Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1906-09-04
SOFT-SNAP men.
Plenty of Work But no Response
From This Class,

In an editorial the Oregonian
sizes up the situation in regard
to the loafers that are found in
Corvallis and in every other town
these days, when help has never
been in such demand as now.
The man who loafs while the
summer days slip by is the man
who asks for credit and gets it
not when the winter rain is upon
the land, and whose family suf-
ters for want of decent food and
comfortable raiment. The edi-
torial says:
One of the marvels of a busy
season, with its demand for labor
in every line, is the number of
men who stretch their listless
length day after day on the grass
of the park blocks or doze on
the park benches over the sport
ing columns Of the daily papers.
True, the grass is cool and the
shade inviting at present; but it
does not require a very lively
imagination to picture these same
grounds in the winter, when
Natur is taking her annual rest
and does not invite the Summer
lOuneer to share it with her.
The call to labor is resounding
throughout the land. No able
bodied man is now idle except
from choice; the wages offered
everywhere and in every voca-
ton are living wages, with some
thing to spare for the rainy day
that two months hence will re-
peat itself more or less contin-
uously throughout the Pacific
Northwest until Spring.
1t is not work, however, that
the idler wants. He would even
scorn "employment" unless it
came to him with the "soft-
snap guarantee. And it may
be as we'll to say, though the
statement may shatter the lam
guild hopes of the soft-snap man,
that this guarantee does not &C.
company the demand for labor
that is heard on every hand.
Employers were never more will
ing than now to concede the
truth of the assertion, The labor,
er is worthy Of his hire" nor were
they ever less ready than nov 10
paiter with men who work undrr
compulsion and perform as little
actual service for the stipulated
wage as is possible.
There is work in the harvest
fields, but the soft-snap man does
not and need not turn his steps
that way; soon there will be
work for hundreds of hands 10
the hop yards, but if the soft
snap man winds his way thither
looking for job that will be
simply an outing with wages as
an attraction, he will soon dis
cover that hoppicking does not
fill the measure of his desire.
Later there will be prunes to
pick and potatoes to dig, in either
OF which occupations willing,
industrious man can make wages;
but the soft-snap man will not
bend his back to such lowly
tasks. Dairyinen need help, but
their need is not met by the soft
snap man. The sawmi1is were
never so driven with orders as
low, and never before was help
that deserved the name more
sure than now OF place in the
lumber industry, at good wages.
But the soft snap does not lurk
in and about 1nillvards.
Even in the. so-called lighter
vocations the demand for labor
has no soft-Snap guarantee.
Clerks are wanted III department,
stores for use, not for ornament;
shipping clerks fud no soft-snap|
behind the enormous piles of
goods waiting to be shipped, and
even the Office Oov has need of
legs upon which IL bear h,m
about on pressing errands, and of
a cheerful vote in which to re-
spoud to the insistent business
call of the telephone. In brief,
there is work to do in every de-
pa,'ment of labor, business and