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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1908)
THE SUNDAY" OREGOXIAX. PORTLAND, JANUARY 26, 1908. 1 rM rV ; K TV" : ' . ' - r J! EVER tried it? You fellows who are earning your- bread by the sweat of your brow? And you who are earning yours by the skin of your teeth? Jf you haven't. I know Sou've got the germ of the disease sticking away down in the innermost recesses of your overworked system and gnawing at your vitals because there isn't a piker who is-compelled to listen o the dictation of a "boss," arrd who lines op at the pay window each week to get his little manila envelope, ho doesn't dream of the day when he can go into business for himself and be his own ."boss." It is a disease which we all get sometime or another in our lives before we get to be full blown men. It's Just like the measles and the mumps and the whooping' cough). The kid who goes through life without catching all of them has missed something which Is essential to the makeup of a successful man. It is sometimes contagious like the aforesaid complaints, too. but usually has to be cultivated like the booze habit. . . The best thing to do when you feel this disease coming on 'is to go and get it out of your system, because it doesn't run its course like scarlet fe er, and if you don't do something for it your life will be an empty husk. After you haje succeeded In. getting lid 'of it you can come back and de vote the rest of your life to making a living with contentment and .satisfac tion. You will thereafter go through life with the deepest feeling of grati tude for the privilege you enjoy of lining up each week to get your little stipend, and you will' give due credit to the genius who Invented manila en velopes. . I caught this disease once in its most acute form. I had wSded through every other disease named in the almanac when I was a kid, but I never had anything'quite as bad as 1 had this Dementia Be-your-own-boss-Inero. I Just had to do something for it. I took the only cure that has ever been discovered by going into business and being my own boss.. Now, I am happy to say; that after 'taking one dose of that valuable remedy I. am completely cured. Any person selling this remedy can use my name in their testimonials and go as far as they like. Pefore taking this remedy I had no appetite for work, but now I am hun gry for It. . I did not relish the small amount of til thy lucre in my weekly envelope but now 1 am glad to get half the amount. I find myself rav enous for anything that even looks like coin of the realm. I was former ly apt to grow peevish and say nasty, mean things If the "boss" told me to clean the cuspidores or scrub down the staircase, but one bottle of Going-Into-Buslnoss has made me so docile and accommodating that.l will gladly, nay, even hilariously, jump out the sixth-story window If. the boss only lets me keep my job. Where I was formerly jUssatlsfied with mi. lUtle niche In life, I now feel perfectly safe to say that I will go through life feel ing perfectly happy and contented as long as I have a job. Even picking warts in a pickle factory will do: any old kind of a Job. Just so it's a Job. There is nothing like this great rem edy of going into business to make one appreciate the small things of life. (mOT WOL'LD you do if you had a million dollars?" asked the House Detective of the Hotel St. Reckless, as he watches the Little Bisters of tuc Uleh flocking through the cross-lobbies In evening garb, filling the place wKh the slitter of rare stones and Ihe mingled odor of those imported per fumes which cost so much and smell so bad. "What would I do if I had a million?" fehocd the Hotel Clerk. "Why, 1 s'pnse I'd do what everybody else does that has million. Thorps only two sets of ihings that anybody does under sueh cir-i-umstAiiccs, anyway. If a' man got his million by working for it, ho breaks clown his health and his disposition try ing to run it up into two millions, and if somebody died and left it to him he breaks down his health just the same trying to spend it. Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule here and there., but I'm taking tho average run. The man who really enjoys having the millions dollars Is the man who earns about sixty a month keeping books in a coal office, and knows that sixty a month will be the most he ever will earn, and has plenty of spare time on his hands, and just naturally lays back and blows that million In on mental automobiles and figurative champagne, and gets the worth of his money every pop because that's the ktnd of automobiles and champagne that never run over anybody and never leave that sealing-wax taste in a fellow's mouth. "Yes, Larry, 1 make no doubt in my own mind I'd meastire up to all the ac cepted standards if I had a million dol-l.u-3. Ji I'd assembled that gratifying million together a dollar at a time by living on hydrunt water and hickory nuts, by skinning my fellow-man down to his suspender-huekle. and by wadding my ears wiUi cotton wool every time the cry of nlhietion happened along, I'd be like the others lio got their millions the panic way. I'd be desperately miserable because, somebody else had gone and took wild harnessed up ten millions in the name length of time, and I'd be as busy as a red ant on a hot rock trying to close up the gap between us. And I'd die a disappointed man with my work still un finished, and when I was buried the peo ple that had rented houses from me and the people that had engaged in business undertakings with me and the people that had trusted my word would come out to the cemetery and gather about the fam ily lot in great numbers and contemplate the tomb and give vent to the Persian sign of mourning, which is done by hold ing the thumb of the right hand to the lip of the nose with the fingers extended, and simultaneously crying 'Goodie, goodie. Koodie!' in loud tone of voice. My heirs would put a marble mausoleum over me bout ilia size of a county jail and about There Is nothing so minute and value less that you will not learn to cling to it with a grip that never relaxes, like the peach-bloom on a Kentucky Leg islator's nose. You w-ill be able to see the true value of these small .things after one dose of going into business, as it is a great remedy for the eye sight. You will be able to see that the small particle's of- legal tender which you- once handed to the waiter for lugging in your porterhouse steak were really intended for the purpose rPAy h ''j : NOBODY--LOOKING, ) . W : . ON-A-PEM-'. J ' ilf MOOT-OF-A-PLAT' HbF of purchasing a plate of pork and beans. . ' Then too. it is such a delightfuj. change to .sit in the boss' chair and feel that you are monarch of all you survey. It makes you feel that you are of . some' real value to 'the com munity when you own the whole blamed shooting match outside of the mortgages. And you feel like a real martyr when you come to make the payments on these mortgages and find that your family will have to worry through the next month on liver and oat meal porridge because it's the cheapest thing on the market and your as graceful looking. The papers, with deep regret, would dig up all the care less details of my early life and print 'em in full. The regular relatives and the extra family that always turns up in Oklahoma or Minnesota, would start a series of lawsuits over the will. The lawyers would in due time get everything pertaining, to the estate except the core and peelings: the world at large would call me an Old Slob, and all would be well. . "Or let us assume, Larry, that my uncle in California . should die and leave me a million where I could get t it. Not that my uncle In Cali fornia, will ever leave me a million; from the present outlook all I'll gst w.ien he dies will be his walking stick that was cut from a tree ok Andrew Jackson's birthplace, and a chance to attend a G. A. R. funeral; but assum ing that he did leave me a million, Larry, just assuming that be did. can't GOING INTO credit is getting frayed around the edges. But you are your own boss, anyway,,. and that is what you went Into business for. so your enterprise is a howling success if the Sheriff, doesn't butt in and spoil things. The dream! of your .young life has been realized. You are at last your own. boss. No more taking, orders from , a. "slave driver," jpho. is so inhuman that he actually expects you to earn your sal ary. Not much. Ypu can now sit at a roll-top desk with a mortgage attached-and push a buzzer and tell' some soulless hireling to do.the wOrk. He has a right ,to do it, because he is sure of getting-his salary. . He is a preferred creditor, ... : You can now feel that you are somebody, except when you are com pelled to go home and face your starving family. Men take off their "ATTRACT A. Z1TTLB JZEAL you se what would happen? I'd start gently. During the finet week I'd prob ably buy not more than two or three of the largest size touring cars and only about- a couple of those zoological overcoats that have fur on the collars and cuffs. But after that I'd catch my stride and begin to attract a little real attention along our bustling thorough fare. To be sure, a man has to burn up quite a lot of money in this town before Aiey turn in the third -alarm, yet I