Tag: 1941 Page 1 of 3

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 12, 1941.

“Isn’t that the same old coat?” inquired Jimmie Frise.

“Yes, it’s the same coat,” I informed him stiffly. “And the same old suit underneath. And the same old shoes. Probably you’ve forgotten there is a war?”

“I suppose you are not doing any spring cleaning at home this year,” surmised Jim, “on account of the war.”

“Being neat and tidy is one thing,” I stated. “But spending money on new clothes is another. The money I might spend on clothes I might lend the government to buy war material.”

“You might, is right,” agreed Jim. “But if you are the average person, you will just buy enough war bonds and certificates to keep your conscience from yelling out loud. And then you’ll weasel along as usual.”

“I haven’t bought any new clothes,” I insisted.

“But have you bought any new war bonds?” inquired Jim.

“No,” I confessed. “But at least I am in a position to buy some; which I wouldn’t be in if I had spent the money on clothes.”.

“In other words,” said Jim, “if they can persuade you, you can be persuaded. I see.”

“I don’t like your tone,” I informed him. “The government would rather have you save your money than spend it. Every dollar you spend these days on personal things, on non-war things, is a dollar’s worth of work done by somebody else on non-war jobs. And a dollar’s worth of material used for non-war purposes.”

“So if we starve a lot of tailors and clothing store clerks,” pursued Jimmie, “we are helping the war. Is that it?”

“Well, they can join the army,” I pointed out.

“I see,” said Jim. “And the $40¹ you would have spent on a new suit of clothes will buy them uniforms and feed them for three days or so.”

“If,” I explained, “I lend the government the $40.”

“Then they come back from war,” said Jim, “and take off the uniforms. And then you want your $40 back from the government – plus interest. Where does that money come from?”

“The government can issue a new lot of bonds, peace bonds,” I explained, “and pay back the war bonds.”

“Who’ll buy these peace bonds?” inquired Jim. “There will be no war profiteers this time to soak away their loot in bonds.”

“Well,” I explained, “when I get my cash back I’ll go and buy the suit of clothes I’ve been putting off. And tailors and clothing store clerks who have just taken off the uniform will be back on the job to sell them to me. And they’ll start making money again. They can buy the peace bonds.”

“Won’t they want a new suit of clothes, too?” demanded Jim.

“It’s very complicated. Jim,” I showed him. “All I know is, a lot of clever men are working on this problem of war finance. And we’ve got to accept their advice.”

Using War As Excuse

“Who says they’re clever?” asked Jimmie.

“Well, they’re the cream of the financial world,” I assured him. “They proved their cleverness by rising to the top of their profession in the past few years.”

“What does that prove?” demanded Jim. “Maybe they’re the same birds who got the world into this mess.”

“Okay,” I submitted. “Who will we put in their place? You and me? Or some of those wild-eyed agitators? Or just another bunch of the same sort who are in now? Jim, I don’t think it’s the leaders of the world who are fuddled. I think it’s us, the people of the world.”

“We’re sheep,” said Jim. “We’ve got to have a shepherd.”

“Good sheep usually have a good shepherd,” I reminded him.

“In that suit,” declared Jim, “you sure look like an old sheep that had been let run wild. You’ve got stouter since you bought it. It pulls at all the buttons. The pants are shiny. I can faintly see your shirt through the elbow.”

“I’m going to make it do until summer,” I stated. “Then I can put on my old gabardine suit. Next fall I’ll get a new tweed.”

“Come clean,” wheedled Jimmie. “What is it you are buying instead? A new boat? An outboard engine? You’re just like millions of other people. You are using the war as an excuse. You are going around in old clothes, creating an impression of how patriotic you are, and getting away with it; while really you are soaking your money away into something else you’ve really wanted all your life but couldn’t afford because you had to keep up with the Joneses.”

“Jim, being cynical won’t get you anywhere,” I assured him.

“I’m not cynical,” said Jimmie. “I’m just trying to figure things out. And to figure things out, you’ve got to face the facts. And the easiest fact to face is you. And me.”

“And what light do you see in me?” I inquired.

“Look,” said Jim. “We’re at war. We insist that we are not at war with nations, but with certain gangsters in those nations. However, the people of those nations are not like us. They are not giving what they feel like giving. They are giving all. Do you realize that if you want a new overcoat in Germany you have to turn in your old one?”

“It’s a good idea.” I agreed. “We should get an allowance on all our old clothes when we buy new ones.”

“They don’t get any allowance,” said Jim. “How many coats have you got? They’re only allowed one. And when they buy a new one, they turn in their old one without any allowance or without any question. The idea is that they can’t have any more of anything than they actually need. It goes for food, for household furniture and goods of all kinds; for books, lawn mowers, soap, handkerchiefs, everything.”

“They’ll rebel,” I assured him. “Human nature is human nature.”

“All these people who are allowed as little as possible,” went on Jimmie, “are organized by harsh law to produce as much as possible. But since there is no possible demand for clothes, furniture, books, soap, lawn mowers, they produce only what the government wants. And that is bombs, planes, guns, and food for soldiers.”

“Now you see the reason,” I exclaimed, “why I am not buying a new, suit.”

“Suppose,” said Jim craftily “the government suddenly announced that you couldn’t buy a new suit?”

I looked down at myself. It was true my vest buttons all drew my vest in ridges and creases. It was true my trousers bagged. I examined my elbow. I could detect a faint whitish tone through the tweed.

“The government wouldn’t do that,” I declared.

“Certainly it would,” cried Jimmie, “if we, the people, wanted it to.”

“Ah,” I smiled. “If we wanted it to.”

“There are plenty of people shouting at the government to do more than it is doing,” said Jim. “And about the only thing they haven’t done is start to interfere with the private lives of Canadians.”

“They don’t let us go to Florida for a holiday,” I pointed out.

“That doesn’t affect the people of Canada,” scoffed Jim. “That only affects a tiny minority of people who have the money to think of their comfort. Wait until the government starts telling you what you can buy with your money.”

“They’re telling us now,” I retorted. “By taking our surplus in taxes, they’ve cut me off of a lot of things I intended to buy.”

“That isn’t the same as being told you can’t buy a new suit,” warned Jimmie. “Or that you can only have one pound of bacon a week. Or you can only buy ten gallons of gasoline a week.”

