"Don't you see, Josh Merritt? Don't you see that, right now, when you think you've out-andout failed, you've actually got the biggest opportunity to jump ahead?" Josh Merritt put both his hands on her. shoulders and raised her up. "Now whatever," he demanded, “put such a thing into your head? You know it's a sort of standing appointment. I wouldn't break it for anything. Are you ready?" "I-I will be in a minute. If, if you'll just let me run up stairs and-and wash off this-this" But Josh Merritt put out his hand and stopped her flight. "No you don't, Minnie. Leave it be. It isn't your fault if you haven't any real color of your own. How could you have it, sticking in that stuffy office? Here! Have you a powder puff? Well, just dust it across your face and eyes. Now come along. Where do we eat?" AC CROSS the spotlessly clean table with its shaded pink lights, Josh Merritt leaned toward Minnie Kenny. "Do you know, Minnie," he said, "this may be the last time I'll see you in a long, long time." Minnie gulped down the bit of cake in her mouth. "Are you-going away?" "You hit it the first shot. That's just what. I'm leaving Carroll and Mayers. No chance with them." Minnie opened her mouth to speak and suddenly shut it-tight. "You see," he continued. "I'm sick and tired of this jumping around. Getting older. Thirty my last birthday. Can't stand the trains any more-and the makeshift food. I want a home and the comforts that-" "Then why," began Minnie Kenny, when he abruptly cut her short. "I'm going to get into another game. This salesmanship business can't land me anywhere. Been at it ten years now and what have I got to show for it? Nothing-except a few dollars in the bank. Every time I've made up my mind to work for the managership of a branch office, or some other post where I can stay settled, up bumps some long lost relative of the boss, or somebody with pull, and does me out of the job. Makes me sick and disgusted." Again Minnie Kenny opened her mouth to talk, and again she shut it tightly. Every year since Josh Merritt had come to take her out, there had been this same story of changing jobs. Every year there had been the same howl about pull and influence. And, every year, Minnie Kenny, mindful of the advice offered by the girls in the shop, had listened to Josh Merritt's story and either kept altogether quiet or agreed with him that it was a pretty tough world for a poor man, and that it did take influence to put a man ahead. But during the last year Minnie Kenny had done a lot of thinking, a lot of reading, and a lot of observing. And the more she thought, and the more she read, and the more she observed, the more certain she became that the old excuses about pull, and influence, and the other things were just plain tommyrot. Men without influential relatives and friends without money, sometimes men who were painfully handicapped, did get on and were successful. She was thinking of these things when Josh Merritt took up his grievance again. R EMEMBER that time I worked so hard to become sales director for Brandon's? It was almost mine when his kid nephew with a lot of high faluting ideas popped in from college and grabbed the job right under my nose. And what could I do? And then there was that manager's job at Arnold Williams. It was as good as promised to me; and yet, at the last instant they took a new man from Boston and gave it to him. That's the way my life is spent chasing opportunities." For another moment Minnie Kenny held her tongue within leash, and then-because for five years she had enshrined Josh Merritt in her heart, and because she had woven her little dreams about him and had secretly hoped things which she dared not confess aloud-she threw to the wind the advice the girls had dinned into her ears. Josh Merritt might become angry at her; he might never see her again; and she might lose even the little taste of romance that he brought into her life. But he was wrong-altogether wrong. And someone ought to tell it to him. And so, when he made that last remark about chasing opportunities, she suddenly sat up straight and stiff in her chair. "No," she said quietly, but forcibly. "Your life is not spent chasing opportunities, but running away from them!" "What's that?" asked Josh Merritt. spoke with unusual sharpness. (Continued on page 117) He itly The Janitor's Son Robert F. Wagner, New York Supreme H E might have been governor of the State "Strange," said the hoary advisers of the determined young man who wouldn't be governor. "What do you want?" "I want to be a justice of the Supreme Court," he answered. "You!-who have been a member of the assembly and the senate, who have been majority leader-you want to wear a silk gown and sit among books? You will be miserable." "With all respect for your opinion I know I will be happy," he answered. "That happens to be my ambition." So it came about that, at forty years of age, Robert F. Wagner, one time lieutenantgovernor of New York State, turned his back on the fray which is political leadership, and became a judge. He sits on the bench so long as it is necessary every day, or holds counsel with other judges, or ponders his cases in chambers after court. He lives in a comfortable home, with his ten-year-old-son, at 222 East Eighty-sixth Street, New York City. His recreation is grand opera. Once a week he goes to the Metropolitan Opera House, or he puts a Caruso or a Barrientos record on his victrola and the music is an aid to him as he reads or studies. His life is rounded to the turn he desires. Behold a contented man! But behind this state of deep content, stretches a road sometimes arid, often paved with burning stones of effort. R OBERT F. WAGNER was a poor immigrant's son. He arrived in this country when he was eight years of age-and he could not speak one word of English. His father secured a job as janitor in an East Side apartment house. He was an East Side janitor's son. He lived as members of a janitor's family do-in the basement of the tenement. He went barefoot-not because he wished to, but to save his father the price of shoes. He knew hunger. He