The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-22

zIE one reason the bargain counters have the | struggling mutitudes about them.
 The Bargain Counter Lesson. But the bargain counter teaches us another lesson. Though most people are having q hard time financially, there are a great number who fatten them selves upon the misfortune of others. These modern vandals or ghouls of the night are not producers or developers. They are human beasts of prey whose business in life Is to find some victims in distress and then to bounce upon them and make profit out of their misfortunes. They are like the wreekers of old who
 used to patrol the western coast of Eng land. When a merchant ship was ap- preaching the coast they would, with false lights, decoy it upon the rocks. Then they would gather up the wreckage and take the punder to their homes and sell it. So from time immemorial men
 have increased their own fortunes by living upon the wreckages and the ship
 wrecks of other lives. The tragedy of
 our last national panic proves that what 1 say Is true.
 During the financial strngency in De- tober there were certain men in New York city who had ready money. Some of these men began to run up their pre-
 miums 20 and 50 and 75 and even 100 per
 cent. In other words, in order to borrow
 s10 from you I would have to give $20 in
 return. Because these men had cornered
 the money market they attempted to
 take from their fellow men every dol
 lar they possessed. These plunderers
 were fattening their purses upon the
 misfortunes of their fellow men. And
 had not the Secretary of the Treasury and men like J. P Morgan and others of that ilk brought millions upon mill lions of dollars into Wall street this coun-
 try would have seen the darkest days in it's financial history Alas, Wall street is no different from every other street. In every country there are a lot of hu-
 man vultures Like haunting spectres. they are lowering around ready to ban quet upon the carcasses of the financial ly slain. As soon as any man gets into trouble they bounce upon him and rip
 and tear him to little pieces. Like the ghouls of the night, they live by desc crating the graveyards. Like the robbers of stranded ships, their incomes are de-
 rived from the wreckages of their fellow men.
 Be Just To Others.
 Now, my brother, if you have good l income and are not in abject want be
 morally and spiritually honest As you l expect men to pay you just price Tor 1 your labor, you should be willing to l pay others a just price for their labor 1 Because a poor seamstress Is unfortu- l nate and cannot get work do not give l her 75 cents day for her services when 1 you ought to pay her $1.5O. If you have l an industrious boy in your employ who l is doing the work of full grown man l do not pay him simply the wages of a l boy Pay him the wages of man | Because you have merchant In a
 financial "hole do not squeeze the life l out of him. Be honest. Be fair. Pay 1 a just price for all labor-that is. pay l as you expect others to pay you,
 The tragedy of the bargain counter l teaches us another great lesson. When l an article has to be sold below cost l the unseen sufferers are those who arc l hurt the worst by the financial sacri-
 fee. The clerk who sells you the goods 1 over the counter may not be the sui l ferer. Neither is the man who is al | the head of the great dry goods em- porium the one who ought to be the most pitied. But the unseen sufferers are the men and women whose names you never know and whose faces you never saw. These are the people wing should be commiserated.
 A Civil War Tragedy.
 The tragedy of the bargain counter is like the tragedy of the late Civil war. 1 have been over many of th. great battlefields of our country. Per haps you have also been to some Of
 them. Then, like me, you have stood
 before the plain white tombstones Tn
 our national cemeteries and said: Pooi
 fellows! Poor fellows! Most of these
 martyred soldiers were only boys. Think
 of the long marches and the days of
 hunger and cold. Think of those soldiers
 falling in the awful charges and the
 despair that must have overwhelmed
 them when they fell. Think of the hor-
 TOTS of the operating table and their
 agony when dying" But, though no man
 honors the dead soldiers of the late
 Civil war more than I do. yet l would
 tell you that those who died for theif
 country did not make the greatest sacri-
 fees A living sorrow is far heavier
 burden to bear than dead triumph.
 Did you ever stop to think what became
 of the wives and the mothers and the children of those dead soldiers when the bread winners were stricken down. Did you ever think of the soldiers whose health and strength were destroyed, dis charged from service because they were unnt TOT IuTlUeT uuly anu Who Sohie home with mangled limbs, doomed to a lifetime of physical decrepitude and pain An. these were the greatest sufferers of the national carnage, not the men who felt the tingling of the bullet and i then with a cry of "Oh, my God, I'm shotr' fell dead. The greatest sufferers of a nations wars are the unseen sui ferers.
 Who. then, are the martyrs of the bar gain counter? I will tell you In all probability those goods which are sold be longed to some smaller dealer who was driven to the wall and who had to sel his stock for anything he could get, oi they are the goods of some poor woman who had to work in the Chicago or ths New York sweatshops, or they are the goods that have been marked down be l low cost in order to run some rival ou 1 of business. It is easy enough for drug l gist to take in line of stationery ane l sell it at cost in order to destroy tho ! trade of the stationery store mead him, bu | that sale means blood money. No mar : ever bought something for less than cos