Life — March 18, 1909 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LIFE Being Imposed Upon T° be imposed upon or not—that is the question. There is no middle course. If one elects not to be imposed upon. then he must strip himself for the fray. He must every hour of the day and nigh He must hire a lawyer, and get together a LP suitable It will a. also be well for him to take boxing lessons, to practice pistol shooting, and to learn how to fence. He must learn, also, the self. He will find that it is frequently necessary to state his side of t ally to the president be prepared nd sufficient bank account tof expressing him- of the comp: To do this he must be eloquent, convincing, and good tempered. He must also be persistent A few rules should be observed Always go to headquarters. If, for example, you are ade to stand up ina railroad car, and the conductor comes along for your ticket, you will of course refuse to pay him unless you have a seat. In some cases you will get your seat. In others you will continue to stand, but the conductor will not insist on your paying your fare. In others, he will use insulting language. As soon, therefore, as you get off the train, call up the president of the road, and arrange for a Get the thing published in the papers Publicitiy is your great ally personal interview If a carpenter does some work on your house, and charges you twice as much as he told you he would, refuse to pay If he sues you, ste him back, Keep it up, but never be im posed upc Or—and this is important—be imposed upon Consider that the personal annoyance which a cause you is worth more than the price of peace Hs without a murmur, and let the other fellow reward, what ever it may be. y doing this you are, of course, encouraging crime. You are practically making it easier to establish a standard of conduct whereby honest men come to be more scarce every day. But you are doi right thing by yourself. You are, your own forces, conserving your t least, preserving powers, By systematically permitting yourself to be imposed upon you are really placing yourself in a position where you can *pay for the impositions without inconvenience. By refusing to be imposed upon, you lose more energy than you gain by obtaining justice—assuming that you always do attain justice, which is extremely improbable. If it w void those who impose upon us, | would be well, The second time we could quietly inform them that we had made Unfortunately still obliged to’ use the possible to ther arrangements. wever, we cannot do this. We are same railroads. We may change carpenters, or painters, but as many times as we change them we shall find that their characteristics are always the same. Thus it happens that have no choice. Learning to be imposed upon easily and gracefully and smilingly is, indeed, one of the lessons we must acquire The increased leisure and freedom from friction that it gives us will enable us to improve our moral fibre so much in other directions as to offset any loss which may accrue from yield ing to the enforced imposition Besides, we really have no responsibility so far as others are concerned. If they pick up their livings by imposing upon us systematically, that is their own funeral. Verily. they shall meet their reward ToL M Universal Languages HERE is a new entry in the Universal Language Sweep- The name is Ildo. The other notable entries are Esperanto, Alwato, Apolema, Langue Bleue, Bolak, Dil, Lengua Catolica, Dreizeichen Sprache, Idiom Neutral, Lin- gualumina, Mondlinguo, Nov-Latin, Spokil, Spelin, Ro, Sound-English, Tutonish, Universal, Volapuk, and the recom- mendations of the Simplified Spelling Board, besides a large stakes. number of also ran: Indeed, the manufacturing of universal languages has be- come a flourishing indus! Like the lady that she could afford to have a porte-cochere in each room, who was so rich we shall probably continue until we have a universal lan- guage for each country with marked dialectical variations for the convenience of those writers who try to conceal a poor story with worse diction. Ellis O. Jones. A nusy handshaker is generally a tireless leg puller. Copyrhgne 190 by Lite Pedtebing Compas el Se Show a) oat “TMIS 18 ME BIRT'DA-AY, MOIKE. HAVE ‘wit? Me’? comicbooks.com