--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 17 number: 4 published: 1914-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'John Henry Evans, "Men Who Have Done Things—XIV," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 4 (February 1914): 354–359.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1704unse 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: improvementera1704unse start_page: 354 end_page: 359 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1704unse publication_year: 1914 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 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Men Who Have Done Things—XIV Men who have Done Things BY JOHN HENRY EVANS XIV-Horace G. Whitney Who Believes that Every Business Man, in Order to Divert His Thoughts from Desk and Office Cares, Should Have an Alternate Employment — a Fad if Need Be In a recent issue of the Dramatic Mirror of New York some space was given to Mr. Horace G. Whitney, with an excellent cut of him. This complimentary notice of a Utah man, in the leadingdramatic journal of America, especially since it came unsolicited, serves to call the attention of our home people to a personality among us whose life furnishes a splendid lesson for our youth. The Mirror wants to know what is to be thought of a "dramatic critic who spends his spare time being a director in two banks, treasurer of two sugar companies operating some six or eight factories, and into the bargain, general manager of the most powerful newspaper in three states !" That, of course, is because "in New York a dramatic reviewer considers being a dramatic reviewer a day's work." This is rather extraordinary, when you stop to think of it. For here is a man who takes up music and the drama merely because he finds in them a diversion from his office cares, and yet is thought of sufficient importance in this mere avocation to be hunted up by a great eastern technical magazine, and to be classed, by experts, among the conspicuous critics in the country. One is led to ask what this man is doing in his vocation, his major calling. But of that presently. Let it be borne in mind, to begin with, that music and the drama are two things, not one. Rarely does the musical critic know anything of the play, and rarely does the dramatic reviewer presume to criticise music. Yet Mr. Whitney has attained considerable fame in both capacities, and that, too, while he has been doing full time in another department of activity. In each of these diversions he has done characteristically good work. Of music he has always been an ardent devotee. This love he inherited from a father who was himself a considerable figure among early Utah actors and musicians. His big brother, Orson F. Whitney, taught him the flute. He studied music with Pro- MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS 355 fessor Careless, was secretary of the Tabernacle choir under him, and taught a class of young men for about two years. There is a story about that music class, which I shall tell later for another purpose. After this he aided in the organization of the old Philharmonic Society, which brought out "Pinafore." Also he was one of the founders of the Salt Lake Opera Company, and of the Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra. For thirty-five years now he has conducted the Eighteenth Ward choir. Then, too, he has for several years covered the most important musical events of the city for the DeseretNews, and, after a great deal of correspondence with choir leaders, selected material for the publication of the work called "Temple Anthems," which has run through a first edition and a second part of which is to be published soon. Meantime he has composed music, the "Classmate's Song," in the Sunday School "Song Book," being the best known. As for his work in the way of dramatic criticism, attention to a few things must suffice. He has always been interested in the drama. It was largely through him that such stars as Maude Adams and Sallie Fisher got their first opportunities before the foot-lights. One of the possessions of which Mr. Whitney is proud is a receipt for seven dollars and a half signed by Maude Adams. It represents the amount which he paid her for singing a couple of songs between the acts of "Divorce." According to the Mirror, Mr. Whitney "is personally acquainted with more actors of national prominence than any other critic in the country except, perhaps, two in New York and two in Chicago." The fourteen years — from 1880 to 1894 — during which he was the mainstay of the old Home Dramatic Club, he still reckons as the most stressful as well as the most interesting of his dramatic experiences. "He conducts a theatrical and musical column," says the writer in the Mirror, "that is both authoritative and skilfully written. Incidentally, he has done more HORACE G. WHITNEY Business Manager, Dramatic and Musical Editor, of the Deseret News, whose busy career was recently featured in the New York Dramatic Mirror. 356 IMPROVEMENT ERA for the development and encouragement of theatrical and artistic taste in the West than any other man I know." His dramatic criticisms are always judicious, independent, and fearless. But, as already stated, this love for the drama and for music finds expression only in an avocation, an alternate employment, used simply as a diversion from the cares of the office desk. It is with his main employment, his vocation, that we are chiefly concerned here. Work — tireless, planful work ! That is what Horace G. Whitney stands for. No one who knows him will dispute this statement, and no one who does not know him, but who reads a list of the things he does, will be inclined to question it. He believes that no young man should beguile himself with the hope of getting through the world without work, and a great deal of it. Moreover, he has practiced all his life exactly what he preaches, as every one knows. The Mirror underestimates the amount of work done by Mr. Whitney in his "spare time." He is secretary and treasurer of one sugar company operating seven factories ; he is secretary of the Home Fire Insurance Company ; he is a director in the Bank of Monroe, the Bank of Garland, the Utah State National Bank, and the Deseret National Bank of Salt Lake City ; he is a director also in the Utah Hotel Operating Company, and in the Heber J. Grant Company; secretary and treasurer of the Sugar Townsite Company and the Sugar Improvement Company ; a member of the publicity bureau of the Commercial Club of Salt Lake City ; and, finally, he is the general manager of the Descrct News. A long catalogue, this, which ought to keep any man busy, without leaving him time for the work done elsewhere by one or two professionals ! This last position, of course, demands and receives the major part of Mr. Whitney's time. To this place he was called on a special mission by the late President Lorenzo Snow. "Haven't you a vacancy in the heart of China?" he asked the President, when he was invited to come to the Beehive House to talk matters over. Nor was this a mere metaphor. He meant it. Observing the depressed look on Mr. Whitney's face, President Snow deemed it necessary to hold out a pabulum. "Make this business develop until these quarters become too small for the Descrct News/' the President said, "and I promise that you shall have a home worthy of the paper." This is the explanation, known only to a few persons, for the fact that the Ncivs has its present quarters, one of the most substantial and