Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1907 — Taking the Initiative. [ARTICLE]

Taking the Initiative.

There is a certain satisfaction in taking the enemy unawares on his own ground, In downing hint with his own weapons. President Folk evidently took comfort In his method for mitigating the hand shake, that curse of the chief executive office, and he must have chuckled when he wrote in his diary the bit which is given in James Seliouler’s “Historical Briefs:” If a man surrendered his arm to be shaken by one by another perpendicularly and by another with a strong grip, he could not fail to suffer severely by it. But if lie would shake and not be shaken, grip and not be gripped, taking care always to squeeze the hand of his adversary as hard as the adversary squeezed him, he would suffer no inconvenience by it, I can generally anticipate a strong grip from a strong man. I take advantage of him by being quicker than he and seizing him by the tips of his fingers. This is stated playfully, but it Is all true.