Page 136 - TAGR-Companion Text

136 THINK AND GROW RICH
518 During the depression, I spent several months in the anthracite coal region of
519 Pennsylvania, studying conditions which all but destroyed the coal industry.
520 Among several very significant discoveries, was the fact that greed on the part of
521 operators and their employees was the chief cause of the loss of business for the
522 operators, and loss of jobs for the miners.
523 Through the pressure of a group of overzealous labor leaders, representing the
524 employees, and the greed for profits on the part of the operators, the anthracite
525 business suddenly dwindled. The coal operators and their employees drove sharp
526 bargains with one another, adding the cost of the "bargaining" to the price of the
527 coal, until, finally, they discovered they had BUILT UP A WONDERFUL
528 BUSINESS FOR THE MANUFACTURERS OF OIL BURNING OUTFITS
529 AND THE PRODUCERS OF CRUDE OIL.
530 "The wages of sin is death!" Many have read this in the Bible, but few have dis-
531 covered its meaning. Now, and for several years, the entire world has been
532 listening BY FORCE, to a sermon which might well be called "WHATSOEVER
533 A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP."
534 Nothing as widespread and effective as the depression could possibly be "just a
535 coincidence." Behind the depression was a CAUSE. Nothing ever happens
536 without a CAUSE. In the main, the cause of the depression is traceable directly
537 to the worldwide habit of trying to REAP without SOWING.
538 This should not be mistaken to mean that the depression represents a crop
539 which the world is being FORCED to reap without having SOWN. The trouble
540 is that the world sowed the wrong sort of seed. Any farmer knows he cannot
541 sow the seed of thistles, and reap a harvest of grain. Beginning at the outbreak of
542 the world war, the people of the world began to sow the seed of service
543 inadequate in both quality and quantity. Nearly everyone was engaged in the
544 pastime of trying to GET WITHOUT GIVING.
545 These illustrations are brought to the attention of those who have personal
546 services to market, to show that we are where we are, and what we are, because
547 of our own conduct! If there is a principle of cause and effect, which controls