The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1903-10-21
Why do They Whine?

1
earning and business ways to adopt
| the best methods Of conducting enter
prises to success. Perhaps during
decades of centuries they have become
80 accustomed to gaining their aims
through tears and mournful appeals
TO the sympathies Of others that
poor souls!--they drop through hered-
ity into this lugubrious style when
they want you to hire them to work
or to buy from them new patent
shirt waist fastener.
AT any rate, many woman's first
essay in the industrial world is q
wretchedly unbusincsslike appeal to
the sympathies of others. Say Mrs.
Tobias BODY is canvassing for the
grip-it-fast shirt waiet clamp. She
comes into your presence and sinks
! inio chair With the sigh Of a lost
soul. Then she opens, out. She tells
you she is widow with small chill
| dren to support; that she has been
cheated out Of her little property
the more fool she is for allowing her
self to be cheated! She tells you how
inGrm her health is and how she suf-
fers from some kind Of ailment. It
may be this or it may be that, but it
is always chronic, like her own down
in-the.mouth face-a face so woebe-
gone and unpleasant that you instinc-
lively want to look away from it.
She enlarges on how dreadfully hard
she has to work and how tired she
gets and oh-ah-oh! till you feel
as though you would rather sec q
sheriff's summoner come into your
house than self-supporting woman.
Even e girl who earns good salary
too often takes this woebegone, fall
to-pieces attitude. She counts busi-
ness hours as 80 much Of her time
that she i1 defrauded out of by adverse
fate and whines because she has to
support herself instead of glorying in
the fact.
This down-in-t. t.he-mouth attitude is
seriously in tie way of business wo-
men Of all conditions. It is the atti-
tude of the beggar who stands on the
street corner and parades his deformi-
ties to draw money out of people.
Because we are widows with children
to support, because we have chron mic
toe ache or used to be rich and were
fools enough to let ourselves be cheat
ed out of our wealth-none of these
is any reason why other people should
put their hands in their pockets and
give Us money.
Business is business. 1t presup-
poses that if two parties make an in
terchange of labor and money or
merchandise on mutually adyan-
tageous terms, give and take, fair
and square. Sentiment and sympathy
have absolutely no place in CONNER
cial transactions, only it seems hard
For women to learn this.
1t is not hardship to work for
ones living, whether at cooking or
anything else. It is being o useful
member of society, contributing to its
economic strength. is something
to be undertaken with pride and salts
faction. The woman who has the
brains and grit to maintain herself is
to be congratulated, not pitied. She
is not in the least deserving Of any
body's sympathy; on the contrary.
Why she should attempt to draw on
peoples .sympathies is a mystery.
Perhaps she imagines she will gain by
it. If 80, she is mistaken. All other
people have troubles Of their own, as,
many as they can carry, and they
therefore have 80 much sympathy for
themselves that little is left to spill
over upon others. A whine and
doleful tale few times repeated will
harden any mortal and close his ear
agsinst all who approach him mingling
business and beggary. The two do
not mix successfully.
Undoubtedly the attempt to suo-
eeedin trade by drawing on mems
sympathies has something TO do with
80 many women's failure in the busi-
ness world. It does not work, it
never will work. The noble, self-re-
spscting attitude is the only one.
The woman who succeeds is she
who 10 prepared to give full market
value, in the trade Of labor world, who
Keeps all her troubles and weakness to
sherself and thus gives the impression
that she is strong and capable, who
grests all the world with, brave,
cheerful, confident mieh and words,
thus giving ths Sinporression, that She k