Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1877-04-04
SPARKS FROM INGERsoLL
SOMETHING BETTER THAN RICHES,

SOMETHING BETTER THAN RICHES,
Several of the richest men in the
United States have recently died and
from their fearless funerals you can
draw the lesson that in the United
States of America something more
than gold is needed to make real
manhood. People used to worship
the gold of the calf; and even the
calves are beginning to see this dis
tinction:
THE CIVIL SERVICE BUSINESS.
Now, then, another thing: You
have heard great deal about civil
service reform. i do not believe in
carrying that to the extent that you
won't allow an officer to resign. do
not believe that that principal should
be insisted upon to that degree that
there would be only two ways to get
out Of office--dcath or suicide. l be-
lieve, other things being equal, any
party having any Office within its gift
will give that office to the man that
really believes in the principles of
that party and who has worked to
give those principles ultimate victory.
That is human nature. The man that
plows, the man that sows, and the
man that cultiyates, ought to be the
man who reaps.
WASHINGTON CLERKsHIPs.
But we have in this country q null
titude of little places, multitude of
clerkships in Washington and the
question is whether, on the incoming
Of the new administration, these men
shall be all turned out In the first
place, they are on starvation salaries,
just barely enough to keep soul and
body together, and responsibility on
the outside; and if there is q young
man in this audience, / beg of him,
"Neyer take clerkship in the city of
| Washington" Don't you do it.!
Never do you put yourself where you
have to duck your head and take off
your hat to everybody else. Don't
you do it. Don't put your happiness
don't put your fortune-in the pow
or Of another mans breath. Don't
you do 1T! You never will have any
manhood; you never will have any
vertebra; you never will have any
real, square spllnk; you cannot have
it; and you will lose confidence, and
you will begin to think, if you cam
not have a regular payment each
month Of $94.75, that you cannot pos
sibly make living in this world.
1t will take all the pluck out of you.
You will have to live SO pinched, so
narrow, and SO contracted that you
will have to smoke a pipe all the week
with the expectation of fivc-cent
cigar on Sunday. / beg of you not
to discount your future beg of ev-
cry young man, have the courage to
take what comes, let it be feast or let
It be famine, but don't sell the gift
that fortune may have for you for a
petty salary OF $50, or $70, or 500 per
month. Don't do it. Go West!
LOVE IN A LOG CABIN.
Iwould rather have forty acres of
land and log house with one room.
yes, and the woman love, and some
lattice work over the window, SO that
the sunlight would fall checkercd on
the baby in the cradle, and q few hol-
lyhocks at the corner of the house ;
l would rather have that, and a nice
path leading down to the spring,
where could 60 aud hear the water
gurgling; / would rather live there,
and die there than be clerk of any
government on earth. Now, all /
mean by this civil service reform is,
that, if any poor devil has been so
unfortunate as to get into that place.
leave him there rather than destroy
somebody else every year.