--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 9 number: 11 published: 1906-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Cause of Defeat," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 11 (September 1906): 856.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0911unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0911unse start_page: 856 end_page: 856 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0911unse publication_year: 1906 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Cause of Defeat CAUSE OF DEFEAT.— PRICE OF SUCCESS. Every human being would be glad to have agreeable surroundings and ample me ins, but the protesters against social conditions refuse to see that a price for these desirable things must always be paid in some form of effort or abnegation, and that those who lack them are precisely those who find the price higher than they are willing or able to pay. The defeated in the struggle for life are almost invariably the victims of impatience or emotion; the successful, those who can accept bad butter, or a hot week, as merely regrettable incidents in the path toward their goal. Mrs. Wetmore, "Elizabeth Bisland."