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. fHE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLAJTTA. GA-, 5 SOITB FORBTTM «T.
E Hntsred at the Atlanta Postotrlce as Mall Matter of th«
Second Class.
* ~ JiXM R GRAY,
President and Editor.
i nr»acBXPTioM frxcr.
* Twelve- months
I Six months 4oc
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* of special value to the home and the farm.
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THE BSMI WEEKLY JOURNAL AtlaaU. Ga.
k. '
Preparedness, the Bulwark f
Os Americanism.
■ r There is no stronger advocate of American
preparedness than Charles H. Grasty, of Baltimore,
a veteran journalist of national distinction who
returned from a lengtny sojourn in the
war zone and who is particularly well informed,
k through years of travel and personal acquaintance,
I as to European conditions and probabilities. Mr.
L Grasty is speaking and writing with marked effect
A of the need of an adequate army and navy for the
f"-Cnited States. In one of his most cogent articles,
which appears in the Manufacturers Record, he
I discusses the* dangers that will confront our na
tional interests and policies, especially the Monroe
Doctrine, in the aftermath of the Old World war.
The United States, he declares, will be fabulously
rich and Europe will be pitifully poor. The United
States will be softened with material prosperity;
Europe will be hardened by sacrifices and hungry
for compensation. In these circumstances would it
be at all surprising if an ambitious, necessity
driven Power or group of Powers should turn to
this hemisphere as a field for recouping war losses
and adventure to override the Monroe Doctrine?
Says Mr. Grasty;
I % “Here stands the weakest man in the
i. '.world, who is also the richest man in the
world. That’s us. There stands the poorest
man in the world, who is also the strongest
j man in the world. That's Europe. The weak
man is menacing the strong man with a
stuffed club. It doesn’t take any prophet or
expert to tell what is going to happen. . . .
With our wealth and weakness we are trying
to maintain a world policy that is most offen
sive to other nations. 1 believe in the Mon
roe Doctrine. It is a policy for the preserva
tion of human freedom. It is a policy to pro
tect our democratic garden from the tares of
autocratic systems. But to have a great pol
icy of this kind and to be impotent to enforce
I it is not only a monstrous bluff—it is a na
" tional crime.”
Whether or not it be true, ae thia writer be
lieves. that after the war “we are not going to
have a single friend among the great Powers," it is
certain that none of the great Powers will be dis
posed to an alignment with the United States for
the preservation of purely American interests and
policies. Our rigid neutrality has incurred the ill
will of the Teutonic empires without gaining the
good will of the Allies. While we have supplied
Great Britain and France with enormous stores of
i 'jnunitions and food, we have reaped royal profits
Z in so doing. The wisdom of neutrality is undenia
ble from the American point of view, but the fact
remains that from the European point of view we
have prospered while others suffered, and largely '
as a result of that suffering. However convinced
we may be that in the long run our neutrality will
work for the good of the world as well as for our
own, we can but realize that our position has not
been one to stir the imagination or enlist the sym
pathy of any of the nations struggling for existence.
We must fight our own battles for democracy in
the New World as we have left others to fight alone
for democracy in the Old World.
Mr. Graety notes the pertinent fact that
in the great republic of Brazil, Germans own
tremendous interests and that five hundred
thousand Germans are settled in that
land. “With these interests in that new, rich
country and with a population already rooted in
that coil, can anybody be simple enough to sup
pose for an instant,” he asks, “that when the war
is over and the German nation begins to look about
for ways and places to recoup, they are going to
let- any Monroe Doctrine stand in the way of what
they regard ae their needs and their rights?” So
in other Latin-American countries, notably Mexico,
Germany’s commercial interests are deeply in
trenched. and there is no sharper incentive to po
litical friction than commercial jealousy.
If the United States is to maintain its standing
In this hemisphere, if it ie to uphold those policies
and ideals to which it is committed, it must be pre
pared to check and thwart at the outset any show
of aggression not only from Germany but from any
other Power or alliance. Who can say what strange
realignments the years following the present war
may bring forth? In war as in politics, forces
that are opposed bitterly tn one contest may be
united in another. In the light of history, and of
history comparatively recent, the existing alliance
between England and Russia is remarkable, ae is
«lso that between the Central Empires and Turkey.