“Will it get that tough?” I wondered.

“It’s that tough and a thousand times tougher in Britain now,” said Jim. “And it is Britain we are supposed to be helping.”

“Aren’t we helping?” I demanded.

“Well, there are a lot of people yelling, for the government to go full out in the war,” said Jim. “Remember, in our country, the government represents the people. And if the people suddenly agree that we want to go full out, the government will obey. Then they’ll take all your money, not borrow it. They’ll tell you what you can buy. They’ll tell you what work you’ll do. We can save democracy all right by throwing it over.”

“I can have this suit pressed,” I considered. “If it doesn’t look right then, maybe I will get a new suit.”

“After all, it’s Easter,” said Jim.

“And besides,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to be caught by any high-handed government decree that I can’t buy any clothes I want…”

“That’s the spirit,” cried Jim.

“You won’t know this suit in a couple of days,” I said. “I’ll send it to be pressed tonight.”

“Look,” said Jim, “there’s a while-you-wait pressing place just a block north. At lunch, let’s both go in and get all pressed up. I could do with a little smartening up, seeing it’s Easter.”

“What kind of a place is this pressing establishment?” I inquired.

“It’s just up in the next block or the one next to that,” said Jimmie. “I can’t just place it. But I’ve seen it lots of times. We’ll find it. You sit in little cubicles while they press your suit. It only takes a few minutes…”

“Probably one of those cheap little joints,” I protested, “where they leave a smell of gasoline all over you…”

But we had a quick sandwich and went out looking for the press-while-you-wait shop that Jimmie had often seen. And after walking around four blocks and not finding it, we finally asked a cigar store man if he knew of it. And he said it was two blocks farther west. He knew it well. His cousin ran it. So we went into a rather down-at-heel neighborhood, mostly garages and warehouses, found the press-while-you-wait shop as directed.

It was hardly the kind of place I would have selected myself. There were two or three very odd-looking gentlemen sitting in the front part of the shop, reading the papers. They had long sharp noses and sideburns. They were all smoking cigars which they had tucked halfway into the very corner of their mouths. They looked up at us when we came in as though we were the funny-looking customers, not they.

There were no cubicles, as Jimmie had promised. Only a large screen. The place was barely furnished. There were a couple of second-hand cupboards partly filled with a few shabby garments on hangers. But at the back there was a man working very casually at a hot smelling pressing machine. Not a very modern pressing machine at that.

“Can you press us up while we wait?” asked Jimmie pleasantly, as this gent left his job to come and attend to us. He, too, had a cigar butt jammed away off in his east cheek.

“It’ll take three-quarters of an hour,” he said rather impatiently.

“Let’s leave it, Jim,” I said. Because from the back of the shop two more men came out, looking at us with the same cold, appraising eye. Behind them I could see others. The place was alive with them, all the same kind, lean, oddly dressed, and all with cigars shoved away over in their cheeks. And most of them with sideburns.

But Jim had his coat off and was undoing his braces.

“Let’s get it over with while we’re at it,” he said.

So the proprietor shoved the screen impatiently around to shield us, and the men sitting and standing about resumed reading and muttered to one another, and some of them drifted into the back room.

“Gimme,” said the proprietor, reaching for our pants and coats.

Jim picked up a paper to read. It was a racing paper, like a railway time table full of small print.

I picked up some annual of the pressing and cleaning trade. And the thudding of the pressing machine came to us behind the screen. Jim was intent on his catalogue of horses and I was glancing over the pressing journal when a sudden scuffle caused us to prick up our ears.

The door opened and we heard a loud voice say:

“Nobody budge!”

But everybody budged. There were scuffles and thudding of feet. There were soft, startled yells of warning and loud bellows. Everybody budged but Jimmie and me, sitting there behind the screen, in our underwear, unable to see what was going on, but very much interested, I can assure you.

In the midst of the rumpus, there appeared around the edge of the screen a large and startled policeman.

“Now what’s this?” he said very cheerfully.

“What’s what?” inquired Jim, hiding the paper he was reading behind his back.

“Come on, me buckoes,” said the policeman. “Get your pants on.”

He hailed somebody over the screen and two more policemen came and stood looking at us.

“A new one,” said the oldest.

“Evidence,” said the second, “of the honest character of the establishment.”

“What is this, constable?” I demanded with dignity.

“Come on, get your pants on,” said he. “It’s chilly in the wagon.”

I was the first to smell singeing.

“Whose pants?” I yelled, leaping up and trying to dash past the constable.

They were my pants. The proprietor had my trousers on the machine and in the excitement he had left the pad down, with the power on. It was an old-fashioned machine. And when the policeman lifted the lever, there was very little left of my good tweed pants.

Meanwhile, ignoring us and our tragedy, other policemen were leading men out of the shop half a dozen or more coming from the back room. Upstairs, we could hear tramping and scuffling, and still more came down the back stairs.

“It’s a raid,” said Jimmie. “And if I’m not mistaken it’s on a handbook outfit².”

“Wrap something around him,” said the head policeman, “and get him in the wagon.”

“Inspector,” I cried, “we can prove we are innocent customers who just dropped in.”

“This one,” said the first cop, “was reading a racing form when I popped around the screen.”

“There was nothing else to read,” retorted Jimmie indignantly.

From our coats, we were able to produce identity cards.

“Identity cards won’t help you,” said the head policeman. “You were found in. You can prove your identity and innocence in court. Our job is simply to raid the joint and collect all those found in.”

 “Are you going to ruin my good name,” I demanded, “when you can see the charred ruins of my pants right there on that pressing machine? What will the judge say to you when I tell him that evidence of my innocence was still smouldering before your very eyes?”

So they took our names and addresses. And in the cupboard they found a pair of pants that would at least carry me as far as the nearest clothing store. In fact they drove Jimmie and me to the store in one of the scout cars.

And that is how I got this very handsome Donegal tweed³ I’m wearing.

---

Editor’s Notes:

1. $40 in 1941 would be $785 in 2025. ↩︎
2. A “handbook outfit” is a criminal organization involved in illegal gambling, like a bookie. ↩︎
3. Donegal tweed is a woven tweed manufactured in County Donegal, Ireland. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 15, 1941.

