9
"1
?jmmnsss ever, licked us, the name escapes me
vM3 THE HOTEL CLERIC by irvin s. cobe.
THE SUNDAY OBEGOX IAN. PORTLAND, MAY 17, 1908.
I
M mighty glad that little fuss i
with Castro blew over," said
the Hotel Clerk.
"Who'sCastro?" inquired that pa
tient and long-suffering seeker after
truth, the House Detective of the
Hotel St. Reckless.
"He's one great little guy, Is Cas
tro," said the Hotel Clerk. "He's
the president of our sister republic
on the Monroe side of the family,
the delightful little country of Vene
zuela. The principal products of
Venezuela are yellow fever, the As
phalt Trust, informal 5 o'clock revo
lutions with or without frock coats,
and Castro. But Castro's the most
Important. He's the boss of the
works. He has a name like a new
liver plH, and the lower slopes of his
face are encumbered up as far as the
frost line with stunted pine and
dwarf furze, but he has a large dis
placement when be begins to rotate
the propellers. He has a disposition
like a two-inch length of blasting
fuse."
"I know who you mean now," said
the House Detective. "It's a case of
touch and go with that lad, ain't it?"
"It certainly is," said the Hotel
Clerk. "But formerly when he
touched somebody and tried to go,
they'd halt him. Germany or Eng
land would send a competent fleet of
those chunky European war vessels
down to Caracas and make a dem
onstration." "Wot's a demonstration?" asked
the House Detective.
"Well, it's like this," said the Ho
tel Clerk. "If I should come to you,
Iarry, and rest the cold, forbidding
nozzle qf a large gun against the
lobe of your ear while I frisked your
raiment, that would be highway rob
bery. But if I was a big nation and
you a small one, and I should do the
same thing, then it would be a dem
onstration, and you'd have no cause
for complaint. Our little friend
Castro has taken the demonstration
degree several times. And here the
other day it looked as if we'd have
to play collection agency again down
his way. But the differences were
adjusted without an open breach. It
would've been a terrible thing If
we'd angered Castro."
"Why so?" asked the House De
tective. "He might order out the squad of
Postal Telegraph messengers that he
calls his standing army, and invade
us," said the Hotel Clerk. "I'm glad
we didn't get him aroused. When I
think of Castro and the Bock Pana
tella Guards marching from New Or
leans to St. Louis, with flags and
shirt-tails flying, and thence by re
bates and drainage canal to Chicago,
thence by the Erie and hired hacks
to Buffalo, thence by New York Cen
tral wrecking trains to New York,
zr&z' -z2szi25,' ' -Z2V
thence by trolley to Coney, thence"
"Are you gittin' altogether dippy
in your head?" asked the House De
tective. "Wot would the Army, and
Navy and Teddy and Big Bill Taft
and the Police force be doin' when
them little smoked merchaum guys
tried to land?"
"There you go, Larry," lamented
the Hotel Clerk. "You're like ninety-nine
per cent of the populace of
this ill-fated country. You will go
on thinking we can lick any other
nation on earth simply because we
always have. Why don't you read
the magazines? They're full of
the peril that and advertisements
for rust-proof mattresses and non
refillable automobiles. Congress
is full of it, too, and so is
Senator Beverage, and so is Secre
tary Loeb he gets his ideas on
the subject pre-digested, like a
squab taking nourishment from its
mama pigeon, but just the same,
he gets them and so is nearly
everybody else, except the general
public. . Blind, deluded creatures
that you are, you refuse to awake to
the danger that menaees you. You
go along concerning your minds with
the small affairs of life, such, as
notes coming due in the bank, and
easy times that don't seem to be any
different from hard times except that
in some spots they're harder, when
at this very moment we are all sleep
ing on a powder mine which is liable
any minute to rise in a mighty tidal
wave and engulf us in the quicksand
of disaster, like rats in ' a trap, as
Senator Beveridge remarked the
other day in an impassioned speech
which he delivered to the Vice-President,
several pages and a soused
party asleep in the press gallery.
"You don't seem' to know what a
condition our Army and Navy has
got into. If you did, you'd know we'll
have to be pretty careful hereafter
about how we bandy hard words
with Patsy Bolivians, or the Terry
Delfuegos, or the Michael J. Mada
gascar, or any of those chaps.