The United States should bear constantly in mind
that it stands isolated, an isolation that ie truly
splendid in some respects but which demands none
the less that this country be prepared to protect its
policies against combinations which now may seem
tbsurdly fanciful or impossible.
An adequate navy and an adequate army are
the surest and. indeed, the only guarantee againet
foreign invasions of this hemisphere. Weakness on
our part will invite attack. Strength such as
thorough preparedness brings will make attack
improbable, and so will conserve our peace as well
as our security. The highest duty before the
present Congress is to take due measures to save
oils country from hardship and miser}' and shame
which unpreparedness in time of national danger
would entaiL
Farm Credits and
Diversified Crops.
In an interesting discussion of the relationship
between diversified crops and farm credits, the
Augusta Chronicle directs attention to a plan
now operating in certain parts of the Southwest,
where “safety and sanity” has become the slogan
of agriculture. It seems that the banks have fixed
a credit rating for farmers and that if one is to ob
tain loans for extensions or improvements or pur
chases of new land, his rate sheet must be satis
factory. Among the requirements are:
Operating r. farm wherein the operations
shall not exceed the planting of more than
fifty per cent of the cultivated land in any
one crop, and that of the remainder enough
ehall be planted in food crops for the main
tenance of the family and livestock of the
farm. The rate sheet must be scrupulously
filled out by any farmer applying for a loan.
He must also signify the number of hogs, the
number of hens, the number of beef cows, of
milk cattle, the area of the home garden and
other pertinent details." ,
Under this system agriculture is placed on an
assured basis just as are commercial and indus
trial pursuits. The result will be conserving and
stimulating to all the interests concerned, but
chiefly to farming itself. In fact, the requirements
which those banks have adopted amount to practi
cal co-operation with the responsible, forward
looking farmers of the community.
In one form or another, this principle is des
tined to become universal in the South. Bankers
and merchants naturally are disposed to aid and
encourage the planters whose methods are pru
dent and sound. Economic wisdom* and economic
necessity are fast putting an end to the precarious
all-cotton system. The outcome will be incalcula
bly strengthening and enriching to the South.
i
A Mortgage on Doubtful Victory.
Germany is becoming less confident of the war
profits she once expected. The Minister of Finance
said recently In addressing the Reichstag:
“Regardless of the indemnity upon which
we naturally reckon, war will* bring its train
of colossal tax burdens to us. We too must
dig down in our pockets.”
This is rather a different tone from his firm
assurance last summer that the war debt would be
borne not by Germany but by her enemies, as it
was borne by France in 1870. Berlin begins to
realize that even in the event of decisive victory
the spoils will lack much of overbalancing the
cost. The war was precipitated in the hope that
it would be brief and conclusive and that the Allies
would come to satisfactory terms before the finan
cial sinewe which Germany had carefully reserved
for the conflict were exhausted. Just the con
trary is proving true. The enemy has shown a
most unaccommodating stubbornness and the war
has settled to a basis of grim endurance.
For the generous loyalty with which the Ger
mans thus far have supported the Government's re
peated loans, there can be nothing but admiration.
But it must be remembered that this hearty re
sponse has reeled upon an assurance that ulti
mately the enemy would pay all the bills. But
suppose that assurance is belied by the event. Sup
pose the huge indemnities are not forthcoming.
Will not the burdens and losses of the war then
fall upon the people with terrible intensity The
Springfield Republican interestingly observes:
“Till now the needs of the war have been
met by loans based on rosy expectations. The
Government hae been severely critical of the
English plan, dating from Adam Smith in the
Eighteenth century, of paying the cost of wars
so far as possible by taxes instead of conduct
ing them on credit. Which plan Is sounder
may be shown before the war ie over. While
hope runs high it may be pleasanter to lend
the Government money at interest than to
have it taken in the form of taxes. But if
credit is once impaired, this plan has its ob
vious weakness. Credit is damaged to an ex
tent by the admission that no expectable in
demnity would suffice; it would be hurt far
worse if it should become clear that there is
to be no indemnity.”
