Every now and then, not very often, the writer manages to hold his unruly tongue, in the presence of any serious debate among people of high degree, the very ones who ought to know what they talk about, on most of the important subjects of our common human life. Well, it seems that men over sixty-two years old, who happens to perform some soldier's duty in the Civil War can claim a pension of $6 per month and if over sixty-five a pension of $8 per month, no matter how healthy and wealthy they may be. It was argued by some of our fine friends that such pensions should be claimed on the plea of the general advantages to be followed by the throwing of money into circulation, through which to increase the sum total of wealth to be produced, of labor to be performed, of prosperity right and left to be enjoyed by all. That magnificent economic conception comes from our illustrious friends, the pension agents, in that grand center of public morality, Washington, D. C., where we manufacture prosperity to order in portions to suit everybody except the plain, honest wealth producers of the nation. Owing to all that we are yet blessed with about one million of individuals annually collecting the bagatelle of $140,000,000, in payment of certain duties such individuals owed to the nation, as per common concensus. There we come across another queer conception, with our poor, afflicted, sickly humanity. Duties represent services that we owe to somebody. Why then, to expect any payment for duties performed? We simply do what we ought to do, what God and humanity is entitled to receive from us, when we perform our duties. To be sure, we collectively, we the nation, owe sometimes to each one of us. We owe to each onethe freedom to live a full life, without any of that wretched partial or total poverty of ours, without those miserable excitements and hardships which follow most people all through the few or many years we all may manage to live. That is, we owe to each other the power to be independent of any mean or large pension, its acceptance being demoralizing in itself, even if because we had the opportunity of doing this or that for private or public good. The need of pension means, then, a social structure resting on shameful principles of industrial oppression; and the fact of large quantities of people longing for provisions or in need of them, that proves the general demoralization of every one of us, the poverty of our own ideals, the mean quality of our own manhood. Because, who has to pay all pensions anyhow? The plain wealth producers, out of their perpetual poverty, they pay the pensions, all of them. Before we go on with our analysis, let us try to unfold the obsurdity of that conception above mentioned in regard to the advantages of pensions. because of the money they throw into circulation. Please remember that such a conception is yet received as a grand incontrovertible, economic dictum, by most of our supposed best educated people. If that is so, why to limit our pensions to $140,000,000? Why not to decree a per capita pension of $500 as an average for our 40,000,000 male and female adults? That would increase our annual money circulation to the tune of-twenty billions of dollars. We only produce sixteen billions of dollars per annum, and, perhaps, not even that in honest figures and without any inflated calculations. Wealth Why should intelligent people insist upon confusing the word "money" with the word "wealth"? Money is simply -a general draft on wealth, a counter of wealth. The circulation of money can only mean, then, "the circulation of wealth.' Wealth can only circulate in so far as it is produced. can only be produced in so far as human laws allow men to produce wealth. Thus far we are yet savages enough to simply allow men to produce a small portion of the wealth they could produce, a fragment of the wealth they need to live a full healthy life. All human troubles and sins come from that stupendous blunder and crime of all national compacts. Restlessness, fear, anxiety, hope, anger, love, hatred, despair, sadness, ambitions, inordinate desires, jealousies, hard feelings, unwillingness to do the right, longings, to do the wrong....they all come from a civilized status at our war with God's laws, prepetually vetoing such laws, forever proclaiming, through selfish, ignoble human enactment, that men shall live mean, narrow, selfish lives, each one of us intent upon getting the best of somebody else, in forms respectable, of course, allowed by laws or traditions. A certain margin is left to all for each one of us to do considerable good to each other, but what of it? It is this dreadful mixture of fundamental wrong and incidental good that prolongs all human disasters, invites and feeds our incomplete life in all directions and general ultimatums, prevents the mind of the best men and women, best after a fashion, to see the absurdities of our combined existence and we thus take all past and present evils as a matter of course, as a part and parcel of progress, the progress that keeps sin and evil and wrong as the supreme force of all human growth. The foolish, mean idiotic, economic conceptions we have indicated, as presiding over the minds and conduct of people in many respects most estimable and conscientious, that alone