The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1909-07-08

Pulls Join the Discards; Fitness
Now Only Criterion

By Hollis w. Field

NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
possible. But the boys were of grit
and intelligence and they decided for
themselves that they were misfits.
The situation is that the father never
has been reconciled to his business
and he took the sons into it in the
hope that they would prove a staying
influence. One of these young men
is here with me now-not because
his father is my friend, mind you,
but because L Know tAe family stock.
But hat young man is staying here
simply because he IS making good and
feels that he is in = congen:al atmos-
phere.
mark tnis difference between tan
ing the son OF Il good fellow and So
cial factor and the son of some man
whom you know and admire for his
sturdy honesty, good breeding, and
common sense. There are such men
whom an employer in need of help
might ask at first sight: Have you
got a son old enough to work that
you'd like to send around here?" The
feeling of the employer would be:
I'd like to have the o Of that kind
of mar in the house; he'd get there,
seems to me-"
But in most the young
man coming into the work must serve
an apprenticeship. He's got to take
the apprentice regimen. and the
young man whom social influences
would put into the place must rebel
at the conditions. There's a good
deal Of tommy rot talked about this
working up from the position of mes
senger boy to the head of the great
house, 1t isn't a good schooling for
the poor boy off the street.
Timidity Hard to Overcome
"To be an available small messen-
ger today a willing unquestioned OBJ
edience to orders is necessary. Not
every person empowered to give or
ders is c~onsiderate. The average
pride will be hurt many times
in the course of a year.. He will f ell
the same ~humiliations and perhaps
writhe under them. Timldity may
be engendered that will require years
for the small boy to overcome. AS
he is promoted. reminders of his for
mer place in tie house may be thrust
upon his alterations. He is handicap
ped in his early powers of authority.
would you believe that this is a
good school of training for the man
that finally may be graduated to the
head of the institution? Not by any
means! That boy who has the spirit
to smart under the humiliations Of
the messenger experience and the
capacity for doing something in the
world, is likely to leave the house of
his apprenticeship at the first oppor-
tunity. He will try to forget the
whole experience.
THAT n impossible thing in TAX
ing in the young man from the we'll
to do family, wholly upon the in
fluences that he can bring to bear,
lies in this fact of the inevitable ap-
premiership conditions in his work.
This average young mar out of col
lege comes in here at FL or 20 years
old. Nothing that he has learned in
school is at once applicable to his
work. He will find in here the boy
who came in from high school at II.
or Is years, who at his own age may
be in a position considerably above
him a good salary. Don't you see
how depressing the condition is to
the young college man? Don't you
see how big a risk it is to take the
young man of the we'll to do home
save on his own merits as he appears
to you, an applicant for a position,
without pull or pressure?"
Civil Service Good Example
Perhaps that greatest of all repu-
diations of the pull" in job finding
has been shown in the civil service
movement IN government. Where
this reputation has been in earnest
and in full force, doubtless even the
politician in Office finds 1t a marked
relief from the old regimes under
which he had to try TO reward all fol-
with political preferences in
appointments.
But the civil service did not origi-
nate with the politician who had been
reared to the belief that "to the VIC
tor belongs the spoils." The move
ment began on the part of the tax
paying public which so long had been