{"id":7589,"date":"2021-10-22T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=7589"},"modified":"2021-10-22T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T05:00:00","slug":"wages-five-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wages-five-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"Wages, Five Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>From the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/lccn\/sn92053934\/1913-10-22\/ed-1\/seq-4\/\"><em>Rock Island Argus, October 22, 1913<\/em><\/a><em>. By Herbert Kauffman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus it is down in Beelzebub\u2019s books:<br>\u201cAugust the seventeenth\u2014Isabel Brooks;<br>Home in the country; folks decent but poor;<br>Character excellent; morals still pure;<br>Came to the city today and found work;<br>Wages five dollars; department store clerk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wages five dollars! To last seven days!<br>Three for a miserable hall room she pays;<br>Two nickels daily the street car receives;<br>One dollar forty for eating;\u2014that leaves?<br>One forty has quite a long way to reach:<br>Twenty-one banquets at seven cents each!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There! Every penny of wages has been spent,<br>Squandered for feasting and riding and rent.<br>Spendthrift! She does not remember Life\u2019s ills.<br>How in the world will she pay doctor bills?<br>What if she\u2019s furloughed? (There\u2019s always a chance);<br>Isabel ought to save up in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hold! We\u2019ve not mentioned her clothes; she must wear<br>Dresses, hats, shoes, stockings, ribbons for hair\u2014<br>How will she get them? Suppose that we stop;<br>Perhaps it\u2019s as well if we let the thing drop.<br>You good math\u2019matician may figure it out;<br>It\u2019s a matter of figures or figure, no doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carry this picture, it\u2019s better, I\u2019m sure;<br>\u201cCharacter excellent; morals still pure.\u201d<br>What else is written, we won\u2019t try to see;<br>Beelzebub thinks much the same as we.<br>Why, as I live! There\u2019s a tear in his eye!<br>What can make Beelzebub cry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Surely the devil is feeling his age.<br>Look what he\u2019s writing on Isabel\u2019s page:<br>\u201cVirtue\u2019s a luxury hard to afford<br>When a girl hasn\u2019t money enough for her board.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Rock Island Argus, October 22, 1913. By Herbert Kauffman. Thus it is down in Beelzebub\u2019s books:\u201cAugust the seventeenth\u2014Isabel Brooks;Home in the country; folks decent but poor;Character excellent; morals still pure;Came to the city today and found work;Wages five dollars; department store clerk.\u201d Wages five dollars! To last seven days!Three for a miserable hall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[166],"class_list":["post-7589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-rock-island-argus","tag-herbert-kaufman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}