“Say, listen,” said Jimmie Frise anxiously over the telephone, “could you run over here for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” I responded. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s this income tax return,” grumbled Jimmie. “I can’t make head or tail of it.”

“Well, you’re past the end of January, my boy,” I informed him heartily. “So why worry? Might as well be hung for a goat as a sheep¹. You’re going to be fined any way, so why let it spoil a fine winter’s night like this? Let’s take a walk over to the slides and see the kids tobogganing.”

“Listen,” said Jim earnestly. “Come on over, will you? I won’t be happy now until I get this thing off my mind. Gee, I wish I had never looked at the thing.”

“We all have to look at it sooner or later,” I said comfortingly.

“Haven’t you done yours yet?” inquired Jim.

“No,” I admitted. “I was all set to attend to it right after the New Year. But by that time everybody was talking about the taxes in such gloomy terms that I decided to put off the bad news for a few days.”

“You’re in for a shock,” came Jim’s voice over the telephone dully.

“But by the middle of January,” I explained, “the talk had grown so bad I simply couldn’t bring myself to the task. I mean – with all the war news and everything, I just couldn’t bring myself to it.”

“Oh, boy,” said Jim hollowly. “You’re going to get a swell bump.”

“Then along about the last week in January,” I continued apologetically, “I started planning to do it first thing in the morning. But when I got to the office the sun was shining and everything was so bright and brisk I would put it off until the afternoon.”

“Oh, me,” sighed Jim. “That’s exactly what I did.”

“And when the afternoon came,” I concluded, “I was too tired to face it.”

“Yes, but where do you stand now?” demanded Jimmie.

“Well, sir,” I informed him, “just about the last day of January, when I had given up all hope of escape, didn’t I learn that if you didn’t want to pay your taxes in instalments you had until April 30 just as usual.”

“But good grief,” cried Jim, “that’s the lump sum. That’ll kill you.”

“So long as I don’t know about it,” I explained, “I won’t suffer. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

“A fine philosophy,” snorted Jim. “My dear sir, do you realize that if you were paying it in instalments those instalments are each almost as big as the whole amount of taxes you paid last year?”

“Oh, nonsense,” I laughed.

“I’m telling you,” shouted Jim. “I’ve been sitting here ever since supper working at mine. And the way I work it out, every instalment is pretty near as big as the whole amount I paid last year.”

Up to Item 53 N

“You’ve got yourself mixed up, somewhere, Jimmie,” I warned him. “No government would do that to us.”

“Oho, won’t they!” cried Jim. “Just wait till you take a look at this form. Net income. Taxable income, Dominion. Net taxable income, Dominion. General tax payable, Dominion. National Defence Tax, see item 32.”

“Item 32?” said I.

“Thirty-two,” cried Jim. “It goes up to item 53 N.”

“Fifty-three N, eh?” I said, a little disturbed.

“Listen,” said Jim, rattling a paper. “Quote: 53 A. Insert item 17 E increased if necessary because of item 37 (2).”

“M’hm,” I said.

“Come on over,” begged Jim. “You’d better.”

“Yeh. I’d better,” I said numbly.

Trapped by the Income Tax, after all these rosy weeks of stalling it off. As I walked around the corner and down the block to Jim’s, I reflected that I am not a meany or a skinflint. I don’t pinch my money. I don’t go around trying to buy things wholesale through my friends. I don’t hope to save a lot of money to leave my children so they’ll be ruined. I don’t do any of the things I suspect my friends of doing. Yet, somehow, I feel I have not a healthy attitude towards the Income Tax. Why do I try, even in my sleep, even in my widest-awake hours, to evade the thought of it? I am all for the war. I was an old soldier in the last one. I’ve been over three times to see this one. Surely I am a patriot. Yet…

Jimmie was waiting in the vestibule to let me in.

When he led me into the living-room I saw the family had been banished and the table was littered with large sheets of paper, including at least five sets of income tax forms.

“There was a pile of them,” explained Jim, “so I took plenty. I had a hunch I would need them.”

“Well, well,” I said comfortingly, rubbing my hands; “don’t let it frighten you, Jim. These forms have been worked out for the benefit of the whole population of Canada, the majority of whom are simple, common folk like ourselves. It stands to reason, therefore, that they are as simple as they can possibly be made.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, mirthlessly, as we sat down.

“It has a formidable look,” I continued, picking up one of the forms and inspecting it. “But let us go on the assumption, let us start with the perfectly logical assumption, that even a child could work this out.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” hacked Jim bitterly.

“Now,” I said, “I see you have entered your name correctly. In block letters, Surname first. Yes. And then the Christian names, with James underlined. Quite correct.”

“Don’t waste time,” cut in Jim. “I’ve filled in all those places. Dependent children and all. Now come to the first real item. Item 17 A. Total income, see item 29.”

So we turned to item 29, page 2.

For the Smart Guys

“Item 29,” I pointed. “TOTAL INCOME. Well, that’s simple. That simply means, 17 A, Total Income, means TOTAL INCOME. See? In item 29 they put it in capitals, so you would understand it was TOTAL. That’s just to help you, see?”

“I see,” said Jim wearily, running his hand through his hair.

“So you put down your TOTAL income first,” I explained briskly, “and come to item 17 B. Deductions, see item 45.”

“Oh, sure,” sneered Jim.

“Okay,” I said reassuringly. “Here’s item 45. Sum of the Above Deductions.”

“What above deductions?” inquired Jim sweetly. “Above what?”

“Well, let’s look,” I heartened him. “Here’s one that should cheer you up. Interest Paid On Borrowed Money.”

“Read it,” commanded Jim hollowly.

“Exclusive,” I read, “of carrying charges in items No. 24 and No. 25…”

“No, no,” pleaded Jim. “Don’t turn to them yet. You have so far turned only three times already to try and get the very first question answered. Don’t you get dizzy, too, for Pete’s sake, or we are sunk. Try to keep your balance. Try to keep your sanity. Just read a little note in black type there, under where you were reading…”

“Here it is,” I read. “Note: Do not include interest on mortgages on residence of taxpayer or on moneys borrowed for personal and living expenses.”

“Well,” said Jim tragically.

“That is kind of mean,” I confessed.

“What other kind of money would I pay interest on?” demanded Jim. “The only kind of interest I could deduct, they won’t allow.”

