Then Randolph turned to me.
"Man, write that story you’ve told us. Write it
so that every man may read. Send that message out into
the world. If men will read that story, read and
re-read, until it is written on their memories, if men will
believe the message you bring, and then if they will but
awaken that something within their souls that now lies asleep
– I say if you can make men do this, you will have done more
for mankind than any man or any thousand men have done in
many, many years. Write it, man, write it word for word as you
have told it here, so every man may read. Write it, man, write
it."
And so it has been written.
______________
This happened a long, long time ago.
I never see a man limp without
thinking of that day.
The sky wept.
No rift of brighter color broke the
drabness of it.
I thought the universe wept.
That was my outlook.
The very times were in misery.
Men were out of work.
I was one of them.
I had slept the night before on the
cold, cement floor of the city’s jail. I slept as a
tired dog sleeps, a dog worn out with a fruitless chase.
All of the night before, I had walked, walked, walked – my
pride keeping me from this place. And so the day had
found me walking, aimlessly, looking only for food, shelter
and work. This could not last forever, so that night I
had stumbled down the low, narrow hallway of the jail, and
been let into a barred cell with a hundred others. And
there I had lain as one dead, on the cold, hard floor.
But it is of the day that followed
that night in jail that you shall hear.
For that was the day of my life.
It was then I found "That
Something."
______________
My feet were very tired. My soul
wept with the sky.
I stood, as in a wilderness alone, on
the corner of a great thoroughfare in a great city.
And then a man stopped by my side.
He was of my height and build. I caught a glimpse of his
face. I thought that this man might have been myself, if
. . .
But my present need drove out
reflections. I laid my hand on his arm. "I am
hungry," I said simply.
He turned slowly and looked at me.
First his gaze took in every detail of the outer man, from my
water-soaked cap to my poor, cracked shoes. And then,
through my eyes, he seemed to search my soul.
I stood there ashamed. I laugh
when I think of that now, but it was different then.
"Well," he said presently,
"suppose you were fed. What then?" I
shifted my weight from one tired foot to the other.
"I’d try to get a job somewhere," I muttered after
a moment. "You’d try?" he asked.
"Yes, try," I answered, "although there is
little chance. Nobody wants men now. I'll try,
sir. But I don't care for that now – it's food I want.
I'm hungry. Can you help me?"
"No," he answered, a note of
pity in his voice. "I cannot help you. No man
can." "But you could feed me," I said,
with some petulance in my voice. "It is not food
you need!" "What then?" I asked. "That
Something," was his reply.
A man joined him. They began
talking of matters of mutual interest. I was shuffling
away through the drizzling, miserable rain, when he called me
back and handed me his card. "Man, go find ‘That
Something’," he said, "and when you’ve
found it, come to me." "Come to you for
what?" I asked. "To thank me," was his
answer, and he and his friend passed on.
______________
There
were two words that stuck in my memory. "That
Something!" I fell to wondering. I
turned into a pool room, and found a seat. I sat there
thinking. The balls on the tables before me clicked
nickels away from men who could ill afford the pleasures of
the place. I sat there a long, long time. There
was nowhere else to go.
Ahead of me I saw another night in
jail. Yet the day seemed longer than the night. It
was warm in there. The hum of voices, the regular click,
click, click of ivory, the occasional thumping of cue on
marble floor – all this in time developed into a dull chorus
of monotony. And then I fell asleep.
I believe in God. I believe in
miracles. I believe in visions as well. But it is
only natural that I should have dreamed of "That
Something" – so perhaps it was neither miracle nor
vision.
You will think it is a foolish dream;
yet it changed my life. That’s reason enough for the
telling. You may laugh at it scornfully; then my dream
will do you no good. You may see in it what I saw; then
you will take your place with the masters of men.
______________
This
was my dream: I dreamed that I awoke! That is the most
wonderful part of the dream; for in my dream I realized that I
had been asleep – a long, long sleep from the very beginning
of things – and I saw myself, there in the pool room, asleep.
Then I saw myself start, my eyes opened, and I dreamed that I saw.
"What awakened me?"
