El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-01-09

charity that's worth more than any
quantity of indiscriminate giving.
Il venture to say" commented the
star bOarder, that when Mr.. Doodel-
heimer gave utterance to such IO1Iy
sentiments he raised his voice so ne
could be heard three blocks, ana
take it for granted that the store was
well filled with customers. he saw
an opportunity to get some Iree al
vertising and governed himself &C
cordingly. The fact that his scheme
worked is illustrated by your enthus-
iaSm, my dear Mrs. JiggerS. without
spending a cent or sweating hair,
this Mr.. DOOdelheimer has acquired
reputation as one of natures noble
men. You viii observe that he didn I
release the unfortunate man from his
debt; he merely told the stricken gem
tleman to come and pay up when ne
could and I have no doubt that the
stricken gentleman in question is tell
ing his family at this moment what
grand and noble phllantnroplst THIS
DOodleheimer is.
"All my days I have been hearing
and reading Of people who do good by
stealth, but I have never seen man
thus engaged. Whenever I see a citi-
zen doing good, I realize at once that
he has an ak to grind, and it doesn't
take me long to locate the ak when 1
am curious enough to look for it.
People do i'll by stealth, but they never
do good that way. The man who de-
sires to benefit his fellow creatures
makes sure that he is gOin to have an
audience before getting to work.
Last year a man went around with
a paper asking people to contribute TO
q fund for the purpose of buying hob
by horses and roller skates for poor
children who were sure to be over
looked by Santa Claus. Nearly every
body signed the paper, and Clipped in
what they could spare I lOosened up
to the extent Of fifty cents myself,
Mrs. Jiggers, and when I signed my
name I made it as large and flourish
ing as possible. I wanted everybody
to know that my heart is in its right
place, even if my nose does slope to
one side.
'The average contribution was
dollar. But one man gave SO. Who
was this large hearted citizen2 Ev-
erybody wondered. He didn't sign his
name. He just wrote, Cash, $40
When I saw that inscription I thought
I had at last run across the man who
does good by stealth. Such modesty
moved me almost to tears. I won
dered within myself how any man
could let loose such princely sum as
$40 without wanting to write his name
In red ink. felt that all my theories
were OverthrOWn.
But within twenty-fOur hours ev-
erybody in town knew who gave the
SO and was too modest to sign his
name It was AIgernon siIversmith
No sooner had he made the great
sacrifice than he went home and told
his wife and sent her out to confide
the secret to a few of her friends.
Mrs. Silversmith did her work well.
She called upon her female friends and
chatted about one thing and another,
and then just as she was leaving, she
casually brought up the matter Of the
subscription paper and intimated that
she was almost vexed at her husband
for giving $40, as he really couldn't
afford to be so generous.
Within a week everybody was re-
ferring to Silversmith as a magnificent
creature whose heart was solid gold.
A few weeks later, when spring was
approaching, he announced himself a
candidate for the council from his
ward, and everybody rallied to his sup
port That was what he had in view
from the beginning, Mrs. Jiggers. He
is a man who looks far ahead and lays
his plans well, and he figuered that
SO given anonymously, with a GER
tainty of his identity being discovered
would buy more enthusiasm than $50 I
spent in the usual way. And he was |
right He was elected by a beastly ]
and is one of the worst al /
dermen we ever had