. Did you ask
why we should have a union? I'll tell you why: because we didn't have
one; because employers have not thought of us as human beings, but as
human derelicts. A starving man who doesn't want to steal and is ashamed
to beg will sandwich for thirty cents a day ten hours; and he can't
always collect his wages. And who is going to fight for him? When you
think of the importance of all advertising, do you consider the peculiar
picturesqueness of advertising through sandwiches? In the Middle Ages
they had their heralds and their pursuivants--the sandwich-men of
feudalism; and later the town criers; and later still, _us_. Do you know
in what esteem sandwich-men are held in the south of France and in the
Orient? Did you know that sandwich-men take the place of bells on Good
Friday in Moldavia? Do you know why there are no commercial sandwich-men
in Russia or in Spain? Did you ever read what Confucius wrote about
'Those men who with letters on their garments dispel the ignorance of
buyers,' and a lot more? Did you? Did any clergyman ever tell you that
sandwich-men are, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alluded to twice in the
Old and five times in the New Testament? Don't you think that as
intelligent investigators of industrial conditions and of the submerged
tenth it would be worth your time to come to our annual dinner and hear
our version of it? And also see how starving men eat the first square
meal of the year?"

Of course it was pure inspiration and, as such, impressive.

"Yes, sir," respectfully replied the _Evening Journal_ man--a tall, dark
chap with gold-rimmed spectacles and a friendly smile. "What's the name
of the restaurant?"

"Caspar Weinpusslacher's Colossal Restaurant," said H. Rutgers.

"Spell it!" chorused the reporters; and H. Rutgers did, slowly and
patiently. At once the _Evening Journalist_ rushed on to telephone the
caption of a story to his paper. That would enable the office to get out
an extra; after which would come another edition with the story itself.
He was the best head-line reporter in all New York.

Long before the National Street Advertising Men's Association reached
the Colossal Restaurant, Caspar Weinpusslacher converted himself into a
Teutonic hurricane and changed thirty short tables into three, long
ones. On his lips was a smile, and in his heart a hope that glowed like
an incandescent twenty-dollar gold piece, for Max Onthemaker had rushed
in breathlessly and gasped:

"He