Right now, if the Coreans, or the
Feegees, or the Jujubes or some
other outlying but well-armed nation
should take a notion to attack New
York, practically the only uniformed
bodies we could muster for the de
fense of the wholesale clothing trade
and the lesser industries of our great
city would be the local letter carriers
and the inmates of the Sailors' Snug
Harbor. . Anyhow, that's how tne
magazines figure it out.
"There was a time once, when we
could feel pretty cocky, and we did.
If the Fruit Trust didn't like the
way the cloudy republic of Hayti was
playing the game, they'd pass the
word- to Washington, and the next
day a gunboat would be on its way
down to apply a little of the Monroe
Doctrine with the reverse English.
The President of Hayti," who greatly
resembles the Hon. Joe Gans, only
he has a complexion that looks more
Mke rain, would be . sitting in statl
with his cabinet about him in a semi
circle, all in full dress and with palm
leaf fans in their hands, discussing
the situation, the whole presenting
a spectacle something like Lew
Dockstader's first part. A Lieuten-ant-General
of the Haytian army
would burst in, drawing on his uni
form pants as he entered, and an
nounce that the American fleet was
without, and the executive council
would adjourn to the nearest cellar.
But now us Jack Daltons must have
a care, or else some day a bunch of
Williams & Walker cadets will be
landing at - Tampa, and unless they
should be diverted by a chitterling
supper or a crap game, ruin and rav
age will assuredly await the water
melon orchard of Georgia, the fried
chicken plantation of Kentucky, and
the pork chop ranges of Sunny Illi
nois, while from the steps of the
Capitol a conquered nation may yet
hear ringing out the national hymn
of the victorious foes, entitled, 'My
Voodoo Lulu.'
"I have no doubt you are one of
those, who think our standing army
is. amply large, especially as no thea
ter manager ever seems able to find
a seat for a non-com. In uniform.
You see trainload after trainload of
gallant shipping-clerks and ribbon
salesmen going to a camp laden with
their mosquito nets, their mandolins,
their bull terriers and other military
supplies, and you think we have
enough National Guardsmen to po
lice every automobile course in this
fair land,- and still have a few left
over for hop-nights at the Summer
hotels. But you are wrong. And
as for our Navy, the less said the
better. If we but knew the truth,
as a lot 'of the magazine editors
know; it, we would cease to be proud
of those floating hospitals of decrepit
rafts whose hospitable crews were
lately entertaining the thrifty citi
zens of open-hearted Los Angeles by
paying them 75 cents a bottle for
beer. If you still cherish the fond
delusion that Bob Evans' flotilla of
fnvalld soup tureens would have any
chance against the Navy of Switzer
land or Zambesiland, you've only to
read the remarks that were made re
cently by Congressman R. P. Hobson,
the original soul-kisser, in demand
ing a larger fleet.
"The President has felt very
strongly about the matter, too, ever
since the fleet passed Oyster Bay in
review last Summer, with their flags
waving da-da, and the youngest male
Roosevelt sat on the front porch
clutching his pet. grizzly cub In
his young arms and cried aloud be
cause there wasn't a Dreadnaught in
the whole lot of them. The mem
bers of Congress representing the
Pennsylvania localities that produce
armor plate, are heartily with him
In his endeavors .to build up a fleet
that will make Boston feel easy in
its own mind, but apathy develops
elsewhere. A bright young Con
gressman from the smelting regions,
where the smelts come from, rises
up to make an eloquent appeal for
more ships, but he is rudely inter
rupted by a member from Oklahoma,
where the only foreign invaders they
fear is. the boll weevil or the while
Republicans. The Oklahoma mem
ber is of the opinion that the Navy
can wait. But how about that eighty
thousand for a new cornice on the
custom house at Kingfisher? And a
member from Iowa would also like
to know what about that measly half
million for a survey of Skunk River?
So they trim down the battleship ap
propriation until 'tis hardly visible
to the naked eye. And there you
are! It would be a terrible thins,
if, in our defenseless state, we should
arouse the ire of Great Britain. The
only thing that consoles me is that
nobody ever seems able to arouse
the ire of Great Britain, unless it's a
small, friendless bunch, such as Zu
lus or Boors."