From the present trend, the great ransoms
which Germany once reckoned upon seem more
remote and uncertain than ever. Her plans for a
short and profitable war have gone woefully awry.
Her mortgage on victory becomes more and more
dubious. If she is compelled at last to pay her
own bills, as now appears likely, she will find the
task a most grievous one.
A New Industry for Georgia.
The announcement that a sugar refinery rep
resenting an investment of three million dollars is
to be established at Savannah bears interesting
witness to Georgia's progress in diversified agricul
ture and diversified industry. These lines of de
velopment are naturally parallel. By broaening
the resources of the farm, we extend the range of
manufactures, and by providing new outlets for
those resources we encourage an increase of pro
duction.
Commenting on the projected refinery, the Sa
vannah Press observes that the fertile acres of
South Georgia can be made to yield as much sugar
as the lowlands of Louisiana and that through this
enterprise “the farmers will be able to put in a
crop that will mean immediate cash as soon as the
product is delivered." The Press also aptly refers
to the interest which the new industry has aroused
not only among neighboring counties but in distant
States as well. Newspapers in the East regard
the investment of three million dollars in a Geor
gia enterprise of this kind as striking evidence of
the South’s resources and energy.
The past year has been notable for Georgia’s
industrial expansion. The reduction of the cotton
acreage and the planting of food crops, together
with the raising of more food animals, has called
for the establishment of grain mills, canning plants
and packing houses. These in turn have opened
new and profitable markets for food crops and new
fields of employment for labor. Then tendency
should be encouraged in every county and by every
possible means, for it is filled with possibilities for
the State’s enrichment and upbuilding. There is
no better purpose to which boards of trade and
chambers of commerce and farmers’ organizations
can devote their energies.
If 1915, or a considerable part of it, was with
out profit In a busihese way, it was worth a lot in
experience. And now we are getting the business
profit, too.
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1916.
Justice Joseph R. Lamar.
In the death of Justice Joseph R. Lamar, of the
United States Supreme Court, the nation loses one
of its greatest jurists, and Georgia one of her most
beloved sons.
The fact that he was appointed to a place on
the country’s highest tribunal by a President of
opposite political faith bore striking witness to the
commanding qualities of Justice Lamar’s mind and
character. A stanch Democrat himself, hie high
attainments and splendid Integrity appealed to
thoughtful men in all parties, and particularly to
President Taft’s profound regard for the powers
and responsibilities of the Supreme Court. He
went to Washington known to comparatively few
except those whose duties and interests brought
them into touch with matters of high judicial im
port. But he had not been in the capital long be
fore his personality as well as his rich learning and
ability impressed themselves upon thousands there
and upon the country at large.
Justice Lamar was not only admired for his tal
ent and service, he w’as also beloved for his gra
ciousness of manner, his accomplishments as a
gentleman, his abundant possession of those traits
which win the hearts as well as the respect of men.
He embodied the beet traditions of the South and
reflected the energy and vision of one who live
broadly and intensely in twentieth century America.
His death is a loss to the Supreme Court, a loss
to the United States, and a peculiarly poignant loss
to his fellow Georgians who knew him as a son
of their own soil, a friend of their own firesides,
a comrade whom they cherished with pride and
affection.
Austria's Concessions.
Austria's concession to the main demands of
the United States in the Ancona case relieves the
danger of a diplomatic break between the Govern
ments and marks an important step toward a just
and humane settlement of the entire submarine
issue.
Some differences, it is true, are yet to be ad
justed but there are the best of omens in Vienna’s
assurance that hereafter no vessels, unless they
offer resistance or flee, will be sunk without the
passengers and crew being brought to safety.
That, after all, is the great principle for which the
United States has contended in its correspondence
with the Powers. That is the highly
human aspect of the issue.
-It seems that Austria is more liberal in its ac
knowledgment and promise on this point than
Germany has been, for while Germany has limited
its assurances to “liners,” a term the precise con
notation of which has not yet been cleared, Austria
promises that no craft not a war vessel shall be
destioyed before the lives of those aboard have
been secured.