flatter myself that the pleasant ss&ar of incinerated dough would be plainly perceptible all. over the island as I passed along. length, when the bankruptcy courts and the sanitari ums and the sheriff's officers ami the' hopeless ward of the paresis' depart mat got through with me, Td move on, leaving behind me a record thai would be a shining mark, and an ex ample for all the other young idiots that might be so unlucky as to acquire BUSINESS FOR YOURSELE BY JIM XASIM. hats when they come into your pres ence, and call you Mister. They may soon be calling you something else if you dontt. soon pay them, but for the present, at least, you' are Mister. Your name is on the sign outside, and 'you are known as a- man of business, it is a great thing to be a business man and have your name In the pa pers every morning in large, black type as long as you pay your monthly advertising bill. I tell you, you don't know what a cinch the boss has until you put yourself in his place. That is the best way to find out. - No more worrying .about holding your job for youri, you've got yours pinched. You can't lose it. Occasion ally you may be overwhelmed with a feeling that you'd like to lose it, but you can't. That's the beauty about being in business for yourself, you've got a job that you can't lose. It's just like going to jail. And' you don't have to even work. The only thing you have , to do is to see that your slaves attend' to .their various duties,' -and see -that they get their pay-every payday. That's all. - You don't even have .to worry any more about what you are going -to eat for lunch. You can generally tell the minute you feel in your pocket. , While your poor slaves are worrying as to whether they-; will eat porterhouse steak or canv'as-r back duck, all you have to do Is to 1 watch when nobody is looking and slip into a joint and plant yourself on a peg. in. front of a plate pf beans. Beans' are the healthiest" food for a man who does brain work and aspires, to be a captain of industry. It's a great stunt, this going intp business for yourself. But I believe that right there is the solution to. all labor' troubles. ; Let alr disappointed . employes,' instead of'fpwning labor unions and going out on a strike, all quit their Jobs and go into business for themselves. It doesn't' mtuter what' kind of a. business, if- he. lvisn't got money enough saved up to become a steel magnate let hitit start a shoe- string factory or invent a new. , style in liver pads and put tltenvcori the mar ket. ..Any' old thing, just so', it's a. business. Let every mother's son who is being ground down by the iron heel of a boss-become his own boss, and then there will be an .end to all this trouble between capital and labor. That's the way I did. -k The great trouble with the labor question how Is that the man at. the' top has 'an unequal advantage over his j employes. He has had a chance to look at the business both from the biMtom of the la-tder and from the top,' but how many men . do ypu find .working for him who have hack a chance to look at the business from the boss' chair. . Not , one. . If the present state of. affairs. Was reversed so that a man would start at the top of the ladder and wark down, then we would have a world full of contented employes and Just bosses, and an end of all labor disputes. I would advo cate setting aside a Government ap propriation for the purpose of start ing every discontented employe In ATTENTION jlLOZW? OZtR. BirSTZZNS TH&ILOVGHFAKB a large parcel pf 'money without work ing for it. "After all, Larry, when you come to figure it up, it's astonishing how many things there are that money won't buy. They say John D. Rockefeller had five hundred millions the last time he took the sock down oft the kitchen rafter and counted up. Well, that don't im press me so much, because when you get above forty-five dollars a week it all sounds alike to me anyway. But for the sake of .argument, we'll say Uncle John D. has got five huadred millions scattered around the nlace in fruit-jars and butter-crocks and lard cans and things. ' "That's a fine, large, nutritious sum of currency, but while you and me, Larry are setting down of a morning to a. stack of buckwheat cakes as tall as the Soldier's Monument, and a few inspiring stanzas of country sausages, the senior Mr. Rockefeller, is gazing business for himself. . Then I would provide a law w hereby the Govern ment would settle up with his cred itors and turn the business over to an other discontented employe, and so on, ad infinitum, whatever that. is. It's a V 1 -J -ys . . guy (Spun : ' v ' I Ym-imhiimmh:-- jjl v OWN-BOSS- great scheme, and