I asked in my dream. "You awakened yourself,"
answered a voice nearby. I turned about, but no one was
near. "Who are you?" I asked. "I am
'That Something'," came the reply.
"But where are you?" "I am hidden in your
soul."
______________
For
some moments I thought over what was said. Then I
stammered, "How – how did you get there?"
"I was born there." "Why have I not known
you were there before?" "No man knows
it," answered the voice, "until he awakes."
"Are you in other men’s souls, as well?"
"There is 'That Something' in every man’s
soul, which can move the mountains or dry the seas."
"Then you must be Faith!" "Yes,"
came the answer, "I am Faith, but I am more – I am that
which makes men face the fires of hell, and win."
"Then you must be Confidence, as well."
"Yes, I am more than Confidence – I am that which makes
the babbling brooks lift worlds upon their wavelets."
"You are Power," I cried. "Yes, I am more
than Power," answered the voice. "I am that
which makes the wretched failure lift up himself and rule the
world." "You are Ambition – I know you
now." "Yes, I am all you say – Faith,
Confidence, Power, Ambition, and more. For greater than
all is ‘That Something.’ I am that which
every man must find in his soul or else he will be but a
clutter of the earth on which he lives."
"But how can man find you?"
"Even as you are finding me now. First you must
awaken, then seek, and when you have found you must learn to
control . . ." "Control what?" I asked,
confused. "‘That Something’ . . .
borrow it from your soul and baptize your life with it.
Anoint your eyes, that you may see; anoint your ears, that you
may hear; anoint your heart, that you may be!"
"But tell me," I cried
frantically, for the voice was trailing off to almost nothing,
"how can I do this? How? How?" "This is
the secret," came the voice to me as the whisper of a
gentle breeze, "these words – 'I will'."
And then I awoke with a start.
A man was shaking me roughly. "Clear out of here!
We ain't running no free rooming house for bums. If you
want to sleep, take a sleeper, but get out of here."
"I will," I answered unthinkingly, as I turned
towards the door. "I will."
My words brought back the dream
vividly. I stood in the doorway, peering out into the
rain. A boy with a dozen bundles stopped near me to
shift his load. "I’ll help you, son," I
said, and laughed gladly as I took half his load and started
with him down the street. "Gee, mister, dat’s
pretty square of you, all right. How far are you going
this way?" "Where are you taking these
things?" I asked. He told me. "Why,
that’s right where I’m going," I answered in mock
surprise. And so we hurried on our way.
It was then the clouds overhead began
to break. Before we had gone half way, the sun peeped
out and the boy laughed with pure delight of it.
"By golly, mister, she’s going to be some handsome day
tomorrow, ain’t it?" "I will," I
answered absently. He looked up at me, startled by my
answer, started to ask a question, thought better of it, and,
giving me another queer look, trudged on in silence.
When he had delivered his packages, he
turned back towards the thoroughfare; and he asked me, with
the innocent impertinence of boyhood: "Say, mister, where
do you work?" "Why, I’m working for you
right now. It’s good to work, don’t you think?"
"But ain’t you got no steady job?"
"Yes," I answered firmly, "I will."
Again he cast a queer look and quickened his pace.
We went together to the store at which
he worked. It was the largest in the city. We
hurried through a doorway at the rear, and I found myself in a
large room. A man stepped up to me and asked me what I
wanted. "I have come here to work."
"What department? Who sent you?"
There were many men in there, packing
boxes. Before I could answer his question, someone
called him and he hurried away. I took off my coat, hung
it on a nail, and started to work, following the example of
those near me. A half hour later, the man who first
accosted me passed. "Oh," he said, "so
they put you at it while I was gone, did they?"
"I’m doing my best, sir," I answered as I drove a
nail with a bang.
And so I worked until six o’clock.
The sun was very bright outside. When the six o’clock
bell rang, the men began filing by the clock. "What
about the clock?" I asked the man in charge.
"Didn’t they give you a number?"
"No." Then I told him my name, he gave me a
number, and I punched out.
The boy was waiting for me at the
door. "How’d you get the job?" he asked
curiously. "That was secured for me before I showed
up there." "Who got it for you?"
