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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1908)
THE SUSPAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, SEPTE3IBEB 6, 1908. V 4 v. V OT did the main guys do with them young fellers np to the Point that got fired out for haaln'T" Inquired the House Detective of the St. Reckless. "I don't think it's been settled yet" answered the Hotel Clerk. "At last accounts nothing had happened since Teddy said Loeb and Wright were liars If they said he said what he said and they said it was Just like what he said. The noble young cadets who'd made tobasco sauce and unstewed prunes such popular articles of diet among their fellow students were still hanging around waiting to be rein stated and In the meantime thinking up a few new things to brighten up the tiresome menu of the plebes, such as raw oysters with sugar and cream on 'tm. And down at the edge of the reservation was a promising brood of red ants that looked as If they'd prob ably be ripe enough to pick by early Fall." "D'ye a'pose the lads'U git back finally?" asked the House Detective. They will. If the best traditions of the academy are to be preserved, said the Hotel Clerk. "From what I've been able to gather It's deemed nec essary to feed the future commanders-in-chief of the land forces of the United States large quantities of In salubrious articles while they're ac quiring their military education. If any such there be, so they'll wear the proper look on their haughty young faces after they're graduated and are leading the german at an array post bop on almost half as much salary as a union paperhanger gets. Every time I see a young second lieutenant -with a 22-lnch waist and a Harrison Fisher figure going around, bent back at an angle of 45 degrees and gazing at mere civilians with an expression of countenance as if he'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with him and never would. I feel certain in my own mind that here's one who took the full course at the Point inscead of being appointed from civil life on the strength of the fact that his father stood in with a Senator and he couldn't earn a living in a store. "At the same time I've got a sneak ing notion that they did things differ ent in the old days, when some of the persons who were subsequently men tioned in connection with the Big War were getting their training. Back yon-' der in 1849 or thereabouts if any In genuous young upper classman had urged William Tecumseh Sherman to swallow a couple of gallons of the Hudson River, garnished with chew ing tobacco and cooking soda, and then to stand on his head and recite "Min nehaha, Laughing Water' with the proper feeling and emphasis. 111 bet you that William T. would not only hare played horse with htm. but he'd a-played a whole troupe of performing horses with him, and a trick mule or two, and maybe a cute spotted pony. In my mind's eye I have a picture of the party who subsequently marched through Georgia spreading that upper classman out nice and flat like one of those deep sea waffles known as a flounder, and then, not caring for him the way he looked as a salt water buckwheat rake, rolling him together BT JIM NASTrM. jj"CE got three offers of good Jobs." I said the young man Just out of col- lege to the Old Sport, "and as you've been through the mill. I'd like rou to give me a few tips. I'm a new beginner In bucking the world, but as soon as the business world gets wise to who my folks were I think my name m ill command respect and give me con liderable prestige to start In with. My father's name was one of the best known in banking circles and he was the shrewdest financier of the age, and my ancestors all the way back were of blue blood and prominent figures In their time. I think this should be enough recommendation to show that I will be there with the goods if given the opportunity, but a few tips from you may help me a little at the start." "Well," replied the Old Sport Tve no doubt that a few tips from me will put you hep to a few things that you'll butt into when you go out to stab the world In the face if you'll only plant them in your roof garden and give them a chance to sprout a little. But let me tell you that I know you kids who have Just beat It out of the knowl edge factory, and" I know blamed well that you're not liable to break i leg trying to get your hooks on a wad of advice when you see it lying around loose. You kids who are handed a roll of sheepskin and dumped out of the knowledge factory most all hug the dope that the great throbbing world is standing with bated breath waiting to hear your opinion of the questions of the day, and you never get wise till a little good practical common sense Is hammered into your