Page 104 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

in, uninvited, with a scowl on his face which plainly said, "what-the-hell-did-you-
keep-me-waiting-for?" All that has undergone a change. The meter-man now
conducts himself as a gentleman who is "delighted-to-be-at-your-service-sir."
Before the gas companies learned that their scowling meter-men were accumu-
lating liabilities never to be cleared away, the polite salesmen of oil burners came
along and did a land office business.

During the depression, I spent several months in the anthracite coal region of
Pennsylvania, studying conditions which all but destroyed the coal industry.
Among several very significant discoveries, was the fact that greed on the part of
operators and their employees was the chief cause of the loss of business for the
operators, and loss of jobs for the miners.

105

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

Through the pressure of a group of overzealous labor leaders, representing the
employees, and the greed for profits on the part of the operators, the anthracite
business suddenly dwindled. The coal operators and their employees drove sharp
bargains with one another, adding the cost of the "bargaining" to the price of the
coal, until, finally, they discovered they had BUILT UP A WONDERFUL BUSI-
NESS FOR THE MANUFACTURERS OF OIL BURNING OUTFITS AND THE
PRODUCERS OF CRUDE OIL.

"The wages of sin is death!" Many have read this in the Bible, but few have dis-
covered its meaning. Now, and for several years, the entire world has been listen-
ing BY FORCE, to a sermon which might well be called "WHATSOEVER A MAN
SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP."

Nothing as widespread and effective as the depression could possibly be "just a
coincidence." Behind the depression was a CAUSE. Nothing ever happens with-
out a CAUSE. In the main, the cause of the depression is traceable directly to the
worldwide habit of trying to REAP without SOWING.

This should not be mistaken to mean that the depression represents a crop which
the world is being FORCED to reap without having SOWN. The trouble is that the
world sowed the wrong sort of seed. Any farmer knows he cannot sow the seed of
thistles, and reap a harvest of grain. Beginning at the outbreak of the world war,
the people of the world began to sow the seed of service inadequate in both qual-
ity and quantity. Nearly everyone was engaged in the pastime of trying to GET
WITHOUT GIVING.

These illustrations are brought to the attention of those who have personal serv-
ices to market, to show that we are where we are, and what we are, because of our
own conduct! If there is a principle of cause and effect, which controls business,