The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-01-27
TWO CLASSES OF MEN.

classification, are the "great race" who
levy tribute from the commonplace who
ACQUIRE. The delightful "Elia's" classi-
ficaton is adequate and exact enough for
the right play of humor, but perhaps it is
more just to attempt something little
more scientific. The busy world would
understand the matter little more clearly
if the world were divided into two classes
those who eagerly and faithfully do or try
to do their duty and that other great class
great in number-who always must be
urged or driven to do their tasks.
Any man who has had experience in
trying to conduct an industrial enterprise,
any activity requiring cooperation on the
part of number of men, any task what
ever where more than a handful do the
work, has noted at the very incipience of
his endeavors the marks distinguishing the
two classes. The men who must be driven
and watched and ''held up to their duty
they are the drags on the business and the
obstacles to a complete success.
No matter how we'll or constantly they
are urged and watched, their work is a
miserable and disheartening substitute for
the efforts of the other kind of men, be-
cause even when they are watched and
urged the results of the labors of the un-
willing, unenthusiastic and dishonest are
always incomplete, slipshod and woefully
defective-wretched, perfunctory task
work.
The listless law clerk makes mistakes
and his work has to be done over by some
one else. The Indifferent store clerk drives
the purchasers away in disgust and defeats
the utmost efforts of the house. The con-
scienceless workman builds a chimney
filled with crannies, rms a joist within an
years the tenants are awakened in the
night by fire, or perhaps perish in the
flames, while at the least the insurance
companies must pay for the dishonest
labor and family is driven from its home.
There is not an establishment nor firm
of any kind which does not know to its
cost in money and in vexation and chagrin
the wonderful difference between the trust
worthy and those who cannot be trusted.
Take any activity as an example. From
the fin you may recognize the shark, and
one group of men is much like another.
There is class of workers who always
have some excuse. They could. not find
the man; they did not "think of that"
they thought tomorrow would do as we'll;
they were not feeling we'll; their grand
mothers sister was ill; there was not time
to catch the train; they did not know such
and such thing was wanted, and so on
through the whole catalogue of the code of
those who are tried and found wanting.
People will fall ill; flial duty must be
performed; men will be missed, and it is
not within the power of any one intelli-
gence to grasp always what another man
would like to have, but there is one very
curious aspect of the excuses given by the
dilatory and the inept and the futile; these
excuses are almost universally given by
those who are known to be inefficient and
by them alone.
There is another class who exist for the
frightening of the world, and they are the
men who do their work and do it we'll.
Emerson says, "The manly part is to do
with might and main what you can do,"
and the few select ones of the earth are
known and marked in every group or COL
lection of individuals, and their name is
blessed.
The men who are eager to do are nearly
always able to perform their tasks. Give
them task and it may be dismissed from
the mind, for everybody who knows them
is absolutely convinced that if the thing is
possible it will be done and done we'll.
These men have different aspect from the
slack and inefficient. The consciousness
that they are doing their duty and helping
in their way, humble though it may be, to
push the world along, gives them pride
in themselves and confidence in their
powers. They lead sensible and clean lives,
and are "always in training" because,
unlike the poor creature who has an ambi-
ton to be a "sport," they are in their beds
asleep while the "cheap sports is playing
poker or trying to establish a record as a
smoker of peculiar brand of cigarettes.
The men who lean deliver the goods are
those who try to do we'll, and they are re-
spected even by their Sinking and futile
companions. Buxton said:
The longer live, the more am con-