Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-07-31
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HE YOUNG MAN AT THE Door
college Graduate in the Big City After
Commencement.

Tie comes in modestly and asks for
tae city editor. He finds the CITY ed
,eor ousy. He waits patiently fer a
'uil III the agony of successive editions
ana presents letter from his nrafes-
scr OF rhetoric. At college he did nor
write much. his interests living cbfaa,,
~ 9sHletlcs and music, only he used to
ltdd the newspapers and it struck
"i'l mat II ought not to be very hard
" write IKE that He felt no parti-
o"'ai inward urge toward newspaper
"Olk' out there was nothing else he
ooulo 90 1t was summer Wall street
was dead. The book publishing bust
ness was dead. Lawyers offices were
'uiiiihS at half-speed Business in
general was torpid and high-saIaried
men yawned in their offices and looked
az the clock. So thinking there might
Ye an opening on newspaper he
hunted up the letter from his rhetoric
professor. with which by an inspira-
'ioh he had provided himself before
commencement. He did not in So
many words say why he believed
ne" spaper offices exempt from the I'M
iNersat summer heaviness. but his idea
WAS OF course, that if one sits down
ana makes up things with a pen. and
other people read them, there should
DE Just as large a demand for the nro-
uuct@in summer as in winter.
The wise and humane cartoonist of
the Chicago Tribune has pictured in
the adventures of Dawson. II. the
odyssey of the average college grad
uate in quest of job There are few
mutations in human fortune that are
as sudden and as complete as the
change from two months before COM
mencement to two months after com
mencement The tradition of under
graduate conceit built up by the pro
tessional humorist is. of course. ridicu-
lous. The undergraduate suffers from
no illusions as to his Importance in the
real world he Is about to enter. He is
prepared fer the battle of life. But
that is where the deception comes. He
looks forward to battle, to the stress
and glory of struggle against mighty
forces, Repeatedly in song he has
vowed to alma mater even to be loyal
to her teachings, and never to cease
giving battle to the powers of evil
His baecalaureate orator has warned
him against the temptations that Wall
street holds out to the young man.
and has exhorted him never to bend
the knee to Mammon. When he be-
gins walking the offices he finds that
he mas been warned against imaginary
dangers Nobody really refuses to
give him job because he declines to
be disloyal to alma mater or to the
best that is in him In not a single
lawyers office has he been asked to
make a compromise with the spirit of
unrighteousness. No hardened Wall
street broker has offered him a whack
ing salary on condition that he imme-
diately bend his knee to Mammon.
The trouble is much more prosaic:
everywhere they are full up" and
men are being laid off and there is no
chance of anything turning up at all
until the autumn The poor young fell
low goes out. You can cripple with
hydra or an incubus or a force of un-
righteousness, but you can't assault a
thin. heavy-eyed clerk who asks you
to come back in the fall.
He goes home and ponders with his