"I ain't goin' to git skeered yet,"
said the House Detective. "There
may have ' been somebody that's
licked us from time to time, but if
so, the name escapes me for the mo
ment." "Me, too," said the Hotel Clerk.
"And sometimes it also seems to me
that the modern battleships are a
grand thing so long as you keep
them on dry land. The action of
salt water appears to ha,ve a bad ef
fect on them. Wasn't it just the
other day that one of those fragile
grain-elevators that the British call
a battleship bumped into a passen
ger vessel , and went down like a
quinine pill? I hate to think of the
loss of life that would ensue among
His Majesty's sailors if their Dread
naught ever got run into by one of
our Statcn Island ferry boats.
"No, Larry, unprotected and
naked though we be, I have hopes
that we'll struggle along for some
time yet before we get licked by
Roumania or Dutch Guiana. It ac
tually looks to me our friends, the
Japs, have taken in some few reefs
since that ostensible fleet of ours be
gan to edge over toward their side.
In fact, I don't know of but one
heavy reverse the American Nation
has suffered lately."
"Wot was that?" asked the House
Detective.
'"Twas administered by William
Waldorf Astor," said the Hotel
Clerk. "You know Astor he's the
man who's sorry he was born in this
country, but not as sorry as the
country is. Well, by a great display
of daring, he captured the battleflag
of the Chesapeake at an auction, and
gave it to a British society."
"You wouldn't call that guy an
American, would you?" asked .the
House Detective.
"No," said the Hotel Clerk, "but
I'd gladly call him nearly anything
else."
IN WHICH HE DEALS OUT KNOCKS TO BOTH OPTIMIST AND PESSIMIST, AND COMPARES BASEBALL WITH OTHER BUSINESS INSTITUTIONS
N
BY JIM XASIUM.
O. KID," said the Old Sport, "it
may be very soothing and com
forting and all that to Jolly
yourself into thinking that you've got a
strangle hold on the great throbbing
world, and that all you have to do is to
tighten your grip and you can choke It
till It's black and blue behind the gills,
but 1 want to tell you that the guy who
has the battle won as soon as he gets
the grip is apt to be mighty surprised by
the slippery proposition he is up against.
You can take it from me that the op
timistic slob who sees nothing but level
roads ahead in the race of life is going
to find himself all pumped out of wind
when he hits the hills. I don't want you
to be one of those guys who are so
tilamcd pessimistic that if you handed
them a doughnut they couldn't see any
thing but the hole, but I don't want you
to be so thundering optimistic that you
would take it for fruit cake, either. You
can take my tip that the guy who cops
the results in this old dump of a world
Is the one who sorts out the bad eggs
and then sets his hens without counting
his chickens before they are hatched
The wise guy who sees both the roses
and the thorns is the one who doesn't put
his fingers on the bum when he picks
the roses.
-I know that tho optimist has a thun
dering lot of fun in this world that
doesn't cost a cent, but I want to hand
you the tip that the guy who laughs at
the pictures on the show bills is mighty
apt to be disappointed when the real
show hits town. 'He who laughs last'
has the most cheerful grin, and he Isn't
the optimist by a long shot. He Isn't the
pessimist, either, but he Is the guy who
hits the happy medium by plugging along
and working his block off to see the show
and takes it for what It's worth without
thinking about the two-headed orang
outang that they haven't got. There's
nobody enjoys the circus like the kid who
gets In by carrying water for the ele
phant. "That's the dope, kid: plug along and
don't for a minute imagine that the
elevator to success is going to stop to
take you on. because it is overcrowded
already, and when the safety clutch
gives way there's going to be an awful
mess of human fragments down in the
cellar.
"Besides, you're working on a floor
at which the elevator to success never
even hesitates. That's the great beauty
about baseball. It Is the one great
American Industry In which there is no
such thing as pull' or favoritism. It is
the only American Institution that la
absolutely governed by the masses, and
th which the only route to success is
by delivering the goods." A guy might
pack enough influence and prestige to
get him a job as chief pilot on the
Ship of State at Washington, but juet
let him trot out on the ball lot and he's
got to be there with the goods to hold
down the job. No amount of influence
or blue blood will boost him along: if
he can't eat up base hits and slam the
ball. The waif of the city streets, who
cuts his milk teeth on a cobblestone
and was weaned on cast-off cigar butts,
can have the entire universe at hie
shrine if he is there with the goods,
while the heir to a throne or the lineal
descendant of Demosthenes would be
a dub if he fell down in the pinches.
