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Show NOT THE WORK BUT THE PREPARATION. In the New England Magazine is an article from the pen of Dr. Edward Everett Hale which iff a strong argument in favor of state and national na-tional ownership of public utilities. Some time wo may review it, giving its strong points and referring to what we deem are its weak ones. But at present a few lines from it may serve as a text, as follows: "We are perfectly sure of civility civ-ility if we go to the Custom House, the State House or the City Hall, or to the Postofflce; because be-cause there we deal with our servants, who know they are our servants, and who depend on our votes, in the last resort, for their positions. We are not sure of civility when we go to the telegraph tele-graph office, or even to the counter of a bank, because there wo deal with those who do not understand that they are our servants. They think they are the servants of the corporation which the comu as created, but they know they do not direct cmd upon the voter for i M their places." H We challenge a little that statement. We do H not believe that the idea of servitude is dominant j H with either sot of employes. If we investigate ( 'jH the lives of those employes we shall find that, a 1 majority of, say, Custom House employes, are H men who have tried the hard lines of life and H have been worn smooth by its fitction. They had H once fond hopes of working out an independence H for themselves; they were well educated, accus- H tomed to the usages of polite society and these H are stil natural with them. On the other hand H in other occupations are men who were expert H mechanics, or lightning calculators; they were ' H swiftly promoted, they have never had their self- H consciousness wounded by failure, and instead of H being grateful for the situations that they have j H received they have a feeling away down in their j H hearts that if their real worth was appreciated H they would be swiftly advanced. Often they are H the offspring of common stock, they never In H youth were made familiar with the gentler graces H and courtesies of polite society and hence in H their positions are boors without knowing the j , H fact. j M Again, the chief stockholders are, as a rule, ( M mere men of money; they select tor active agents M the men whom they believe will best subserve M their interests, and that anything is due the public I M never crosses their minds. Thirty-five years ago, M when Tom Scott was superintendent of the Penn- M sylvania system, he inaugurated a change which M was an example to every railroad corporation in M the Union. Every conductor had to be neatly M dressed in tho uniform of the road. When he M stepped into the end of a car, "he took off his cap i M and in a polite tone said, "Tickets, please," then M replacing his cap he started on his mission of : M collecting tickets and fares. Again when any pas- M senger asked a conductor or brakeman a question, M he was bound to give a polite answer or lose his j M place. It would be easy for every corporation to j M have polite employes except that the company I M itself is not always composed of gentlemen and H when they want men they want only such as they t H know are competent mechanics or competent H bookkeepers, or competent In some other line 1 H where skill is needed and the bearing of the man H is nothing to them. H Hence, the class of men they employ are men H who know, as a rule, little of disappointment, H nothing at all of the discipline which comes of fl failure in some line of life, and with promotion it H is not strange if sometimes they act as though ' they owned the whole business. H In other words, men are just what they are fl educated to bo and there is vastly more education H outside than within the schools, while the rough- er class are vastly more likely to succeed as the ' world rates success, than the gentler born and reared. |