educated knowl edge boxes with the club of experience. "There's many a guy who has spent the heyday of his existence laying in a supply of expensive experience, and has been benevolent and charitable enough to hand it to posterity to save the rising generation -from being left at the post But posterity seldom uses it They seem to prefer going out and purchasing their own experience. Ex perience that doesn't cost a hundred a chunk Isn't considered much of a com modity by the rising generation. Now, Kid. If you're one of these guys, I don't care to use up the oxygen in this office by handing you something you won't use. and you can leave the door open as you go out In order to replace what I have already used." "My dear sir." replied the college youth, "if I hadn't wanted your advice I wouldn't have asked for it. As I have said, I come from a line of ances tors who have made their mark in the world by their shrewdness and Intelli gence, and I have enough of their com mon sense in my veins to appreciate good advice when I get it Blood will tell, and It is my opinion that men are born to their destinies. I believe that men of rank are born and not made, and. therefore, my future success is as sured." "Well," replied the Old Sport "take It from me that if you don't show more common sense when you butt into the business world than you have in the brief time In which I have been afflict ed with your presence, you'll be both borrl and made. You'll be borne out of your office by the nape of the neck and made to travel up the street as fast as your little hexameters will carry you. "Now, Kid. don't think I'm a crab, but you know you can take medicine a blamed sight better with vinegar than you can with sugar. The first tip I , even as a scroll, and tying his Insteps around his forehead in a true love knot and otherwise make hirn look like something that Frolicsome Fld the fox terrier, had been playing with under the front steps. "And I never recall having heard that Albert Sidney Johnston used to travel up and down the company street on his stomach like a poached egg at the re quest of another cadet who enjoyed the right to give the command on account of his parents having gotten married one year earlier than Albert Sidney's did. It would have taken Al, the plebe. about three minutes, not more, to peel, core, pare, slice and eat him. "In those ancient times Robert E. Lee and U. S. Grant and Simon Boliver Buek ner and a few others whose names you may have caught in casual conversation, were putting the finishing touches on their graduation year by hiking out across the staked plains, getting them selves shot up with quarts, moss-agate and plain flint arrow heads, and engaging In chance conflict every few minutes with passels of roan-colored strangers who were dressed principally In their own and other people's hair. "And yet even the most zealous advo cates of the present system of keying up the young cadet by poisoning hlra will admit that they succeeded In turn ing out some pretty fair scrappers In the old days at the Point I may be wrong, Larry, but I've got a half concealed be lief that any rising young American who'll blithely chase himself about with 100 of the No. 1 grade, hand-picked, hard red Winter, or harvest ants under his hat because some other lad told him to. hasn't got much under the aforesaid hat except the above-mentioned ants. "Still at that I suppose these combina tions of New Orleans molasses with gherkin pickles and English mustard for a light breakfast and these brisk sorrel Insects with six or more legs and pinch ers like a pair of ice-hooks, for the recreation hour on the campus, all go to make up a modern military education. It's- like everything else in this age of progress. Fifteen or 20 years ago they say a y;oung woman could go along very comfortably in the best society If she didn't have any Pllmsoll marks on her front teeth and did her hair up at the customary Intervals. The olothes she wore didn't make so very much differ ence, so long as there were enough of them at one time. A young woman stepped from the schoolgirl stage into her chosen sphere in society without dropping her father in the bankruptcy court on the way. At least, so I'm given to understand. But now It's different. A debutante who gets her start with les than 1300,000 worth of portable equipment would feel considerable like a domlnecker pullet In a parrot cage. If you believe the Sunday papers and If you can't be lieve them, what In heaven's name can you believe? the expense of launching an 18-year-old girl Into the Inside set Is not quite as much as It costs for a de fense of wealthy paranoia In a murder rase where the defendant has money In Pittsburg, but considerably more than the outlay for building a gunboat of the Dubuque type. I was reading here the other day about one of the biggest debuts of the coming Fall. The young woman who's going to debut will have more fit tings than an armored cruiser. There was one Incidental Item of Sn pains of shoes. f OF Atbeir age, , . Uirorrr fatah?