“That item is for business men,” I explained.

“You bet it is for business men,” charged Jim loudly. “The whole blame thing is for business men. But if it is for business men, why do they keep poor simple people like us chasing back and forth all over that crazy form, as if we were all chartered accountants? I bet 80 per cent. of the people who have to pay income tax are not business people and don’t know one end of an item 28 C from the other.”

“Well, hold on,” I pleaded. “Wait till we see, here.”

It was, at this moment, about 9.25 p.m. I need not delay you with an itemized account of our evening. I took my coat off at 10.30 p.m. We sent over to the drug store for cold ginger ale at 11. The family came in and said hello to us from the hall about 11.30 p.m. and went straight to bed.

We figured and added and subtracted. We worked on Jim’s returns for about three hours and then turned to mine, just to see if it would work out a little simpler. We changed both our incomes into round numbers to see if that would help any. At 1 a.m. Jimmie went and hunted until he found his son’s Public School Arithmetic and we took a recess to explore away back into the almost forgotten realms of fractions and how to divide 7 ¾ by 461 8-9.

“Look, Jimmie,” I cried. “Lowest Common Denominator. Do you remember?”

“Aw,” said Jim, “let’s get back to the job.” He went to the closet and got out the card table. We shifted everything off the living-room table – forms, scribbling paper, books and all – and started afresh. It was 2.20 a.m.

“What,” demanded Jim grimly, “is the reason for all this hanky-panky on these income tax forms? Do you know the answer?”

“Well,” I submitted, “I suppose it is because it just grew, year after year, with additions and changes.”

“Like an old dead tree,” said Jim bitterly, “with fungus growing on it, and other fungi growing on the fungus. No. I’ll tell you the reason. If this income tax was simple the smart guys couldn’t pull any smart stuff. This income tax form is designed for the benefit of the smart guys of this world.”

“Oh, Jimmie,” I protested, “you’re tired. It’s getting on towards morning.”

“No, sir,” stated Jim emphatically. “This world is designed for the benefit and advantage of the smart guys. Nothing shows that to be true more dramatically than these income tax forms. I am willing to bet you one instalment of my taxes that an ordinary accountant could reduce this whole thing to the simplest arithmetic. So that it would be just and equal for all. Amount of tax. Amount of deductions. Then a plain percentage of it all. That is what they get anyway. So why don’t they simplify it?”

“This income tax form is the result of slow growth,” I explained.

“Don’t ever believe it,” retorted Jimmie. “It is complicated only so as to allow loopholes for the wise guys. Mark my words.”

“Don’t be cynical, Jim,” I pleaded. “We’re both tired. If it could be made simpler, why wouldn’t they make it so?”

“Do the wise guys want anything simple?” cried Jim. “Aren’t the ten commandments enough? No. The lawyers have built up a Tower of Babel² so they can act as guides and collect the fees. It’s the same with taxes. Somebody must be profiting by all this bunk.”

“Jim, you don’t understand that democracy is a slow growth,” I protested, “like a strong tree, ring by ring.”

We were checked by the sound of heavy footsteps out in the hall.

“Hello,” said a strange, deep voice.

“Who’s that!” cried Jim, leaping up.

“It’s the milkman,” said the voice, coming up the hall. Your side door was open and I was just wondering if everything was all right.”

“Come in,” said Jim, “and thanks very much. No, we’re just working on our income tax.”

“Oh, them,” laughed the milkman, appearing at the living-room door. “I’ve seen quite a lot of people doing them during my rounds this past couple of weeks.”

“It’s an awful job,” sighed Jim, ruffling all the piles of papers.

“Oh, it’s not so bad when you get on to it,” comforted the milkman.

“Do you know anything about it?” I inquired stiffly.

“Yes, indeed,” said the milkman. “I’ve helped a dozen or more folks with them. It’s really a question of knowing what to…”

“Come in, come in,” cried Jim softly, taking the milkman’s arm. He set down his wire basket of milk.

“If you want a real problem,” he said, as he sat down, “you take my milk accounts for a week.”

He took the form Jim had been working on and ran an expert finger down the sheet. He spotted errors immediately.

“Now,” he said cheerfully, “let’s take a fresh form.”

Filling out the spaces rapidly, he mumbled and buzzed and muttered.

“How do you know which Items to skip?” I demanded, laying down the Arithmetic in which I had been revelling in the Prime Factor.

“Just by experience,” explained the milkman. “You learn by experience which…”

“Yes,” I said sternly, “but why do simple people like us have to wander bewildered by the hour in all that maze of detail which applies only to business men, rich men, bond and stock holders, partners, receivers of royalties, annuities, premiums on exchange…?”

“I guess they leave it in,” said the milkman, “to make us happy. To make us realize how confused and complicated are the lives of business men. It does us good, I imagine, to get a glimpse of what it means to be well off.”

“Hm,” said I.

“Hm,” said Jim.

And in about four minutes he did Jim’s. And in three minutes he did mine.

And he got a figure far less than either Jimmie or I had got.

We don’t know if they are right or not.

But we’ve sent ’em in.

---

Editor’s Notes:

1. This phrase means This means that one might just as well be punished for a big misdeed as a small one. This expression alludes to the old punishment for stealing sheep, which was hanging no matter what the age or size of the animal. ↩︎
2. The Tower of Babel is a parable in the Book of Genesis meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, January 11, 1941.

“I think,” stated Jimmy Frise, “I have got the world’s troubles solved.”

“Good for you,” I said thinly.

“It came to me just before I fell asleep last night,” said Jimmie. “That’s when I do my best thinking.”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” I warned him. “This snow is getting deeper and the first thing you know…”

“Let me talk,” explained Jim, “and I’ll drive slower. The more intelligently I talk, the slower I drive.”

“Then talk all you like.” I assured him. “Because I don’t like the look of this road, and we’re going into the ditch in a minute if you don’t take it easy. There hasn’t been a car along here since the snow started.”

“Okay,” said Jim, slackening speed and sitting up behind the wheel with an intent expression on his face. “The way I figured it out last night, in that lovely lucid moment just before I fell asleep, was this: it is useless to try to improve the social system. It is human nature we have to improve.”

“Old stuff,” I informed him.

