User:JB Hill/sandbox

The following are editorial comments about the WIKIPEDIA page on Napoleon Hill. Plese note my comments

Napoleon Hill (born Oliver Napoleon Hill; October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American New Thought author and a suspected con man.[1] THIS IS AN OPINION: This is libel => no convictions. Also, while he was influenced by "new age" thinking, he was not one of its authors.

He is well known for his book Think and Grow Rich (1937) which has sold 100 million copies.[2] Hill's works insisted that fervid expectations are essential to improving one's life.[3][4] THIS IS AN OPINION: Has the author read Napoleon Hill? Naps work was far more than that!

Most of his books were promoted as expounding principles to achieve "success". Hill made largely unverifiable claims to have personally met several prominent figures of his time, such as industrialist Andrew Carnegie and US Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt; however, according to at least one modern source, there exists little evidence that Hill had actually ever encountered any of these celebrities, with the exception of Thomas Edison.[1] HIS IS AN OPINION: The author is quoting a blogger’s opinion (Novak) who uses lack of proof as reason to disprove.

Life and career[edit]

Childhood[edit] Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound in Southwest Virginia.[5] His parents were James Monroe Hill and Sarah Sylvania (Blair) and he was grandson of James Madison Hill and Elizabeth (Jones). His great grandfather came to the United States from England and settled in southwestern Virginia in 1847.[6] Incorrect: Nap’s GGF x 4 was John Hill of Amelia County, Va                                                                   and came to Virginia probably from Maryland before 1700.

Hill's mother died when he was nine years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter," initially for his father's paper.[7] At the age of 15, he briefly married a local girl who had accused him of fathering her child; the girl later recanted the claim, and the marriage was subsequently annulled.[8] At the age of 17, Hill graduated high school and went to Tazewell, Virginia to attend business school. Incorrect: At the age of 17, Hill graduated from high school and got a job in the mines where he worked for a year before going to business school in Tazewell, Va.

In 1901, Hill took a job working for the lawyer Rufus A. Ayers, a coal magnate and former Virginia attorney general. Incorrect: In 1901, Napoleon attended business college in Tazewell, Virginia. He started working for Rufus Ayers in 1902.

Six months later, at the age of 19, Hill was promoted to manager of one of Ayre's mines.[1] According to the author Richard Lingeman, Hill received this position after arranging to cover up the death of a black bellhop, whom the previous manager of the mine had accidentally shot while drunk.[9] This is an opinion: It is also arguable that Napoleon received the job after resisting the temptation to pilfer an open, un-guarded safe which the owner’s son had left unsecure.

Hill left his coal mine management job shortly afterwards, and entered law school before withdrawing for lack of funds. Incorrect: Napoleon worked for Ayers until April of 1904 when he moved to Seaboard,Va for a few months, then to Johnson City, Alabama for 4 months and on to Marbury. Alabama. Later he moved to Mobile, Alabama. Nap and his brother were accepted to                                                                   Georgetown Law School for classes beginning June of 1911. With the birth of his son and closure of the NATIONAL Automobile College of Washington,Nap was no longer able to attend Law School.

Later in life, Hill would claim a title of "Attorney of Law," although Hill's official biography notes that "there is no record of his having actually performed legal services for anyone."[10] Incorrect: Nap attended night classes in Washington DC while he awaited law school. Later, after his automobile College failed, he worked as a law clerk in Washington for several months before taking a position as a legal clerk for the Lumberport Shinnston Gas Company. He was placed in charge oil and gas leasing operations.

The journalist Matt Novak writes that Hill married his second wife Edith Whitman in 1903, and that Hill's first child, Edith Whitman Hill, was born in 1905. Whitman's existence is not mentioned in Hill's official biography, but is corroborated by contemporary news accounts.[11] Hill and Whitman divorced in 1908.[1] Partially correct: The child was fathered by Napoleon’s wifes’s brother-in-law. Matt Novak is a BLOGGER not a journalist and does not mention Edith's deceit.

I can continue ... ad nausea. All I want is for the OPINIONS to be deleted before Novak and Wikipedia rewrite history based on opinion and inaccuracy. JB Hill