The evening world. Newspaper, April 9, 1919, Page 20

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1919 | F arm Boy's Dreamy Ambition; Made Him a Merchant King, Gave World Tallest Building MAXIMS OF F. W. WOOLWORTH ECRET OF HIS SUCCESS. REVEAL § “Playing Store’ and “Bu ite Pastimes of }oungster Whose Parents Wanted | Him to Grow Up a His Own Dreams and Made Them Both Come True. these of his life when he was sixty-seven, worth something If Frank Woolworth's parents as th memory, were very poor farm people. N. Y., from Rodman, N. Y., where he | Say WINFIELD WOOLWORTH'S first memories of himself were summer, because his father could not afford to buy anything more r than the one pair of high boots which lasted the boy through the winter months only. He had no overcoat; on particularly cold days he went out. with bis mother’s shaw! wrapped about him | \ Ho wanted to “play store; his faths )~ i \ er had not a penny for the purchase | were not a great many articles which =) of the stock for a store of which a} board at the front gate of the farm- house yard was the counter, The boy sipped away from home for a day, picked hops all day, earned 9 cents and bought a stock for his play store The elder Woolworth did not like the youngster’s fondness for store- keoping. The boy did not seem to him sufficiently practical for business he dreamed too much. But the moth ee told him that if he could find # way to do something better than tramping about a barnyard and farm all of his life sho would do all she could to help hin. ("No man can make a success of a business which he does not like ; more than capital, more than sharp wits, he must have enthust- tam for the thing which he is do- tng. Mazims of F. W. Wool- worth.) Another of his momories of fifty- eight years ago was of a shanty which he and his brother built, It was just euch a board shack as nearly every country boy builds sometime between eight and fifteen—but this one was different. His five-year-old brother Herbert thought it was finished when the sia feet square structure was high enough so that their heads would not bump the roof. But it was not big enough for Frank. He wanted a dif- ferent sort of a playhouse from any- thing any other boy had built. He made three stories on the shack with a hole in the floor of each story 80 that he and Herbert could wriggle up from one to the other. About fifty years later he set to work in the heart of lower New York to put up a “different building.” It Was to cost almost $5,000,000 when he began planning it. He had paid over $13,000,000 by the time it had become the tallest building in the world and the most marvellous feature of all New York's sky !ine (“Dreaming never hurts anybody 4f he keeps working right behind the dream to make as much of it come real as he can."—Maxims of F. W. Wooheorth.) By the time he was nineteen years ol Frank Wool-vorth had saved $50. He wanted to learn business in a store, A generous proprietor took him on for a year, stipulating that he should receive no wages for the first six months and $340 a week the next. By the time he was twenty- three years old he had saved an other $50, though he had married on $10 a week and had been reduced to $8 a week because he was 4 poor salesman. Working for Moore & Smith In Watertown, young Woolworth got their permission to try the experiment of a 6 cent counter. It was to deal only in articles which could be sold at a profit for 6 cents, but which had een carried slong in the stocks of general stores at prices giving from 200 to 1,000 per cent. profit, 1 plan worked pretty well, but there a PUZZLES By Sam Loyd. How to Raise Chickens W HILE discussing practical ways and means with his good wife Farmer Jones aid: we should sell off 78 chickens, as I “Now, Maria, if — | ilding Houses’’ Two Favor-| Farmer But He Followed “Being a Merchant’’ nine years old. He died yesterday at ke $50,000,000. | ey were back In the beginnings of his py had just moved to South Bend, was born. He could not t in ve shoe came within the range of a § cent 4 retail price, and before long Water- town was pretty well stocked with] them and the counter dwindled. ' Moore & Smith lent the young man_ $300. Ho had $50. He went to a side street tn Utica, after picking ap) } all the job lots in nearby cities that his capital would cover, and spent) / part of his last $5 telegraphing for| | the gooda to be shipped. He made * noney, but business was dwindling us the stock ran out and he closed the store, shipped the remaining goods to Lancaster, Pa, and atarted over| again, . ("Never be afraid to run If the | business isn’t going ahead right it is your fault, not luck. Back out | and take @ fresh start.”