“Maybe it is,” said Jim hotly. “But we’ve got to look at it again. Here we are in an awful mess in the world because of what? Because one section of the world wants to change our system of life and the other section wants to keep the system it has.”

“You haven’t solved anything,” I emitted.

“From the beginning of time,” went on Jim firmly, “men have been experimenting with systems of government. With ways of life. And after trying one system for awhile, there is a terrific convulsion and they start all over again on a new one. It’s been going on for thousands of years.”

“And may it never end,” I prayed.

“It can end, to the complete happiness of all mankind,” cried Jim, “if we will just face one fact. And that fact is, that it is human nature that has to be changed.”

“You might as well try to change jackal nature or weasel nature as try to change human nature,” I stated.

“The day may be almost at hand when we will change,” declared Jim. “This war, if it goes on long enough, may finally shake human nature loose from its basic error. Century after century, we have gone ahead in the firm and unshakeable belief that human nature can not be changed. So we have tried one pitiful scheme after another to work out a way of life that will somehow fit human nature. Our efforts have been tragic and dyed with blood, always. We ought to realize by now that no scheme can be invented to fit human nature as it is. Therefore, human nature has to be altered to fit some simple, ideal scheme.”

To Change Human Nature

“Religion has been trying to do exactly that for five thousand years,” I protested.

“And politics always crowded religion out,” agreed Jim. “The problem has been divided in two. Let religion look after the spiritual welfare of man. And politics will look after his social welfare. That day is ended.”

“Do you mean you’re going to join up church and state again?” I snorted. “It took centuries to divorce them.”

“I’m not interested in organizations,” replied Jim. “There are as many different kinds of political systems as there are religious systems. All I am interested in is human nature. If mankind gets badly enough hurt in this war, I think maybe it will come to the natural conclusion that it is human nature that has to be changed, not any system.”

“People have to have a system,” I cut in.

“That’s the first mistake,” stated Jim. “That’s the mistake at the bottom of the whole shemozzle.”

“We have to have law and order,” I insisted. “And that is the beginning of what finally works out as a government or a social system.”

“You only need law and order,” explained Jimmie, “because human nature has not changed.”

“How,” I scoffed, “are you going to change human nature to the extent that we won’t need law and order?”

“The theory I worked out last night, just before I fell asleep,” said Jim, “is that after this war we will realize for the first time in human history that it is not the system that is wrong. It is us.”

“Well, I must say,” I said, “that you have been driving slower this last half mile. But that’s about all I can say for your theory.”

“You wait,” prophesied Jimmie. “Just you wait. About every thousand years or so, humanity makes one important discovery. We haven’t made any important discoveries for nearly 2,000 years now. America wasn’t any discovery. Steam, electricity, they’re not discoveries in the larger sense. The last great discovery we made was that the pure in heart shall see God. That was 2,000 years ago, less about 30. Since then we have been too busy rooting in the swill tub to look up and see a new truth. But it looks to me, right now, as if the whole human race was about to make another mighty and shaking discovery. And it might well be something about changing human nature instead of changing the system of trying to govern human nature.”

“Watch the road,” I interrupted. “We very nearly went off the shoulder that time.”

“It’s some blizzard, isn’t it?” said Jim, turning the windshield wiper on stronger.

“I wish we had come home last night,” I declared.

“And missed that evening with Aunt Mary and Uncle Ned?” cried Jimmie aghast. “And that dinner? And that midnight visit to the barn with the lantern to see the horses and the cattle bedded down? And that breakfast?”

Driving in a Blizzard

“I hate driving in a blizzard,” I muttered.

“You said, this morning,” accused Jim, “when we left the farm, that you had never experienced a more delightful 24 hours in your life than this visit to Aunt Mary.”

“It’s true,” I admitted. “But I still hate driving in blizzards.”

“You don’t need to spoil everything,” said Jim, “by saying you wish we had left for home last night, that’s all.”

“Okay,” I said, “okay. Keep her in the middle of the road.”

And at a scant 20 miles an hour, we pushed through the ever increasing snow storm, the wind driving the big, heavy flakes against all the car windows. Every mile, the snow on the road grew thicker and drifts began to appear. The farther south we came, the deeper the drifts, as though the blizzard had been raging longer down this way. Few cars met us. None passed us.

“It looks like the annual winter tie-up for these parts,” said Jim. “By tonight, I bet they won’t be able to get through at all.”

“At this speed,” I suggested, “we may not get through ourselves.”

“Do you want me to step on it?” inquired Jim, giving her the gas.

“No, no,” I cried. “Don’t be so touchy. All I was doing was mentioning it. Can’t a guy talk?”

“It’s you that wants to keep the speed down,” said Jim. “And it’s you that wants to bellyache about not getting home.”

“It has not occurred to you, Jim,” I said, “that there is such a thing as being content with something and wanting to be free to complain about it at the same time.”

“It sounds screwy to me,” declared Jim.

“It’s human nature,” I informed him, “at its most human.”

“There’s a village ahead,” said Jim. “What do you say we stop for a few minutes and get warm in the general store?”

“Let’s push on,” I argued, “because every 10 minutes we waste, these drifts are getting bigger.”

“The general store,” said Jim, “is a sort of clearing house for all the news of the township. Maybe the store-keeper can advise us which road to take. Maybe the road we are heading down is badly drifted.”

“We could just pop in for a minute,” I consented.

And it was a welcome break in the slow, tortuous business of driving in a blizzard to enter the cross-roads general store where a warm stove glowed in the midst and eight or 10 other visitors leaned around on the counters or sat on boxes, enjoying the radio which played soft afternoon music.

Jim and I created a little interruption of the quiet scene when we inquired of the storekeeper how the roads were south.

“Well, she’s drifted up pretty bad straight south,” said the merchant. “But it’s just as bad west of here. In fact, I wouldn’t suggest anybody try the road west.”

Several of the other visitors in the store walked over and listened to the discussion. They were all husky, weather-beaten men in heavy coats and ear-flap caps, with that shy look that people from the country and from villages wear. The kind of people who seem to be nursing a secret.

“How About a Shovel?”

“Most of the folks in here,” said the merchant, “are waiting for the weather to clear before pushing on.”

“How about waiting?” inquired Jim of me.

“We might be laid up here all night,” I protested.