- r I D WAV UP TCOSAD UfT) O Ytt?0.D. I BUT N lp .. GO HOME AMD -I p, w? T J SEND You.t , VUY 1 ll 1" ' v.v. i - - ...rtnr) TmmraELD-i)OL5-wi,m:r' want to land you is that you're start ing in wrong the first crack out of the box. You're going out to stab the world in the face with your family tree. Don't get it into your knot for a minute that the great throbbing world of business is going to fall off its pins when they whisper your name along the street, because this practical old dump of a world doesn't give a continental cuss who your ancestors were. You'll blamed soon find that your employer is a thundering lot more Interested In what kind of a son your father has than In what kind of a father you've got and he Isn't caring much whether your ancestors came over In the Mayflower or paddled across the Behrlng Strait In a dugout "Family trees are a thundering lot like a potato plant, the best part of which is under the trround. Take it from me, the accident of birth has never yet made a man. It Isn't enough to be a son of somebody, you've got to be somebody yourself. Your family tree may cause the sap-headed world of society to hit the brussels with its You'd thing there was a pronounced strain of centipede running through the family. There was also a picture of the fortunate young person wearing her prin cipal or grand entry lid. , Tou knew she was wearing It because you could dis tinctly see part of her under it. Judging by the picture, she was one of those reg ular millionaire's daughters with the fashionable absence of expression that will be so much worn this year, but the hat was all to the French dressing, 'if I may use the term. It has a center-pole and a hippodrome track around the outer rim and a superstructure and many other features. I've forgotten the Paris name for it. but I suppose a person talktng United States would be safe in calling it a Rlngllng Brothers three rings and an elevated stage on a vacant lot And you may have noticed some of these tender lamb stews with young vegetables that are being turned out by the colleges and allowed to vote Just the same, as' If they were human beings. I wonder how many hard- J o VP i El ' V 1 IN WHICH HE HANDS THE-INDlYlDUAL-MD-NQT-mFAniLY. knee caps, but when you start to splat ter your pedigree around a business Joint, you'll blamed soon find that it's the Individual and not the family that the business world deals with. This practical section of existence Is hep to the fact that the best crops often spring from the rottenest soil, and It's a blamed sight more credit to be a daisy blooming on a back lot than a ragweed in a flower garden. "Now, if you take my tip. Kid, you'll keep mum about your ancestors and your blue blood. Take it from me, blue blood and a long pedigree isn't in it with gray matter and a stiff upper lip. If it were, this little old United States would have been a flash In the pan in the Revolutionary period and the Declaration of Independence would have been a Joke. The kid who tries to use the trunk of his family tree as a battering ram to bust into the bus iness world is mighty apt to get it put all over him by some gutter snipe who was weaned on cigar butts and cut his milk teeth on the curb stone and had bis education bumped Into his worked fathers there are scattered along the Eastern seaboard at this moment saving up to pay the college education of a fascinating lad whose crowning ambition in life is to sing tenor In a college glee club and smoke monogram cigarettes with the mono gram side turned prominently teward the opposite side of the street. "As for our leading murders, we're constantly adding modern Improve- THE COLLEGE GRADUATES A 'ToU-TIIM'TItAT-YDUR-BEl system by coming In contact with the world. You- can take my tip that blue blood Is a mighty thin composition to stand on if you expect to reach any thing high up. "Now that we've waded through that art of your lesson. Kid, I want to hand you the tip to be a sport Be a good loser and you'll stand a blamed sight better chance of being a frequent winner. Any dub can be a cheerful winner, but if he can't scare up a smile when he gets up against it it'll be all day with him the first time he butts Into a slump. It takes Just as much good sporting blood to succeed in the business world as it does in the sport ing world, and the good sport is al ways a good loser.