if it wasn't for de priving the public of the only real lit erary gems on the market I would have myself elected President on that platform and attend to the business myself. . V I .You see. I have been in business for j myself, and I have purchased some ex I ceedlngly high-priced experience and j laid it away where I can grab it when i the occasion arises for. its use. So 1 i am safe. I don't have- to buy that ex ; perience again. But I'm wise, gentie ! reader, to the fact that it Is useless for ! me to hand that experience to you. i Experience that doesn't cost ytm a sourly' at a breakfast consisting of 1 several pepsin tablets and something j in a that Innlri 1 i L- A a rilahavitlail I poultice with hot milk poured over It. He's got five hundred million dollars' worth of negotiable money, and I've got five, hundred dollars' worth of dur able digestion, and I'm not on the mar ket for a trade, with him, either. A genius like Rockefeller could always get more money he cculd sit on a bar ren rock and draw from 6 to S per cent interest, depending on what the legal rate was but if I ever parted from my digestive apparatus, I'll bet you I'd be seven or eight years finding another that fitted me as cosy and snug as this one does. "My heart goes out In pity for a whole lot of these old gentlemen who -haven't got a thing in the world except money. This hotel is extensively populated by poor, .old Mr. Nothing Butt. You see him yonder at tne door climbing labori couple of hundred plunks a chunk Isn't worth a tinker's dam. "There are no' bargain sales in experience, and you can't get it for a Christmas 'pres ent, either. . You've got to pay for it yourself, or else it's no good. So-if you're dissatisfied with your job and pipe to be your own boss and rise to fame in the business world, to dictate, to others instead of being dictated to, to harvest the fruits of your own la bor Instead of selling them lor a mere pittance, like a soulless hireling, " just ftFTCHU ) OOH'T X ALWAYS 6LAVE LIKE I TH15 FUR- SOME OTHER J 1 hustle out into- the business world and start something. But don't start something that you can't stop. If -you have had it pointed out to you that "a man can never get wealthy on a mere salary," and have grown .dissatisfied with your position in life as a mere drawer, of salary, just go out and become a payer of salaries. You will find it a delightful diversion from your old practice of lining up every week and receiving your little manila envelope, to sit in the oflice and All up these little ma nila envelopes and then figure up to see whether you have anything left ously aboard the hurricane deck of a tall horse for a ride In the, park. He doesn't-want to go at all. He doesn't care for the English style of riding. I can't say I care for it" myselt. It .must have been invented by a nervous party who hated to stay long In- one place. There's too much climate constantly in tervening between the saddle and the rider. "As I say, he doesn't care for it at all He objects bitterly to beating out his own brains with' his own splqal column for a weapon. If. he's got to Tide, he'd- prefer a tab or a city-broke streetcar. But no. he has to go horseback riding in . the park because it's expensive, and all the other old gentlemen in his set do it. . "He spends the best years of his -life developing a discriminating appetite. Eventually he reaches the. stage where he never likes to eat his cheese until he can drink it and where he wants his Dartricbre brought to him accompanied for yourself. After you have thua fig ured up to your entire satisfaction, il you are a man of prudence and good Judgment, you will, figure out In ad vance the cheapest kind of fodder you can live dn during the succeeding month without undermining your con- ' stitution. That is the plan I invariable. followed, and from habitual practice I have amassed a fund of valuable in- -formation bearing on the price and digestible- qualities of cheap provender I will cheerfully place this .valuable fund of information at the disposal ol any young man who contemplates go ing, into business for himself. Thif knowledge will prove a valuable aid to the young captain of industry, as il Is a. very difficult matter to preserv the dignity fitting your new posittor. ip the business world when your duo denum is ' trying to telescope yvui oesophagus In rebellion against the sinkers which you put away for din ner! Then, too. It is so soul-Inspiring, so ennobling and all that, and puts such a cute little kink in your confidence to come into immediate juxtaposition as It" were with the business world. It Is so pleasant to feel that you have to pay your obligations whether the cus tomers who owe you pay theirs or not. It is such delightful exercise for your patience to wait for checks coming in from those who have bullt.