was one of the children who often went to school without food, who studied all day "on an empty stomach." He sold newspapers on Third Avenue and peppermint lozenges and lemon sticks in City Hall Park and at the Brooklyn Bridge entrance. He left his bed on winter mornings at a time when children love to cuddle their pillowsat four o'clock-and carried newspapers over a route. He worked as a hall boy at the New York Athletic Club, and frequently helped into his overcoat Judge Bartow S. Weeks, now sitting in Special Sessions, New York City. Judge Weeks has sat with the former hall boy hearing cases. It was a way of toil and weariness for the immigrant boy. One Commencement, he was invited to Grammar School No. 83, which he had attended, to tell the inspiring story of his life. He told all that I am setting down in this article; but, most important, he said: "I'm not here to talk to you because I have any more in me than you have. I haven't. I came to tell you that you must never become discouraged; or, that if you do you must pick yourself up and go on. Miss Schwartz, the principal, the same an teacher who had guided Bobby Wagner through the Fifth Reader and fractions, smiled effulgent smile. She is proud of Bobby. She goes to his quiet, comfortable home оссаsionally to tell him so. And she tells his story They owned the houses in which they lived. Their children were being educated after a fashion both thorough and ornamental. The neighborhood was one of "nice boys." Because the janitor's son had similar attainments he was invited to join them in their games. True, his clothes were always worn and cheap, but his manners were good. Frequently he could not join in the games because he had to help his father and mother "clean up" the apartment house for which they were the caretakers. But during the few hours he could play, he was welcome. He was missed from the Saturday-afternoon games because, while a holiday for his rich neighbors, it was a day of extra work for him. On that day, he went down to City Hall Park and sold newspapers and lozenges. While it was a day of self-denial as to play it was one of profit. His profit on each box of lozenges was forty cents. Calvin Coolidge, Vice-President of the United States, says: THER HERE is coming a time, not far distant, when it will be as much of a disgrace for those who are affluent to remain in idleness as it is, to-day, for those men who go about the streets in our cities and towns in idleness and begging. to all the other boys and girls who were not present when he talked to the pupils at Com mencement. THE HE evolution of Bobby Wagner, newsboy and janitor's son, to Judge Robert F. Wagner of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, is one to set enthusiasm aflame! The story is possible only in this country. The old lands beyond the sea afford no such story of a legitimate rise from low to high levels, from poverty to power, from want to competence. Bobby Wagner's struggle upward began in East 106 Street, at a time when that thoroughfare was far uptown-a highway contiguous to the fields and the "real" country. The region lying between Madison and Park Avenues, marked the homes of prosperous Americans. Usually, in a day, he sold three boxes to the crowd en route to Coney Island. Saturday was a "rush" day, too, for newspapers. And when he had finished work on this day, every bone in his young body ached from fatigue; but he had done his share to refill the family coffers. On Sunday, he stood at one of the East Side entrances to Central Park and sold lozenges and newspapers. On other days, he had the newspaper and clothing and incidentals remained a difficult one for the family to solve. His elder brother, a cook in the New York Athletic Club, pointed a way for an increase in Bobby's earning power. He might be a hall boy at the club. So each summer, for four years, small Bobby Wagner handed tall men their coats and hats and sticks for varying bits of compensation. In a speech, twenty years later, he gave his "confessions" of his "hall-boy" days. "We divided the members of the club into 'live' ones and 'dead' ones, according to the way they tipped us," he said. "Judge Bartow S. Weeks was one of the 'live' ones.' Came his milestone day when he was graduated from Grammar School No. 83. Family councils followed as to whether or not the youth might dare to aspire to college. "The College of the City of New York is free," he reminded the family. "But it takes so much time to study that you can earn little or nothing," the family reminded him. He tried it. He kept on trying. It was not easy. It was, indeed, a long, bitter pull. The family grew discouraged. The student himself grew discouraged. The lad earned as much as he could by tutoring fellow students. His brother, the cook, married, and would walk from his home in Harlem to the New York Athletic Club at 59 Street and Sixth Avenue-about six milesto save a nickel for the younger boy's educational fund. But Robert Wagner kept on. He struggled through college. He won two prizes, and was the valedictorian of his class. "Don't do it, Robert," he said. "It is a clamping vocation. If you get into it you may never get out." "But I must make my way through the law school," said young Wagner. The school examiner gave him a letter to a relative. "He is interested in helping boys to an education," he wrote. "Perhaps you can make an arrangement with him." The arrangement was that the school examiner's relative should pay the boy's tuition in the law school. He kept his pact. The lad kept his selfassumed part of the agreement, for he returned the money, which the donor reluctantly accepted. At twenty-two years of age, Robert ROBERT F. WAGNER, JUSTICE OF THE NEW YORK SUPREME COURT He was brought to America when he was eight years old. He could not speak English. His immigrant father found work as janitor of an apartment house. But the son had character, push, a studious disposition and good manners. His elder brother, a poor cook, walked six miles a day to contribute a nickel to the younger boy's education. A wonderful life-story this! |