Holding His Job For Him

1901

"Of all the excuses I have ever heard from people for not paying their bills," said a collector for a prominent firm the other day, "I got the neatest today from a very wealthy man who always owes the house a bill. No matter whether the bill is for $10 or $100, he always pays $5. I have gone back the next week and got $5 more, and once I went back twice in one week, and he paid me $5 each time and seemed glad to see me. I got to know him pretty well, and the other day I asked him why he did not pay it all, as I knew he had the money."

" 'Well,' said the old fellow, "if I pay you everything I owe you at one time you will collect so fast that pretty soon you will be out of a job for the want of something to collect.'

"I don't know whether that was his reason or not, but I let the subject drop and am just going around there now for another $5. — Memphis Scimitar.

A Cheerful Soul

1902

"Hanks always looks on the bright side of everything. Do you know what he said when he lost his job the other day?"
"I haven't heard."
"He seemed to be quite cheerful over it. 'You see,' he explained, 'I applied for a raise of salary nearly six months ago and didn't get it. Think of how much more I would have had to lose if they'd given me the increase." — Chicago Record-Herald.


He Dropped the Subject

He was talking to the pessimistic, sharp-tongued damsel.
"Have you noticed," he asked, "that, as a general thing, bachelors are wealthier than married men?"
"I have," she replied.
"How do you account for it?" he inquired.
"The poor man marries and the rich one doesn't," she answered. "A man is much more disposed to divide nothing with a woman than he is to divide something." — Chicago Post.

Trade Unions — Savings Bank Lifts Load of Anxiety

1910

By Daniel J. McDonald

Trade unions are formed to elevate humanity by increasing wages and by bettering the condition of the laboring classes. In work along each of these two lines they have been far more useful and effective than is generally believed. Each dollar increase in wages and each hour of leisure secured gives larger opportunity for education, thought and the gaining of knowledge.

Among the greatest of the loads borne by the workers are uncertainty of employment, heavy expenses of sickness and of death of the worker himself or of those dependent upon him or of those upon whom he is dependent; the loss of wages during such times of trouble and the lack of provision for old age. So small is the utmost possible amount of a workingman's savings that almost invariably it is swept away, sometimes repeatedly, by one of these causes, and old age finds the worker penniless.

Any movement like this of savings bank insurance that proposes to lift the financial load at times of sickness and non-employment, and make provision for old age, is in direct line of trade union effort. By providing for future emergencies it promotes independence and lifts a load of anxiety. The man is more able to fit himself for advancement.

The British labor movement has been noted from the beginning for the variety and extent of its financial assistance to its members in times of trouble. Unity, solidarity, steadiness of purpose, devotion and faithfulness of members have been the results. The splendid achievements in English labor legislation, far surpassing anything we can hope for in many years, are due to the unity of purpose and action produced largely by the fraternal care for each member. In this country we need to exercise more care for the welfare of each member, in order that each member may be more devoted to the welfare of the whole.

The ideal method of affiliation, if there is to be affiliation, between the labor movement and savings bank insurance, is for each union to insist that each of its members shall be properly and adequately insured.

Easy to Talk Too Much

1919

One Must Admit There Is Much Truth in These Sage Reflections

"It is my opinion," said Mr. Goslington, "that beggars talk too much. For instance, this morning I met a man who asked me for a nickel with which to buy a cup of coffee. As I was reaching for the nickel he kept right on talking, telling me among other things that he hadn't had anything to eat for three days, which I knew of course was false, and which detracted very much from my pleasure in giving.

"I am an easy mark. Perhaps as I grow older I shall grow harder, but as I fell about it now I would rather give to a dozen frauds than take a chance of missing one man who was hungry. Still I don't like the fraud to be too obvious; and I am sure there must be many prospective givers who, when the beggar keeps on with that surplus talk, rescind their original determination to give and keep their money in their pocket. Surely you would think the beggar would learn wisdom and talk less, wouldn't you?

"But the beggar is not the only man. How often do we hear it said of some banquet speaker that he is a good talker but he talks too much? This may seem a harsh way of putting it, but that's what people say. This speaker starts engagingly and talks for a time to the pleasure of everybody, wandering on then interminably to the complete obliteration of the first favorable impression. Here the only result is the tiring of the speaker's hearers; but talking too much might have a far more serious result in the case of, say, a man applying for a job.

"Many a man has talked himself out of a prospective job. He goes to the employer with what he wants to say clearly laid out in his mind, he says this clearly and simply, and the employer has practically made up his mind to take him; but then the applicant keeps on talking, to his own undoing. As he talks he reveals himself in a light less favorable; he discloses perhaps some peculiarity that may not really be a detriment but that strikes the employer not agreeably; and so this job that at first the applicant had felt perfectly sure of slips away from him entirely and without his realizing just how it all came about.

"The beggar is far from being alone in over-talking. There are many men in many walks who lack the fine gift of knowing when to stop."

Notice to D. of B.

Leon, Iowa area, date unknown, likely before 1918

All members of Girard Rebeka Lodge, No, 238, I. O. O. F., are urgently requested to meet at the lodge room at 2:30, p. m., Tuesday, to attend the funeral of our beloved sister, Miss Ada A. Hilliker.
MRS. LOUISA RANSOM, Noble Grand; ELEANOR TIFFANY, Secretary.

The Degree of Honor Lodge, No. 9, will meet at A. O. U. W. hall tomorrow afternoon at 3 o'clock to attend the funeral of Miss Ada Hilliker in a body. All members are required to be present.
R. J. GRANTHAM, Recorder.


