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clerks to help him try to find Correggio-and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but, according to the law of average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C's, not in the K's, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness cheerfully to catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply can neither spell nor punctuate-and do not think it necessary

to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

"You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.

"Yes, what about him?"

“Well, he's a fine accountant, but if I'd send him uptown on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and, on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for." Can such a man be intrusted to carry a message to Garcia ?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweatshop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," and with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have

shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce the sorting is done finer-but out and forever out the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest. Selfinterest prompts every employer to keep the best-those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders, and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."

To-night this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fireband of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slipshod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and, having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all em

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ployers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village-in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such he is needed, and needed badly-the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

WE

LUCK, OR PLUCK?

How Life Develops Talent

By ROBERT WATERS

TE speak of the physical influence of culture on the brain, and of the peculiar bent which a long train of circumstances may give to the mind of an individual or a nation. Who are the greatest money-makers of the present day? Who are they that control the world by the immensity of their capital? The Jews; the once despised, hated, persecuted, oppressed, maltreated, but now triumphant Jews. How have they come by this character? how have they acquired this power? It is well known that this race has, for many centuries and in all European countries, been forbidden to become citizens or subjects, to own land, to till the soil, to bear arms, to take part in any of the concerns and interests which their neighbors and countrymen have taken part in. What was the result? They were compelled to restrict their exertions to barter, to buying and selling, to exchange, to the accumulation of wealth by the use of wealth in every possible way. They became the inventors of letters of credit, of bills of exchange, and of bookkeeping; and they are now the largest operators in loans and exchange in the whole world. Thus, having been shut out from other careers and compelled to devote their whole energies to money-getting, they have acquired a genius for the acquisition of wealth; they have become masters in this science; they have amassed millions where others have acquired thousands; they have grown rich where others have been starving; they have, in short, become the greatest money-makers in the world. By their enormous capital they now control the industries of the

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world, and exercise greater power over the Christians than the Christians ever exercised over them. The Christians crushed them by brute force; they are now crushing the Christians by intellectual and commercial forces. The Christians excluded them from the labor market; they are now excluding the Christians from all markets. The Christians tried to save their souls by terror and torture; they are now grinding up the souls of Christians through the organs of public opinion. They have become masters of the situation, and have turned the tables on their enemies in the most consummate manner. "Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges." As they possess the sinews of war, not only princes and potentates, but governments and nations sue for their favor, and peace or war is often dependent upon their decision. The "bloody instructions" they received have "returned to plague the inventors" with a vengeance.

M. Drumont, in his lately published book on the French Jews, "La France Juive," shows that every daily newspaper in Paris, except two, are in the hands of the Jews; that all the railroads, the banks, the exchange, and many of the great public offices are owned or controlled by them; that the Tonquin war was brought on by the machinations of scheming Jewish capitalists; that the Tunisian war was caused by a decree issued by a Jewish member of the government; that wherever a Jew has been implicated in crime, he has always been able to get off through the powerful influence of his wealthy brethren; that, in short, all the power, wealth, and substance of the land are fast passing into their hands, and they have become the arbiters of the destinies of a people who once hated, despised, and persecuted them.

Thus we see that this peculiar people, by having been compelled to devote their whole mental energies to one pursuit, have become the greatest and most successful money-makers in the world; and have thus proved that the mind may, by being bent wholly in one direction, acquire a peculiar character; or, in other words, may be developed at will in any given direction.

It is life that develops mental power; it is life that develops

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