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About The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip. (Portland, Or.) 1923-1927 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1922)
25 THE WESTERN AMERICAN swallow every thing they are being told. When the shades Inainder of the expenditures will be distributed among numerous improvements that will keep the properties are down and the lights are low, the scheemer ean make “his private little deal on the side,” in that way it looks pretty much thoroughly modern. like a favor to a “brother.” December, 1922 I While in New York President Griffith attended a Ineeting of the National Electric Light Association’s Ixecutive committee, of which he is vice-president. In speaking of the progress made in the electrical service line in this country Mr. Griffith said: I A new development in the distribution of utility stocks has Been taking place. It is estimated that this year the various utility companies of the country will have distributed $300,- 000,000 worth of stocks to their customers and it is forecast ■hat next year these sales will reach $250,000,000. I The various utilities of the country are expected to expend nearly $1,000,000,000 in construction during 1923, which means ■hat more than one-fourth of the total amount will be supplied through sales of stocks. I This is real public ownership of utilities, with the customers of the various companies becoming partners in the enterprises, this investment being made by patrons in the districts served by the concerns. I Generally, it appeared from what I saw in the east, condi tions are on the mend and the country is facing more favor- able times. We are so well assured of this outlook that our company is going ahead vigorously with its own construction work planned for 1923. ' THE TEST OF COURAGE ITO LIVE according to your convictions. I1 Not to bend the knee to popular prejudice. I To say “No” squarely when those around you say ■Yes.” I To be whait you are and not to pretend to be what you are not. I To refuse to knuckle and bend the knee to the wealthy, even though poor. I To remain in honest poverty while others grow rich by questionable methods. I To speak the truth when, by a little prevarication, you can get some good advantage. I To live honestly within your means, and not dis honestly upon the means of others. I To stand firmly erect while others are bowing and ■awning for praise and power. I To refuse to do a thing which you think is wrong, Because it is customary and done in trade. I When mortified and embarrassed by humiliating disaster, to seek in the ■wreck or ruin the elements of future conquest. I To face slander and lies, and to carry yourself with cheerfulness, grace and? dignity for years before the lie can be corrected. I To throw up a position with a good salary when it is the only business you know, and you have a fam ily depending upon you, because it does not have your unqualified approval. Marconi, the inventor of the wireless, attributes much of his success in life to the early training received from his mother, a kind-hearted, keen Irish woman. Somehow the Irish have evidently overlooked something, leaving the Ital ians free to claim Marconi as a man of their race I and blood only, when in reality Marconi is more Irish by blood than Italian, by virtue of having been born into this world by an Irish mother. Even the Bible has not been kept immune from Germany’s wave of rising prices. The most modest editions, such as sold for fifteen to twenty marks at the close of 1921, now cost sixty to seventy. The price of the binding alone is now double the cost of the printed section. Church collections are made from time to time to keep the Bible within reach of the poorer people by insuring that it sells only for the cost of production. A fine old man is Eugene V. Debs. But he is getting old. Like so many an “old man” he has fallen into a rut. An avowed disciple of socialism, failing to realize the good of his political ambition—to see the United States a socialistic state —his utterances frequently reveal his great disappointment which has brought him to the borderland of the cynical where all the irreconcilables of every age finally take their station. The modern bootlegger who peddles his ware neat ly tucked in a baby carriage probably has more than one rea son for wheeling the stuff around town in a baby cart. There is the “safety against cops” principle of course, but the care fully concealed contents are probably not old enough to ride about in any other kind of vehicle. Colonel Harvey, United States Ambassador to Great Britain, has been called home to Washington for a conference. Why not ask Harvey to take along his luggage and stay home for good ? Both Uncle Sam and John Bull would be better off by such an arrangement. The real art in modem building construction is said to lie in the builder’s ability to build you a bungalow small enough to meet your needs and still make it cost enough to convince you that he has built you a mansion. One of the most recent and very expressive similies runs like this: “Busier than a coroner on Monday morning.” A LIBERAL EDUCATION rFHAT MAN, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic en I The “brothers” in some of our popular and very gine, with all its parts of equal strength and smooth secret societies are getting “peeved” about being “touched” working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be for various “extras” for “the cause” all the time. The form turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers of solicitation is rather a bit crude—something of the “come across and ask no questions” kind of solicitations backed by a as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with knowledge of the great fundamental menacing nickel-plated. truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; I Seven hundred million dollars—it is a big amount, one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but but that is a rough estimate of what the American public has whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigor invested and lost in speculative schemes of the “sure money” ous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has variety. The confidence man has a chance to work his “game” learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of in today’s America as never before. All he has to do is to |<jine” and become a “prominent” member in some of these art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as him modern secret societies where the members are accustomed to self.”—T. H. Huxley.