—Mazima of F. W. Woolworth) The one thing that kept him from! failure in the present everyday sense of the word—bankruptey, according to Mr. Woolworth, was the fact that { he refused to have anything in his | ° store for which he had not paid cash He found that he could buy cheaper | for cash and that he kept bis nerve | better. He was never quite sure that, } he could not have made the Utica store go if he had not been oppressed by the necessity of paying back the $300 he borrowed from Moore and, Smith. To make his dream of an unending stream of small profits come true, Mr. Woolworth made up his mind that, he must buy in such large quantities that he could keep his stock chang! & ing aN the time, transferring between cities if need be as the market for! certain kinds of dishes, hand mirrors, | Job lot hardware and the like ran out He began taking partners to him-i self, one in each aity where he opened a store or gtores, He made the resi-| dent partner the city manager and set himself to the bigger job—and easier for him—of keeping the stocks Interesting and changing. (When you put a ma: of @ branch of your bu him alone unless he asks for help. Tf your judgment was good in put- | ; ting him there he will not ruin you | and he is to be trusted; if your ¢ judgment is not good you have no right to be in business.”—Maxims of F, W. Woolworth.) Franklin Woolworth formed all the partnerships in his stores into one corporation and capitalized it at $65,- 000,000, He made many of his forincr partners richer than the dreams of all of them, including himself. put to- gether. Ho travelled. He saw thoro Wag no fixed uniform low price stores in England. He inquired, British friends told him {t could not be done. Hoe started five right away, ten the! next year and th were twenty-five before he d the attention of his doubtful friends to them. “Ilwman nature is the same the world over. Liking to buy some- thing for a small that you must pay more for elsewhere is not @ matter of climate or language." The By Zoe Beckley ALLIE had been brought up to spend. been a Southern beauty of the sort “waited on hand and foot.” When she poor but “rising” young New York lawye her own boots. sum mands of his lovely wife. Woolworth Building. {callie her boast that she “couldn't boil an ege” Who Are N Ano euler BUILOING IN 4, tS: BOYHOOD REALIZED AT Copyright, 1919, by the Press Publisbiug Co (The New York Evening World.) Her mother had who had married been a it had heen or jace The young lawyer had nearly killed himself in the process of rising to the financial de- But he had finally done it, thereby furnishing an argument for those who contend up that it is the extravagant woman who “makes” a man Marims of F. W. W worth, after all. New York real estate experts, who aed ee bie ak Wak ss Ga te When Callie became engaged to young Belford it porvative cersone.dn the world, tried , Rever occurred to her to make allowances for him te talk china Gul oF ) while he was “rising.” He was supposed to be “risen.” wanted to go right on from the point of fortune where her father honest if you can get people | strong minded ideas to interfere with) He with dispensed a clerk it could not be financed, He f had left off. However unreasonable it might be, she desired to be sup it himself. They told him th ported “in the manner to which she was accustomed.” Surely one must could not be rented profitably, He! go forward. ver back. 4 cin: lived to see it filled up, Belford loved her dearly, for Calli: | owned and scraped up enough cast “You can sel! anything which tg | Was exceedingly pretty and had no} to buy suitable furniture and propose, our} enough around with the money to ‘her being sweetly feminine, Kn-| worked four nights a week to provid stock of feed! pay Who wouldn't move into q |thusiastically the young man leaped | moncy for servant and taxi hire ( would last just 20] Building at an honest rent when he | into debt for the engagement ring Hing to wait till next year daye longer,| can say to a cu in dion Nose to grindstone, he paid the last Acar), But his wife looked while ifwe should] Kong or ¢ Boats ia i‘ nt on the night bef in her new gowns (a ameest.| the tallest building in the world the He was entitled to| new home in her new ha 8 tha Mohody (a ever repha - breath of relief and self-con-|Belford’s heart smote him for com- that address. Maxima of FW eratulation pla ning even secretly “Well, now, Josiah, how many] woolworth Hut no sooner had that burden} “She has always beon used to chickens have we, anyhow?” ~ beer aa wien a thousand other hina he told imsett, ¢ That's the problem—how many t > 4 were laid upon him, Callie select not be denied them now rolitable Souvenirs vartment wt as $500 a ye fo he tolled or 1 ¢ , chickens have they, anyhow? Pi : ouvenirs an apartment whi t me $500 a year ‘mane fal Jon, And pe ANSWER TO TWO GENTLEMEN 11H first American War Savings | m¢ ¢ oxen Hye Ban the one. hier