Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1894-03-13
Rouss Auction Trade Journal

from the walks and ways.of centuries.
It is tru the sherif's flag sobeTs him
for the interim. but he settles at ten
cents on the s and begins agen the
weary march over the barren turnpike
of commonplace. The next settlement
is not far awa-he pays nothing this
time and he is simply nobody; in
other words he is in the market at
one dollar a da. Eighty-four out of
one hundred-this is the monotonus,
thredbare, sikening story of the le-
gions and hosts who marched forward
under the baner of KING CREDIT to
inevitable destruction. With the hard
cash, with brains and nerv, with abil-
ity and integrity and character tina
blievd tina. mite esily command success
along that fatal hiwa macadamized
with the bleacht bones of what was
one genius and heroism of the grand
est type of commercial chivalry.
Vain the terrific lessons of hard fate,
the grinds tones of thirty days, four
months stretching out in long para
lels to eternal time-al the same clast
in the calendar of crime as the infer
nal LEDGER. Backbone, pluk, iron
will and ambition ar simply pIaythings
in the auful crucibl of credit and melt
into pulp in da, and the next for
gotten. The solitary one out of six
teen who escapes agen faces fate with
magnificent defiance of the inevitable
under the same old system that had
tortured and ruined generation after
generation of his proud name. A fu
revolutions of the big invisible
wheels of time and he had been
swept out into oblivion in that living
cemetery of obscurity cald anihila-
ton. No Lessons of the ireclamabl
past, not the years of agony and
loses make the slitest impress on thes
devoted adherents of barbaric meth
DDS, born of the barbaric past and to
which tina cling with a desperation
bordering on idoIatrY that bafes the
master minds of this agresiv eventful
age.
There's hut one unfaling, living
Lesson that looms up befor the old
timer that awakens, so6ers and
teaches! 1t is the record smasler of
the Raqeter of the RoUss SYSTEM
One of our monthIies had fallen into
the hands of an old stifneker of the
strictest creed lie merely noticed the
retched spelling and flung it in the
wastebaskct. In winding up the
days bushes one of the boys who
did most of the selling and al the work
at 800 year-let me Sc, that's just
duble what I got at Is; yes, two
dollars week-pickt out this paper
and red arite the filosfy of success.
In the spelling of the coming da just
ahed. he thaut he saw the short paths
that led to fame and wealth. On
the stage in dreamland he was play
ing The part of Master of the ''MoD-
ERN METHODS" and his brain caut
fire and the next ola was his last on
salary. He had red the bottom lines
of ilustrius caracters who had made
history in da. He saw the xample
of cuntry boy in the cornfield at
$40 a month one da and the next
tearing the hitarifers into carpet rags
and choping the two hundred per-
centers in TO sausage meat. He
seemed 10 feel in his ncrYs down to
the very DIX that he had that self
confidence, that lie cud safely match
his thautS and pIuk with whatever he
mite meet in the future mercantile
fields of life. His erly triumfant
victories in little Mississippi town,
surprising himself NOR than anyone
els, only wheted his insatiabl ambi-
ton for CRATER mercantile fame and
fortune. He stole in upon Fl. Smith,
Ark, in the mite and the next da he
was the imperial master of the situa-
ton with the people behind him; or
rather, after him. His name is Ham
monds, and his unrivald record in
that tite market Uil be hard to mach.
Befor opening up in the litlcG Georgia
village, lie quietly went thru the big
shops of the antedeluvians of the
McKinlY stripe, and he saw with
amazeHent and amusement the nice
process of choping off rows of pins
for cent, and deity raping up in
tisu paper 2 needles for the same
money. ''Fine game here for me"
he mutered. In another aristocratic
corcern the clerk was raping up
qire of note paper, sc; and counting
out envelopes for one cent. He
cud hardly wait until morning when
the paper wd announce the opening of
his masked batteries: IA rows of pins
for 1c ;25needles for the same money;
one garter of ream or qires for sc;
and Paks envelopes, 100 for Sc,
twenty for one cent. OF what avail the
plaintiv vail of the ded and buried
swelhed yelping out "stolen goods"
"auction plumber" and trash"
when this unconditional daredevil
was proving to the peple how tia had
ben plunderd ny the system that de-
mands of thos who pa, the loses of
others scho neUer pa. Over his
crowded counters went thousands of
packages al the liv-long-da, far into
the mite at tcItalc figurs that fastened
upon the Ledger champions the out
rag9 of one, two, three, four and five
hundred percent! The moan of the
freebooter fel stilborn whilst the
twenty-percenter, drunk with the
xtacy and deliriun of success swept
from the face of the erth the last YES
tige of OPPOSITION and competition.
The large stor had becnm too small.
We bakt him and he biIt the largest