Your family tree and Influential con
nections don't cut any ice with the
fans, and they don't give a tinker's
damn whether your ancestors came
over In the Mayflower or paddled
across Bering Strait in a dugout. And
that's why- I maintain that baseball
embodies more of the original princi
ples and spirit of that little literary
production which has lately been con
sidered quite a work of humor in poli
tics, the Declaration of American Inde
pendence, than any institution in Uncle
Sum's blamed turnip patch.
"And another thing. Kid. yon hear a
lot of mutt heads croaking about the
unfairness of the reserve rule in base
ball, but don't let that dope filter
through the chinks in your garret for
a minute. I'm hep to the fact that the
head moguls hand you fellows a con
tract that isn't worth the price of ad
mission to a penny arcade when It
bucks up against a court of law. and
that when you put your fist to it you're
caged for life as far as baseball is con
cerned, but you can take it from me
that if this wasn't the case there
wouldn't be any baseball jobs for you
to get. Let thera knock out the reserve
clause and a lot of you guys would go
hopping around from one place to an
other like a beat dodging his board bill,
and baseball won't be a more uncertain
proposition than a bride's first biscuit.
You'd knock-the props out from under
the whole blamed structure and put the
game on the blink.
"I know that you guys get a hunch
once In a while that you're getting the
worst of It. but you can take my tip
that baseball is the only fair and square
business proposition that has ever been
invented. And I've worked at every
thing from picking warts in a pickle
factory to buying votes for the Mayor
of New York. At that, baseball Is the
only institution that has ever been able
to set np its own court and plug along
contrary .to all the dope handed -down
by a court of law and get away with It.
And let me tell yoa that the only rea
son it can do this is because there la
a blamed sight more justice In the de
cisions of the National Commission than
has ever Showed its mug inside a law
court. This is so because justice in
ite-GUYS-MO-dlT-DP-IN-TRE-
PSEdS-BOX-AND-TUKETHOR-
GOEfiS-JlFTEa-A-iyy-flAS-BEER-
BULLED-OFF
baseball is not bound band and foot
to the letter of the law. and they deal
out the cards according to the situa
tion. And I want to hand you the tip
that if this situation existed in the
Federal law you wouldn't see so
blamed much distinction made between
the burglar who carries a jimmy and
the one who wears a silk hat and has
his office in "Wall street. There's noth
ing to it. Kid, baseball law has Federal
law chased clear under the table when
it comes to dealing out justice, and no
skinny shrimp of a lawyer can protect
a crook by getting up on his hind legs
and objecting to evidence because tt is
against the letter of the law and con
trary to precedent. When they find a
crook in baseball they chase him out
of the game so blamed fast that his
feet get hot hitting the grit. And it
doesn't matter a brass mounted conti
nental whether he is the guy who is
putting up the cash to pay the salaries
or only the dub who Is getting $100 a
month for warming up the pitchers.
"And another thing I want to spike on
the walls of your garret. Kid, while we
are on the subject. In any other busi
ness you butt into you'll always find a
bunch of old women hanging around who
ought to be at home spiking an xl0 patch
on the quarter-deck of a pair of trousers,
but they han-g onto their jobs because
they put in their time licking the boss
boots every time he hits the joint. A
kid will spend the halcyon days of his
youth in a knowledge factory loading
wads of dope into his conning tower, and
then when he goes out to stab the world
in the face with his roll of sheepskin he
finds that the only way he can make a
hit with the guy who gives him a Job Is
to hit the -brusseJs with his knee caps
every time he shows his mug in the door
way. This crawling to the -bosses is be
coming so blamed prevalent that it's a
wonder to me there isn't a universal epi
demic of the housemaid's knee. But let
me tell you right here that baseball is
the only business institution that hasn't
yet introduced this modern method of do
ing business. You stand a blamed poor
show of holding your job in baseball by
staying in the clubhouse licking the boss'
boots, and the chances are that if you
ever tried it you'd get the slam in the
slats that was coming to you. The only
way you can hang on in the baseball
business is to get right out on the lot and
pull liners out of the milky way and bang
the paint off the -whisky ads with line
drives. It's all right for a bunch of
guys to get up on Fourth of July and
hand out a bunch of gab about 'the spirit
of 76. but let me tell you that you can
see more of the 'spirit of '76 splattered
around a ball grounds in one afternoon
than you could dig up in their business
joints in a whole year.
