The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-03-19
OLD MEN WANTED.
Anti.Age Limit Society Finds Work
for Them In Chicago.

IVA AuCh ~ ShAC0EVs
Employment for old men and others
who have passed the civil service
limit is being found daily by the
Anti-Age Society All day long a
stream of stoop-shouldered gray-hair-
ed men who wish to be enrolled as
members pours into the Office Each
man is given card of membership
and goes out with new hope. The
fee for membership is 81, but the ap-
plicant who has 81 lis usually $50
scarce the money consideration gen.
orally is waived. Meantime the ex-
penses of the society are being de-
frayed by its Two founders, ]. F.
Downey, president, and Benjamin
Giroux. secretary and treasurer.
The curious visitor looking for a
stream of human wrecks will be dis
appointed. No tattered throng, no COL
lection from the worlds back alleys
comes to the society. Laborers are
few. There is work enough of this
sort for the man who can do it and for
the man who can work and will not
the society has no time. While no
class or condition of men is excluded
except those manifestly unfit through
personal habits to hold any position,
external circumstances have narrowed
down the efforts of the society to
what may be called the semi-profes-
sional class. Book keepers, account
ants, clerks, salemen, engineers, all
come, each with his story of positions
long held and many holding good refer
ences, but all out of work and hope
less in the face of a demand for young
er men. Most of these men have
the side stoop which is common to
bookkeepers. Their hands are as
steady as ever and they assert their
ability to compete with any of the ris-
ing generation in rapid and accurate
work. Few admit having lost posi-
ton through inefficiency or because of
any inability to keep up. ut is just
the craze fad for younger men," said
one of them. But for that we would
all be at work"
Statesmen abound. They can we'll
sell anything, they say. Some of them
have sold nearly everything. They
are not afraid to work on commission.
they say, if some one will only give
them paying offer. The trouble
is, they claim, that a man with a good
business proposition insists on young
men to push it, "even if he is and old
man himself" one of them added.
Clerks. floor walkers general and ex-
pert accountants, locomotive engineers
and lot of miscellaneous callings
make up the remainder of the ap-
plicants. Nearly all of the men are
clean and neat, and most of them look
capable enough. But the fatal gray
hair and the thick lenses of their eye
glasses seal their fate in many bus
mess houses, they say.
I'VE will do with them anything we
can" said Mr.. Dewey today. These
men are in no sense objects of charity
nor are they particular about the
honest means which they may have
to adopt to earn their living Our
hardest problem SO far has been the
case of railroad engineer. The man
was apparently perfectly able to do
his work; he claimed that no criticism
had ever been made on it, but there
was no hope for him so far as the
railroads were concerned. Luckily,
we found him place as an engineer
in new fiat building. That was the
worst yet" added Mr.. Downey, as
powerfully built man of SIS years old
came to the desk. The new applicant
proved to be former lake captain,
whose salary in the good days had
been $3.50 month. 1t all went he
said, to take care of his children. Now
they are married and could not, he
said, be expected Ito support their
parents.