Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1905-08-02
HOW THE PUBLIC IS HERDED
 IN ovERCRowDED NEW YORK

| One tnlnS IhdJ dnnoys anu nuniii- ates a western man in New York city is the way in which he is herded with the crowd. Out West man is an individual. He feels that he is some body, responsible citizen, factor in the community, person more or less worth while, entitled to certain amount of respect merely as man, and regardless of wealth or social position or political power. But Tn New York unless one is somebody very important, he is nobody at all. He is a mere unit in the mob, of no more moment than one ant in hill.
 In New York a passenger is no more 60 the conductor of street ear than so many pounds of flesh and bones which must be got on and off the ear in the shortest possible time. It shocks a man from the west, as he climbs aboard Broadway ear or steps upon train in the subway to have the conductor or der him to "step lively" and ask him if he thinks the train is private car riage. The inferenee, of course, is that the passenger amounts to nothing, and is mere chunk of cargo. To get into the surface, elevated, or subway cars at all during the busiest hours a man or woman-for there is no respect of persons-must crush and elbow and push like a football player in scrim- mage. It surely is very undignified business for a person who is aeeus- toned to a certain amount of recogni- tion and difference in a western city in right of his human personality. The westerner at first feels like arguing it out with the conductor, either with tongue or fists. Within a very few days, however, he learns by observa- tion that he is not picked out espe- cIally for insult, but is allowing him .islf to be foolishly ruffied by the GUS toms of the country.
 For it is not only the conductor who
 assumes this public -be-damned de- meanor in New York city. Every body there, except possibly the Tam many politician, who deals with the public, treats the public as a dog. Let a stranger from the west wander into one of the big department stores, or into any large shop, and he will be astonished and pained by the indiffer- enee of the management. In any large store in the west he would be met by floor walker, who would conduct him to the proper counter, and call salesman to attend him. But in the New York stores no one meets him at the doors, and he rOams about looking for signs and asking for directions, until he finds the department that he wants. Then he must keep his eye open to catch a salesman who happens not to be busy. The salesman, or saleswOman, will never bother to go to the mere worm who wishes to make a purchase. You tell what you want. and the person behind the counter pulls out sample or two. If they do not suit, the goods are put away, and you get nothing. No effort is made to entice the mere worm into buying. On the contrary, the worm is given to understand that it does not matter in the slightest measure wheth- CT he buys or not except that the shop keepers and clerks are savd trouble if no sale is made. The shops in New York appear to be kept open by pat rOnizing philanthropists who do not want the publie's money, but are gra- ciously willing to sell things to all corners as an accommodation to the | populaee.
 A fortnight in New York ehastens the westerner pride, and takes the cOneeit out of him. People in that | overcrowded city seem to have lost the | sense of Individuality that is so strong in the westerner. They live gregar iously in tenement houses or hotels. Comparatively few families possess that greatest stimulant to the sense of Individuality, home of their own. The individual is lost in the mass, and he expects to be treated merely as an insignificant atom of the mass and not otherwise. The New Yorker does not revolt because he does not know bet ter. He was born and brought up in the existing conditions, and, probably never in his life found himself a quarter of mile or more distant from the nearest human being.