"‘That Something’," was
my answer. "Aw, quit stringing me. How’d
you get on? I seen a dozen men trying to get on that
work this morning and they was all turned down."
"But," I explained with a smile, "they had
never found 'That Something'." He again
favored me with a queer look.
"Where do you live?" he
asked finally. "I am going to find a place
now." "Well, my maw keeps a boarding house –
why don’t you come up to my place?"
There was but one other boarder.
He was a professor of a number of ology branches at a nearby
denominational college. He was a little man, with
unreasonable hair on his face and very little on his head.
He wore thick glasses perched on a beaked nose. His eyes
were small and black like shoe buttons. He watched me as
I ate. When the meal was finished, he invited me to sit
with him in his room.
"I hope you don’t mind my
prying," said he, "but I have been trying to figure
you out." "Yes?" "I have come
to the conclusion that you are a student of sociology."
I laughed. "Bobby tells us you are packing boxes
down at his store." I nodded assent.
"Then of course it is for the study of the conditions of
the working masses that you are down there."
"Yes," I admitted, "I am very much interested
in conditions of the masses right now." "Then
you can help me; I am writing a series of papers on that very
subject. Will you answer me this, please. What is
it that keeps the underdog down? What is it that the
upper ten possess that the under ten thousand do not
have?" "Why, it’s ‘That
Something,’" I answered. "What
do you mean? Education? Environment?"
Before my mind was flashed the picture
of my boyhood. I saw my room on the top floor of a city
block building. I saw myself sleeping in the drygoods
boxes in alleys, and by the boilers in boats on the river.
Yes, I was an alley-cat and a wharf-rat. I saw myself
placed at the mercy of five stepmothers and a father engrossed
in his science. I saw myself working, gaining little or
no schooling. And then, in the twinkling of an eye, the
scene changed and I saw that awful room, with a hundred men
lying around me on the cold, hard floor.
"No," I answered
thoughtfully, "it is neither of those things. ‘That
Something' is entirely different. I don’t know
just what it is, but I am going to find it, pin it down, and
then I will tell you more of it."
As I looked into his face, I noticed
the same puzzled expression the boy had worn. So, by
mutual consent, the subject was changed and we talked of
trivial things.
For a week or more, I packed boxes and
drove nails. I was a good packer. I made 'That
Something' work with me all the time.
______________
One
day, I noticed the shipping clerk had more work than he could
handle. There were idle men in the department.
They could do nothing until he checked up to them.
I laid down my hammer, walked over to
where he stood, and said, "I am to help you this
afternoon." He looked up with a start.
"Oh," he exclaimed. "Well, that’s good.
I’m glad they have sense enough to give me somebody to help
out, at last." He handed me a bunch of papers and
made room for me at the desk.
The superintendent of the department
was out of the room at the time. Presently he returned
and glanced at me curiously. "So they’ve got you
helping Dickey?" he said. I shrugged my shoulders
without looking up, and continued figuring.
When I left the room that night, the
superintendent of the department joined me.
"Say," he said, "I never did get onto how you
were put in there. What’s the idea? Working
through to learn the business?" "Yes," I
answered with confidence, "just that. I am to learn
every detail of it." "I thought something of
the kind. To which one of ‘em are you related?"
"I do not think it wise to discuss that at this
time," was my answer. "Oh sure," he
hastened to say, "I don't mean to be inquisitive.
Anything I can do to help you, let me know." And
then he left me.
The shipping clerk was a bright young
fellow. I liked him, and he liked me. One day,
shortly after I had received my first raise in wages, he came
to me with a problem. That night I stayed down with him
and we worked it out together. We soon got in the habit
of staying down one night each week, working over his systems.
He lacked originality. I helped
him. He had been doing things just like the fellow
before him. The business had been growing rapidly – practically doubled. We worked out an improved system.
We drew up forms; planned out every detail. One day he
carried our plans to the man in authority.
There came up a question which the
shipping clerk did not quite understand, so they sent for me.
My approach was far different from that of the sniveling
beggar who had asked the man on the street corner for food.
