Americus times-recorder., 1919-12-22


and What are the hours9' These are both per
fectly proper questions and the answers are inn
portant to the applicant but as they are put today
the attitude OF the beginner to his work is crystal
lied in them. He is not only asking How much
can getP but How little can give in return for
it? And that is just what this class of employees
give
A boy of l6, with grammar school educa-
hon' without training and experience except as
shell passer during the last six months of the
war applied to this employment manager for a
place in which he would have had a steady work,
chance to learn skilled and highly paid trade,
with promotion to anything higher for which he
could fit himself
His first and only question about the place
was What do you pay2"
Twenty dollars a week to start with" was
the answer.
1t isn't cigarette money, returned the youth
as he passed out
This boy. with overtime had made 500 a
week as shell passer He has been loaing since
the day of the armistice, waiting for someone to
hire an uneducated, inexperienced, unsked and
unwilling boy at 500 week That is bogey with
him.
Later in the day young girl, with six months
training in a business college, on top of gram
mar school education, and with six months expert
ence as stenographer in a government job on top
a
proved to be under the rather simple requirements
of the place.
What do you payp" was her first and only
Question
We start this grade Of stenographers at S 8
la week, was the answer
/ didn't come here to be insulted," retorted
the girl as she hounced out.
There are $35 and $40 and $50 a week secre-
taries in this company, and women executives who
haTa al
SoOOO to $4,000 year, but they are women who
know how to SPELL who are trained, efficient and
are not afraid to work-vvho are in fact rather
fond OF their work. There are men in the same
company who started in at anything and for any
thing they could get who making from S., 900
to SZ5,UOO year, but they worked hard to fit
themselves for the better jobs
When a showdown and shakedown come it
Will be the incomPetents who will go hungry first
and stay hungry longest
though we were told that the returned sold
ier would be the great problem of Reconstruction
that ne would come restless, lawless and untitled
Tor work, it is the stay-at-homes, including a mob
OF this halt-grown, half-baked and wholly incom-
Petent labor, thinking in terms of the undeserved
and unearned wages that they receivd under the
stress OF conditions that obtained when million
he-men went out to fight, and not the soldier, who
are the reconstruction problem With onIv tbe
OF men the soldier is settling right down to bust
ness and keeping an eye on woud-be disturbers Of
the peace.
he old breed of Americans were seasoned
OAK and hickory They learned in long hard
school' and they stood up under fire and lasted IN
oer STRAIN here is big admixture of the kiln
ofled IN the present generation and judging bv the
experience of the employment manager-and If ia
fairly tyPical-the coming, generation runs STRONGLY
to sapwood. e'
these experiences of the employment mana
ger SIMPLY indicate the beginning of the trail Fol-
low 1t through your neighborhood and into vour
own house and you will have a fairly comprehen-
slve idea of the first and most pressing nrobIeroa
OF reconstruction
loo many youngsters want TO begin at the
top, to cut out all the intermediate stems. t, ra,
gIownups want to make FIVE years profits in one
Inc boy wants the good job without learninq the
poorer one; he demands the wages of skill for hi,
capital OF ignorance. The young girl wants IN he
the conhdentlal secretary of the boss before she
mas learned to SPELL she expects to draw down the
pay OF experience while still blnuderinq ar,atar
Many young men. are slow to marry because
they do not care to share with anyone least Of all
wife Many young women do not care to mary,
unless they can start in where their mothers left g
and have suitable establishment Thew do not
want to work for anyone, least of all husband
But what expect so long as their elders and
presumably their betters, set them an example Of
grab, of ignoble ambitions, of competitive living7
Reconstruction for them must come from above
by Precept and example, from parents and en-
ployers but the precept that hears oftenest is
Get it while the getting is good"
CHILDRENS BOOKS
1t NAV be FOO late to advice rarants. ~ fx;ozJ l.