The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 20, 1898, Page 20

20 THE SA ASADENA, Feb. 16.—Rev. J. h= colored rastor of the Friendship Baptist Church of this city, swallowad a live mouse Thursday Rev. Mr. Kelley i s old and resides at 372 Illinois s'reet. He finished his common education at 17 and his the- ologica! educ at 21. He has spoken in public since he was 15 years of age. He is 6 feet 2 inches in height and weighs 212 pounds. His mouth and throat, while not »ut of proportion, are naturally large, nd he has expanded them with use in the pulgit. Pastor Kelley was asleep when the mouse entered his mouth and started to explore his throat. For an instant the sleeper movel uneasily. The " THE MOUSE BEGINS THE TROUSL movement startled the mouse and it began to scamper about in the cesophagus of the slumbearing man. Pastor Kelley gradually awoke feeling certain that som:thing was wrong. He began to feel himself with akening interest, and a lively squeak! squeak! from the rodent thing lively a of him. What it was coursz did not know He leaped out of pened is graph “On Thu 1 retired as usual about midnight. I had sat up to compose a speech which I was to make before the Douglass ican Amer- ican leagu in comn ration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Then I went to bed, piling the pillows at my back and read my Bible awhile. Fin- ally 1 slipped the pillows from under HE solving of the problem of what to do with our young men is occupying the attention of some of the strongest thinking minds in the country. The most able men in our own city have contributed their ideas of what should be done to help the able and willing unemployed. The unemployed also have ideas on this subject, and un- theoretical as fhey may appear to some they are certainly straight to the point. As a general thing they attribute most of their trouble to machinery. At almost any hour of the day hun- Qreds of these men can be seen about + + B R R e e e o s IS A GOOD ENGINEER, BUT—NO- WORK 1 am an engineer by trade, but am unable to get work at any wages. I am a handy man with tools and can run any Kind of steam engine that is built. I think my trouble is due to the concentration of Indus- tries in one large factory, where formerly there were several. We want more individuality and less labor-saving machinery. T. SMITH. B S S ST T TR Ty O e R the streets. They congregate about the employment offices, assemble in front of the bulletin boards of such news- papers as display their “want” pages, 2nd hang around places where there is likely to be work, ready and willing to do anything. The arguments advanced most of these men is that machinery ought not to be used unless there is an absolute need of it. Most of them incline to the belief that the time will come when the Government will have to prohibit the use of machinery in certain cases as is frequently done in France. Why should a steam digger that s run by two or three engineers be used when there are thousands of men ready and willing to handle the pick and shovel? is a question many of them ask. The very fact that the steam digger is displacing laborers, causing them to be unable to buy the necessi- ties of life is sure to have a depressing effect on other industries. Some ten years ago the officers who have charge of the gaslighting depart- ment of the city of Paris, France, de- cided to Introduce an electric gas- lighter. The contrivance was of the simplest description and cost hardly 10 cents for each burner. The idea was to turn off the gas from the central sta- tion in the morning and so extinguish it all over the city at the same time. In the evening the gas was to be turned on, the electric current made to send a spark across each burner and the whole city {lluminated at the same instant. The idea worked like a charm. But it displaced about 2000 lamplight- ers, most of whom became a charge upon the community. After investigation by the proper au- thorities of the republic it was decided that the electric gaslighter benefited nobody, but on the contrary was a worker of harm. It was then ordered that the electric gaslighter be taken out and the walking lamplighters put back to work. The unemployed of San Francisco have not a word to utter against in- vention that is really invention. The telegraph, the telephone, the phono- ' my back, put out the light and lay back on the bed and fell asleep. | night and gnawed and squeaked about the room. On this particular occasion, however, I heard no such sounds. I do not recall being awakened by any sr animal running over me. “The fact is, I awoke without a start, feeling a i choking sensation about my . Without rising I rubbed my throat slee As I be- came gradually awa sation became more pronounced, and I sat up and tried to swallow. “It was then that the muscles tight- ened and I feit pain. My throat was en- tirely stopped up and I could scarcely breathe. I tried to swallow a and the cbstruction slipped downward a little. “Then T was simply paralyzed to hear something inside of me so distinctly ‘Squeak! squeak!’ I felt it. must be a rat, it felt so large. “I was simply dumfoun AT A : stifling sen- | | kicked frightfully. I guess it was as scared as I was. “Anyhow every wriggle and Kkick seemed to send it further from my | clutch, and I began to perspire in de- | spair. At least I didn't know very well what I did at that dreadful juncture. If that mouse had been an elephant it | couldn’t have demoralized me more. 1 | tell you, size don't count in such a case. When a live mouse is scampering on its size, breed and particular weight. “My sensations were simply inde- | scribable. My head swam and ached. fl think I reeled about the room. My | senses were all benumbed. 1 felt a ter- | rible, sickening pain all over me. It | was not in any one particular location. | It seemed to change locations. The | mouse was in one part of my anatomy most of the while, but every time it | breathed or thought of moving I fan- cied it was scrambling up and down my whole nervous system. It's no joke 7 down your inside you don’t figure any | 1 clawing away in a vain effort to get back to my mouth. At that time, though, it seemed to me it was trying to gouge a great hole to freedom through my insides. Any way, every time it moved the whole universe seemed to turn over. “Every moment it seemed to grow in size. I call it a mouse now. simply be- ANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1898. “I can remember nothing of what I did. I remember only the clawing of the terrible creature inside of me. Two or thre hours afterward, when I began to have gleams of what 1 was really doing, I discovered that I had put on my pants and coat, but did not stop to put on a shirt. I recall vaguely going into the next room and mumbling that I had swallowed a rat. “I could scarcely make a sound. ‘At first my neighbor did not under- stand. ‘“‘Bosh!” he said. ‘Nobody in his in your sleep dreaming you're a human rat-trap. Go back to bed. “But I insisted that something seri- ous was the matter. Then the whole house got to work; but the mouse was ;,}llere to stay, and we could not budge m. “Then somebody said, ‘Get a doctor.’ “I dimly recalled seeing Dr. Grin- | | senses ever swallowed a rat—even a lit- | tle rat. Don’t be walking around guess the mouse was getting the best of the bottle about that time. The doctor seemed to think so, too, for he remarked that he guessed the rat would have to stay till he could be regular- ly digested. “Think of my feelings even if I was dazed when he talked like that in his calm, professional way. “The mouse had reached my stomach by that time; at least the doctor seemed to think so, because it had quit clawing and was comparatively qulet. Only a trail of fire and pain remained where he had clawed his dreadful way down my throat. The doctor suggested that the animal might be drowned in the liquids with which they-had been dosing me. “But nothing that the doctor could say was, very cheering to me just then. I had experienced some of that mouse’s | what it might be up to next. But the | doctor assured me that if I was man EVERY EFFORT WAS MADE TO DISLODGE THE MOUSE, BUT THE LITTLE CREATURE WOULD NOT LEAVE THE MAN’S STOMACH. “I didn’t know what to do. I realized I must dc something and do it quickly, so I clutched at my body, and so tried to grasp the beast and keep it from | mon, scampering slipping down any further. I knew the further down it got the harder it would be to get it out. But I clutched in ol graph and the animatoscope have been inventions that made work for thous- ands. But the same cannot be said of the combined harvester nor the self- acting street sweeper. Why, they de- mand, should a machine, that possibly does not actually represent more than ten days’ actual work for two men, be put into a field and made to do the work of hundreds, who can only look on and long to be a machine. Why should an automatic street sweeping machine be put to work when men are ready to handle the brush. They claim that ncne of the machines mentioned does the work better than it can be done by hand. It is machinery of this kind that our unemployed object to. When men can- not get work as laborers at living wages they make an effort to learn something, and generally get in as “machine hand Here their wages are of the lowest and they are keeping out of work people who might be kept at work as skilled mechanics. The general verdict of the unem- ployed is that machinery should be used when there are no men to do the work. When men