The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-15
WORK Of I. P. AS.
Interesting Addresses to
Raleigh Post z.
National Representatives Donham and
State Secretary Marsh Show What
the Order is Doing For
Progress.

The commercial travellers of this
section, whose official organization is
known as Post e. of the T. p. A.
of North Carolina, were in session
last night in the Mayors office.
The meeting was held for the pur-
pose of hearing addresses from State
Secretary b. H. Marsh, of Winston
and from National Representative, E.
w. Donham, of st. Louis. There were
present some thirty members and the
meeting, an enthusiastic one, was pre-
sided over by Mr.. James /. Johnson,
the president of the Raleigh Associ-
alton.
In Introducing the speakers Mr..
Johnson paid q tribute to them as
earnest and industrious workers for
the r. Z. A., and said that their zeal
had added to the membership of the
local association, which from begin
ming of "a members less than four
months ago now numbered over sixty.
In the last twelve months, he stated,
the gain in the State in membership
had been over one hundred. per cent.
Mr. Marsh spoke first. He express
ed his pleasure at the meeting with
the Association, which he had organ
lied on the 51st of last December, the
membership in three and q half
he said, there are now six flourishing
posts, with ASheville as the latest,
this baby post having twenty-seVen
members. The State membership in
the past year has increased 125 per
cent. and next week new post will
be established at Wilmington thus in
creasing the membership in the State
to about five hundred. He declared
that the association should receive the
hearty support of the manufacturers,
the jobbers and the commercial men,
for it is of value to them all. In
telling of what it had done he re-
lated the ork of railroad and legis-
lative committees, telling of these as
in excess of any accident indemnity.
He said that on Saturday the State
meeting would begin at Winston and
that to the National meeting at Savan-
all on May 18th, the State would
send seven representatives, these
from Greensboro, Winston, Charlotte,
High Point, Raleigh and Asheville. To
this meeting he invited all the MEM
bers and friends Of the organizations
Mr.. e. w. Donhom. the National
Representative spoke next. He began
his address most pleasantly with
a humorous account of the first traV-
ing man, when he said was Adam as
he went out of the Garden of Eden.
The drummers, he declared, was as
old as antiquitz itself, and related
that it had been said that when the
dove left Noah's Ark it brought back
in its bill a drummerS' card, one
who had rubber boots to sell. The
travelling man, he said, had the voice
of Il syren. the smile of an angel
| the resources of a general and the
| persistence of the devil and carried
with him the religion of sunshine and
| happiness.
Mr. Donham then traced the
growth of the order from the begin
ming fifteen years ago with ten men
who started it, to the present when 1T
has 26, 600 members in 81 states and
| 100 cities ap,ngiyfw w w y
100 cities, paying out in it's first year
| $500 for accident indemnity, and last
year $1,250,000, or $4,000 q year
| with a gain of 5000 members a
month. He told in detail how the T.
p. As helped trade conditions, and
how it was after a trip to Mexico by
some commercial men that the chaos
| in trade conditions there brought the
snail dnh,0 ON thliFost, a-a-o1- vt iai
idea of a Department of Commerce
and Labor for the United States,
which after seven years labor to OBJ
tain it had been in existence four
years and was now a great power for
the good of trade, opening up new
markets. AT instance Of this he re-
lated was that a Winston firm had
found through it a new market to
which it's first shipment had been
nine car loads Of roller top desks.
The speaker told of the interchange
able mileage books at two cents q
mile having been obtained on all nor
thern roads, with some fifty railroads
by means of the Association. He held
that this ought to come in the South
and that the only railroad opposing
it was the Southern Railway, which
sold mileage at two and Il half cents
on it's own road without any inter
changeable features. 1--WE are going
after this road he said and one day
we hope to have it give us this that
we ask for
He spoke next of work in obtaining
! proper hotels and proper accommo-
dations at home, telling. that $50 no.
tells in Georgia had signed an agree
ment to do better and improve and
that one hotel, being complained of
as a nuisance, had to close and would
have to expend $4,000 to get in prop
er shape. He insisted that roller
travels for $50 men to wipe their
faces on were a disgrace and ought
not to be in any hotel, that the T.
p. A. was trying to get rid of this
and other tribulations met with at
hotels.
He discussed the accident indemnity
feature, the social feature and the pa
ternaI feature of the organization,
showing that in the order men were
brought together in brotherly love and
in conclusion. in most beautiful lam
guage he paid a tribute to the value
to humanity of brotherly love.
Mr. p. G.. WEIGH, of Greensboro,
chairman of the State Hotel Commit
tee, told briefly of it's work and said
that the national order called on him
to report cases of troubles with no.
tells, but for two years he had report
cd nome the - ct hninp the frnIIhln