White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1933-02-02
Howe About:
Another Stingy Story
Rise of the Poor Boys
People in the Audience
By ED HOWE

People in the Audience
By ED HOWE
IF TOO many 'stories" were not
1 printed already, would write an
other, and 1t would be true one.
1t is being said of man l know
well that he has given away more
than any other citizen of his town. He
became philanthropist:
For forty years he has been mer-
chant and banker known as stingy,
and hard worker. Also for forty
years it has been admitted he has paid
his debts, educated his children and
built comfortable home for his fam
lily.
Always he has had brisk compe-
tition, and, in greedily meeting it has
been forced to be liberal in extending
credit. In the course Of forty years
he has been beaten out of so much
that it is gossip among the town men
who know most about its affairs that
no other citizen has helped an equal
number Of poor people.
About all he has left now at seventy,
the men further say is good home,
bank and general store he is able
to keep open with difficulty, credit,
and the reputation Of being his towns
greatest philanthropist.
Moral: A man cannot give away
anything, or be robbed Of anything,
until he works hard, and saves some
thing.
Nothing impresses me more in
reading the history of the human race
than the great number of poor boys
who have become useful. respected
and famous. Stephen A. Douglas is
an example; Abraham Lincoln. who
was poorer boy. and became great
er man, is another.
l have never lived in town where
its most useful and respected citizens
had not started as poor boys. The
poverty Of man is never so great 1t
Is not natural and easy to somewhat
work out of it.
The world is very old; Einstein,
said to be the greatest living scien-
fist, lately added seven billion years
to it's age. And through it all the poor
boy story persists. Look at history as
far back as we have record, and nine
out of ten of it's conspicuous figures
have been poor boys who wouldn't
tamely submit to unnecessary poverty
and ignorance.
A reporter wandering about looking
for the unusual ran into three noted
moving picture people. A man in the
party had never been on the screen,
yet in his "story" the reporter said
this man was by far the most inter-
esting personality in the group.
Another compliment for the people
in the audience.
In every entertainment there are
people in the audience smarter than
the entertainers; every book is read by
men smarter than the writer.
If the people in the audience could
somehow effectively organize, they
could get more for their money in
everything.
have been reading accounts of riot
ing all my life, and noted that when
it begins good citizens lock their shut
tiers and DOORS and hide This
is a mistaken policy. Nearly always
rioting is engaged in by the most mis-
taken and useless of the minority.
When it begins. good citizens repre-
senting the majority should promptly
engage in and suppress it, instead of
hiding.
So far as my poor Judgment is able
to direct me Bernard Shaw is man
of very unusual intelligence, and of all
the men now writing he is very near
the top in use of the pen. Thus he
drew in the lottery of life not only one
talent. but two; he is like a double
purpose horse which trots in harness,
single-foots under the saddle, and sells
for an extra price.
Mr.. Shaw lately confessed, at the
age Of seventy-three. that he has &C.
complished nothing with his writing,
and that the world is now in more dam
ger than it was when he began giving
it advice.
His weakness is he has never writ
ten simply. candidly and truthfully.
He has used his terrific power of ill.,
vective to unjustly abuse, sell his
writing, and make fortune: he is one
of the worst of the money grabbers he
denounces so necessarily. and usually
so unjustly.
He is weakening little. as a re-
suit Of old age, but before the world
finally quits him. wish he would
write his Confessions as candidly as
Rousseau promised to do in the first
pages of his famous book. Shaw
might thus wash up and quit work
with a burst of usefulness he mas
long been capable of and as long neg
lected. And to accomplish this great