are idle, they argue, the use of such machinery should be prohibited. At present there are in San Francis- co about two hundred young men who have learned the shoemaker trade and are now unable to get work at it. These young fellows are ready and willing to do anything, but cannot find work. Electricians have also been made to feel the effect of improvement in their business. Bight years ago it tock ex- perience to be able to run a dynamo, but now the apparatus is so simplified it can be managed by anybody with common sense. And so it goes all through the list of trades. Even office men complain and say that improved methods have left them nothing to do, as their work can all be done by girls and boys. What is to be done with these unem- ployed? They cannot be killed and they cannot be allowed to live as they are, for a generation or two of such lives will turn them into criminals. Follow- ing are the opinions of some of our D R B R o e e o e e TROUBLES OF A PRINTER. P + By getting an odd day's work occasionally I manage to exist, although I learned the printer’s trade at one of the best shops in the city. There is no chance for me now, as the business is so simplified it can be largely done by apprentices and a lit- tle skilled labor. Skilled labor seems to becoming of less use every day. Certainly it is be- coming much harder for it to get work. FRANK KISLER. P R R + + + + + + + + b + + + + + + + P e R R R most eminent thinkers as to what should be done to solve this most im- portant problem. . « It is to be o regretted HENRY L. DODGE. I that ™ In cal country so full of re- sources as 18 ours circumstances should be such as 1 glve rise to a uuestion how employ the unemployed, but we cannot deny that there are many men in every way deserving who are out of work, and we must meet the issue squarely |to even fancy that you've swallowed mouse, but when you've really got a | mouse. frisky live one, a real kicking little de- about your inside: youre simply a mental and physical wreck. | so did every fiber in my body, for that HE CHIEF CAUS When I heard its first squeak I felt certain that it must the last squeak I was just as positive that it must be something like a rat, All along my throat hurt, but | but infinitely larger. It seemed to grow | in size in every one of those dreadful[ vain, for the mouse wriggled and |matter. I could feel the wild demon | agonizing mome a | cause I discovered later that it was a | nell's sign on North Marengo avenue. I ran for my wheel and rode around him. The doctor and his wife put me in a chair and dosed me with warm water, ipecac and other emetics. ““All the while I remembered I sat in the chair in a kind of a daze. I [enough for a tenderloin steak I was man enough for that particular mouse, bea rat. Before | the corner to the doctor’s and aroused | and I needn’t be worried so long as it | didn’t try to bore a m-use hole to free- dom through my ribs. But that was Jjust one of the thousand and one other points I wasn’t sure about. “Anyhow, the doctor put me on my mad maneuvers and I did not know | EXCITING EXPERIENCE OF A PASADENA MINISTER WHO SWALLOWED A MOUSE | wheel again and started me for home. | I hadn’t gone more than a hundred vards when the universe began to turn over again, and for a minute I thought that dreadful mouse had started in to finish me. Afterward, when the fit was over and I had come to my senses, I discovered that the quarts of emetics I had swallowed had joined in the | battle. I was very sick, but, sick as I | was, I felt content when it was all over and there lay that dreadful mo b fore me in all his drowned mise I | tell you, I sent up a shout of great ioy. “Now, I'm all right, except for a sore throat, a trail of fire and pain, but it’s gradually subsiding. “Maybe it is unnecessary for me to remark that I don't sleep with my mouth in the same rosition I used to. It'll be a wise mouse that I have to drown out again.” — e e———— | 1t is a fact not generally known that thefirstand last stands of the Confed- END OF THE TROUBLE. erates were made on land owned by the same man. A part of Bull Run battlefield was owned by Mr. McLean. After this famous battie he decided to move to a locality where there would be less fear from the ravages of war. By a strange coincidence he took up his abode at Appomattox, which subse- quently proved to be the final battle- | fleld of the civil war. —_—————— | A writer in a magazine has made the | prophecy that in 300 years from now ifhe eworld will only know three lan- | guages—English, Russian and Chine: | The English language will be spoken all over North and South America, in Australia. India, Africa,’ New Zealand and the islands of Australia and the | Pacific. The Russian tongue will have | conquered all Europe, except