The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-02

4 RNOLD wuo used to sell road rol-
 "A lers, has reformed. He had to- 4 \ He says if this country ever has good roads it will be owing in large de- gree to the number of road rollers he has distributed over the land. There still is e good demand for road rollers. steam or gasoline, but that does not interest him. He is tired of the game: tired of dealing with grafters tired, too, perhaps. of the ever present risk of exposure and, possi- lily, of going 10 jail.
 You would not think there was much graft in the road roller, but there is. Ar hold, who has sold more of the cumber- some, ponderous machines perhaps than any two men in America, says he never saw a business more graft ridden He should know. for in the 25 years he has been a commercial traveller he has sold all sorts of things from fountain pens by the hundred gross to locomotives by the dozen.
 "Bah!" said he to a party of friends who were dining with him in the Sales Managers club. Don't tell me they are getting graft out of politics. All the road rollers 1 sold were to politicians and never sold a machine that l did not have to give up in one form or another. Ex- citing? Yes. Dangerous? You bet. un- less you are clever and know how to han dle people, liked it immensely for a few years but after that l got disgusted. Maybe it was a sort of moral awakening or moral revulsion At any rate, I was mighty glad to get out of the business, although l made big money in it.
 You have no idea the money there is in road rollers. They cost about $14o0 to make and they sell for what you can get, anywhere from $2700 to $4000 f. o. b. fac tory. Usually you sell only one or two at a time, but there was one sale of %, and sales of three, four five or six are not uncommon. l made S10,O00 to s12,000 a year. but I never felt quite right.
 1T had lots of adventures, lots of thrills, lots of narrow escapes, and I doubt if anybody on the road can match my eX- periences Once to get an order I had to bribe a clergyman by giving him calf. Ever hear of such a thing? Once l had to do business in a county where every body holding office seemed to have his hand out. Why. there even was wom- an there who was in the game with the rest of the grafters
 T had been on the road for weeks and had returned to the Chicago headquarters when the boss showed me a telegram from Louisiana city notifying us that the county commissioners they call them police jurors down there) were going to award a contract for road roller two days later There was nothing for me to do but jump, so l left on that nights train
 'I had provided myself with . few let ters of introduction, and when I got into the Louisiana town shortly before noon on the contract day l made straight for one of the men l had a letter to. He was former sheriff of the parish Chey call the counties parishes in Lousiana), ana was running a saloon. He remarked that was pretty late getting on the job. ac- knowledged this was true, but said hoped by his aid to get busy right away. Well said he, let LIS first have a bottle of wine. It'll serve to sharpen our wits
 ''I told him l would be delighted, but must insist on doing the buying, for much