“Indeed you might,” agreed one of the others. “I recollect waiting for the blizzard to slow up one time down near Lindsay. It kept on and I was holed up in a little place smaller than this for three whole days.”

“I say we get on, Jim,” I submitted.

“The road straight south,” said the merchant, while the others in the store gathered round in silence, “has two bad drifts on it. One about a mile south of here. And the other about four miles south, along a high hill on the right hand side…”

“How bad are the drifts?” inquired Jim doubtfully.

“Well, I should think there would be a hundred yards of digging on the farthest one,” said the merchant. “You might you might be able to plow through the first one, a mile down.”

“How about a shovel, Jim?” I inquired.

“One thing I never carry in my car,” said Jim, “is a shovel. It gets you into more trouble than anything else you can own.”

And all the folks laughed pleasantly.

“I’ll go halves on a shovel,” I proffered. “I think we ought to push on before it gets too late.”

While we debated, two or three more men stamped into the store and joined our circle. They too listened with interest to the debate between Jim and me and the grocer. But they did not appear to be in any hurry. They just leaned back on the counters and sat on crates and boxes and talked in brief monosyllables and glanced about with shrewd bright eyes. It would have been good to relax as they relaxed: good to sit on a box here in this cozy store while the blizzard raged without, and the static of the storm crackled faintly on the low, muffled music of the radio.

“Here’s a shovel at $1.15¹,” said Jim, coming from the back of the store.

So we bought the shovel between us, and after amiable farewells to the enviable group around the big stove, we pushed out into the blizzard and found our car already blanketed with snow. There were eight other trucks and cars huddled around the side of the general store, with ours.

“It’s only five miles to the highway, Jim,” I reminded him, “and they’ll have it plowed.”

“Keep the shovel handy,” replied Jim, stepping on the gas.

And with a few slews and skids, we got out onto the untrodden road again and at a cautious 20, fared south.

The road was rapidly becoming impassable, as we could well see. The car labored even on the level, and on the slight grades lurched and plunged alarmingly.

“We might better have stayed at that village,” said Jim gloomily.

In about 10 or 15 minutes, we came to the first drift the store-keeper had spoken of. Wind whipped the snow in spirals and drifty clouds. Jim put on dangerous speed and charged the snowbank which was maybe only 20 feet through at its deepest. In about six feet, the car stalled.

“Okay,” said he, “I’ll have to nurse the engine. We don’t want it to choke up. You shovel and I’ll drive her through.”

“We can take turns,” I suggested.

But Jim just raced the engine, for fear it might stall with wind and snow.

It took me a good 50 minutes hard shovelling to clear a path through the 20 feet of drift. Jim edged the car up each yard I gained, and kept the engine racing and idling, but I could see through him.

But Life is Like That

When I finished, and was getting back into the car, I was surprised to see, about 200 yards back up the road, four or five cars lined up and all stopped in a row:

“Why,” I said, “the low down…”

I called Jim’s attention to them.

“They’re following us,” I cried, “and waiting there for us to cut through the drift.”

“There’s no law against it,” said Jim.

“Let them pass us,” I fumed, “before we get to the big drift the store-keeper told us about.”

At 10 miles an hour, we poked along. But the cars behind held their respectful distance. In fact, they allowed the distance to widen between us.

“Stop,” I cried, “and let them pass us.”

So Jim drew carefully to the side of the road. I watched out the back window, and when the first of the following cars came over the rise and saw us, he stopped and the others behind him dutifully stopped too. They were about 300 yards back.

“Jim,” I said, with heat, “this is an outrage.”

“They’re in no hurry,” explained Jim. “They’re just easy-going people in no need to get anywhere in a rush.”

“They deliberately waited in that general store,” I stormed, “for some poor devils like us to come along who are in a hurry, who have to get through.”

“Okay,” said Jim, “what is wrong, then, with them benefitting by our deed? Somebody always has to be first. It’s usually somebody like us, with urgent need shoving us.”

“It’s a dirty trick,” I declared.

“No, life is full of situations like it,” said Jimmie. “The guy who has to do something does it first and shows how. The rest of us follow.”

We drove on. We came to the big drift. At a respectful distance the cars, now nine in number, had patiently followed us, slowing when we slowed, and now stopped.

“Jim,” I demanded, “back the car up to them. They can’t get away. Back the car up to them while I give them a piece of my mind.”

“Look,” said Jim patiently, “what’s wrong with what they’re doing? They’re in no rush. They’ve been waiting, quite pleasantly and happily, for somebody to come along that had to get through. You’re the one that’s in a hurry. Why should they dig out drifts for you?”

“I’m digging out drifts for them,” I shouted.

“So it happens,” agreed Jim. “But every road you travel on was cut through the bush by somebody else, and built and paved and maintained by somebody else – for you. There always have to be first goers. There is always the pioneer.”

So I got out and shovelled. And it was a long, long shovel. Jim came and helped me a couple of times. But he shovels slower than I do, and wants to pause and talk all the time. So I made him get in the car and keep the engine warm by creeping after me as I dug.

“You sure have to change human nature,” I yelled at him, when the idea recurred to me.

“Yep,” called back Jim, “and the question is: shall we make the slow pokes move faster? Or will we slow down those who are forever in a hurry?”

---

Editor’s Note:

1. $1.15 in 1941 would be $21.40 in 2024. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 28, 1936.

“This ice going out,” said Jimmie Frise, all over Canada, all over Siberia, all over the world, this vast, plunging, crushing volume of power and force going to waste…”

“These gutters,” I added, “these rain pipes, these ditches along the roads, everywhere.”

“Waste, waste,” said Jim. “If humanity only knew how to harness all the forces of Nature, nobody would have to work.”

“In this little rushing rivulet along the curb,” I contributed, “is enough power to light all the electric light fixtures in my house.”

“We talk of horsepower,” scoffed Jimmie, grandly. “Why, there is mountain power going to waste these days in a million rivers of the world. Mountain power, in these freshets.”

“But on account of the hunks of ice,” I pointed out, “it might be a little awkward trying to hook it up to a dynamo or whatever you call it.”

“Awkward,” cried Jimmie. “Just because a thing looks difficult, we shy at it. That’s the reason mankind hasn’t conquered the forces of this world ages ago. That’s why we are still slaves.”