If that principle is once firmly established and
consistently followed by the belligerents, subma
rine warfare will be reduced to a humane and
civiHzed basis. It remains to be seen, of course,
whether Austria and Germany live up to their as
surances. We cannot forget that the case with
Germany assumed its most threatening aspect at
the very moment when it was considered settled,
or that the Lusitania issue is still far short of con
clusion. But as far as present conditions indicate
the outlook is assuring.
Quips and Quiddities
An Englishman visiting ths United States for the
first time was riding in a street car in New York. Op
posite to him sat a woman upon whose lap was a very
homely baby—an uncompromisingly nomely child. The,
baby seemed to fascinate the Englishman; he couldn’t
keep his eyes off it; he would look away, drop his
eyeglass and endeavor to fix his attention on some
other object. But it was of no use; he had to look
back!
At* last the mother—obviously annoyed—leaned
over and hoarsely whispered “Rubber!”
A relieved smile spread over the ruddy countenance
of the Englishman and he replied with great fervor:
“Madam, thank goodness! Do you know, I actually
thought It was real!” —Everybody’s Magazine.
• • •
Into the office of a country editor came a bluff old
farmer with his eighteen-year-old son.
"I've come for a little information, sir,” he said,
hopefully.
"I shall be delighted to do what I can for you,
was the polite reply.
“Well, this son of mine wants to go into the lit
erary business, and I thought you would be able to
tell us if there was any money in it. It’s a fcood line,
isn’t it?”
“Y-e-s,” replied the editor, hesitatingly. ‘Tve been
at it myself for a good many years, and—•”
The farmer thereupon looked around at the shabby
office, and then* at the shabbier editor.
“Come on, Willie!” he ordered. “Back to your
ploughing, my lad!”
• • •
At a charge of the zouaves the commandant suddenly
cried out, “Lie down!” as a hail of German shells came
over them. They all dropped but one.
“Norn de dieu, He down!” the lieutenant colonel
called out, furiously, to the one man.
This zouave tapped his large pocket and called back
to his chief: ‘
“Mon lieutenant, I can’t; I’ve got a quart bottle full
of wine in here and it hasn't any cork in It.”
• • •
An old darkey appealing to a lady for aid told her
that by the Dayton flood he had lost everything he
had in the world, including his wife and six children.
“Why,” said the lady, “I have seen you before and
I have helped you. Were you not the colored man
who told me you had lost your wife and six children
by the sinking of the Titanic?”
“Yeth, ma’am,” replied the darkey, “dat was me.
Most unfort’nit man dat eber was. Can’t keep a
fam’ly nohow.”
• • •
John Morrison, an elderly Scot laird, had an an
cient valet named Gabriel, whose petulance and license
of speech went so far as to be Intolerable. One day,
at dinner Gabriel took the liberty of calling some
thing which his master said “a great lee.”
"Weel,” said the laird, really offended, and rising
from the table, “this will do no longer. We must part
at last.”
“Hout, tout,” replied Gabriel, pressing his master
into the chair. “Whaur wad yer honer be better than
in yer ain hoose?”
’ Pointed Paragraphs
Nature leaves a lot of work for the dressmaker
to finish.
* • •
It is a waste of money to advertise for lost
friendship.
• • •
The brick manufacturer has some excuse for
wanting the earth.
An unprofitable apartment house may be con
sidered a flat failure.
• ♦ •
There may be nothing new under the sun, but.
some of the imitations frequently surpass the orig
inal.
THE salesman —meaning also the saleswoman is
more and more the deciding factor in the success
or failure of a retail store. He is no longer a
mere automaton who hands out goods and makes change
but Is the real personality of the business. His calling
Is being hailed as the fourth profession; university
courses In salesmanship are being established, and
there is quite a literature on the subject.
This great importance of the modern salesman may
seem a trifle Illusory to the clerk who is trying to live
on $9 a week. It is true that the rewards of salesman
ship are not high. They run from $3 to S4O a week;
the great majority of the profession gets less than $lO,
and few of them ever achieve a salary of more than
|lB. But the conditions of their calling are steadily
improving. By national advertising and the wide dis
tribution and standardization of products, the prices
and profits of the retail business are rapidly becoming
uniform. All of the stores have goods of about the
same quality for the same price. Hence the service
rendered a customer by the salesman has come to be
the deciding factor in success. It follows with logical
certainty that the salesman must become a more ef
ficient and better paid individual, and there Is already
a strong upward trend both in efficiency and salaries.