ta-|and spen ian Willie had travelled 72 miles and|.. > eee Kio and | OU ae a dcp rom Ca and Dusty only 64 wren they fi Yokohama, and are p quite aj years Belford winced to the quick) it pleasant He took fe ve to lun 4 ‘i ¥ frst met, #0 | curiosity. As the number on hand ia|@t the price of tt. ‘The day they|at the Savarin and got a positive the distance from Joytown to Pleas- jimited, th tamp mais . coved . t nen : . H , the s 8 eing snapped | moved in he put through a@ second] hrill out of the excellently propor @otville was 126 miles, i eA Up as souvenirs of Lhe wag. paerisese on some real getate he) tioned tp of & he gave ihe walicy. rela of mopex” » » « The Dream of a Boy of Nine A Bk eS ‘Bae THE Taccesr } HE WORLD-, ggean And How It Came True at Sixty Pages From the History of F. W. Woolworth, Whose Boyhood ‘Biggest Play- house’’ Grew Into the ‘“‘World’s Tallest Building’’ ew Yorkers? Spenders—No. 5 On the nights he wasn't delving at he office he and Callle made up little parties" of friends. They dined | ul went to the theatre, supped af- | torward (not that they were a-hunger hut because it was something to do), went to a midnight frolic and wound | up at their own flat who piled out into the kitchen for a last drink and a last hilarious snack whatever was in the icebox.” how Belford did the paying at of the festivit ey attended | ‘They didn't go much to other people's with the crowd am r youses; Mostly to restaurants and cafes and cabarets, The other men asionally protested or “chipped in” on the final reckoning. But whenever there was any hesi- tation on th aiter’s part Belford’s was the } that reached for the bill—and settled it with a graceful gesture, though the $50 note with which he paid might be the last ictual cash he had, Next morning} he would be furrowing his brow and} beating the business bushes for more |money. But by perpetual Jabors, mental and physical, and often after the most wringing anxieties, he got t-—-and went on 5 He jained t of being | dining ‘ waiting es, Belford could lift his eyebrows at the headwaiter and| lhe given a choice location, People | wo d nudge one another and say: he Belfords—pretty woman, 1sn't she? Look at that gown! Husband's , famous plunger in the street, Bar- kept), spent money one day. They loved of them. it, an yapartment which t nothing to do bu time. In in, Belford burst out, t openmouthed amazement, “Two thousand and cig! good God, are you me?” Callie shut her in a long breath nostrils. the Belfords, The hollowness life together never occurred to theM/yiue padded st at least not for a good many years. Callie had nothing to do. no children, no house to keep (only order to spend She rather overdid it And when the bills came try mouth through quivering and Whose Dream of Also Came True With Proportionate Magnitude. i and land on our beds. Thats a jokin | boat. jengineers has a bet of five dollars on | i | who geo | got the whole ‘and blown to pieces any minit. | iwant to get this stuff off before we! ; sink. By LIEUT. EDWARD STREETER of the 27th (N. Y.) Division. (Author of “Dere Mable.’”) Illustrated by CORPL. G. WILLIAM BRECK. A Series of Letters to “Dere Mable” from “Bill,” the Rookie, Describing fis Further Adventures in the army. ORE MABLE: | Proper Gander workin. We been runnin three days now end no. sign of land yet. I wouldn't be surprised if we woke up some mornin in Chickawgo or some other place on the Specific const. I aint sick yet I dont seem ta need as much food as I used to, though Im gettin on ¢o this naughty call stuff fast. Quick. ‘Thats me all over, Mable, Theres a few things about the boat though that I dont know yet. For instance they got pipes comin out of the deck ali over like Sibly stoves upside down. I thought they was for rubbish. I was just remarkin to Joe Loomis how neat they was to have such things. We was makin a point jor pickin up everything we saw and firin {t down them. Then one of the | Ships officers came along and you'd ought to have herd him. Youd have thought he wee tryin to blow up the old tug, instead of keepin it clean for him. He said the funnels was for carryin fresh air to the mens quarters. I says I guessed the one that carried air down to eur quarters got clogged before we started. They close all the windows every night. Angus MacKenzie, the skoteh fello, says that sos the Germans wont fire torpetoes throngh the windows way he has of speakin of the pieces of canvas we sleep on, Were havin a race with another Its awful close. We been racin now ever since we started and nel- ther of us has gained yet. I here the in first. I dont know who can be on the other boat cause we| army on ours. Mable, I got to quit now were liable to be submarined Well, cause Don't worry about me. Yours till I touch bottom both of She had he servants t spend her time