Thank you for visiting SNEWPapers!
Sign up free
Editorial
August 14, 1926
The St. Paul Echo
St. Paul, Minneapolis, Ramsey County, Hennepin County, Minnesota
What is this article about?
This editorial argues that loitering in offices, barbershops, drug stores, and similar establishments disrespects professionals' time, akin to damaging property, and urges mutual respect to prevent trade loss without alienating customers.
Clipping
OCR Quality
100%
Excellent
Full Text
RESPECTING PROPERTY RIGHTS
There are people who believe that if they stay off the neighbor's lawn and don't pick his flowers or apples, or knock down his fence, they are respecting his rights to his property.
The same people have no scruples about lingering in a professional man's office, loitering without spending any money, in barber shops or pool rooms, and idly wasting time in drug or delicatessen stores. With white and black people, the same rule holds good.
Is it not high time that we, all of us, realized that spending a man's time is on a par with spending his money or destroying his property? It may be argued that professional men do not always conduct themselves in their offices so that their time appears to be valuable. In a certain small percentage of cases that may be true, but it is not the general rule.
Most men who have offices use them, or aim to use them for purely professional purposes. When they are attending to their various businesses during office hours, it is the duty of acquaintances to respect their desire to work. An office is not, emphatically not, the place to pay a social call.
In a barbershop that is a barber shop only, there is not the slightest excuse for loitering, and a growth of the practice makes for a dropping off in the trade of the shop which allows it. Even in barbershops which are combined with pool rooms, there is no logical foundation for the evident belief of many non-spending hangers-on that the pool room is a sort of social club.
Those drug stores, delicatessens and light grocery stores whose patronage is forty per cent feminine risk a thirty-five per cent decrease in trade by allowing loitering. Loafers have a way of respecting the rights of other people as little as they respect their own, and in some cases tactful coercion is necessary to get rid of the evil they create.
There is no broad highway between offending prospective customers and cutting off the dead branches which will never yield any material increment. Nevertheless, there is a division point which business and professional people should know and observe, and which the aimless, loitering type of individual should respect.
A greater mutual respect would help greatly to locate that point.
There are people who believe that if they stay off the neighbor's lawn and don't pick his flowers or apples, or knock down his fence, they are respecting his rights to his property.
The same people have no scruples about lingering in a professional man's office, loitering without spending any money, in barber shops or pool rooms, and idly wasting time in drug or delicatessen stores. With white and black people, the same rule holds good.
Is it not high time that we, all of us, realized that spending a man's time is on a par with spending his money or destroying his property? It may be argued that professional men do not always conduct themselves in their offices so that their time appears to be valuable. In a certain small percentage of cases that may be true, but it is not the general rule.
Most men who have offices use them, or aim to use them for purely professional purposes. When they are attending to their various businesses during office hours, it is the duty of acquaintances to respect their desire to work. An office is not, emphatically not, the place to pay a social call.
In a barbershop that is a barber shop only, there is not the slightest excuse for loitering, and a growth of the practice makes for a dropping off in the trade of the shop which allows it. Even in barbershops which are combined with pool rooms, there is no logical foundation for the evident belief of many non-spending hangers-on that the pool room is a sort of social club.
Those drug stores, delicatessens and light grocery stores whose patronage is forty per cent feminine risk a thirty-five per cent decrease in trade by allowing loitering. Loafers have a way of respecting the rights of other people as little as they respect their own, and in some cases tactful coercion is necessary to get rid of the evil they create.
There is no broad highway between offending prospective customers and cutting off the dead branches which will never yield any material increment. Nevertheless, there is a division point which business and professional people should know and observe, and which the aimless, loitering type of individual should respect.
A greater mutual respect would help greatly to locate that point.
What sub-type of article is it?
Social Reform
What keywords are associated?
Property Rights
Loitering
Professional Time
Business Etiquette
Mutual Respect
Social Calls
Trade Decline
Editorial Details
Primary Topic
Respecting Time As Property In Businesses And Offices
Stance / Tone
Exhortative Call For Mutual Respect
Key Arguments
Loitering In Offices, Shops, And Stores Wastes Professionals' Time Equivalent To Damaging Property
Offices Are For Professional Work, Not Social Calls
Loitering In Barbershops Reduces Trade
Drug Stores And Similar Businesses Risk Decreased Patronage From Allowing Loafers
Business Owners Should Tactfully Discourage Loiterers While Not Offending Customers
Greater Mutual Respect Helps Define Boundaries Between Customers And Non Spending Loafers