• • •
Scientific management is just beginning to be ap
plied to the retail business as it has been used in fac
tories for years, and it is being directed almost wholly
to raising the efficiency of the salesman and putting
his pay on a logical basis. The larger stores of the
country are now giving examinations to test the ability
of their prospective employes, are holding classes and
lectures to train them, and are testing the amount of
work each can do in a day in order to pay him exactly
what his efficiency and the profits of ths business
permit.
• • •
Schools and colleges are aiding big stores in their
efforts to obtain trained employes. Not only public
schools In several cities, but one university—that of
Wisconsin—are giving regular courses In salesmanship.
The University of Wisconsin has a correspondence
course and a circuit lecturer on the subject, and has
obtained remarkable results. One advertising man in
a department store was advanced from a salary of
$1,500 to >2,500 when he had completed the course. His
success resulted In the enrollment of the entire force
of employes from that store. Another enterprising lad
took the course and went from a shop in a small Wis
consin town to the head pf a selling department In a
Chicago mail order house. A man thirty-two years
old, who had been a retail salesman on a small salary
all his life, became the credit manager of his firm after
studying the subject by mail. *So technical education
in his calling has opened new opportunities of ad
vancement to the salesman.
• * •
When such training has become more general and
when. all of the stores examine their prospective em
ployes with a view to determining their special fitness
for salesmanship, the wage problem will solve itself.
For the principal causfe of the low rate of payment Is
that the stores are overrun with unskilled persons,
chiefly women, who are willing to work for less than
a living wage.
• • •
A study of the salesgirls in various cities shows
that most of them work in a retail store as a means
of tiding over the period between leaving school and
getting married. Most of them live at home and are
therefore willing to work for less than a living wage.
Practically all of them hope to get married and there
fore do not study salesmanship as a permanent calling.
For all of these reasons the majority of them are of
a low grade of efficiency and worth to the employer
little more than he pays them.
• • •
To the retail merchant the wages of his salesmen
are his greatest selling cost, ’this he calculates as a
certain percentage of his total sales, and the percentage
varies all the Way from 2 1-2 to 12 in different stores.
About 7 per cent of sales is considered a fair expendi
ture for the service of salesmen. Now it is evident
that the merchant cannot greatly Increase this percent
age and still keep his business on a paying basis. But
if he has fewer and more efficient salesmen, each of
them will receive more.
• • •
Thus in a certain department store careful tab was
kept on the amount sold by each girl to see what per
centage of her sales ttor salary represented. In the
case of a girl receiving $5 a week it was found that
her salary was 10 per cent of her sales, while one re
ceiving sls a week drew only 3 per cent of her sales.
Search Your Motives
BY' H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.
ANEW year has begun, a new year in your life, a
new year in your business. ‘ If ybu have not al
ready done so, no doubt you will soon cast up
your past year’s accounts, and will know how you stand
from a business point of view. But will you know with
anything like equal certainty how you sand as a man?
Probably you are well aware of certain obvious de
fects in your character, and have resolved to root them
out during the year that lies ahead of you. Not all the
defects in a man’s psychic make-up, however, are obvious
ones.
Often defects that are most serious can be ascer
tained only by rigorous self-examination. It may pay
you to make such an examination now.
Ask yourself, above all else, what are the motives
that dominate your life. Is money-grubbing the chief
aim of your existence? Are your actions, great or
small, determined by what they will mean to you in
dollars and cents.?
If, indeed, you can justly acquit yourself of devo
tion to a money ideal, it is not perhaps the case that
an obsession for prestige of some sort holds you cap
tive? Is it the winning of social, political, scientific,
artistic, or literary fame the great motive force in your
daily activities?
In fine, in whatever you do, is it, or is it not, a
fact that you habitually seek first of all and most of
all some sort of profit for yourself? To put It blunt
ly, is selfishness your basic trait?
Try to answer these and similar questions with all
candor.
Scrutinize searchingly even actions and experiences
that are seemingly trival. In the self-examination
which you ought to undertake, profit from the hint put
forth by the philosopher Dubois in this most sugges
tive passage:
“Suppose a doctor has devotedly cared for a patient.
