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The Conservative ,
Because some cit-
SALARIES. izens have acquired ,
by studying their
own experiences , the art of doing cer
tain things , in the industrial world ,
with skill , economy of production , and
almost perfectly , they are in demand
and at big salaries. Corporations , for
gainful purposes , are criticised by com
mon day laborers , who are unskilled ,
and by common blatherskites , who ore
ignorant of economics , as very extrava
gant in salaries paid to some of their
managers of departments , and to some
general managers. But there is no cor
poration which does not pay as little
salary as possible and secure efficiency.
The supply of men , skilled and
equipped , in a business which can be
learned only by years of hard study and
hard work , in the school of the business
itself , is hardly ever up to the demand
for such men. However , those voca
tions which require little application ,
few intellectual gifts , and only a short
service for proficiency , are generally
crowded.
The supply of stablemen is always in
excess of the demand , while the supply
of engravers upon steel is always limit
ed. Almost anybody has brains enough
to easily learn the duties and perform
the work of a stable boy. But to be
come an engraver upon steel requires
ability , application and patient indus
try. It is easy to become a switchman
for a railroad , but it is difficult to be
come a good traffic manager. Human
iiature generally seeks the easiest and
quickest route for livelihood , and is con
tent to take that livelihood with the
least'possible effort and the least possi
ble luxury and comfort , rather than to
begin a career which can lead up to in-
fltfcnce only through years of persist
ent , patient and intelligent labor. Hu
man nature is to be blamed , and not the
gainful corporations , because the soon-
learned and least brain-requiring call
ings are crowded so as to make wages
lower ; and the hard-to-uiiderstand and
a-long-time-to-learn duties of the higher
and more-mind-requiring places are
avoided so as M make salaries higher.
The schools are free to all. TheViths
to the highest salaried places in ma..u-
facture , commerce
Schools. and the professions ,
beset as they are
with asperities , are open to all. But
schools cannot make brains , ambition
and that persistent pluck , for fools
which wins success. The system of
education which the state furnishes , is
as incapable of making indolent dunces
equal to hard-working , bright students
as a horse trainer Is incapable of making
draft horses trot in the same class witl
the standard bred.
Government is an incorporation foi
the protection of life , liberty and prop
erty. But the gov-
Public Salaries , eminent pays , rela
tively , very meagre
salaries for the highest character of
services , and relatively , for common
services , the most extravagant compen
sation. A door-keeper may get eight
mndred dollars a year , and a bacteriologist
elegist twenty-two hundred dollars in
the agricultural department at Wash
ington. Doorkeepers are never called ,
; o higher pay in non-governmental
places. But each bacteriologist is
called to Yale , Cornell or some other
institution , as soon as his skill and
scientific attainments have made him
known to the country. Public salaries
are too small for those services which
can be rendered only by men of irre
proachable , moral character and great
experience and attainments , and too
large for the doorkeeper and watchman
class.
Thfi absurdity of the schedule of sal
aries by the state is grotesquely illus
trated by the supreme court of Ne
braska , whose judges get twenty-five
hundred dollars a year , and their clerk
somewhere between ten and fifty thou
sand dollars a year. Few men are
really well-qualified for supreme court
judges. But there are scores and scores
of men able to do the duties of the clerk
of that court.
The pay of judges should be quad
rupled , and the pay of clerks reduced.
Then the most experienced and ablest
members of the legal profession may be
induced to accept judgeships , and then
the chances in litigation may be re
ducedthe expenses of the court lessened
and the reputation of the state judiciary
exalted.
When the corporation called govern
ment copies the gainful corporation
and , by paying big salaries , gets big
men into its service , taxes will be les
sened , laws better administered and
prosperity prolonged.
A hundred years
THE COMMON ago John Jacob
PEOPLE. Astor of New York
was a very common
German emigrant. But he had uncom
mon judgment , energy , temperance ,
industry and frugality. Exercising al
these potentialities with judicious effi
ciency , he became a man of property.
He left , at his death , great wealth to
his descendants. Vast public benefits
have accrued to the common people ol
New York because of his uncommon
judgment and his accumulative sagacity
The Astor free library is only one of the
monuments to his character , acquisi
tiveness and name. Yet demagogues ii
1901 denounce his posterity which in
every war has furnished patriotic anc
gallant defenders of the United States
as plutocrats and unworthy the respect
of plain people.
Philip D. Armour fifty years ago was
a day laborer and yet when he died ii
the beginning of
Philip D. Armour , this year he left a
gigantic fortune
notwithstanding ho had endowed col
eges and ? . established institutions of
charity Wdfl ligion which had taken
iway/mjm his.-fbrtuno several millions
of dollar : 'Ho wnffwf the common people
ple , raised-in frugarindustry , inured to
hardship and'ennobled by physical and
nlellectual lab'or. . His benefactions to
the race will live and thrill'with , energy ,
lerve with ambition ( the sons &t the
people for generations to comewhile the
oratory which denounces men for ac
quiring and controlling capital will be
remembered only as phenomenal erup
tions of self-seeking demagogy.
Less than fifty years since a brawny
lad of Scotland came to America and to
work among the
Andrew Carnegie , common people
with u n c o.m m o n
power and perception of opportunities.
His libraries donated all over the coun
try tell how a wonderful Divinity uses
the manual and mental forces of one
man so as to make blessings and bene
factions for millions of minds seeking
learning and the luxury of literary in
dulgence. But Carnegie is denounced
by the demagogue who wails about the
common people and poses as their self-
appointed protector.
The common people in America have
a right to aspire to climb to competence
and capital. It is
Climb. the pride and glory
of the United States
that no citizen remains common except
by his own volition. The day laborer
of today may be the capitalist and em
ployer of tomorrow. The day laborer
of yesterday is the rich man and banker
of today. The man , whether he be a
populist candidate for the presidency or
only an editor , who divides his fellow
citizens into classes and transfixes them
stereotypes them as plutocrats , mid
dle class and common , is not possessed
of common sense enough to appreciate
the opportunities and possibilities of
citizenship in the republic founded by
Washington , Hamilton , Jefferson and
their compatriots.
The men who
REMEMBERED dare today to work
MEN. for tomorrow are
remembered best.
The trimmer and office-seeking politician
who complies with the seeming demands
of the multitude and forsakes convic
tions for expedienoies.is not an upbuild-
er of either the material or political
welfare of the Eepublic. The man
whose whole record is of words , words ,
and void of deeds as the sea is of dust ,
will be forgotten. But the man who
has acted and achieved will be re
membered and honored. ' When Bryan
shall be merely a shadow , incidental to
the current history of his time , Cleve
land will be defined and accentuated as
a statesman and a patriot , than whom
there is none better in our day and
generation ,
W < KJ" > a >
