The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-08-21

weather mere IllS SulIllllSI; DIS Al Hal
eigh, has been so pleasant that there
| has not been the usual exodus to the
mountains and the seaShore, but the
present hot spell has caused many 70
seek a cool, sequestered spot. where
there are no melting asphalt streets
In good weather, asphalt streets are
the best in the world, but on a melting
day you feel like you are walking on
the sort of composition that printers
use to make rollers for presses and
you can see your tracks clear across
the street.
This is the only city in America,
however, where nearly everybody
takes a vacation. Most people are
employed by Uncle Sam who gives to
every person employed thirty DAVIS
leave with pay" and that gives to
every one a yearly outing. If your
Uncle Russell Sage, who does not be-
lieve in vacations but thinks people
ought to work right on all the time,
could see how we'll Uncle Sam treats
his clerks in the matter of vacations,
he would think Uncle Sam a very pooc
business man. But Russell Sage be-
longs to past generation when every
man looked forward to some day be-
coming his own boss Then long
hours and no vacation FASTENED his
independence. Today the bulk of en-
ployes of the great corporations feel
that they will never conduct their own
business but will always work for
passed away" In the South and West,
where individual initiative still counts
much more than in the crowded
North, stated vacations from business
are not much known. But the tension
is not SO great. Men there have not
been converted so largely into ma
chimes as with us. You may apply the
test on the vacation matter: Wher,
the employer personally comes in con-
tact with his employe, you hear little
of stated periods of vacation, but
the employee really has more vacation
and more independence than when the
directors give him q stated certain
number of days "leave." Where the
employe would not know his employer
if he met him in the street, and is re-
garded merely as a human machine.
there the stated limited vacation is
coming to be reckoned as a part of the
contract This is particularly true
here where Uncle Sam is the employer.
He pays good wages. all clerks except
those who have a pull do faithful
work, and when the ''thilty days
leave with pay comes. they make
tracks fer the mountains, the sea-
shore or to visit relatives in their OLD
homes The last attracts most Of
those who are Sin office" as 1t is term
ed, for the office-holders here. who
will live and die in Washington, really
regard this as "home." To them
"home" is in the State of their birth,
where father and mother are buried,
and most of them had rather read
the local items in their Rhamkatte
Rooster than to read the Sunday edi-
ton of the New York Herald, and
they are more moved by the death Of
an old man whose farm adjoined their
fathers, and whose melon patcn they
raided when boys. than by the death
of the whole family who lives next
door to them, whose names they pro-
badly do not know. Do we really
make any friends to be named with
those we cleave unto. in the years be-
l,a Of
manhood come upon us?
You don't hear much politics talked
among the men in government en-
pIoy who expect to stay here. Some
of them are praying to Good Lord
and Good Devil" for they do not know
into whose hands they are to fall next
March, and they do not wish to be
persona non grata. When Mckinley
was President, all spoke freely of him
and respected him. Roosevelt is an
other proposition. There are many
Republicans in office here who have
anything but admiration for him. he
is much more unpopular personally
here than Cleveland was during MS
last administration, and that is putting
it strong. But, if you are not on terms
of closest intimacy with the office
holders you will not be told TINS. Ihey
can keep silent in seven languages of
their aversion or disapproval, Tor they
remember the fate of the woman in
the War Department who had her
head cut off because she spoke her
mind about the butchery in the PhlI-
ippines. Lese majestic lis not played out
un Ter Teddy, the First.
Speaking of being "stili' recalls
story that happened in the second year
Of the Cleveland Administrations Har-
rison had named a competent man Tor
an important place in the treasury
Department. whose partisan acllVlIy
had made him a leader among lie
publicans in his section of the ooslef
State. knowing of his political prom
inence in his State, where people eat
and sleep and drink politics, there was
great surprise that Smith Gnat
generic name that all good people love