. . . The patient is satisfied, and shows his gratitude
by word or mouth, or in a touching letter. Very well,
but is that everything? Is it enough to pocket the
compliments and become puffed up with the feeling of
one’s value?
“No. Do not let this practitioner be afraid to criticize
himself.
“He will discover, perhaps, that the social position
of his patient was not without influence upon his ap
parently altruistic solicitude.
“Another day he will catch himself in the fact of his
vanity, his principal anxiety having been to pronounce
a clever diagnosis and to show his superiority over his
confreres.”
Self-examination of this sort is indeed more profit
able than the similar inquiry which we so often make
into the actions of others. Recognizing that these mo
tives are not always of the noblest, we may criticize
the person in whom we discern them, but we cannot
oompell a substitution of better motives, a cleaning of
the springs of action.
In our own case, on the opposite, this Is precisely
what we can do. Once we have convinced ourselves of
selfishness, vanity, greed, cowardice, or whatever the
secret fault may be, we are in a position really to
purify our motives and thus to lead a more worthy
life.
Let us begin the new year, therefore, with some self
analysis.
And throughout the year let us again analyze our
selves from time to time. Eternal vigilance is the
price of moral safety, just as it is the price of military,
political, and commercial safety.
(Copyright, 1916, by H. A. Bruce.)
WHERE YOU BUY. 11.-The Salespeople.
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
So the flfteen-dollar-a-week girl was really worth about
twenty-five a week to her employer, while the five-dol
lar girl was only worth about three.
• • •
When training for salespeople has become general
In schools and universities and the demand for a high
standard of ability has become general in stores, wages
will rise of their own accord because there will be
fewer and better salesmen.
• • •
The wages paid today are undoubtedly insufficient
as a whole to command a ' ,«gh grade of efficiency. Boys
starting In the retail business receive from $3 to IS
a week. The salaries of competent salesmen range
from sl2 to $lB per week, and the majority of the men
in retail stores never pass the latter figure. Salesmen
in some departments and In stores where a high degree
of technical knowledge is required, such as those deal
ing In rugs, furnitures, and silks, sometimes receive as
much as $25 or S4O a week.
• • •
The wages of women in retail stores have been the
subject of much controversy and investigation. It is
true, many of them receive less than a living wage and
also that many of them do not expect to live on thedr
wages and are not worth much more thkn they get.
Cash girls and bundle-wrappers receive from $3 to $lO
a week, but the great majority receive less than $5.
Saleswomen receive from $3 to $25 a week and occa
sionally more, but generally It is less than $9.
-Most of these wages are paid on a basis of time—
that is, so much per week; but in some stores a com
mission basis is adopted. This is usually found prac
ticable only where there is a very fine division of the
work; otherwise, it leads to strife among the employee
to wait upon a customer, the neglect of those with
small orders for those with large ones, and the selling
of more desirable goods to the neglect of the older
stock.
• •
A very general practice is that of paying a small
premium for the sale of this old stock. Such goods are
usually marked “PM,” and the premium of 1 or 2
per cent paid to the clerk who sells it Is called in the
argot of the trade, a “spiff.” The payment of spiff «on
goods slightly out of style is very general In the wom
an’s garment trade. In addition to these commissions,
many stores pay bonuses for punctuality and faithful
service, and some of them exact fines for carelessness
or tardiness. Fines, however,’are very unpopular and
create bad feeling. They are used less and leas.
• • •
Yet another form of bonus to the employe to a dis
count of from 10 to 20 per cent upon goods which he
takes from the store for his own use or for those per
sons immediately dependent upon him. Perquisites take
many other forms such as gifts, banquets, instruments
for bands, books, educational course, prizes for sug
gestions, and aid In forming and equipping many or
ganizations such as singing societies, baseball clubs,
bands, orchestras and cadet corps. In fact In these
days of organized philanthropy and general uplift, the
much discussed working girl gets more perquisites than
anything else. These things, however, in nowisa make
up for the lack of adequate remuneration, which to the
one thing that will bring salesmanship to the neces
sary degree of efficiency.