The man in authority looked at me in
surprise. "Who are you?" I handed him my
card. "You are packing boxes?" he asked in
surprise. "I am in the packing room – temporarily."
Then he went over the shipping
clerk’s plans in detail. "I think they’re all
right. I’ll have these forms sent to the printer in
the morning," said the man in authority.
As we turned to leave the office, he
called me back. "How long have you been in the
packing rooms?" "Sixty-three days," I
answered. "You’ve been there long enough.
There is nothing more for you to learn there, is there?"
"No." He studied me for a while in silence.
"Funny neither of them has said anything about you,"
he said at length, speaking half to himself. "I
suppose the old man’s idea was for you to work out your own
salvation – is that it?" "In a way," I
replied. "What any man accomplishes must eventually
come from ‘That Something’ within him."
He pondered this for a moment.
Then he scrawled a few words on a piece of paper.
"Hand that to Perkins in the Auditing Department tomorrow
morning and we’ll see how you show up there." I
thanked him and turned to leave the room. "And
say," calling me back; "better forget about my
having said anything about your relations with the old man.
After all, you see, it’s none of my business."
"Certainly," I answered, and left the room.
Three month’s later, I left Bob’s
mother’s boarding house. It hurt me to do this.
She had been almost a mother to me. There was a home
life about the place which I had learned to love. Even
the little hairy Ology Professor and his fanciful theories had
become dear to me. But ‘That Something’
demanded that I move on. So I moved on up the hill.
I arranged for a room at a quiet
boarding house. It was at the suggestion of the man in
authority that I chose his boarding house. So we became
acquaintances, then friends; and never once did the man in
authority mention the fact that I was "learning the
business."
______________
And so a year rolled ‘round.
It was the time Perkins took his vacation. I was given
the place until he returned. One day the old man came
into the office. He looked at me keenly. Soon the
man in authority came in; the old man called him aside.
I overheard a portion of their conversation.
"Who’s the man at Perkins’ desk?" the old man
asked. The man in authority mentioned my name.
"Funny I never heard of him before." The man
in authority gasped. The rest was spoken in guarded
tones, and I heard no word further.
That night, the man in authority came
into my sitting room.
"Say," he began,
"you’ve certainly got me locoed or something of the
sort. I have been figuring you all along as a ward or a
long lost cousin of the old man. Now, today he comes in
and jumps on me about putting you in this place of
responsibility without first knowing all about you. Of
course, I know you’re all right but, by Jupiter, I’m
placed in a deucedly unholy kind of light."
"What’s all the trouble?"
I asked. "My work going wrong?"
"I should say not; but that’s
aside from the question. What’s got me going is how
the dickens you did it. How you got to hold down the
most responsible job on the works without anybody knowing just
what you really are. Tell me about yourself, will
you?"
"I was born of poor but honest
parents in a small coal-mining town of What Cheer, Iowa, in
the year 1881. My father peddled fish in a wheelbarrow;
my mother died when I was one and one-half years old
–".
"Oh, cut that bunk. Tell me
to whom you are related, or who is backing you up.
It’s pull that counts these days. Who gave you your
start with the company?"
______________
I leaned back in my leather Morris chair. Memory brought
back the picture of that drab day of just one year before.
And that brought to my mind the card that had been given me.
I had not thought of it before until
that minute. I arose, went to a closet where hung the
very suit I had worn on that eventful day. I had kept it
as a souvenir of my awakening. As I had hoped, the card
was in a pocket of the shabby vest. For the first time,
I read the name engraved thereon:
MATTHEW MORRISON
RANDOLPH
BONDS
I
handed the card to the man in authority. He read it with
wandering eyes. Now, Randolph was the silent partner of
the business.
Impossible coincidence? You may
think so. I know men who believe success is impossible.
And to them, success is impossible.
And so perhaps you believe this impossible. But I tell
you it as it happened.
"Funny Randolph never mentioned
your name to the old man. Anyway, I wish I’d known
this when he was talking about you today."
"I’m glad you didn’t," I answered with a short
laugh. "Why?" he asked, puzzled.
"Go there to the phone and call up Randolph. I
think he’ll tell you why." "But–" he
began. "Go on and call him up. I want you
to," I insisted.
