Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 209, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1919 — WHY HE QUIT “THE ROAD” [ARTICLE]

WHY HE QUIT “THE ROAD”

Ex-Drummer Voices Regret for the Disappearance of Oldtime Boniface and Clerk. “Oh for the old-fashioned hotel clerk, smiling, accommodating, always friendly, -who never forgot a face, obliging and always making a fellow feel like he was at home,” said Frank Whitsell of Portland, Ore., according to the El Paso Herald. “What a difference between the old professional hotel clerks of 25 years ago, even up to 15 years ago, and the automatic, mechanical clerks who never try to oblige—l might call them automatic grouches —of the present day behind the hotel registers. If you ask one of them a question he or. she, nowadays, intimates that you get your room and meals, just exactly whar you pay for, and not a thing more, please understand that. I was "a commercial traveler for a quarter century up to six years ffgo, and I know. .Why, we old drummers, as they used to call us, felt at home In those old hostelries of the western states, just on account of the clerks. Say, they were God’s noblemen, those old-timers. They Seemed to anticipate a fellow’s wants and would go to all sorts of trouble to accommodate one. The , milk of human kindness flowed in their . hearts. And it made-business, too. I have stopped at an inferior house, . many El time, because I'fiad Tieen treated so well by the clerk. And I can , say, too, the proprietors were much , the same way in those days. Hotels : were made homelike, not a big box with compartments, where you are to j be tucked away at so much per. That • was one of the reasons I quit the road, j the chilly, purely mechanical hotel? of the present day.”