Miss Nettie Smith has left the employ of the Decatur County Journal and will re-enter the millinery store of Mrs. Lucy Ray.


Marriage Licenses.
W. A. Smith, McFall, Mo.....21
Lula Sell, McFall, Mo.....20
J. J. Moffett, Pleasanton.....44
Nancy C. Edwards, Pleasanton.....46
Chas. C. Weaver. Tuskeego.....22
Jennie Reaves, Tuskeego.....18
Walter E. Gassett, Leon.....20
Helen Bowman, Leon.....17

Growth of the Telephone in Thirty Years

1906

By John Vaughn

"Hello, Central," was first heard in 1878. Today the exchanges are numbered by the thousand, the telephones by the million. Various industries, unknown thirty years ago, but now sources of employment to many thousands of workers, depend entirely on the telephone for support. Numerous factories making lead sheathing, dynamos, motors, generators, batteries, office equipment, cables, and many other appliances, would have to close down and thus throw their operatives into idleness and misery if the telephone bell should cease to ring. The Bell Companies employ over 87,000 persons and, it may be added, pay them well. Many of these employes have families to maintain; others support their parents, or aid younger brothers and sisters. It is safe to say that 200,000 people look to the telephone for their daily bread. These figures may be supplemented by the number of telephones in use, (5,698,000), by the number of miles of wire (6,043,000), in the Bell lines, and by the number of conversations (4,479,500,000), electrically conveyed in 1905. The network of wire connects more than 33,000 cities, towns, villages and hamlets.

Such tremendous growth as these statistics show would imply not only steadily increasing appreciation of the telephone, but would also suggest improved instruments, more skillful operators, and better service. There would be no flattery in such suggestion. Electrical science has undergone radical reformation since 1876. Telephony has raised the utilization of electricity to the height of a profession. Of course such advances have not been won without cost. Fortunes were spent in experiment and investigation before a dollar came back. Communication by the first telephone was limited to a few thousand feet. Now, conversation can be carried on by persons 1,600 miles apart. Tomorrow long-distance lines will span the continent; and the day after oceanic telephony will be a commonplace of mercantile routine. But science and money had to collaborate for years before they could work the trade of enabling Boston and Omaha to talk together. — From the "Thirtieth Anniversary of a Great Invention," in Scribner.

On Suicide and Hard Times

1878

Suicide and Hard Times

Plenty of suicides are still reported, says a New York correspondent. Many of the victims are persons who were of no account in the world, but now and then we hear of the suicide of a man or woman who promised well and who might have done well. Failure to find work is frequently the cause of the act on the male side, but not always. Domestic trouble usually leads to it among women.

A few days ago a Spaniard, a man of good family connections and fair personal accomplishments, committed suicide in his boarding house. He had made a living by singing in opera, but latterly this resource failed him, and as his prospects in life were growing dark he closed accounts with the world by leaving it. One of his fellow boarders testified before the coroner that the Spaniard had frequently expressed a horror of work and said it would be more honorable to die.

But most of those who take the last desperate leap do so because they cannot, or fancy they cannot, find means to live. New York swarms with men of fair capacity who cannot get employment of any sort. As a rule, such men fare worse than men of a coarser fibre, because they are disqualified for taking hold of the odd jobs that men of the rougher class occasionally pick up. It would be almost suicidal for a stranger to come to New York expecting to find a situation.

The Cost of a Cocktail

1916

The Drink a Young Business Man Had to Have Before Lunch

In New York city there is a man who once paid $6,000 for a cocktail. He did not know it then, and he never will know it unless he happens to read this story.

A certain prosperous manufacturing company needed a new departmental manager. The salary was $6,000 a year. The officers of the company considered a great many candidates and at last decided to offer the position to a clever young man of unusual business ability. He seemed to be exactly the man for that particular place. The president and general manager invited the young man to lunch with them at a downtown club, ostensibly to talk over a less important business matter. They wanted to "look him over" just once more.

The man met them at the appointed hour, and the president, anxious to make the occasion a pleasant one, ordered an elaborate luncheon. The waiter was a long time in bringing the first course, and the guest began to appear ill at ease. He seemed absentminded and uninterested in the conversation. He twisted about in his chair and tapped his finders nervously upon the table. Finally he turned toward the president and said almost desperately "Would you mind very much if I ordered a cocktail?" Then he flushed a little and offered a laughing apology for making the request.

The other men exchanged surprised and significant glances, but they called the waiter and ordered the cocktail. When it came the guest drank it eagerly. In a few moments he had become another man — the man of keen vision and quick mind, who could be so useful in their great business. There was no more preoccupation in his manner, no shifting about in His chair. He was alert, eager, clear headed.

But as the luncheon went on neither the president nor the manager mentioned the real object of the interview. Each was thinking the matter over seriously, and neither could be sure of the other's secretly formed opinion. The situation became awkward. Finally the president excused himself on the pretense of going into the library to speak to a friend who had just entered. But after speaking to his friend he went straight to the desk and wrote a message on a telegraph blank. He gave the message to a uniformed attendant and went back to the dining room.

In a few minutes a page brought a telegram to the manager, who read it hurriedly, while the president finished telling their guest about a shooting trip in Maine. This is what the telegram said:

The job is too big for a boozer. We can't run our business by cocktail power. — Youth's Companion

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 6.