- That's where sport ing blood has your blue blood skinned to a frazzle. "Take It from me. Kid, no great suc cess was ever built of successes alone. You've got to have a few failures mixed in to give it backbone or It won't stand. And the kid who keeps plug ging and doesn't get It into his knot that he is going to take the count when iS H5WT0 1 , MAKETHrsl THE MODERN ments to them. Once upon a time when a hot-headed gentleman fell out with another gentleman over the prop osition of wives, he didn't seek ven geance, accompanied by a uniformed brass band and orchestra Before the deed was done, and quite often after it was done, he stepped around like one of those trained nurses with felt-soled slippers on In a sanitarium for nervous wrecks: and If he could catch the other FEW WORDS OF WISDOM. 4TICK5 - 0M - flNWJAW he gets a slam' In the slats Is the one who is going to be on his feet when the bell rings. Make up your mind that you're not going to have the hardest of the wollops all the time and come back with a grin on your mug when some guy sticks one on your Jaw that has you groggy and hanging on to the ropes. It's the guy who doesn't know when he is licked that never gets licked, and the kind of blood that tells in this old dump of a world is sporting blood. And I don't give a continental cuss whether you're a banker or a, prize fighter, the spirit that makes for success is the same. "If you are willing to give some oth er guy the worst of it never kick when you get the worst of it yourself. That's what it means to be a good sport "And another thing, Kid, don't get It into your knot that you can win out Just because you're in the right Take my tip, that old dope that 'thrice armed is he whose cause Is Just' doesn't cut any ice in this practical age. The wise guy of today knows that once armed is enough, and he'll sail In and put it , VrfEU,HE STUNG 0 MEWrTHATDEAtA V CA AND rfa DOWN v' . AND "OUT fQRflE.. ' . ffiffiSfaZb iemxEUCALLtT 1 jy IWM.GET ' p ilf'l jnwr flirt Wl Qtl fellow climbing over the back fence with his shoes In his hand, so much the better. But at this time any hus band of Importance would scorn to de stroy his foe without noise or excite ment The subdued way of fattening the homicide average Is as old-fashioned as a marble mantel. Among the best families it's considered very, very de trow unless you seek out the gen tleman against whom you feel a pique on a roof garden or at a yacht-club re gatta or an old-home week or some equally large social function and shoot the tar and other naval stores out of him with an automatic Maxim in the presence of a large crowd whose names will attract attention If printed well up near the top of the first column. No murder is a success any more un less' you have an Among-Those-Present following along after your Dead and Wounded. "Back In the times when trie Rogers Brothers were In the statuary business Instead of musical comedy, If we went to a vaudeville entertainment only we didn't call It by that name then we'd be satisfied with a sisters act, and a gifted party in pink tights with large knotted leg muaclea doing things on the horizontal bar, and a Juggler who didn't break more' than half of the plates, and a couple of talented musi cians who performed Oh-llsten-to-the-mocklng-blrd- for-the- mocklng-blrd-ls-slnging -in - the- wlldwood-sweet-Hallle on the toothsome xylophone and then by dipping their finger tips In resin and rubbing them on the rims of a row of damp ttfmblers, gave a lifelike and realistic imitation of the sound produced by dipping the fingers In resin and rubbing them oh the rime of a row of damp tumblers. But this year we have to have everything that's too good or too bad for tragedy, comedy, the drama, the trained animal show and the disrobing room of the ladies' de partment of a Turkish bath, the theory being that anything we shouldn't stand for we'll sit through. "We're Just afc progressive lit the food line. Possibly out in the heart of the deep wood the peasantry may still consume food that's been done by hand, but in the great throbbing, hurried life of the teeming city we have no time for anything except the intensified methods of producing fodder for the human face. I'll bet it's been years, Larry, since you saw a home-grown pie They run off our pies for us on a cylinder press, a huckleberry edition or a lemon meringue edition or a sport ing extra custard, as the case may be; and the peculiar prison pallor common to all pies Is imparted by means of talcum powder and a mechanical bleaching apparatus. You can always tell the difference by the underneath crust which tastes like the sweatband of an old straw hat "So I guess, all things considered. rzVTl Tl TNT i - Mci - TQlI - GRQ6raiID - all over you while you're mixed up with your weapons. Take It from me, this is the day of the man with the