Connecticut western news., 1885-05-27
THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.
THE ROYs OF TO-DAY AND WHAT WE ARE TO DO WITH THEM.
Philosopher M. Quad Gives us hls Experi-
 ence in Real Lifea

| advantages over wholesale house What would a young man of IS get in the way of salary in either place to begin with ?"
 Your first question can be answered truthfully in both the affirmative and negative. If you could get place in railroad office where you had some official to push you along you would be advanced pretty fast-faster than in wholesale house where you had to de- pend on yourself alone. On the other hand, there are plenty of men in the railroad offices of Detroit, for instance, who have not been advanced for years, and who are receiving less salary than they did five years ago. In either @ railroad office or a wholesale store there is a certain amount of envy and ieal- ousy among employees. Any advance ment is pretty certain to create animos- ity. The manager of the office or the house may make honesty, integrity and faithful services the test, or he may ad- vance his favorites over the more de- serving.
 However, either situation offers you an opportunity for entering into active business and earning fair salary.
 While on this subject of railroad work it may be well to give the contents of letter received from a station agent on Southern railroad. The boys are asked to give his statement careful reading. He says:
 In the Free Press dated April 18 you say; "But the telegraph operator who can secure the position of station agent as well has good thing of it" Please allow me to ask you few questions on this subject. Would you think you had "a good thing of it." if you had to work from fourteen to eighteen hours per day at salary from $30 to $50 per month, selling tickets, receiving goods for ship ment, issuing receipts for them, making manifests to accompany them, checking freight out of cars, delivering it to con- signees, making out freight bills and collecting same when consigners reside in the town, recording the manifests in your books, loading one to ten cars per day, making one to ten daily reports, three to ten weekly reports and the same monthly? Would you think you had "a good thing of it" when, after years of faithful service, you were per- mitted to remain in the same position, when strangers are brought in to fill vacancies for which your superior officer admits you are qualified ? When, your duties increasing and work becoming more arduous, partly from natural in- crease of business, and partly because you have labored faithfully for the road, your superintendent tells you, '1 don't see how you can do your work, but I can't give you an assistant, nor in- crease your salary so that you can em- ploy one, because it has never been done at your station heretofore ?" When finding you cannot possibly keep up you get your wife, brother and sister to as- sist you, and modestly ask that they be paid $5, $10 or $15 per month which is refused because your superintendent "does not wish to establish a preced- ent 2" am aware that there are super intendents who watch their employers and reward faithful service by promo tions, but they are few and far between, and the most of them base the salaries paid their employees upon "the smallest possible amount that employees can live on." Then, too, when the dull season ensues you are notified, "In order to re- duce expenses you are notified that your salary will be reduced five or ten or fifteen per cent. while the big salaried officials are not affected thereby. I know you would not willingly counsel young man to enter profession where he cannot more than earn living, with out encountering these hardships in addition, so I lay these facts before you. Make inquiries of the agents at any of the small towns and you will find that I am correct. Concerning another sub | ject wish to add a few words. There are thousands of young men to-day try ing to earn living for themselves and a support for their families by telegraph ing, while the officials of railroad and telegraph companies are daily maneuver- ing to force their salaries down to almost nothing, saying, eff you will not work for that, I can find plenty that will"
 Everywhere boys are studying teleg- raphy, in colleges and "plug factories, as we call them, being misled by fatter- ing advertisements and prospectuses, stating that telegraph operators are in demand at salaries ranging from S60 to $120 per month. Having learned the rudiments of telegraphy, they are willing to work for almost nothing in order to become more proficient, and unscrupu- lous officials make use of these ''plugs" to reduce salaries, to the great injury ot working operators and the detriment of the service. As an actual fact, there are three operators, good bad and in- different, to every vacancy occurring in the United States, and salaries range from $85 downward in the commercial service, the average being about S53, and from $50 downward, in railroad service, the average being about S36 per month. This does not include train dispatchers, who are paid from $60 to 800 per month. Your letters are read with interest by thousands of young men, and you are in 8 position to do an incalculable service to the telegraphic fraternity, as well as the boys contem- plating studying telegraphy, by warn ing those who are thinking of entering the profession that it is overcrowded now, and every boy who becomes an operator now reduces the rate of con- pensation to be paid to himself as well as to the thousands who have been do- ing faithful service for many years. For the next ten years the demand for tele- graph operators can be fully supplied from the messenger corps. Even that branch of service suffers from the mania for reduction of salaries, the boys being only paid three-quarters of a cent for each message handled. One hundred messages aday to get seventy-five cents Please make inquiries and satisfy your. self on this point, and then sound S note of warning. By so doing you vii ! incur the gratitude of every operator ir the land, among whom is
 |, HOUSEHOLD" ? A careful perusal of the above letter 2 ia annnnh fn diacnnrapa any boy whf