proves that our intense selfishness is yet the supreme force of human life among most of us, despite our good intentions. Hence the need of somebody suggesting the indispensables of a new standard in the realm of thought and volition, a new aspiration on which we should all cling, for the realization of which we should all work in earnest, dismissing all past and present fatalisms, civil, political, industrial, religious. Some kind of fatalism has thus far been the bane of humanity, the destroyer of all happiness and manhood. That generates moral inertia, when all the forces of the human soul work for egotism, the egotism of dead prayers, cold charities or pensions, class legislation, improving some men by the crushing of other men, and practically denying to all men the opportunity to be full men. We can only be men in full, we can only attain a sufficient degree of manhood in so far as we stand tooth and nail and work for, the equal rights of all, and SO for a good seat to every human being in the grand banquet of life. Nothing else short of that can have any permanent value. What we need then is that the brotherhood principle should cease to be a mere sentiment. It ought to be a reality applicable sentiment. It ought to be a reality applicable to all human activities and relations, and hence it should be incorporated in the laws of the social compact. All is bound to remain a mass of incongruities and deformities, as long as we play hide and seek with the brotherhood principle, and forget all about it where its absence shall be most injurious to all. Yes, if that principle is not incorporated in law, we all remain "dead into trespasses and sins." —Jose Gros, in the Railroad Telegrapher. S'POSE THE FISH DON'T BITE. S'pose the fish don't bite at fust; Chuck down your pole, throw out your bait, Uv course you hain't; you're goin' to fish, An' fish, an' fish, an' wait Until you've ketched your basket full, An' used up all your bait. S'pose success don't come at fust; Uv course you hain't, you've got to fish, An' bait, and bait ag'in. Bimeby Success will bite your hook, And you will pull him in.-Ex. A Prayer for Christmas eloved Father be blessed for having lighted up in Belove the darkness_of_this_World, the Morning Star of Christ's Face. By His Eyes full of Grace and of Love, Thou hast shown the Heavens to those who mourn, Thou bast given to us a gracious and hopeful outlook from the Valley of Death towards the Everlasting Mountains from which our help doth come. is bands, full of tenderness and sweet power, have touched our old wounds and they are healed, Have touched our sins and they are forgiven. The feet of this merciful Pilgrim have turned the dust of our paths into pure gold. In his footsteps through the wilderness flowers grow, and streams of Living Water spring down from sterile rocks. eloved father, while all Christendom kneels around the Manger of Bethlehem, send us a new spirit, teach us new songs, give us the very Christmas mind. Turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers; give joy to the hopeless, bring into the right way those who are going astray, give confidence to the trembling ones, free bonded hearts, open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears. As on this day we make the hearts of the little ones joyous; so, O Merciful Father, let us all become children again, with simple faith, with trustful hearts, with ready wills, with pure endeavor. Ind this blessed Birthday of Jesus shall become the birthday of a new creation and awaken among us a spirit which beareth all things, believeth all things, loveth all things. Amen. -Charles Wagner. THE RAILWAY CONDUCTOR, PUBLISHED MONTHLY AND ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE IN CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA.-Subscription $1.00 per year. E. E. CLARK AND W. J. MAXWELL, Managers, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. E. E. CLARK, EDITOR. C. D. KELLOGG, AssoCIATE. LOOKING OUT FOR A RAINY DAY. We notice that when anything is said in advocacy of saving for a rainy day, some of the "old members" retort with the information that in the older time it was much harder to save than now. And some of the "younger members" reply that it is impossible to save now, but think if they had lived in the time of the "old timers" to save would have been dead easy." We do not care to take sides for or against either horn of of the controversy, but frankly state that we believe both contentions are apart from reasonable grounds. The oldtimers had much with which to contend that the younger men know nothing about, nor can they appreciate the statements when made. Generally speaking the conditions obtaining in early times on railroads were much against the idea of save. Little thought was given to the morrow and habits and actions of men were not subject to the large public scrutiny that now prevails. There was a freedom and easiness about the average railroad man which among other things seemed to say,"If this road don't want me there are plenty others that do," and so the anxiety to hold his job was not as potent or necessary as today. Officials made little or no attempt to acquaint themselves with the personal habits or inclinations of their employés, or possibly in many cases the acquaintance was forced upon