Page 120 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

While resting, you could take off for another little swim down to South America,
where you would pick up a couple of bananas, and on your return, you could
take a short walk to the nearest farm having a dairy and pick up some butter and
cream. Then your New York City family would be ready to sit down and enjoy
breakfast, and you could collect your two dimes for your labor!

Seems absurd, doesn't it? Well, the procedure described would be the only pos-
sible way these simple items of food could be delivered to the heart of New York
City, if we had no capitalistic system.

The sum of money required for the building and maintenance of the railroads and
steam ships used in the delivery of that simple breakfast is so huge that it staggers
one's imagination. It runs into hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention
the armies of trained employees required to man the ships and trains. But, trans-
portation is only a part of the requirements of modern civilization in capitalistic
America. Before there can be anything to haul, something must be grown from
the ground, or manufactured and prepared for market. This calls for more mil-
lions of dollars for equipment, machinery, boxing, marketing, and for the wages
of millions of men and women.

Steam ships and railroads do not spring up from the earth and function auto-
matically. They come in response to the call of civilization, through the labor and
ingenuity and organizing ability of men who have IMAGINATION, FAITH, EN-
THUSIASM, DECISION, PERSISTENCE! These men are known as capitalists.
They are motivated by the desire to build, construct, achieve, render useful serv-
ice, earn profits and accumulate riches. And, because they RENDER SERVICE
WITHOUT WHICH THERE WOULD BE NO CIVILIZATION, they put them-
selves in the way of great riches.

Just to keep the record simple and understandable, I will add that these capi-
talists are the self-same men of whom most of us have heard soap-box orators
speak. They are the same men to whom radicals, racketeers, dishonest politicians
and grafting labor leaders refer as "the predatory interests," or "Wall Street."

121

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

I am not attempting to present a brief for or against any group of men or any sys-
tem of economics. I am not attempting to condemn collective bargaining when I
refer to "grafting labor leaders," nor do I aim to give a clean bill of health to all
individuals known as capitalists.

The purpose of this book-A purpose to which I have faithfully devoted over a
quarter of a century-is to present to all who want the knowledge, the most de-