“Do you suppose we could get enough power out of anything to write our articles and draw our pictures for us?” I asked. “It is all very well to talk about machines freeing men. That may help out the mechanics and farmers. But us poor writers and artists will still be in the same old boat.”

“You have the habit,” said Jim, “of sort of picking at an argument, sort of scratching at it with the fingernails of your mind. Why don’t you join in with me in a conversation like this and let us get somewhere. I was saying, why don’t we start to use the power that is going to waste on all sides of us?”

“Personally,” I said, “I think we are doing very nicely.”

“By a little use of our brains,” said Jim, “we might think of some way of harnessing some force of nature, now going to waste, that would set us free forever of doing anything.”

“We can’t compete with trained engineers,” I pointed out.

“Trained engineers,” Jim stated, “are trained to believe in what can’t be done, rather than what can be done. Was Stephenson an engineer? – the man who invented steam engines?”

“That’s so,” I confessed.

“Was Newton an engineer?” demanded Jim. “The man who invented gravity? Was Harvey an engineer? the man who invented the circulation of the blood.”

“He didn’t invent it,” I disagreed. “It had been circulating all the time. He only discovered it.”

“That’s my point exactly,” cried Jim. “These tremendous forces of nature are going on all around us, wastefully, uselessly. All we have to do is see how they can be used. And we don’t need to be engineers either.”

“I wish I could think up something,” I assured him. “I have often thought we ought to have some kind of a little machine attached to our knees, a sort of generator so that, as we walked, we could charge a battery in our pocket. If everybody in the world wore a gadget like that, we could certainly store up an awful lot of electricity.”

“That’s an idea,” encouraged Jim.

To Patent the Invention

“Each day, at five o’clock,” I warmed up, “everybody would turn their battery in at the local electric station, sort of like cigar stores located all over the place. And on receiving the charged battery, the service station would hand us out a new empty battery for tomorrow.”

Perfect,” said Jim. “You’ve got something.”

“Say we each charged one volt into that battery,” I explained, “on the average. Although policemen and postmen would charge much more. We could give them bigger batteries to charge. Well, anyway, in a city like Toronto, that would be nearly 700,000 volts of electricity stored up every day, and immediately contributed to the power, lighting and heating of the city.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Jim, “that you are another Stephenson or a Farragut.”

“Just a simple little device,” I explained. “A small metal rod attached at the knee by a sort of garter to each leg, the two rods meeting in the middle in a small generator about the size of a walnut or an apple. It might be at little awkward at first to walk with these things on. Sort of bow-legged, or waddling maybe. But we would soon get used to it. At each step, these rods would drive the small generator, like the drive shaft, in miniature, of a locomotive.”

“Let’s patent it,” said Jim.

“I hardly think,” I surmised, “it is ready for patenting.”

“Don’t be crazy,” cried Jim. “That’s the way fortunes are lost. When you get an idea, seize it. Patent it. The real thinkers of this world are all poor men just because they didn’t protect their ideas. They let human weasels steal their stuff.”

“We have to have a working model,” I said.

“Any electrician could make it,” said Jim. “Don’t explain what it is for. Just give him the specifications. Make a drawing. He’ll never guess what it is. And there you are.”

“I’m not just sure,” I confessed, “how many steps or movements of the leg it will take to charge one volt. I was just making a supposition there, when I said one volt.”

“Now, now,” admonished Jim. “Don’t start backing and filling. The idea is what counts. I see mountainous force going to waste in spring freshets all over the world, but I can’t think up any practical scheme for harnessing it. You see vast sources of power going to a waste in the motion of the human leg. But… but, my dear boy, you see at a glance the solution of it. It is vision that counts in this world. Not the poor mechanics of it.”

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll sketch it out. Let’s see: how does a car charge its battery?”

“The motion of the engine operates the generator.”

“Then,” I said, incisively, “the motion of the leg will operate the generator, which will be supported between the knees by two rods attached to the knee joint.”

“Correct,” said Jim.

And after supper, we walked over to the corner and saw our local electrician, but when he studied my drawings, simple as they were he said they were a little out of his line. He sticks to installing fixtures and mending door bells. He thought maybe a radio man might tackle it.

“What’s it for?” he inquired.

“It’s an invention,” I explained. “A little idea of mine.”

“Little idea, huh,” said Jim darkly.

A Very Wonderful Room

“If it’s an invention,” said the electrician, “there is a man upstairs, he rents my attic, and he’s an inventor. He makes all kinds of things. I bet he’d be the very man for you.”

“Steer clear of other inventors,” said Jim, quietly. “They’d steal your idea.”

“Oh, no,” said the electrician. “This man is the gentlest little fellow. He wouldn’t steal anything. He doesn’t even want anything. Why, he has invented thousands of things, and never sold a single one yet.”

“How does he live?” I asked.

“His relatives give him so much money a month to live somewhere else,” said the electrician. “I don’t mind him. Even if he does make some awful smashes and things.”

“Smashes?” asked Jim, always interested in action.

“He invented a thing last year,” said the electrician, “for catching your dog when it runs away from you and won’t come back when it’s called. You know? He says he has so often seen old ladies frantically trying to call their little dogs back to them and the dog won’t come. So he invented a thing for catching dogs that won’t come back.”

“Mmmm, mmmm,” said Jim, interestedly.

“Yes, siree,” said the electrician. “It was a great thing. He was going to give me one of the first ones manufactured, for a month’s rent. But my goodness.”

“What,” we both said.

“The day he perfected his working model,” said the electrician, “he got me up to witness the first operation of it. My, my. I was standing in the room, by the door, see? And he sprung the trigger. And the thing caught him instead of the imitation dog he had made out of a pillow. And it threw him right out the attic window and held him suspended in space until I could go around to the hardware store and borrow two ladders.”

“Indeed,” said I.

“I like the sound of this man,” said Jim. “I think we should see him. I think he could easily make a model of your machine.”

“I’ll think it over,” I said.

But Jim was impatient. He said no progress was ever made in this world if people hummed and hawed all the time. He said if Diogenes had only gone on with his barrel idea, they would have had motor cars in ancient Greece two thousand years ago. And look how far ahead we would be now?

So the electrician ushered us upstairs two flights to the attic.

“Be careful,” he warned us. “He has an automatic door opener that works when you push the bell, but unfortunately, the door opens out. You have to reach away out, push the bell and then jump quickly back.”

