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keeps many a girl from joining the working girls’
brigade. Not long ago I heard a young man ask
a girl if she worked, and she replied, “Oh, no;
now and then I get restless and go in the store for
pastime.” Poor idiot; her feet were on the ground
then. It doesn’t hurt a girl to work. It doesn’t
even mar her chances for Boazes. A man who is
worth having will love the more when he sees his
love engaged in honest toil.
LOVE IN THE BARLEY FIELD.
Ruth’s offer for work was accepted and she be
gan her work in the barley field. After a time Boaz
came through the field and saw this strange woman
at work. He asked his man, “Whose damsel is
this?” He replied, “She is the Moabitish damsel
that came back with Naomi out of the country of
Moab.” This was the beginning of the love affair
between this historic couple. Step by step it pro
ceeded. Ruth would go now and then to report to
her mother-in-law and get from her such advice as
she could give.
The whole affair was managed beautifully. There
was never a ripple worth noting. Many things they
did, to be sure, seem strange to us, but we must
remember the custom then was different from the
custom today. Finally the days of courtship and
testing were ended and the happy knot was tied
and the lovely young widow became Mrs. Boaz.
We now come to some pertinent suggestions com
ing out of this beautiful story. First, let us re
member that Ruth made her first impression on
Boaz while he watched her do her work. This is
true of all of us. The work we have to do may be
ever so humble, but if we do it faithfully the world
will give us promotion. We may not all get a Boaz,
but we will get the best the world has to give.
Again, the first impression was intensified by the
treatment Ruth gave her mother-in-law, who stood
in the place of mother. There is nothing that counts
for more than this. The girl that will snap her
mother will bite her husband. If I had to marry
a hundred times I’d always demand to peep behind
the door to see how mother was treated.
Another thing that counted for much was the
fact that Ruth did not run after young men. This
is a hint which does not need application. Those
of you who need it had best get off and apply it to
yourselves.
But above all else, the whole blessed life of Ruth
in Bethlehem-Judah was due to the fact that she
never surrendered the right. Orpah, her sister-in
law, though a woman with good intentions, weak
ened in Moab and forever dropped out of history.
Ruth ever stood firm, and God and man honored
her. What a lesson for each of us! One night
when I was preaching in the Academy of Music in
Baltimore a beautiful society woman was converted.
She had been a member of the church, but that
was all. As is bound to be true with every genuine
conversion, she gave up her cards, the theaters and
such like. Her husband was not a Christian. He
got very angry and threatened to leave home be
cause she would not play cards and go to the thea
ter. Her son was not pleased, and he actually left.
It looked very dark for her, but she remained firm.
Finally, God touched the boy’s heart and brought
him back. Then He touched the husband’s heart
and brought him to Christ. Now what a happy
family that is. Oh, that we could learn the lesson
and stand for the right!
When any question is up, there is only one ques
tion for a true man or woman to ask, and that is,
“Is it right?” God pity the Christian man or
woman who consents to compromise. Stand! Stand,
I say! Stand for the right, and though all hell
turns against us we will wear a victor’s crown in
the end.
*
The Kaiser’s head will adorn the next issue of
German postage-stamps. Hitherto they have shown
the symbolic figure of Germania. The hereditary
monarchs of the federated states are growing ac
customed to the idea of an empire under the rule
of the Kaiser, and have withdrawn their objection
to the use of his portrait on the stamps.
The Golden Age for July 16, 1908.
Light on Dark Places at Panama
Miss May A. Chatfield. —'Rebielv by J. L. T). Hilly er
HAVE read with much care the story
told by Miss Chatfield in a series of let
ters written from Panama. The writer
of these letters was a young American
woman, an especially well equipped
stenographer, who went to the Isthmus
on her own initiative to get one of the
high salaried places that she had heard
about. She was, of course, disappoint-
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ed. She had no backing except her qualifications
to do the work and that was not of a sort that ap
pealed to “the bosses.” They had to give the bet
ter places to applicants whose friends could, in re
turn for such favors, make things better for the
said “bosses.”
This condition of things confronted Miss Chat
field. She struggled to gdt a fair compensation for
her work. Her efforts in that direction were, of
course, futile. And when she found that she could
not secure justice, she determined to talk. Hence
the publication of these letters.
I am not disposed to go into very extensive lauda
tion of works of this sort, simply because the sub
ject bores me. During the last ten years a number
of very strong and notable books and magazine ar
ticles have been coming from the press that deal
with various abuses of public confidence. Tn the
Wheat Pit of Chicago, the immortal “Jungle” of
the same city, the combinations made by railroads
and other great corporations which have not been
satisfied to put prices high enough to insure fabu
lous profits in all conditions; but to make sure of
the conditions by electing men enough to control the
United States Senate and half the House and so far
to surround the President himself as to make it im
possible for him to be honest. The conditions have
all been set forth. The story of the Standard Oil
oppression and of “High Finance” have all had
their run and now this little book of Miss Chat
field’s comes to tell us how the same spirit of
“graft” ruled the affairs of the Isthmus up to the
time when the President, thoroughly disgusted with
the whole system, dismissed the entire civil estab
lishment and put the work into the hands of the
army engineers.