she o his wife's hty dolars— ing to ruin and drew “What do you mean, speaking Mke that to me advancing " she clippe sharply tow ed her words, ard him Belford clasped both hands to his forehead and stared at the sheaf of bills, Then quite suddenly he flopped into a chair, his arms spread out upon the table, his head upon them, It was ness, “Complete nerve breal doctor said in a He was so used tone, the beginning of his in down,” the unemotional mplete to ¢ nervous break-downs, Though luecra tive, they were monoton: “When he's stronger,” Callie who stood by in ts rose color upon her et him away to some ed him put him to bed business, If he doesn't ing over money matte cimp glanced ever so swiftly down winking and avenworking to buttermilk and us. he turned to a hundred- | dollar neglige which reflected none of white face, quiet place. poached at 9 o'clock and ‘kill anybody who tries to talk stop worry. the phyel- 0=O=6 “| DON'T SEEM TO NEED AS MUCH FOOD AS | USED TO.” when we sink all men gets Reveived at Pailopelie | boats and the officers hang on ts was in Theres somethin wrong some Aap onr where. I been lookin over the row | boats to see whats the matter wit) | them, | ‘They got a lot of skotch fellos on board. I dont know where they cain Tears |from. Joe Loomis suys they uint Bright and funny to the last, | pure cause they dont wear ribbor Oveee we!) a1 be sunk e20n on their bon and do wear pant 0 ehange to have somethin goin But he aint 10 1k abo 1 dollar (11) © word, Wouldot deve said We all got issued tin huts before we | I guess theyll give us sheet ate much but I borroved the soney fron Joe | | | iron undervlose next It takes a lo Loomis, Wedshere spent it for semethio. without hurtin’ foolish anybor, | time to wear a tin hat yourself. If you move qutck it slides Tours Uhrough al) ope ant dome |down over your eyes and bursts you |in the nose, Thats why they chargo jin @ walk I guess, ‘They got musia'o BRE MABLE: |nettin Inside sos it wont hurt your D No land y It wed been) head. If you take that out it makes ' goin in a strafeht Mne wed/a good wash basin or a mess kil. | have passed Y e by this time.|Joe Loomis a Angus got arguia I suppose theyll keep us goin round| yesterday, Joe clatmin that they wo in circles like this the wars over.|no good and Angus min that you Joe Loomis says | three thousand | couldnt hurt a guy what had one oa. (3000) miles Thats silly| Angus got so sore he bet a qu. though. It aint as far as that from/To decide it Joe put on his hat ; N. ¥, to Chickawgo. let Angus hit him on the bean wit} My room is way down stairs In the! piece of lead pipe. Joe always w sub cellar, All there is between me/lucky. He won the quarter and nc and the bottom of the sea is the floor.|hes livin on A deck where the hi across eens If theyd stuck me down any further | pital is. An the Dr, says he alat got it wouldnt have been such a long}a chance of dyin which is more n jdrop at that, Each fello has a little|most of us can say. I guess thes !l raight Jacket to wear!sink us to-day, I got to quit now. while hes sinkin, There awful heavy.| Yours till the third time down, I guess there to keep us warm while | BILL were drownin, Joe Loomis says there | to pull us down quick sos we dont At Over, suffer, The Captin says to-day that | TWO MINUTES OF OPTIMISM By Herman J. Stich | Copyright, 1919, by the Prow Publishing Co, (The New York Bening World.) A Good Governor ou exercise the gift of gab you'll be credited with little else, To hold your own, hold your tongue. As soon as the kitten’s Jet ow of the bag it turns wildcat, When in doubt say nothing, Small talk is a pretty good gauge of your siz Prattle and twaddle tattlé your ignorance and incompetence. Be a spendthrift of your tongue and you'll shortly have little besides to spend. Put # bridle on your tongue and you're jockeying a thoroughbred, A rattling tongue is a sure sign of a rattlebrain. If your tongu: runs on wheels people are apt to think a few have slid down frou | above, Syllables are said to govern the world but the tongue governs syllables. Get a good goverpor! shimmering chiffon In fact, there Were all balled up. There aint no doubt now that its Germam - anently—er—queer, I thought he w my in again to-morrow." dear, Wisp ‘The next afternoon ho found Ca his ‘pillow; “U'va unde in a simple walking suit ing, fearned somethin ‘I've been out,” she said, “thinking ti n my silly life, f things over, It ng to be—differ- | thought it was just money we were ent, doctor wh cls well, tia] spending. It's life and len gd WILL get well, won't he? opportunity, Hurry and xt But it was along timo before Bel-| well. I want to show you the darling ford got well, He had years of lato hours, overeating, overdrinking, over. three-room Shiny Beach fun." bungalow I've taken ut It's going to be more aa