Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 209, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1918 — FINDS CALL STIRS HIM UP [ARTICLE]

FINDS CALL STIRS HIM UP

City Conductor's Call, “Let ’Em Off First!” Acts Like a Tonic on This Writer. That day does not start right when I flo not go to work by public conveyance. I can motor to work, or I can walk, as I sometimes do, and hear all the sounds incident to busy streets — the honking of horns, the whistles of the traffic policemen and the shouting of newsboys. These all help in getting me. in key for the day’s work, but they do not tyke the place of the conductor’s plea to the clamorous crowds on the railway platforms, “Let ’em off first!” The command is given in a tone of Authority that forces the people to stand back. You meditate upon what would happen but for the trainman’s solicitude for his passengers. The little blond stenographer who sat beside you would without doubt be carried to the next station, or maybe a dozen stations beyond, and, being late, be fired. You yourself, for that matter, might be whisked on past your station and fall into a passion that would cause your breakfast to sour and make you surly all day. And there is always tragedy in that frame of mind, since a man has to be placid these days or lose his nerves, his job, and everything. ' “Let ’em off first!” —the command affects one in another way, too. It carries a suggestfbn that one wants to get off, and that suggestion presently works itself into a command to you to get off—a sort of challenge to stay on if you dare. You battle the suggestion manfully from one station to another, until, by the time you reach your stop, your mind is keyed up to concert pitch; you are thoroughly awake, and attack your day’s work with an energy that is unknown to the man who, immersed in his morning papers, is lost to what is going on around him. —T. C. O’Donnell in Cartoons Magazine.