Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-08-12
GETTINGzAHEAD.
President Of Great Northern Gives
Advice to Young Men.
Why the Japanese Excel Western People as
Laborers.

James J. Hill, president of the Great
Northern system of railroads. is one OF
the most successful and famous men
in the Northwest. He began life as a
poor boy on a Canadian farm, and has
won his way by hard work.
Hill is an optimist as you would ex-
pect man of his type and achieve
ments to be. though he isn't blind to
the fact that many new and difficult
problems have been brought into ex-
istence by modern business and social
developments. In spite of these. how
ever, he says there are still innumer-
able opportunities for young men to
win financial success in the United
States. But the man who desires to
get his chance must work and per-
severe in his work.
THE crying need of the Northwest
today" said Mr.. Hill, in an interview
published recently in the Boston
Globe, lis men who have the gift of
continuance. We have sent $1,000
track laborers out in the past II
months. and yet we have not had more
than $500 at work at any one time.
The majority of the laborers now at
work in the Dakotas and Minnesota
are Italians and Poles The Italians
are highly unsatisfactory. AS a rule
their object in coming here is solely
to get enough money together to sup
port them in idleness at home, and
they hoard their earnings to the last
possible degree. For this reason. and
because they come from a land where
food is not abundant, they rarely eat
enough or we'll enough, and so have
not sufficient physical strength to
stand the strain of ng-continued
labor.
THE Poles are much more satisfac-
tory.
They are strong. hardy and willing.
moreover. they are anxious to leave off
working for wages as soon as possible
Conditions of political and personal
freedom in Poland are not to their lik-
ing, and consequently they do not de-
sire to return TO the old world as the
Italians 90. but are prone to settle
down on land in this country as soon
as they get money enough to do so.
West of the Dakotas we use more
Japs than men Of any other nation
ality. We did not begin the employ
ment of the little brown men from the
Orient from choice. but because we
We're obliged to; we couldn't depend on
men of any other nationality. They
are willing, cheerful and strong: they
work n little cheaper. and that is
point, of course. but the great adj
vantage Of the laps over any other
labor now available in the Northwest
is their reliability.
Most white laborers and especially
Italians, simply will not keep them
selves and the places they live in
clean. The result is disease. We had
great trouble TO keep typhoid fever
out of the volunteer army camps last
year Disease and intemperance in
capacitate a large proportion Of white
laborers much of the time. and few of
them are busy more than four days in
the week the year through.
They will work along steadily for
week, perhaps. accomplishing more
and better work than can be done by
the same number of men in the same
time anywhere else in the world. Then
comes Sunday, the day they should
rest, clean up and accumulate strength
for the next weeks work. but they
don't clean up, and instead of resting
they make love to the flask. The re-
suit is disastrous. both to themselves
and to us. for nothing breaks men
down more quickly than dirt and
drunkenness combined.
With the Japs it is different. When
Sunday comes they make things clean
and take their rest like sensible fell
lows. Perhaps they can't do as much
work. man for man. as the whites. and
so a larger force may be required, but
they are always cheerful. always
healthy. always ready to work. They
never become tramps.
There is much talk that men cannot
get work to do in this country. 1t is
not So Every healthy man who is idle
in the United States today is so from
choice | do not say that every car
penter can get carpenter work to do.
or that every plumber can find job
at his trade, but if he will take what
he can get, every idle man in the
country can go to work as soon as he
is ready to.