"There's nothing to it, Kid, you're in a
more honorable business than you could
rake out of the business directory with a
fine-tooth comb. The gang up in "rooters'
row may get up on their hind logs and
c-alj you a highway robber when you
take a slice off first base or run the
bluff that you've been cracked in the
slats when the ball only grazes your
shirt, but you can gamble that when
they get back in their business joints
the butcher is weighing his left hand
with the steaks, the grocer who called
you a thug at the ballgrounds is mix
ing white sand with the granulated
sugar and hiding rotten apples at the
bottom of the basket, and the banker
who talked himself into vocal paralysis
about your unfair tactics is getting
cross-eyed looking for excuses to fore
close mortgages on widows and or
phans. "I want to hand you a tip. Kid; don't
hand yourself a free ticket to the
Down-and-Out Club by getting it into
your nut that you know better than
your manager what play to pull off to
bring home the bacon. There's a lot
of you guys who get in wrong by
grabbing the dope that is dished out
by the guys who sit up in the press
box and make their guess after the
play has been pulled off. Any dub can
pick the winning horse after the race
is over, and It's a cinch for these guys
to hand out the raps to your manager
after the game by saying that it was
a managerial error to take a chance
on the squeeze play which caught
Jimmy at the plate when Mike subse
quently slammed out a hit that would
have scored the run. But these guys,
and the players, too, seem to forget
that the manager has to make his
guess before the play has been pulled
off. If Mike had hit it out and hit into
a double play, take it from me the
manager would have been roasted just
as hard for not trying the squeeze. It's
human nature the world over, if your
stunt succeeds you're a hero, if it
doesn't you're a dub for trying it.
Dewey was a hero for sailing over the
mines into Manila Bay, but if those
mines had blown his ships into tho
suburbs of Kingdom Come the world
would have called him a murderer
for killing his men by trying sucn a
reckless and foolish stunt.
"You can take my tip. Kid. that
there's 'nothing succeeds like success,'
and there's nothing fails like failure.
And the public doemTj give a bras-s-mounted
continental about methods. And
lot me tell you that tho play that cops
the coin in any business from baseball
to banking is the unexpected. Do what
the other fellow isn't thinking about and
you will stand them on their hcadjs.
There's nothing that will throw a lit of
Dementia Americana into the stands
like the guy who tries a daring stunt
and gets away with it, and let me tell
you that there's nothing that will put
the other team so high in the air, eith
er. A daring steal home in a close game
has been known to put the whole op
posing team so far off their regular
form that their playing developed into a
farce. Be original and take chances,
and even if you fall down on the at
tempt the effect of these daring tries on
the other fellows' nerves may have a
lot to do with winning the game. Kenp
the pitcher on needles and make the in
fielders hurry on every assist and you're
doing a lot to put them up in tn" air
and make them foozle. The pa per will
say that it was the other guy's errors
that gave "you the game, but you can
take it from me that it is your taking
the chances and playing, the string out
that causes the errors. And the credit
belongs to you whether ou get it or
not.
"You can take my tip that there's
blamed little room at the top in any
business for a machine. If you haven't
got a bunch of originality to chuck into
the game you won't have many cigars
named after you. The kid who pimply
does what is expected of him may hol.l
onto his job all right, and he may he
touted as a reliable man, too. But you
can take it from me that he won't throw
many epidemics of ecstaey into the
stands. and the type-setters won't
puncture the epidermis on their fingers
much setting his name In the headlines.
Any one who has seen Hal Chase, hike
across the diamond and dig bunts o(t
the third-base line is learning some
thing original and entirely new about
playing first base. Any dub who would
expect a first baseman to field bunts
along the third-base line must have
a bunch of bats in his garret, but with a
slow pitcher in the box Hal takes that
part of the work off his hands with-
ICoccluded on race 10.