Mrs. Ora Snyder will tell you the same thing. She lives in a town of thirty thousand-
Maywood, Illinois. Yet she started in business with the kitchen stove and ten cents'
worth of ingredients. Her husband fell ill. She had to earn money. But how? No
experience. No skill. No capital. Just a housewife. She took the white of an egg and
sugar and made some candy on the back of the kitchen stove; then she took her pan of
candy and stood near the school and sold it to the children for a penny a piece as they
went home. "Bring more pennies tomorrow," she said. "I'll be here every day with my
home-made candy." During the first week, she not only made a profit, but had also put a
new zest into living. She was making both herself and the children happy. No time now
for worry.
This quiet little housewife from Maywood, Illinois, was so ambitious that she decided to
branch out-to have an agent sell her kitchen-made candy in roaring, thundering
Chicago. She timidly approached an Italian selling peanuts on the street. He shrugged
his shoulders. His customers wanted peanuts, not candy. She gave him a sample. He
liked it, began selling her candy, and made a good profit for Mrs. Snyder on the first day.
Four years later, she opened her first store in Chicago. It was only eight feet wide. She
made her candy at night and sold it in the daytime. This erstwhile timid housewife, who
started her candy factory on her kitchen stove, now has seventeen stores-fifteen of them
in the busy Loop district of Chicago.
Here is the point I am trying to make. Nellie Speer, in Jackson Heights, New York, and
Mrs. Ora Snyder, in May-wood, Illinois, instead of worrying about finances, did
something positive. They started in an extremely small way to make money off the
kitchen stove-no overhead, no rent, no advertising, no salaries. Under these conditions,
it is almost impossible for a woman to be defeated by financial worries.
Look around you. You will find many needs that are not filled. For example, if you train
yourself to be a good cook, you can probably make money by starting cooking classes
for young girls right in your own kitchen. You can get your students by ringing door-bells.
Books have been written about how to make money in your spare time; inquire at your
public library. There are many opportunities for both men and women. But one word of
warning: unless you have a natural gift for selling, don't attempt door-to-door selling.
Most people hate it and fail at it.
Rule No. 10: Don't gamble-ever.
I am always astounded by the people who hope to make money by betting on the
ponies or playing slot machines. I know a man who makes his living by owning a string
of these "one armed bandits", and he has nothing but contempt for the foolish people
who are so naive as to imagine that they can beat a machine that is already rigged
against them.
I also know one of the best known bookmakers in America. He was a student in my
adult-education classes. He told me that with all his knowledge of horse racing, he
couldn't make money betting on the ponies. Yet the facts are that foolish people bet six
billion dollars a year on the races-six times as much as our total national debt back in
- This bookmaker also told me that if he had an enemy he despised, he could think
of no better way of ruining him than by getting him to bet on the races. When I asked
him what would happen to the man who played the races according to the tipster
sheets, he replied: "You could lose the Mint by betting that way."
If we are determined to gamble, let's at least be smart. Let's find out what the odds are
against us. How? By reading a book entitled How to Figure the Odds, by Oswald