It is to be noted with satisfaction that the big captains of industry keep themselves free from petty details.  “I surrounded myself with clever men,” said Andrew Carnegie in accounting for his success and by the same token the men who took over his great affairs and gave them larger scope and power surrounded themselves with still other clever men, thus reserving their judgment and thought for the higher policies of their institutions.  They keep themselves in readiness for consultation, and having men of initiative and self-reliance underneath them, they find time to take in hand other affairs than those of the tremendous businesses they manage.  Men of this type often become prominent in public affairs and develop into highly important citizens.

The bigger the man, the less he encumbers himself with matters which can be delegated to others.  His desk is clear of all litter and minutia—­likewise his mind.  Such men keep their physiques and mentalities in fine working order and are not to be goaded into ill temper.  A refinement of mind is supremely essential to the man who desires to climb to the very top of the ladder.  He cannot afford to close his brain to outside information.  He is forced to keep it open in order to let in continuous currents of new thought.  He doesn’t want his visage to “cream and mantle as a standing pond” as Shakespeare aptly puts it—­therefore the windows of his thinking department are kept open for refreshing draughts from the outside.  He reasons that always there are new guests, new faces, new things to talk about at the banquet board of life.

[Illustration:  Taking on Local Color]

And here is the point—­if men who carry on the great industries of the world find a way to keep themselves democratic surely men of less importance should be able to do the same?  The snob is about as offensive a person as could be described.  He is usually a hypocrite or an ignoramus—­sometimes both.  His pomposity is naturally repellent.  We easily become accustomed to dodging such characters.  The detriment is theirs—­not ours.  They are left by the wayside and sooner or later wake up to the fact that they stand alone in the world.

The world loves the man with an open mind.  This is the usual spirit of the progressive citizen. He wants to know—­and by reason of his accessibility knowledge is brought to him.  No one cares to take up the task of informing the egotist who already knows it all.  Such is his inherent cussedness that we would rather let him warp in the oven of his own half-baked knowledge.  Life is too short to waste our time in educating him.

“How can I see Mr. So-and-so?” says one man to another.

“Don’t try,” is the answer.  “He’s not worth seeing.  You can’t tell him anything.”

And this sort of a chap misses the big opportunities just because he chooses to build up a reputation for being exclusive.  He digs himself a hole and crawls into it and pulls the hole in after him.  We can safely imagine him treating the members of his family as though they were servants, and his employees as though they were slaves.  He may succeed in small things but in the big game of life we may write him down as a failure.