• • •
The education of the salesman means a great deal
more than better wages for him and better wealth for
the merchant, for the man behind the counter-must be
ranked as One of the great educational influences of
modern times. The kind of shoes and clothes we wear,
the foods we eat, how our houses are furnished and
decorated depend a great deal upon the common sense
and persuasive power, and still more upon the con
scientiousness of the retail salesman. It takes sales
manship to introduce every innovation such as sewing
machines, vacuum cleaners, notched collars and coat
shirts. We owe these things as much to the salesman
who introduced them as to the inventors who designed
them. The Englishman still gets into his shirt from the
bottom like a ’possum going up a hollow tree. The
initiative-of the American haberdasher muat be given
credit for the wide use in this country of a shirt that I
even a fat man may put on as easily as he does a
vest. • -
. k • •
■ »•If .» . •U‘j. I
If you are, free from corns and bunions it is be
cause you deal at a store where they know how to try
on shoes. If ypur new suits fits at the neck, if the
wall-paper In the dining room matches the floor; If
you have discovered a 5-cent cigar that’ you like; If
your wife has found a hat for sll that she thinks to
perfectly becoming—for these and many other bless
ings, thank the man behind the counter.
Nuisance Value
BY DR. FRANK CRANE.
The editor of Financial America calls my attention
to a word used In the New Haven railway case. Mr.
Mellen found that road s which parralled the New Ha
ven partially, and properties controlled by interests
which might soon or later prove competitors, had a
“Nuisance Value.”
A most sprouting phrase!
Nuisance Value may be defined as arising from power
and disposition to annoy, hurt, or cause loss.
The blackmailer to a pure type of Nuisance Value.
You pay him money, not for any good he does you, but
to prevent him from doing you harm.
And the more you pay him the worse you are off. For
he comes again to profit by your fears. Which illus
trates the general law of Nuisances, that it would be
well for all to learn, to wit: that Nuisance Value Iles
only in your own fears or weakness, and that the best,
surest, and easiest way to get rid of a Nuisance is to
defy and ignore him. To attempt to purchase him to to
pour money into a rat hole. Vide United States of
America vs. New York, New Haven and Hartford rail
way.
For years railroad and other public service companies
tried to abate Nuisance legislators who introduced
harassing bills only to be “seen.” Those corporations are
slowly realizing that this policy is futile, since grafting
lawmakers are like flies, and for every one that to
killed off two come to the funeral.
All around the body of reputable, honest lawyers
there is a swarm of shysters who make a wretched liv
ing by bringing lawsuits with the sole intention of be
ing bought off. No town of any size is free from these
vermin. They do as much mischief, according to their
lights, as any class of withln-the-law criminals.
But, for that matter, whoever, to gain his way, uses
his power to make himself disagreeable belongs to the
Nuisance group. And in this broad classification fall
many men. women, and children who ought to be either
exterminated or confined in a Nuisance Asylum.
There is the woman who nags, the woman that
practices martyrdom, and the woman who weeps. Re
lying upon her assurance that the husband w.ll not
beat her, and that the display of her unpleasantness
drives him to fury, she makes a weapon of her weakness
and rules by Nuisance Power.
There is the squalling child that has early learned
that the quicket way to get what he wants is to render
everybody miserable. If you object To the slipper rear
wardly applied, you might try locking him up and let
ting him scream himself to exhaustion a few times.
When he once learns that crying brings him nothing, he
will cease.
And whoever belongs to and frequents a church, a
lodge, or a club has not failed to find the members who
when he connot make everybodv fall in with his propo
sition, “takes his doil rags and goes home.”
The bully who uses his strength to attain his ends,
through violence, is bad enough, but he is much prefer
able to the whiners, sulkers. pettifoggery,
and the grand army of Nuisances in general You can
lick a bully; at least, you can try. \
If so be, then, that any Nuisance reads these words
and is not wholly impervious to advice, let him or her
be advised as follows.
If you can’t get what you want by reason, or justice,
or argument, or purchase, or robbery, or theft, don’t get
it Whatever you do, don’t make use of your Nuisance
Power to accomplish your purpose. Selah!
.Modern warfare seems to be largely a matter
of perfecting the ancient methods.