artistic structures in Salt Lake City. If ever Horace G. Whitney's capacity for work was called for, it was to accomplish this gigantic task. For, without blaming MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS 357 any one for the circumstances under which the Nezvs operated at this time, the condition of the paper was not such as to provoke the envy of the then more prosperous dailies in the State. It was housed in the old adobe building on the present site of the Hotel Utah, where the wind would literally be howling at all hours — a place of unbelievable inappropriateness for a newspaper. The patronage of the paper had fallen off incredibly, too. Besides, and of necessity, the pay of the very employees was in arrears. And, if something had not been done at this time by the Church, most probably the Deserct News would have gone out of business. It was his work on the old Salt Lake Herald, very likely coupled with his well-known ability in other respects, that had suggested Mr. Whitney as the best man to take hold of the paper at this juncture. That daily he had lifted from a yearly deficit basis to a yearly dividend-paying basis. It was the understanding that, if necessary, Mr. Whitney might draw on the Church by way of a loan, and a fund was actually set apart for this purpose. But it was never drawn upon. From the first, the new manager made the business pay for itself. The first year, in fact, he handed over to the Church a good-sized check as the result of his management. It is only fair to state, however, that Charles W. Penrose re-entered the service of the Nezvs at this time, and that Mr. Whitney was surrounded by a corps of workers whom the new situation heartened to set forth their best efforts. To run a great daily, under the most favorable conditions, requires a large capacity for work. This Mr. Whitney possesses in a very high degree. There is the matter of establishing the standard of the paper. The standard of the News is among the best in the newspaper world. The ATezvs might easily enlarge its circulation by many thousands if it included certain morally objectionable features which it now refuses to admit. It might also increase materially its monthly income if it opened its columns to the liquor and tobacco interests. Now, the fixing of a progressing standard for the paper alone requires a great deal of attention to the best newspaper thought of the day. And then there is the matter of purchasing the supplies, employing the working force, the filling of so many columns in so much time, the getting of subscriptions and advertising, the keeping and collecting of accounts, and a hundred and one other things. To be sure, Mr. Whitney does not attend to all these details himself. That would be a physical impossibility. But some of the men about him tell me that he knows all that is going on in every department. All the lines radiate into every quarter from his hands. Besides this, I am told that he does the work of a full reporter for the Nezvs. And this I can easily believe. For he writes the principal 358 IMPROVEMENT ERA dramatic criticisms and covers the chief musical events of the city. Occasionally, too, he writes news items. And all this, mind you, does not include his duties as secretary, treasurer, and director for other business interests. There can be no two opinions, therefore, that Horace G. Whitney has a large capacity for work. But the capacity for enormous work like this implies a power of dispatching work. Often the difference between two given men lies in the fact, not that they have the same amount of work to do, but rather that they dispose of it in different ways. Or, rather, the one disposes of it, and the other does not. The secret lies partly in the magical words, — system, order. These have a way of putting work behind the worker, instead of piling it up before him. How does Mr. Whitney manage to do so much? In the first place, he is a natural worker. He loves it. He is unhappy unless he is at work of some kind. And he likes to see others work. In that music class I spoke of, a while back, he made the twenty boys work so thoroughly at music that, at the end of two years only one out of the number was left; but that one, by sheer dint of toil was turned into one of the best readers of vocal music in the city. And this is Mr. Whitney's way in everything. He is, in short, what every one knows as a hard worker. Then, in the second place, he has an unusual memory. They tell me around the office that he never forgets anything. "How about such-and-such a matter?" he will ask one of the force. Maybe it is a detail that he mentioned to him last week or last month, and that the person whose duty it was to look after it has forgotten entirely. This naturally good memory is doubtless aided by a habit he has of setting everything down on paper at the time as a sort of jog to the retentive faculty — the habit, in fact, of trusting as little as possible to the memory. Finally, Mr. Whitney possesses a highly cultivated sense of order and system. He classifies his work. Some of his duties are commercial, some newspaper, and some dramatic and musical. These each have certain hours. He has certain days in stated periods on which the heads of departments make reports and submit figures. Once a month there is a cleaning up with all the world. Then again, he devotes certain hours to sugar, insurance, and bank duties. He applies in his life, too, that excellent motto, "Do it now !" "Never postpone, if possible," is another of his maxims, and "Clean up as you go along," is another. ' On his desk you will find any time two classes of work either done or ready to be done. One is work that must be attended to now, and the other work that may go till tomorrow or next week. As an instance of his application of the do-it-now rule, when I stepped into his office the other day he was in the act of dictating a news MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS 359 item which he had a few moments before obtained from a man on the street, and yet that item was not to go into the paper till two days after that. Let me repeat, then : The life of Horace G. Whitney represents, first of all, untiring work — work of the same driving, compelling force as confronts most business men, but that calls for unusual alertness and vitality and system. But it also represents what is extremely rare — a side employment which serves as a profitable and pleasing distraction from the worries of the daily routine. In these days when the matter of success in any calling seems to demand all of a man's effort, and threatens meanwhile to worry him into the grave before his time, it is no small thing to have adopted early in life such a philosophical plan. But Mr. Whitney is bound to reap the harvest of such a life in better health, mental and physical, not to speak of a breadth of view he could not have attained in any other way. Elder Alvin R. Christopherson, Aarhus, Denmark, November 8: "The Aarhus branch choir is under the direction of Elder Stanley A. Rasmussen. It is doing a great work in attracting strangers to our meetings, thus helping to advance the work of the Lord. Last winter we sang in several lodges in this city, and were in this way enabled to remove much prejudice and bear testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel to many. We have received invitations to sing in several lodges this winter. In this manner we hone to bear our testimony to the restoration of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith.