"Excuse - Not Reason"

"I was born in poverty." "My parents were poor." "I was born on the wrong side of the tracks." These are excuses that some people cling to throughout life to justify the rut in which they live.

 You don't have to be born in a palace in order to be assured of success in life. Jesus of Nazareth was born in a stable. Abraham Lincoln, as well as many of the greatest names in American history, was born in a log cabin of poor pioneering parents.

Poverty is only an excuse for failure. From his first job as a cotton factory bobbin boy at $1O a week, Andrew Carnegie went on to become one of the richest men in the world. Some of our modern excuse makers will say, "Oh, these fellows like Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Firestone, Wrigley, Rockefeller, Field, and Woolworth were lucky because they didn't have income tax laws in their day." So, if you too, might think that the present day taxes on income would have handicapped men like these, let us take a look at some modern millionaires who have taken quite a delight in paying Caesar his just dues and still manage to pile up fortunes for themselves.

W. Clement Stone wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. As a matter of fact at age I6 he went to work selling insurance policies for his mother who had just managed to buy out an insurance agency by pawning some of her jewelry. His early selling wasn't verb fancy or high class because it consisted mostly of wearing out shoe leather by knocking on doors. Clem was a poor boy but he was rich with a desire to search out the success principles that you will read about in "How to Get What You Want." At this writing, Mr. Stone is the President of four large insurance companies and hi personal fortune is estimated to be well in excess of hundred and fifty million dollars.

Leon Jolson came to America as a displaced person having survived the atrocities of Nazi oppression i Europe. As a young man, Leon Jolson and his wife And I survived extermination at the hands of the Nazis by hiding in a cabinet-sized bunker for almost two years With a financial start in America consisting of eight dollars, Jolson became president and founder of a firm which achieved an annual sales volume of twenty-five million dollars per year. From poverty and persecution Jolson went on to make his million.

Many times on the verge of bankruptcy and despair F. C. Russell kept on keeping on and made his million dollars in the business of manufacturing combination storm windows.

From a $25 a week junior sales clerk job, San Goody went on to make a million selling phonograph] records. "If you put your heart into it, there's fun ant fortune to be found in every business," said Goody.

Milton Berle was born in a walk-up tenement is Harlem. This humble beginning in life didn't keep from making millions in the entertainment world. The proudest part of making his fortune, Berl once said was each year when "Uncle Miltie" paid "Uncle Sam" his income taxes. Don't let the income tax laws "bug you." That's an excuse, not a reason. New millionaires are being born today at a rate equal to, if not exceeding, any time in our nation's history. If you want to make a million dollars—you can.

Modern Horatio Alger stories are being made today just like they were in yesterdays. Take the story of John W. Rollins who was born and reared on a scrubby red-clay farm in Georgia. This barefoot farmboy endured many hardships and labored long hours to eke out a bare education which many of our youth now take for granted. Today Rollins owns Rollins Fleet Leasing, a leader in the automobile leasing business across the nation. He turned his early disadvantages into fame and fortune. So can you!

Born in a rickety old shack, one of I7 children, in the slums of Chicago's South Side, Andy Frain has made millions out of the ushering business and today he owns the nationwide chain of Frain ushers.

Then there's the story of a couple of penniless Italian boys in New York. Thirty-five years later we find Patsy and Nick D'Agostino the owners of a grocery chain with annual business volume in excess of five millions of dollars.

Irving and Jack Rosenthal, who were born in the slums of New York's East Side now own Palisades Park, the largest amusement park in the world. The rotting, cold-water flat in which they were born didn't even contain a toilet. Early poverty was no bar to the discovery of their true self, so they went on to become millionaires and the leaders in their field of endeavor  contained in the life of Jay Richard Kennedy. Early in life young Kennedy was an orphan without shoes and later a penniless hobo. Actually Kennedy never did set about to make a million dollars, but only to excel in whatever task he set about to achieve. In the fulfillment of each of these tasks he did inevitably make money and achieve success. Today he is recognized as a successful author, motion picture producer, and radio writer-producer and millionaire stock market broker.

We hear a lot about poverty these days. Economic poverty, as I have already shown, shouldn't ever be a bar for anyone from obtaining great heights of successful achievement. "If Stone, Jolson, Russell, Goody, Berle, Rollins, Frain, the Rosenthal boys, and Kennedy can do it, I can too," should be your motto. The only dangerous brand of poverty that exists in this great land of ours today is poverty of character. This is the one that really needs working on.