them. And while it is true that the sheltering, restraining and sustaining influence of the unions was not in existence then, nevertheless there was a sort of Free Masonry among railroad men which was, of the two, rather against the idea of save. That is to say, each one wanted to be a good fellow, and the great majority of them would spend the last dollar to be rated as such. Generosity was a cardinal virtue with them and the saver was dubbed stingy and virtually ostracized, which in those times meant a great deal. There seemed to be no conception of a difference between economy or saving for a rainy day and stinginess. Also in the old time education was more difficult of acquirement, and consequently what may be called technical education or book learning was not so common, and the mass of railroad men were not as well educated as now, and therefore the fundamental theories and facts of domestic economy were not as widely diffused. Albeit we believe the old régime tended toward the production of men of more individual initiative and self-reliance than does our present system. It is gratifying to note the various and manifold ways and means that are being thrown around railway men at the present time to keep them and show them how, not only to spend their leisure time but their earnings as well. The most potent forces operating for the uplifting of railway men at the present time are the attitude of railway managers toward the drink and tobacco habits, their exertions and plans for savings and the inducements offered by the Young Men's Christian Associations. While giving due credit to all these ways and ideas for the elevation of railway men, we wish particularly at this time to note the feature of saving promotion that is being fostered by many railways. The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railway Company management has issued a friendly circular to employés, the text of which is an exhortation to "buy lands,” the desire being, as the circular points out, "to encourage thrift and assist employés to accumulate something." Reminding them, as the Railway Age comments, that farm lands along the line of this road have increased very much in value within the last few years and expressing the belief that the increase will continue, the price still being very low. Vice President Nixon strongly advises employés to secure farms as a sure investment, and to facilitate this he presents an elaborate plan whereby the company will undertake to meet the installment notes which employés may give for land that they wish to purchase by retaining an agreed amount from the monthly salaries. The employé is to select the land, make his bargain with the owner, have his lawyer examine the titles and pass on the papers, and then turn over the making of payments, in such installments and for such length of time as he likes, to the treasurer of the railway company, with the necessary authority to deduct monthly from the buyer's wages. There is no doubt that this is good advice and will result in benefit to the men of the Santa Fé in Texas, provided, of course, that good judgment is used in selecting land, in determining the price to pay and in limiting the purchase to such amount as the buyers can comfortably pay for in the time fixed. Investments in good land in a growing community are sure, even if the profits are slow, and the prospect of presently owning a farm, to sell or to occupy and develop into a home of comfort and independence in later years, will tend to form habits of economy and prudence. The company will be benefited, as the general manager says, by having a larger proportion of employés who possess an interest in the country and desire permanent employment; but far greater will be the benefit to those men who are transformed from "floaters," moving from road to road, saving nothing and having no hope for the future, into land-owning citizens, looking forward to a home for their old age. The plan proposed by this Texas company is one of the most promising of the many, all sincere and advantageous, by which railway managers are seeking the welfare of their employés and helping them to lay up something for the rainy days. It is probable that in the majority of cases the money set aside by the employés for this purpose would not be missed from their monthly salaries, and there is little doubt but what such an investment would be a safe one, for the rainy day" time that will surely come. This and similar plans of helping their employés, takes on a more business-like air, and hence a more sincere one when we consider that settling up a country through which runs a railroad, is of the highest importance and a most certain pointer to its future business activity. The idea of charity or philanthropy is lost sight of in the business phase of the subject, and while such may have been and probably was the origin of the plan, nevertheless the future mutuality of interest may be regarded as the controlling force. Nor do we say this even in the remotest degree in a spirit of derogation of the benefits to be derived by the employés, but that such an arrangement is best for both parties to it. Doubtless there are many other plans and ways by which railways induce frugality in their employés, but the plan above mentioned seems to carry with |