The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1905-04-27

fall into the habit of living beyond
their income, but that all do not. 1t
is very easy to get credit although
those who do so suffer in the end.
1t takes strong, resolute character
to rise above their surroundings; to
| ignore the manners and customs of
those around them, to be able to resist
these, they must enter departmental
service with an innate propensity for
self-sacrifice; an inherited desire for
accumulating worldly goods under
great difficulties. Such men in the
business would become rich and in
fuential citizens in their old age, as
government clerks they are able to
acquire house or two, and meet old
age with a little put aside for their
declining years in which a large part
of the time is spent in regretting the
years wasted over deskwork.
Routine work-important and diff
cult though it may be, once mastered
becomes easy, and as it neither varies
nor changes, only increasing in
quantity with the growth of great
nation until it becomes too much for
one clerk to accomplish even with the
dispatch gained by the experience OF
years application-saps the energy,
dulls the brain just as new problems,
new complications encountered in the
active business life of an energetic
Observation-Disclosures, quick
ems and develops the brain and spurs
the will to do, conquer and succeed.
A young man full of energy, ripe
with the spirit of progress of this
great age, attracted by the-to him
large salary-enters the government
service. You find him at fifty me-
chanical machine, chained to desk
work over the method of performing
which he has no control, he adds up
accounts, does portions of work, the
ends and results of which he never
sees, ne becomes part and parcel of
the great running gear of this i'm
mense business concern of the govern
ment of these United States.
If turned out upon the world after
his long service along one line of
work he finds himself behind the
times and in every way unfit to meet
and conquer the world of men. The
talents he possessed in his youth for
such contest have died from mani
ton.
During all these years the height
of his ambition mot often realized)
has been to be made chief of his divi-
sion, which, when obtained, make
him the target of the ambitious and
envious, and whenever change takes
place in the administration. he is
liable to reduction, and if he gets
beyond the classified service, a dis
missal. Although he capnot be
dismissed without cause" while
protected by civil service laws, he
can be taken from congenial or
familiar work and placed in I'M
pleasant surroundings.
Those who think that department
clerks have no troubles and trials
little know the real situation of affairs.
Their life is not at all rose color by
any means, and some of the very
things for which they are so envied
and slandered are the very ones that
gives them the least pleasure.
Starting in at work promptly at
nine there is always full days work
ready for him; he has no dull seasons;
no depression in his industries; no
labor unions to adjust his wrongs.
This great and glorious government
marches ever onward and adds, not
decreases its yearly output of work in
every branch of it's various divisions
of labor.
Every daily task performed by an
employe of this great business concern
of Uucle Sam, is of vital importance
to that department in which he is
employed, and it must be we'll done
or the government is loser thereby.
The government clerks as a class
are skilled and faithful servants.
That such is the case is proven by
the few cases were INSCRIPTIONS men
betray their trust, and there hundreds
and hundreds of government officials
who have daily opportunities for so
doing. The public hear of the few
wrong doors, the few drones, but they
know but little of the thousands who
have proven faithful and true, and to
whom much of the credit of the great
ness of our country is due.
And when government clerk grows
old and feeble, and can no longer
keep up the work of his desk, which
must be done, his place must be filled.
Out he must 60 to become burden
upon his children, who raised in a
city where there is little opportunity
for business enterprises, are only
making a mere living for themselves.
The woman who asks the question
quoted in the beginning of this article
| knows the true side of the life of a