The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-20

When a very young reporter has occasion
to write anything about a man of fifty
years he is very likely to describe him as
Jagged" To this boy, with what seem un-
limited years before him and the immeas-
urable promise of youth yet undimmed. the
half-century mark does indeed seem very
close to the end of the pathway; the man
ready even he has revised his standards.
When he was younger. say, at ten, twelve,
even fifteen years, the man Of thirty or
thirty-ive seemed to him TO have reached
that point beyond which there could be but
little pleasure in living. All his w vague
dreams Of achievement he expected to full
fill before reaching that advanced period.
Into more remote epochs his mind seldom
ventured. But having reached twenty
years, thirty seems much nearer, and
though he still expects to have accom-
plished the greater part of his life's work
before ne is thirty. yet he is able to see a
perspective beyond which is not wholly one
Of gloom. But he still considers fifty a
hopeless age. A boys father is always to
him an old man.
A nearer limit is set by the corporations
and labor organizations which discuss the
advisability of employing no man who has
reached the age of forty-five. This is vir-
tually saying that at forty-five a man has
reached the limit of his usefulness; that, in
short. he is old. That such a rule will ever
be adopted is highly improbable, for the
men who now consider it will themselves
will see the subject in a different light.
Kansas City has an old Mems Associa-
ton" 1t had a meeting the other day at
which were present some men not members
of the organization, but who joined in the
discussion of themes on the programme.
Il am still a young man." began the first
one of these, a gray-haired individual.
There are several years between your
ages and mine, and it will be some time
before 1 can join you as a member" APP
parently this assumption Of youth did not
please the members. for one of them point
eddy remarked; Il call a man old who has
gray hair The next visitor was of the
same mind as the first. expressing his
pleasure in being there and a willingness
TO join the association when he was old
enough" This so nettled a member that
he made invidious remarks concerning peo-
pie who did not like TO be called old. IT
am seventy-two,' he said. and proud to
be called an old man." "Ah," said the last
speaker. but you are a good deal older
than I; my, yes" But you are past sixty"
was the retort, "and at sixty a man is
qualified TO enter this association" So.
in Kansas City, at least, where the time
when a man is 10 be called old is advanced
from forty-tive to sixty, there are men who
do not care to accept the limit. but set it
further on. 1t also appears from this and
other betrayals of constituencies which may
be encountered any day that woman is not
alone in regarding age as a tender topic.
The fact IS plain that no man wishes to be
considered old. RE dislikes TO acknowledge
it even TO himself. and only does so when
the disabilities OF age force him to Il; then
the admission is made with reluctance and
q defiant air. as II, after all. time might
somehow be set at naught. II Is not the