punch, and he doesn't need to be over particu lar whether his cause is Just or not "These little chunks of sentiment are all right to shove into your think tank in your school days, but when you go out to stab the world In the face what you want is a little practical knowl edge of what you are up against. These wads of dope that I'm handing you may not be the proper bits of sentiment to sling around the Infant class in the Sunday-school, but you can take it from me that they have the situation sized up about right, and, while a lit tle shy on sentiment, are right there with the facts. "Before you've bumped around this old dump of a world very long you'll soon get hep to the fact that a thun dering lot of the wads of wisdom that were handed you in the knowledge fac tory are intended merely for ornamen tal purposes. They're mighty nice things to hang up in your garret to set off the interior and lend a chaste and mi Wa VifH A fi. WAIST ANt A HARRISON V r iCO R.tr . we ought to bear with those bad little boys that've been naughty up at West Point. They'ne only following the bent of a generation that is ever striving for the new and the unique and the progressive. And, anyway, say what . you please about our National Military Academy, but In recent years it's turned out some of the best hands at thinking up cotillion figures that the world has ever seen. Harry Lehr's got nothing on those lads when It comes to tactics." "But suppose a .war wuz to break out," said the House Detective. "Where'd the army be with a lot of little wasp-walsted chaps running things?" "The army'll do very well as long as so many husky enlisted men keep on; rising from the ranks," said the Hotel ; Clerk, "and the West Pointers will ' come In handy for the war balloons.' We'll he able to send such a lot of, them along on one trip." . artistic appearance to the surround ings, but If you try to make any prac tical use of them down in the kitchen you'll blamed soon find out that they won't stand the racket. "That's the great trouble with a thundering lot of you kids. When you're dumped out of the knowledge factory you think that your roll of sheepskin Is a through ticket to suc cess. But take my tip, the kid who Is traveling on a college education alone is going to be side-tracked at a flag 'station when the limited express to fame whizzes past. "No, Kid, you've got to hammer your college education into shape with the club of experience and season It pretty well with common sense, or It won't cut enough ice in the business world to cool the beer In Carrie Nation's re frigerator. "That'll be about all for this sessslon now, Kid, school Is out. But if you Just let this dope filter through the chinks in your garret It will help you a thundering lot. Forget your blue blood and Inject a little sporting blood Into your veins, and I'll place a bet on you In the race for success. Put it there, Kid, and good-bye." Stamp Changes In India. Denver Republican. Sanction has been given for the aboli tion of the double-headed stamps now used for telegrams in India. Ordinarily postage stamps are to be employed for prepaid telegrams, and receipts will be given for messages. There will thus be one class of stamp only for postal, in land revenue and telegraphic purposes, a reform which will be most acceptable to the commercial community and the gen eral public. Rhapsody on a DoK's Intelligence. Burgess Johnson. In Harper's Weekly. Dear do, that seems to stand and gravely brood Vpon th brdad veranda of our home. With soulful eyes that case Into the (loam. With speaking tall that reclsters thy mood. Men sny thou hast no ratiocination Methinks there Is a clever imitation. Men say again thy kindred have no souls. And sin Is hut an attribute o man; Say, is It 'chance alone that bids thee, then. Choose only garden spots for digging holes? Why dost thou filch some fragment of the cooking At times -when no one seemeth to be look ing? Was there an early Adsm of thy rare, And brindled Eve, the mother of thy house. Who shared some purloined chicken with her spouse. Thus causing all thy tribe to fall from grace? If fleas dwelt In the garden of that Adam Perhaps thy sinless parents never had "em. This morn thou cam'st a-sllnklng through the door. Avoiding eyes, and some dark corner sought. And though no accusation filled our thought, Thy tall, apologetic, thumped the floor. Who claims thou hast no conscience ' argues vainly. For I have sesn its symptoms very plainly. What loads thee to forsake thy board and bed On days that are devoted to thy bath? For, If it is not reason, yet it hath Appearance of desire to plan ahead! The sage tvho claims thy brain and soul be wizen Would do quite well to swap thy head for ' bun. vith a ; 22tl. WAIST O ANt A HARRISON
