The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-24
WHEN A MANS OVER S5
AN EMPLOYE TELLS WHY GRAR
 HAIRS

Who scrIs Boys Positions at Disad
 vantage What to Do With Life
 Failures.
 Why is the business world of to-day
 says the Chicago Tribune, prejudicet
 against the applicant for salaried DO
 sition if he chances to be more than 8
 years of age at the most?
 The question was put to man whc
 has white hair himself, but who ha. i been in the capacity of employer ol
 many men for many years. His re. ] sponse, quick, sharp and decisive, was
 that no such thing as prejudice exists
 against a gray-haired man who is com | petent to do gray-haired mans work 1 There is where the distinction comes
 in, sharp and unimpeachable" he said laying the flat of his hand upon his desk for emphasis. "I am aware that theorists have championed the cause of
 the gray haired man who is looking for a job but when the proposition comes
 to the employer it is a condition and
 not theory.
 The kind of a man for which the theorist is contending is the man who,
 past middle life, is locking for situa-
 tion in competition with young men,
 Frequently it is man 50 years old
 looking for work of ac lass which boy
 20 years old will do immeasura bly,
 quicker and better Those who have
 been so quick in sympathy with the middle-aged' mans position have over-
 looked entirely the position of the em- ployer in the matter.
 Tn the first place. when a man has reached 35 to 90 years old, he is in sight of his ambitions goal or he has failed in it, or he never has had an ambition. Those who are in sight of that goal, of course, are the men in whom gray hairs are an asset rather than liability. Take such a man as this, and he is go- ing somewhere when he moves He knows something little better than somebody else. He is in a position to go to an employer and make the prcpo- sition. He is beyond boys work He has a horizon that is his own and is in q position to command forces that will develop it. His enthusiasm is as young as it ever was, only that it has been tempered and tried, and caution and judgment have been added unto him.
 Compare this man with another gray haired type which has made a failure in early life. This other man may have been in business for himself and failed His failure is enough to discourage an employer from msking him the head of a department in his former line of work Often it is so signal a failure that the man himself would not have the con. fdence to ask for such a position Tn most cases he is man cut of position and out of money, seeking to take up work which naturally would go to a man of half his years
 "Suppose should hire this man. Nat rally I cannot pay him the salary that lis ambition once prompted him to ax- 1ect. He is sore at heart Just to the ,xtent that he has been master of him. self in the past he resents the confine- pents of office hours. He has ways of lis own that are not my ways, in all 1 ,robs bility, and when seek to have linn conform to my way of doing things
 find him more or less intractable
 People are inclined to forget the weeping chanpe that has come uvon he worlds business methods in the last CIV yesrs The man who is a success n his occupation or vocation must keep | ace with these processes. When he as failed he is likely to drift out of the ange of possibilities. In this respect he man who has been failure is not pen to suggestions The rule of humb which he learned has been su- ! erseded by the technical in business. nd in greet measure it is the young len who have mastered this. For a oung head of department to attempt ) swerve the gray-head from his set curse would be to invite friction at nee.
 As to the elderly man who has bean ithout ambition and who seeks the ere salary that goes with job he is little good. He seeks a job cnly be- ause he is without money This fact lat he is without money is bar to his oplicaton. You may mark 1t that it
 the man who saves against rainy ay who belongs to the dependable les. He is the man who does not | Iuander his substance and who knows [ here to go in his need. He is not left
 come to the employer with the un- z proposition that the en1- 1 oyer pay him more money for doing ss work than man of half his years Q ould do, and who, working at less ( oney. would be growing into the gen. t al scheme of his employers busi- t ss. q
 A hnfy hp | Al man, in any case an employer in a h business has to consider the l. ty which he may come to owe those S 9rRers who become superannuated on s hands. A bookkeeper who has S ent half his life keeping books for a neone else is not nearly as valuable
 me as a. young man would be who il d more ability, accuracy and actlv- e
 than the other If in nothing else. | fl ? young man of good constitution q 'uld have fewer days on sick leave. n her things equal. his promise of life o greater, and. all around I could call ', on him for services which would be a, most unbecoming a man of middle II D. n, The last feature almost always is M ar-looked. It may not have occurred h you but there is something amount ts to prejudice against q business n, 1se that has a cOnsdera ble propor- ,.