santa Ana. The succe&s of the great scheme will cause anew business awakening, perhaps another boom, though from the latter the almost universal prayer is, Good Lord, deliver nslIP*^ vifcK FRKD A. OBE®.

The Skylark's Song.

la th(f%inter the skylark of England does not sing, but in early days of spring the great flocks of these birds break up, and then go in pairs to look for places to build their nests and rear their young ones. And then the charming song of the skylark is heard in all its sweetness. While the mother bird is brooding over her eggs to warm them her mate often rises into the air, and then with quivering wings mounts vertically upward so far that he looks like a mere speck in tho sky, and all the time pouring forth his rich and beautiful song, but at last ceases his song before descending again to the nest.—St. Nicholas. yc ftesentea. "That escaped criminal seems to have had rather the best of it," remarked the talkative friend. "Not at all, "replied the detective, drawing himself np haughtily. We've got him so frightened he doesn't dare show his face, where we are. "—Washington Star.

Bloomfield—You bet I have. He owns the property uow.—Pick Me Up.

In Vienna the height of a house must not exceed feet. The floor of the last story must not be more than 65.6 feet above the level of the street When the ground slopes, this measure must be taken from the highest point. The house must not have more than five stories, including the cellar and attica

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A TALK WITH MRS. PINKHAM

About the Cause of Anemia.

Everybody comes into this world with a predisposition to disease of some particular tissue in other words, everybody has a weak spot.

t|Wlierju You Order Your

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the weak spot in women is somewhere in the uterine system. The uterine organs have less re- f| sistance to disease than the vital organs that's why they give out the soonest.

nay, in five hundred—has perfectly .healthy organs of generation. This points to the stern necessity of helping one's self just as soon as the life powers seem to be on the wane.

Excessive menstruation is a sign of physical weakness and want of tone in the uterine organs. It saps the strength away and produces anemia (blood turns to water).

If you become anemic, there is no knowing what will happen. If your gums and the inside of your lips and inside your eyelids look pale in color, you are in a dangerous way and must stop that drain on your powers. Why not build up on a generous, uplifting tonic, like Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound?

MRS. EDWIN EHBIG, 413 Church St., Bethlehem, Pa., says: I feel it my duty to write and tell you that I am better than I have been for four years. I used Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, one package of Sanative Wash, one box of, Liver Pills, and can say that I am perfectly cured. "Doctors did not help me any. I should have been in my grave by this time if it had not been for your medicine. It was a godsend to me. I was troubled with excessive menstruation, which caused womb trouble. and I was obliged to remain in bed for six weeks. Mrs. Pinkham's medicine was recommended to me, and, after using it a short time, was troubled no more with flooding. I also had severe pain in my kidneys. This, also, I have no more. I shall always recommend the Compound, for it has cured me, and it will cure others. I would like to have you publish this letter." (In such cases the dry form of Compound should be used.)

ARE YOU GOING !h TO CALIFORNIA First-class Pullman Sleeper, via the Sunset Route, will leave every Tuesday and Saturday tor Los Angoles from St. Louis, through lthout change. Leave Terre Haute 1:37 leave St.

p. m., arrive St. Louis 6:50 p. m, Louis 10:00 p. m.. arrive Los Angeles Friday and Tuesday 2:30 p. Train consists of Composite car wltn Barber Shop compartment, car with Ladies' Obseivatlon Parlor, two or more Pullman Sleepers. None but first-class tickets honored on this train. Commencing on November 11th. and every Thursday, a Tourist car will be run through to Los Angeles from St. Louis on which second-class tickets will be honored. Wo also have rates and tickets via all other California routes. Call on us at Terre Haute House City Ticket Office.

E. E. SOUTH. General Agent.

CoXoxra

lEXY'S CREAM BALM la a positive core. Apply into the nostrils. It Is quickly absorbed. 60 ceuts at Druggists or by mall samples 10c. by mall. ELY BROTHERS, 5# Warren St., Nevfr York City.

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Not more than one woman in a hundred— ,|

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Thousand=Mile Ticket

Following Is a list of the lines over which the One Thousand-Mile Tickets of tho BIG FOUR issue will bo honored for exchange tickets:

Ann Arbor RRllroad. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway. Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad. Chicago & West Michigan Railway. Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley Railway. Cincinnati, Hamilton As Dayton Railway. Cleveland & Marietta Railway. Cleveland, Canton & Southern Railroad. Cleveland, Cincinnati. Chicago & St. Louis

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Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling Railway. Cleveland Terminal & Valley Railroad. Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railway. iibus, Sandusky Dayton & Union Railroad.

Columbus, Sandusky & Hocking Railroad.

Detroit & Cleveland Steam Navigation Co. Detroit, Grand Rapids & Western Railroad. Dunkirk. Allegheny Valley & Pittsburgh

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Evansville & Indianapolis Railroad. Evansvlllo & Terre Haute Railroad. Flndlay. Ft. Wayne & Western Railway Flint & Pore Marquette Railroad. Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway, Indiana, Decatur & Western Railway. LakoShoro& Michigan Southern Railway. Louisville & Nashville Railroad. (Between

Louisville and Cincinnati and between St. Louis and Evansville.) Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Consolidated Railroad. Louisville. Henderson & St. Louis Railway. Manistee & Northeastern Railroad. Michigan Central Railroad. New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad. Ohio Contral Lines. Pennsylvania Lines west of Pittsburgh. Peoria, Decatur Evansvlllo Railway. Pittsburgh & Lake Erlo Railroad. Pittsburgh & Western Hallway. Pittsburgh, Lisbon & Western Railway. Toledo, St. Louis & Kansas City Railroad. Vandal la Line. Wabash Railroad. Zanesvllle & Ohio River Railway. These books sell for {30.00, and are not transferable. If tho ticket is used In Its entirety and exclusively by the original purchases a rebate of TEN DOLLARS will be paid, provided tho cover Is properly certified and returred within elghteon months from the date of Its Issue. -t E. E. SOUTH, General Agent.

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FORSIG3ST BXCHAVGE V-

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TERRE HAUTE, IND.