In a moment, Randolph was on the line.
"Ask him," I insisted.
The man in authority did so. I watched the changing
expressions on his face.
"You-say-you-never-heard-of-the-man!" gasped the man
in authority. "Why, he’s holding down the most
responsible job on the place."
"Better let me talk to Mr.
Randolph," I interrupted. His hand was trembling as
he surrendered the phone.
"Mr. Randolph," I said,
"I know you do not remember my name, for I am quite sure
you have never heard it. You may remember, however, one
miserable day a year ago when a beggar asked you for
food."
"Well, go on," came a crisp
voice over the phone.
"You may also remember telling
that beggar that it was not food he needed – it was ‘That
Something,’ and that alone. Well, Mr. Randolph, I
am the beggar to whom you spoke and I have found 'That
Something.’ I have learned to use it, and I want
to thank you for having shown me the way. When may I
have the opportunity of telling you about it?"
An hour later the story you have just
heard was told to a strange trio: the man in authority, the
professor of ologies, and Matthew Morrison Randolph.
From time to time, as I told the tale, Randolph nodded his
head in approval and I noticed a strange light begin to glow
in the little professor’s eyes. When I had finished,
we sat for a long time in silence, broken at last by Randolph,
who said:
"And now tell me just what you
think ‘That Something’ really is?"
I shook my head in dismay.
"You folks know as much as I do about it," I
answered. "But of this one thing I am convinced,
through and through. It is real human power, as truly
real as the commercial electrical current. It is the
power of the inner man, the fuel of the soul machine. It
is the one thing necessary. Until we awaken ‘That
Something’ of the soul, we bear on our muscles
those who have found ‘That Something.’ And we
bear them on up the mountain to take their places among the
masters of men. ‘That Something’ lies
dormant in every soul until aroused. With many, it
sleeps until the last great sleep. Sometimes it does not
wake until the man stands tottering on the border of the
grave. Sometimes it is found by the child playing by its
mother’s knee. A man’s success depends alone on ‘That
Something.’ ‘That Something’ of his soul.
Abraham Lincoln found it when a lad. It warmed the cold
floor on which he lay and studied. It added light to the
flickering glow of the wood fire, that he might see to read.
It spurred him on, and on, and on. ‘That
Something’ is an awful force. It made of a puny,
Corsican the ruler of the world! It made of a
thin-chested bookkeeper the money king of a great country!
It made Edison the great man of his age! It made
Carnegie! It made Woodrow Wilson! It made
Roosevelt! It can make you! It is now
in your soul! Awaken it – now! ‘That Something’."
______________
Again
the silence followed. I watched the professor of many
ologies. I saw the kindled fires in his eyes gradually
die out. He shook his head wearily. "No, it
can’t be done; it can’t be done," he murmured.
"I have drunk deeply of the cup of life and I am now
drinking the dregs. The cup is filled but once, and when
it is gone there’s nothing left but the dregs of old age and
poverty."
"You fool," cried Randolph,
leaning forward and shaking the little man roughly.
"You almost had ‘That Something’ in
your power, and now you sing it back to sleep with your silly
song of pessimism. It’s the false philosophy, which
such as you sing, which has kept men in the ruts of
their own digging for centuries past. Wake, man, wake!
Wake ‘That Something’ within your
soul!"
The two men sat looking deeply into
each other’s eyes. It was the little man who broke the
silence. "Thank you, Randolph," he said
quietly. "You are right. I will."
______________
Then
Randolph turned to me.
"Man, write that story you’ve
told us. Write it so that every man may read. Send
that message out into the world. If men will read that
story, read and reread, until it is written on their memories;
if men will believe the message you bring, and then if they
will but awaken that something within their souls that now
lies asleep – I say if you can make men do this, you will
have done more for mankind than any man or any thousand men
have done in many, many years. Write it, man, write it
word for word as you have told it here, so every man my read.
Write it, man, write it!"
And so it has been written.
You who have heard it through, I pray
that you may hear it every word again and again until ‘That
Something’ of your souls has been aroused, and you have
taken your places among the rulers of the world.