Jim did so, reaching far. The attic door burst open violently.

“Come in?” said a mild voice.

And we stepped cautiously into a very curious room. The inventor sat at a desk at the far end, a small elderly little man with thin wispy whiskers, glasses resting right on the end of his nose, and a look about him as if Santa Claus had had an older brother who never had the meals Santa Claus had, nor the opportunities in life.

The room was too wonderful and fearful to take in, even in many long steady glances. Things new and old, like cow bells old and green and bright new squares of oil cloth suspended like banners from the wall, and all colors of the rainbow. There were chairs built in curious sections, like easy chairs, only they looked dreadfully uneasy, as if they might, at a sharp word, either collapse entirely or close up like a book.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in,” said the old inventor, kindly. “What can I do for you?”

There were test tubes dusty and filled with forgotten liquids; baskets of empty bottles, a weird-looking machine like a gum slot, with a pair of rubber lips, shaped like human lips, and over the slot a sign reading: “Lipstick your lips, any shade, 1c.”

There were baby carriages with engines on them and a human figure made of the stuff store window dummies are made of, and it was covered with a sort of fuzz, light blue.

“Be seated, gentlemen,” said the inventor, indicating the chairs. Jim cautiously eased himself into one of the curiously jointed chairs. Nothing happened. So I got into another, and immediately a phonograph began playing “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”

I sat up, but the old gentleman, delighted beyond measure, assured me:

“Aha, you’re astonished, sir. That is my slumber chair. Adjustable to any angle. And will play any record.”

“And my friend’s chair?” said I.

“Ah, that is a masterpiece,” said the old fellow, “a masterpiece. Now, sir, just to demonstrate, will you be so good as to lift your feet and place them on the edge of my table. Please. I will not mind. Just put your heels on my desk, there.”

Jim obliged.

The instant his feet touched the edge of the table, the chair slowly began to collapse, not suddenly, but, with creaks and squeaks, gently began lowering itself flat on the ground, with the painful but certain slowness of those freight elevators you sometimes meet up with in warehouses.

Jim leaped out of the chair in time to save being dropped to the floor, where the chair subsided in complete exhaustion.

“That,” said the old gentleman, “is my solution of one of the nastiest problems of modern business. The person who comes into your office and sets his feet on your desk.”

“Wonderful,” said Jim, sitting down on the edge of a box.

“What is that human figure in blue fuzz?” I inquired.

“The time has come,” said the old gentleman, “in fact it had come some thirty years ago when I invented that thing, when we humans need no longer be bothered with all the fuss and fatigue of dressing. Do you realize, sir, that the average man has to put on thirty-nine different articles of clothing before he can go out?”

“You see before you,” said the old gentleman, “the perfect solution of a modern problem. It is the Asbestos Dip. Perfectly insulating. Warm in winter, cool in summer. You can set up a small tank in your boudoir. Asbestos Dip may be purchased in any fashionable color, brown, blue, tweed, and so forth. And all you do, whenever you feel like it, is dip yourself in the tank, and there you are, newly clothed for a week, or a month, whichever you require.”

“But, er, ah,” said Jim.

“I know, I know,” hastened the old gentleman. “You are thinking of the bath. But you forget that, being perfectly insulated, you neither perspire nor get goose pimples. We require baths, why? Only because our clothes cause us to exude moisture, and because our clothes being porous, with gaps, openings, slits and apertures in them, permit dust and dirt to come in contact with our bodies. Asbestos Dip being perfectly impenetrable, even by the finest dust, keeps the human body as clean and pure as the hide of a bear keeps the body of the bear.”

He explained the baby carriage, the bells, the roller skates under a curling stone for curling in the summer, the real dog which could be trained to serve as an iron dog on the lawns of old-fashioned homes, the door bell that could be so adjusted, on going out for the day, to squirt ink on all callers so that you could later know who had been to visit you in your absence: the lipstick vendor, a magnificent device which would enable young ladies, anywhere, to dress their lips simply by briefly kissing a pair of rubber lips on the slot machine.

“There would be six sizes of lips on the machine,” explained the dear old man, “representing all the standard sizes and shapes of mouths. On putting one cent in the slot and pressing the button of the size and color you want, the lips protrude from the machine, you kiss the rubber lips and presto, as simply as a rubber stamp, you have your lips perfectly rouged. Isn’t that a caution?”

And it sure was. So we got down to work, and I showed him my drawings. He studied them intently. I told him, as far as I dared, just how the little generator was to have the two small rods working, attached to garters.

Suddenly the old chap’s face lighted up.

“My dear sir,” he cried. “Of all the coincidences! Why, this is the very core of my famous invention of 1903, called the “1903 leg-action generator.’ I had the most wonderful scheme for putting Niagara Falls back where it belongs as a beauty spot. Wait till I get my model.”

He came back, carrying a little jigger with two rods and two gentleman’s garters.

“See,” he said, strapping the garters on, and suspending the generator between his knees so that the two rods were fastened to his knee joints.

“Did it work?” I asked, numbly.

“We made the dreadful discovery,” said the little man, “that the entire human race is either bow-legged or knock-kneed. The bow-legged ones had a lateral action that wouldn’t work the rods at all. And the knock-kneed ones couldn’t get the generator between their knees. Strong men, who were backing me in that invention, broke down and wept like children when we made that discovery. Still, so it goes. Nothing is ever lost. One discovery leads to another.”

We said good-day.

“Well,” I said, when we got outside, “now we can turn our minds to the ice going out.”

“Aw,” said Jim, “the heck with it. Let it go to waste. We’ve got too much power in the world as it is.”

So we went down a few stores to where they have this year’s seed catalogues spread out in the window, all the different pages showing, zinnias, nasturtiums, beets, mammoth oats, everything.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story has a lot of the early 20th century notion that nature needs to be exploited and harnessed to do humanity’s bidding. It was also before it was realized that asbestos was toxic.

The various “inventors” mentioned included George Stephenson, Isaac Newton, William Harvey, and Diogenes. When “Farragut” was mentioned, I think they meant Michael Faraday. David Farragut was a United States Admiral during the U.S. Civil War.

The story was repeated on February 1, 1941. It was unusual in that they even repeated the same drawing and title.