The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-11-04
'sFIOOT MON

thinks to settle the election by making
bets on the result. Betting is i'm
moral, lsa T III immortality is com m;
produces an anxiety and feverish i'm
patience in the bettor which is entirely
out Of proportion to the results, doesn It
it? Well, then betting is entirely
reprehensible. And yet it is a grow.
ing habit. More people are betting
on elections every. year.
. The peculiar thing about betting is
that th:, nearly every man who makes a bet
part, and therefore not immoral.
Only about ore man in two can win an
election bet, and I have often won
dered what becomes of the men who
lose. After election each man you
meet . won every bet" he made. There
were no lets lost, apparently. The
man who LOST disappeared along with
who admitted that he was loser. When
the primary election was held there
were Il number of bets on Jones and
Williams. A man who took the Williams
enc: OF it pretty literally found himself
In the hole about six. feet. He had
one bet. however, which looked good.
1t was that Jones would not have 1000
plurality. After waiting four days
for the official returns he made certain
to the cigar store to get his money and
learned that, the loser had filed a re-
straining order. The bet was illegal,
OF course, and could not be collected at
law. It every man who loses would
adopt this plan Of "covering his
shorts,' betting would soon become I'M
popular, but unfortunately, it is the
than their grocery bills.
Something, ought to be done about
the, betting business. It is becoming
demoralizing feature of political
campaigns. It attracts Just the class
of men who ought to be leading moral
reforms in the cities, the young men
holding independent positions in bust
ness or places of trust with large COM
panies. It stands to reason that the
man who looks upon an election as
merely. gamble has not very exalted
idea of what his vote means. He NAV
even change it to affect his wager.
The result is a warping Of moral ideas
among the rising class of voters which
BODIES no good for the improvement Of
public conscience.
80
A New York newspaper tells a story
of the directors of a corporation gath
cred to fill a vacancy in the office. They
agreed unanimously that Blank was the
man to. promote and then they fell to
discussing whom they would put in
Blanks place and, would you believe
It, there was not man in New York
who could take Blank IS place. So
they promoted another man and Blank
has the old job at the old salary.
There are always some men like that
ways been suspicion that !, r. E,
Hughes might have been postmaster Of
Minneapolis if there had been any
chance of selecting as good a man for
deputy postmaster. But there never was
and so Hughes is still deputy.
This seems to knock a hole in the old
time argument that the way for
young man to succeed is "to make him
self indispensable to his employers -
Indispensableness depends a good deal
more on the supply and demand than on
any other quality. It is much cas-
Ter to imagine an indispensable cook
than anything else in the world. There
are some men who get to be indispensa-
BILE in public office. There was law
yer In a country town where I once
town clerk. AS he grew in Indispensable
ity he grew also in temper and down.
right contempt for the public. At last
the thing became unbearable and some
Of the voters got together and decided
to make an experiment in government.
They nominated for city clerk a poor
fellow named Billy Y. Smith, who
kept bathhouse, who could not read
nor write according to the simplifed
spelling. They conducted pussy-foot
campaign, 10! on election day Billy Y.
Smith was chosen city clerk. Billy was
scared. The Indispensable Public Serv-
ant was paralyzed, but there were the
official returns and they were for Billy.
and it was arranged that he should re-
sign and the city council should elect
the former clerk, but this did not hap
pen until. after the leaders of the con-
spiracy Had had heart-to-heart talk
with the Indispensable One and there
after he never showed the least tenn
per in the office. Indeed he was the
meekest man in town and continued to
serve as city clerk and lived happily
ever after.
The indispensable man is usually a
routine individual who has learned
faithfully to 60 thru certain motions
and whose employers are certain that
ne will 60 thru those motions on sched-
ule time. They may be very comfort
ing sort of fellows to their employers,
but they do not contribute in the long
run 50 much to the success Of the bust
ness as some other man with initiative.
A firm at Dayton, Ohio, which has done
much for it's employees in the way Of
model houses, reading rooms, lunch
counters, gymnasiums and the like, also
put up box in which employees might
deposit suggestions for improving the
business. One man who had not been
with the firm long, and who was not
considered particularly good at his lob
put in a suggestion which resulted in
the way of doing business being re-
modelled and on the strength Of his
plea before the board he was appoint
ed to work it out. He worked It out
so completely that he is today mem
Der of the firm. 49,.
He could never have become fndis-
pensable in an institution which paid
no attention to initiative, but based
promotion entirely on routine eff
cheney.
An eighth ward man had frightful
experience the other day. In a mo-
ment of weakmindednes he called M a
plumbing establishment and asked For
first aid to the steam pipes. It was a
oreak ne could have stuck knife in
and held on for the winter, but he was
feeling a bit gay having obtained an
advance in salary and small beuuest
from deceased aunt, all in one week.
and SO, with a lordly air, he ordered in
the plumber. The plumber came. he
looked at the pipe severely, took q
cneW OF tobacco and went away. The
next day he came back with a helper.
q man to hold the tools, a timekeeper