-up such a high . rating with the commercial agencies that they can -afford to im pose upon It, while your creditors are camping out over night on your front stoop, so that you have to soil your clothes climbing up the fire escape. It is such a delightful surprise to come unawares upon these various ljttle snaps that the "boss" enjoys, and when you go back looking for your old job again the fund of Information which you have stowed away during your business career will be ef great service to you. " .. tl will never forget with, what joy, and fond ' hopes, and rosy-tinted dreams and all that. I' hustled out into the great business world to be my . own boss and show some other people up. Neither will ' I ever forget the lessons which I learned before my great, warm, generous heart prompted be to turn my business over to the Sheriff, as he was a poor man and . had a family to support, and" hustle back after my old job. They are -stamped on my memory in an indel-' ible hand which time-cannot efface. I can repeat them frontwards and backwards with my eyes shut. No educational Institution has ever been invented that is so productive of -results. ' ..' While the -life of thf soulless hirct ling, the man whose name is burled on the payroll Instead of being splattered all over the sign outside and featured in the display ads., may not be so filled with fame and renown, with in dependence'and puffed up importance and all that, yet It Is comforting -to know that you can 'drop into the pay line at. the end of the week and get your little manila envelope and keep on' speaking terms with the butcher and grocer. I find that the friendship of these two men Is a much more de sirable and satisfactory feature in life than the importance of being yeAir own bm Great is the little manila envelope. by a bl'e halo and a fumigator. nd just about that time, dyspepsia claim him for her own and thereafter, when meal time rolls around, he's the original Hunian Hangrail. "He builds' himself a stone residence as big as a .Carnegie Library, aiftl almost as comfortable to live in, but every time a frayed stranger, bearing the. outward marks of a process server approaches the front door, he fs moved to go down the coal hole and be a brother to the anthra cite. A United States District Attorney gives him the same sort of feeling that a congestive chill would give you or me. As for his sensations at the sight of a Federal Court summons well, I guess Asiatic cholera hasn't got much the best of it. "His daughter is usually an angular ladywith a face shaped like a nose bag; His son Is either a mollycoddle, with a goldfish Intellect, or a mollycoddler whose openhanded way of spending the old gentlcmans' coin makes it possible to operate those all-night cafes at a prof it. He dies and his sprightly widow, aged f7, promptly marries a youthful art critic who knows the oil paintings back of every bar on Broadway. Larry, as I have already remarked there are quite a few things you can't get for money." "Well, gittin' back to the original sub ject, 'did you ever know a guy that had a million sawed off on him sudden like?", asked the House Detective. "Yes. once, said the Hotel Clerk. "He made a great showing with it, too, con sidering that he only lived a few months after he got it. ,As' I recollect, he left' behind S7 different suits of clothes, no two alike, and the record of having made the best standing high jumps that were ever pulled off in the Plumb Bug Ward at Bellevua by anybody wearing a strait- Jacket." j Superstitions of Thieves. The pickpocket is superstitious. He will rarely rob a person who squints, this being accounted a certain sign of disaster, and if it happens that - the purse he steals contains foreign money it Is believed to. augur that be will travel a good deal In the immediate future; but whether in the company of a couple of pollae officers pr not there is nothing to show. Weddings and funerals are signifi cant events 'for the professional thief. To pick a pocket at a-funeral would be to court immediate dlaster: but many of them think hat If a purse stolen at a wedding contains gold it portends the best of luck- for the thief during the ensuing six months. Some pickpockets have a' favorite pair of boots that they wear as long as they can keep them on their feet, and if they are not arrested while they are wearing them they cut the boots up Into little square pieces and give them away as "lucky tokens" to their friends.