Great Britain, and all Asia, except India. Chinese will hold sway over the rest of the werld. If present indications go for anything, it is just possible that in 300 years China, as a nation, will have ceased to exist. Suggestions by Wage -Earners and and give it due and serious considera- tion, since the welfare of the nation depends upon the welfare of the indi- vidual. I believe firmly in technical schools, and in having every boy, whether wealthy or poor, learn to use his hands as well as his brain skillfully and intel- ligently; but such practical education should be of a kind to make the pupil an all-around workman, rather than of a kind to restrict him to some partic- ular line of industrial occupation which, failing him, perhaps through some re- adjustment of conditions, would leave ML R R B ek i A ine NO WORK FOR ELECTRI- CIANS—HE SAYS. I am an electrician and at one time stood high in my profes- sion. But the work has been so simplified I have been out of a position for two years. I bare- ly manage to exist, and think that the only hope for me in life is to go to the Klondike. There is life and movement therc. and that is what we want to make good times. OLIVER SCHINDLER. P R T R R R R R S s D TR e T e h:m a helpless burden on the commu- nity. There are too many carpenters, shoe- makers, machinists, electricians and such workers being turned out, as well as too many professional men. New ap- plications of mechanical forces are con- stantly being discovered by inventive minds, and the cry that men are being supplanted by machinery grows stronger daily. It would not do for the Government to restrict invention, or the use of in- ventions. That would savor too much of the paternal rule which is diamet- rically opposed to the principles of our free land, and when new ideas come forward which reduce cost to the man- ufacturer he most certainly will take advantage of them, even if by so doing he reduces his working force of men to the minimum. No manufacturer or business man is bound in any way to employ more men than he can use to his own advantage, but the men thrown out of work by machines should bestir themselves to do those things, which machinery cannot do. A man who finds himself out of em- ployment should, instead of loitering about hoping for a chance to work at his special trade, go to work at the first thing that comes to hand that he is physically able to perform. It is no disgrace to a cabinet maker, a shoe- maker, an electrician or a lawyer to wash dishes or wait on tables when other work Is not to be obtained. It is far more of a disgrace to stand about idle or endeavor to foment trouble and disturbance because conditions are not to their liking. e s . I CARL C. PLEHN. I I have been asked whether the Government should re- strict invention because machinery dis- places workmen, who may then become a charge on the community or starve. I answer without hesitation in the negative. There is to-day little or no danger that new mechanical contri- vances will cause the disastrous results which the question implies. America has always been justly proud of the in- ventive genius of her people. In Eu- rope to say that a certain thing is'done according to American methods is equivalent to saying that some me- chanical contrivance is used. We are quite right in the pride we take in this peculiar feature of our civ- ilization. The introduction of machin- ery is a great blessing to society, for it cheapens production, bringing goods, once costly, within the reach of many persons who could not have them be- fore. It renders possible a great in- crease in production, vastly multiply- ing the wealth of .society and enables the enjoyment of a greater diversity of commodities. The use of machinery brings about a high degree of division of labor, or separation of employments which is essential to economic progress. In the end it gives employment to a far larger number of persons than be- fore. For the increased production calls for many hands to run the machines, and many more to send the goods to market and to sell them. The number of persons employed in those industries where the use of machinery has been most marked has increased with the greatest rapidity. Without the nu- merous mechanical contrivances now in use the world could support but a small portion of its present population. These and other advantages are not had for nothing. There is some ground for the question. It is true that the bright picture for the future of any industry frequently has, when machin- ery is first introduced, a dark fore- ground. In that gloomy foreground we see the starving families of the hope- less men whose means of earning a liv- ing have disappeared. The most striking instance of this occurred after the introduction of