○  russell conwell : acres of diamonds  ○

boy with nothing in his pocket made the fortune of the astor family on one principle. some young man here to-night will say, “well, they could make these over in new york, but they could not do it in philadelphia!” my friends, did you ever read that wonderful book of riss (his memory is sweet to us because of his recent death), wherein is given his statistical account of the records taken in 1889 of 107 millionaires of new york. if you read the account you will see that out of the 107 millionaires only seven made their money in new york. out of the 107 millionaires worth ten million dollars in real estate then, 67 of them made their money in towns of less than 3,500 inhabitants. the richest man in this country to-day, if you read the real-estate values, has never moved away from a town of 3,500 inhabitants.

it makes not so much difference where you are as who you are. but if you cannot get rich in philadelphia you certainly cannot do it in new york. now john jacob astor illustrated what can be done anywhere. he had a mortgage once on a millinery-store, and they could not sell bonnets enough to pay the interest on his money. so he foreclosed that mortgage, took possession of the store, and went in to partnership with the very same people, in the very same store, with the same capital. he did not give them a dollar of capital. they had to sell goods to get any money. then he left them alone in the store just as they had been before, and he went out and sat down on a bench in the park in the shade. what was john jacob astor doing out there, and in partnership with people who had failed on his own hands? had the most important and, to my mind, the most pleasant part of that partnership on his hands. for as john jacob astor sat on that bench he was watching the ladies as they went by; and where is the man who would not get rich at that business? as he sat on the bench if a lady passed him with her shoulders back and head up, and looked straight to the front, as if

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