DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 150, 15 September 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

ONE DRAWBACK TO SUCCESS (Copyright, 1927) ANE of the drawbacks to success, one of the things you necessarily have to give up if you have the plaudits of fame, is friendship. Not always, perhaps, but usually. When you are poor and unknown you enjoy the compauionship of your equals. The boys slap you on the back and call you Bill. When you become rich or famous you are Mr. Jones, or the Honourable William Jones, and if you are gregariously inclined you miss the hail-fellow-well-met of your fellows. A story -was published some years ago in a magazine describing how comfortable a worker was in the delightful associations that were his. Fellows and their wives used to drop over after supper and play a game of cards. He had a good time with the boys at the lodge meetings and circulated pleasantly at conventions. He knew a lot of people and people knew him. His soul expanded in the favourable atmosphere. Then a millionaire in the town took a notion not only to appoint him general manager of his factory, but to leave him a million dollars. Immediately all his relations with tjie other families became strained. Women either ceased to call on his wife bcause they would be suspected of currying her influence, or they called on her from interested motives. Somehout he was taboo among his fellows and he had to associate with the rich whom he did not like in order to get any companionship. He could not mingle with the boys any more. The other boys in the flying business who knew Lindbergh before he stepped upon the pinnacle of fame find it hard work to know him any more. He doubtless is a good fellow and would like to keep his early compansbips. but he will find it hard work. Somewhow your former acquaintances drop away and you must make new ones. For a man who is rising in the world more than for anyone else it is true that, as Dr. Johnson says, “one must keep his friendships in a constant state of repair.’’ - Since he has got famous now or rich, his old friends say there seems to be a barrier between him and them Perhaps the satisfactions of fame or riches more tjjau outweigh this, and then perhaps they do not.