ma- chinery into the textile industries, something over a hundred years ago. It early became apparent that the pro- duct of the old spinning wheel and of R R R R R R R RS + MISFORTUNES OF A BRASS + WORKER. I am a brass-worker by trade and formerly made a good liv- ing. But so many processes have come out of late that there is reailly no demand for skilled workmen. An ordinary laborer can do my work now, and there are plenty of them willing to do it at the lowest wages, because they have been thrown out of work by labor-saving machin- ery. CHARLES OWENS. A hh e the hand loom had no value sufficient to purchase the means of subsistence. Those old workers who knew no other trade and who could not be taken into the new factories necessarily suffered. At that time new machinery was dis- placing hand labor and not as now older forms of machine labor. There was little to mitigate the suffering which came to many thousands of peo- ple. There seems, however, to be a well- grounded hope, based upon the experi- ence of a century, that in the future the suffering caused by the introduction of new machinery will be an ever-decreas- I I LI L4+ B O R O ES OF LACK OF Wage - Payers. ing quantity. When machinery is used to do work which previously depended upon skill of eye and hand alone the number of workers displaced is often large compared with those afterward employed in the same industry. ... - Skilled la- or, mean- JOHN P. IRISH. ing labor that has knowledge of handicraft, depends for its em- ployment on the safety and profit of the constructive enterprises of :f*f*f?#f#*##*#*## + + TRIBULATIONS OF A CIVIL I ENGINEER. + g + 4+ Atone time I had a good + 4 standing as a civil engineer. 4 4 That was some years ago. Now + 4 I am glad to do anything that + 4 will bring me in an honést dol- 4 4 lar. . My profession is worthless + 4 and I never expect to work at it 4 4 again. I think my trouble is due + 4 to an overproduction of half- + 4 educated boys from cheap 4 4+ schools. GEORGE WHITE. + + + L R e R R ARt the country. Such labor has a distinet stake in the foundation, maintenance and extension of such enterprises. As far as its influ- ence can go in politics, the formation of public opinion and the securing of confidence in the country’'s financial and industrial future, its interests are at one with the employers of labor. A current and very serlous mistake on the part of such labor is the grow- ing idea that its employer is its enemy, and anything which it can do to his in- jury is a benefit to itself. With this mistake corrected and a renewal of the former cordial relations and conditions of mutual friendship and dependence between skilled labor and its employers there will arise that confidence in the future of active enterprises which be- gets their expansion and makes neces- sary the employment of more labor. Statistics show that the annual va- cancies in the whole fleld of labor in this country, from agriculture to the skilled trades, amount to 700,000. That many every year drop out by mortality or advance to independence, and fur- nish room for an equal number of new individuals. If the fleld were left en- tirely to the domestic supply there would be but few unemployed Ameri- cans. The line dividing skilled and unskilled la- J. RICHARD FREUD. L ———— DOT iS5 DY no means fixed. It is constantly changing. The skilled artisan, through lack of em- ployment to-day, becomes of necessity the unskilled laborer to-morrow. The unskilled workingman out of employ- ment tries to fill the place of the skilled mechanic. Thus each class reacts upon the other, and want of employment ag- gravates the affliction pf both. Each decade of the world’s history appears to witness a period of depres- slon. The United States has just un- dergone such a critical epoch. Many parts of the Union, however, are rapid- 1y recovering and better times are re- ported. Why is San Francisco so slow in regaining the lost ground? Why are there still so many Workingmen, es- peclally skilled mechanics and artisans in nearly all trades, anxious but unable to find employment in this city? The demand for skilled labor depends mainly upon the amount of goods and materials consumed at home and for export. In the fleld of exports San Francisco cannot compete, because of unusual burdens in this city upon com- merce and manufacturing in the shape of high taxes, tolls, licenses and other restrictions. In filling the demand for articles consumed here we are also heavily handicapped by these em- bargoes. When the brain be- came the master of the muscle the industrial réffolution began. This dates from the invention of the steam engine in 1769. It is estimated that in the production of flour the labor of cne person is equal to that of one hundred and forty-four