Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1900-09-28

stock Altering evil along with the trust
''magnate" and the promoter. He is get
ting down on the earth again. Some of
the trusts in which he invested have even
gone to pieces. They were badly con-
ceived and badly managed. They couldn' t
hold together. They didn't ''do business"
on business basis.
There was no reason why they should
expect to hold together. Perhaps there
were too many purely ornamental per-
sons in the offices with high salaries.
Perhaps there were too many sons and
nephews of 1.-The president" who sat
around looking handsome-and thinking
that there was no other task Of impor-
tance connected with their job. What
ever the cause, the badly organized and
badly managed trust has gone TO pieces
or is going. Nothing can help it, if it
can't help itself. So, too, the people are
realizing that the problem is economic
after all, that no person, nor any party,
is to blame for this condition of things;
nor, in fact, that any person, or party,
or policy can prevent the good ones from
succeeding, can prevent the bad ones
from failing.
That suggests another thing. I spoke
of the more or less handsome nephew of
''the president" He has got to be up to
his job or he can't stay. 1t isn't enough
for him to succeed in his new position in
doing the same old things that he used
to do in the old one. There is new study
for him, new problems: buying, handling
the labor situation. selling the product
at profit, studying the worlds mar
kets.
All this he has got to do because it has
got to be done; and if he hasn't the in
clination or the brains to do it, you can
wager your last dollar at the risk of
walking from Kokomo to Kankakee that
neither the president" nor any one else
will keep him in. That is why it is the
worst kind of fol-de-rol, unworthy of
anybody as intelligent as the Great
American Traveller, to pretend that there
are no opportunities in manufacturing
and trade now, and especially none for
young men.
Fudge!
There was never so good a chance for
brains, and good health, and sobriety,
and acumen, and vitality. Have these
things and capital must have you. And
if it must have you it must pay you. The
larger the corporation. the more impor-
tant in it is the man. There are just as
Hlany large cOrpOrdtiols no" as lHeTe
were small ones before. AS many big
men are required as there were small
ones required before What these So
called magnates want is somebody who
can do the work. Price is no object if
they can depend upon you. You can't
strike $4,000 position all at once. You
have.got to show that you are worth ST.
coo, or $4,000, or $1,000. 1t is the same
old climb as it always has been; there is
the same old ladder to go up by, and the
same old persimmon when you get to the
top round-and the same old persimmons,
too all the way up at all the rounds.
All this seems pretty long unless it
also seems to have some bearing upon
the drummer question. l don't know
whether you ever thought of it or not,
but many different causes have been op-
Grating in the last few years to throw
commercial travellers out of work. Man
ufacturers have sought to eliminate COM
mission men, who must have laid off a
good many Of their travellers. The cata-
logue houses, so-called, those doing bust
ness direct with the consumer by means
of catalogues and other printed matter,
have grown enormously. They have laid
off drummers-if they ever had them; and
one of the reasons why they can sell so
cheaply to the consumer is that one ele-
ment of selling expense, the drumming,
is eliminated. Any house that corre-
spends extensively, that takes care with
its correspondence, by just so much
makes the selling easy; and if the pro-
cess were kept up long enough. this