Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-03-28
THE ANONYMOUS SPIRIT
Name-Tag Is No Guarantee That the Prod.
uct Will Endure

uct VIII Endure
1t was q young Italian on board trans.
atlantic steamer who, stopping a fugitive hat
as it was about to disappear over the side,
exclaimed, in the joy of newly acquired vo-
cabulary, 81 have catched an annonymoose hat!
Who shall belong to it7"
Any playwright will tell you that II is very
bad art TO drag in a character by the ears and
then hustle him off the stage the instant he
mas played his part in the exposition of your
drama. But, with apologies TO any playwright,
we shall take the liberty of jettlsoning our
Italian friend, retaining for editorial purposes
only the adjective he so pridefuy employed.
On the whole, It would be an excellent thing
for the world IL workers, well hats. were
more often devoted to the anonymous spirit
We do not for an instant refer to the tribe of
writers who spoil pages Of foolscap with rant
ings concerning the venaity of editors-and in
variaby forget to add their names or addresses
We are speaking of all workers who have
thoughts to express--whether through the
medium of pens, hoes chsels, Il matters little
Even the best of worlSmen destined TO
end as anonymously as the individual builders
who go to make up the bulk Of the coral islands
in tropical waters For the process of
achieving oblivion is slower than for others
Yet the figures and faces that last longest in
memory become by the time they disappear
over the horizon Of antiquity, so much like the
looming vision of desert mirage that they
lose almost all touch with reality.
An eX-newspaper reporter, who is by no
means an anonymous character in modern lit
erature, in his poem The Files" tells the story
of the accumulating and obscuring dust Of
time:
Warn all future Robert Brownlngs and Car
yes
It will interest them to hunt among the files
Where. unvisited, a.cold,
Lies the crowded years of old
In that Kensal Green of greatness called the
files
Where the dead men lay them down
Meeltly sure of long renown,
And above them, sere and swift,
Packs the daily deepening drift
OF the all.recording all-enacing files
The oblterating, automatic files
You've better chance to guess
At the meaning of Success
(Which is Greatness-vide press)
When you've seen it in perspective in the
files"
1t is true that workers must live, and that
advertising is one of the surest means of secur-
ing livelihood. About the only exception to
this rule for modern workers be found
in the case of those who advertise the
fact that they have no need to advertise.
But it is not of lvelihoods that we are
thinking when we speak of the need of more
anonymous workers. The bubble reputation
may be an excellent thing for the pocketbook
of a soap manufacturer, but in the long run
II has only small part to play in whatever
satisfaction he takes in his work The anony-
nous spirit of which thinking is not a
question of dollars and cents. 1t is not ques-
tion of lodging responsibility or of enjoying
well.merited praise. 1t is a question of finding
in the dignity of any work its own reward, with
out regard for the personal equation. More
over. the anonymous presentation of any sub
ject from egg to an editorial at once relieves
it of that attending host of confusing thoughts
which surrounds every issue that can be made
question of personality.
If eat a good egg not moved to
inquire concerning its authors views the
social status of incubator chickens or whether
its creator prefers to take her dust bath under
a raspberry bush n peach tree. Nor do we
think that the hen responsible for our breakfast
has any right to claim such consideration
part. Somewhat the attitude of mind
might well be assumed by towards the
world of grocers editors, truckmen and poets
with whom we come in contact on every hand.
A poem is poem, more and no less.
whether 1t be signed by Thaddeus Pringle
plished It's mission. If it fails to move us.
far as we are concerned it might well be
written in Sanslrlt in the drifting SHOWS of
Mount Everest.
Few things have really endured because of
the name tag attached. work that is worthy
of Immortality will live the Scotch ballads
have lived the lips and in the hearts of
the people that gave them birth. The surest
Immortality of a thought is that which Long
fellow describes in 'The Arrow and the Song"
But we must turn again to that ex-newspaper
reporter Mr.. Rudyard Kipling, for description
of the heaven to which all good workers should
aspire. 1t is indeed land where
". . no one shall work for money,
and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each,
in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees 1t for the GOO
of Things They Are!'-Outlook.
UEppOCTTY