persons in the time of Ulysses. In the iron industry twenty-five times as much is now produced as in the Pyre- nees with the old methods. Among the causes of lack of employment and dis- satisfaction among skilled workingmen may be mentioned the rapidity with which men have invented new things and discovered old forms. The brain rivaled the hand. The wage system was introduced, competition began and the evolution of transportation became an industrial factor. Another cause is the large number of men who are trained in our technical institutions and who are constantly contributed by these schools to the class of skilled laborers. Our indus- trial development has not been com- mensurate with this annual army. They are more numerous than the op- portunities. It is hardly true that the worthiest of our trained minds re- ceive employment. Sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. The country is full of idle experts. Many causes operate to keep them idle, among others the fact which every- R R R R R R R R R SAYS THERE'S NO WORK FOR CLERKS. How I have lived for the last four years is a question that even I cannot answer. I am an office man by trade and can do anything from keeping books down to running errandd. As things have gone in the last four years I never expect to amount to anything. I would be glad to work for my board and room. G. MARTINE. REV. WILLIAM RADER, l R R R R R e LT T P T PP UC PO O LSS R P where stares us in the face of more men than places. An fillustration of this on a small scale is seen in the Kamehameha schools of Honoluly, in which the native boys are trained to use tools. The islands do not afford sufficient opportunities for these skilled students to use their knowledge; there- fore many are necessarily idle. The most miserable man in the coun- try is he who has no place to apply his skill. In the old days if a man could make a shoe better than his neighbor he had the freedom to make it. But under the present regime a man must compete with institutional industry. EMPLOYM The next army of the unempl ‘ will probably be collected from th who have ideas, and not from with hoes. There is a market for tr intelligence which is skillful enou to invent machinery -calculated ment. The objection to this is not becaus2 it is wrong to invent, but because in- vention competes with honest labor. The trouble is not with brains or muscle, but with the industrial sys- tem. Wanted at once—A system of indus- try in which skill shall be active and no muscle shall be flabby for want of somé&hing honorable to do. el e R R R R R RS + + AMONG SHOEMAKERS LOOK- ING FOR JOBS. +44 I am a victim of the factqr- jes. I learned the shoemaker's trade, but now cannot get a po- sition at it. It is three years since I have had a steady job and I have no hope for the fu- ture. I would gladly go to work as a laborer, but cannot get even that. It is all well enough to theorize, but give me work, even if it's scraping the streets. OTTO MOHR. R R R R R R R + + + + + + + + + ), + + + B R T R e The curse —e— o the coun- tryisthe ROLLA V. WATT. large land- holdings. A partial solu- tion of the problem of providing em- ployment for the unemployed would be to have the land cut up into small farms, on which men could move with their families and earn an honest and sure living. This, to some extent, would relieve the present congestion of our cities. The fact that there are more shoe- makers than are required to make shoes for other people, places no obli- gation upcn the community to support these men as shoemakers. If too many men study law or medicine the living of all lawyers and doctors will be in- terfered with, and all who are educated for those professions will not be able to make a living therein. This whole question is simply one of demand and supply. 1 do not believe that we can or should interfere with the results of invention. ‘We must adapt ourselves to new con- ditions as they arise, and here is the rub. This is a question for political economists, and any one is fcrced to give the matter more or less consider- ation. The determination on the part of the general public to buy what they require at the lowest possible figures forces unscrupulous manufacturers to take from their employes in order that they may undersell their ecompetitors; the very people who complain the most about our social conditions are the most likely to stand in line at a sale where goods are offered below cost, when they know that any sale of that kind is in reality trading in the lifeblood of their brothers and sisters. Let the people avoid bargain sales and all goods offered for sale below cost: let those who are doing well pay a fair price for everything that they buy, and they will be to that extent relieving the pressure from below.