The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-17
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

for 1O-cent shine, have had shines on the brain.
 It's funny how a little thing like shining shoes can get twisted up in a mans thoughts until he thinks about it during the day and dreams about il at night I suppose to get 1t out of my head I will have to get it out of my system. So here goes
 I remember when the little pckanin- nies had the shoe shining business all to themselves. In every town there was lalways one or more who had their little boxes s1ung over their shoulders and who went up and down the streets par ticularly on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. calling at the top of their voices Shine 'em up."
 1 Before they got to work on the streets, shoes were shined in the barber shops and in the hotels; but there were no stands at corners After awhile some little darkey more enterprising than his companions got chair for his custom 1 CTS to sit in. q recall when it was the 1 custom to stand up while getting a shine). The movable chair finally got tackled on to a box or pedestal and the boy owning it called it his stand. i For years the negroes had the shine , business in their own hands. I got a saw white boys shining shoes. I thought l they were disgraced for life. In the old days the Italian boys were a con | spicuous lot of happy hearted, whistling, | singing bootblacks who piled the ferries l in and around the city. It was thriv- ing business then, as the men living in tho suburban towns were rushed for | time, and had their boots polished as they crossed the rivers.
 It touched my boyish sheart when someone told me that the laughing lit tie foreigners were practically slaves in the hands of cruel padrones who had brought them over to this country and were making them work for a pittance to pay back the passage money. I had lived too close in the shadow of slavery to feel comfortable at the thought that white boys were treated in any such way.
 I might as we'll own up that this story was forced out of me because, like the commissioner of education, I was held up for 10 cents for shoe shine by grasping foreigner. It was on a Satur- day night. I passed popular place and seeing only few seated, I rushed in only to see staring me in the face sign which bore the information that Shines were 10 cents on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays" I was game, and so instead of sneaking I thought would get my moneys worth by josh- ing the boss.
 "Toney, old man. said I, have you paid that extra license that the little going to put on you grasping sons of the Mediterranean? He was not be frightened and with spirit replied: NO, and what's more ain't gonna" "Ho," I .answered, DO you mean to say that you are not afraid of being raised if you. raise your price?'' "No,' with flashing eyes he fairly spit it out, dat leetle man, he throw what you calla de bull" I saw I couldn't get his goat by trying to rag him about his gouging John, so I tried another tact.
 Seeing that he was devoting his time to the hat department, and that the shining was being done by colored boys. thought might get in under his skin when he told me that polish had gone up 100 per cent, by asking if the wages of the black and tan polishers had also been advanced proportionately. His sheepish look and the broad grin of the mulatto who was shining my shoes, and the exclamations from the blacks on the side lines, you sure hit 'em dat time, boss" made me know that I had scored.
 
 I heard Major Moton in his speech be- fore the Baptist convention tell in his own inimitable way, to illustrate the "independence'', of the negro, when it came to throwing up job. his expe- rience with little colored boy down in Florida "I had to speak on Sunday. and wanting a shine I found a mite of humanity and took seat in his chair. and he began to get ready to go to work, when along came little girl and he stopped to talk to her before he had done a lick of work. He then brushed my shoes off. getting ready to put on the polish, when all of sudden he ran store, where he remained a few min- utes. I was getting nervous but said nothing. He got out his cloth and be- gan to wipe off the polish preparatory to putting on the paste. but spying boy passing around the corner he dropped everything and ran after him.
 
 When he got back I thought I ought to give him fatherly talk, so I said Son, am in a hurry, don't you think you would make more money and sat- isfy your customers better if you stuck closer to your job?" And then, with a smile that was infectious to his hear CTS he asked: Do you want to know what that little black rascal told me? he looked me squarely in the face, as he began to put up his polish, paste and rags, and with a hurt expression said: I don't want the job no how, black em yourself. ?
 And looking his audience through and