I say it is boring to me to read of such things. I
have not read one of the publications referred to en
tirely, except this one. My want of interest is pure
ly personal. It is quite possible that the majority
of people do not feel as I do, and to them I say,
you will find Miss Chatfield’s book a very interest
ing account of a very important series of events.
Notwithstanding my distaste, I know that these
books have contributed no small influence toward the
reform that the honest people of our country are
trying to secure. Forty years ago this kind of
graft began to show up in the Freedman’s Bureau.
The carpet baggers were to a man grafters. Their
spirit was rapacity; their victims were the white
people and negroes alike. The spirit of the carpet
bagger has never left the republican party. Out of
it has grown all the various forms of “predatory
wealth” and willingness to oppress all the people
for personal gain of the fortunately situated few.
Will I have space here to tell again, for the
younger readers, the story of “The trial trip of the
Harriette Lane”? How graphically it illustrates
the difference between honest administration and
graft!
Buchanan was President. Howell Cobb of Geor
gia was Secretary of the Treasury. The time was
about 1858 or 1859. A new treasury boat, a reve
nue cutter, had been slided into the Potomac, bear
ing the name Harriette Lane, after the then Lady of
the White House, who was the niece of the bachelor
president. The boat was finished and put in readi
ness for her trial trip. Mr. Cobb concluded that it
would be a good occasion to give a picnic to some
of his friends. Accordingly one day at a cabinet
meeting he invited the president and Miss Lane, the
members of the cabinet with their families, to go
with him and a number of other important people,
including certain members of the diplomatic corps,
and some congressmen, on a run down the Potomac
to give the new cutter her initial cruise.
Members of the cabinet expressed lively interest
and exuberant thanks. The president withheld all
comment and looked exceedingly displeased. As the
cabinet meeting broke up, the president called At
torney General Jerry Black, of New Jersey, to re
main. When they were alone Mr. Buchanan said:
“Black, what about this frolic of Cobb’s?” Black
replied: “All I know, Mr. President, is what Mr.
Cobb said this morning.” “Well,” said the presi
dent, “it is an outrage. It will discredit and dis
grace my whole administration. It will take twenty
years to explain to the people why a government
vessel should be used for a picnic party gotten up
by a member of the cabinet, and I don’t mean to
allow it. I tell you what you do. You go to Cobb
and tell him that I want him to furnish to me an
account of every item of expense that this picnic
involves, including the wages for the time being of
all the employes and every item of the supplies
furnished. ’ ’
Mr. Black went to Mr. Cobb with the president’s
orders. Mr. Cobb gave a low whistle and said:
“Ah, that’s the old man’s idea, is it! Very well,
I will give him a surprise when the time comes.”
The trip was made at the appointed time. All
the crowd enjoyed a good day. The president put
up with it as well as he could, and all returned
safely to the city. At the next meeting of the cab
inet, just before the adjournment, the president
said: “Mr. Secretary of the Treasury, have you
the itemized account of the expenses of the Har
riette Lane trial trip, as I requested?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Cobb, “I believe I have it
in some of my pockets.” As he was speaking, he
was running his hands through some of his pockets.
He found a somewhat crumpled and slightly soiled
paper at last, and handed it to the president, say
ing: “This is it, Mr. President.” Buchanan took
it silently. He found that it was made out on the
bill head of one of the Washington caterers. He
ran through all the items to the last, including the
footing, and at the bottom he saw: “Received pay
ment for the above amount in full from Howell
Cobb” (signed by the caterer).
“Humph!” said the president, “the bill seems
to be receipted already. I wanted to get the amount
of it in order that I might pay it myself, for I tell
you I could never have sanctioned an account like
this going into the government books during my ad
ministration.”
“Os course,” said Mr. Cobb. “The bill was paid
promptly, and it was my frolic. Who else should
have paid it but Howell Cobb?”
This story is true is true in every detail except
possibly in the mere wording of some of the speech
es. It shows what the idea about graft in govern
ment office was fifty years ago.
The class of publications to which our present vol
ume belongs all tend to bring again, as if from the
dead, the old rugged democratic honesty that James
Buchanan insisted on and that Howell Cobb, of
Georgia, was always ready to practice.
One of the Tish.
“Doin’ any good?” asked the curious individual
on the bridge.
“Any good?” answered the fisherman, in the
creek below. “Why, I caught forty bass out o’
here yesterday.”
“Say, do you know who I am?” asked the man
on the bridge.
The fisherman replied that he did not.
“Well, I am the county fish and game warden.”
The angler, after a moment’s thought, exclaimed,
“Say, do you know who I am?”
“No,” the officer replied.
“Well, I’m the biggest liar in eastern Indiana.”
said the crafty angler, with a grin.—Recreation.
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