BIO: Jerry Davis, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA 

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                         Great Enough To Grasp Content
              JERRY DAVIS Having Done His Share of The World's Work
                         and Accumulated a Competence, 
                   Had Sense Enough to Step Down and Enjoy Life

THE American traveling abroad who sneeringly remarked to the foreign nobleman 
that "the only leisure classes known in the United States were called 
tramps," doubtless thought that he was giving utterance to an epigram that 
was at once smart and flattering to the enterprise and industry of his 
countrymen. But there is another side to the shield. In the mad race for 
money that has been developed by the last generation there is, it is true, 
but little leisure for anything that does not have to do with the baser 
passions. Time was in this country when the accumulation of money was only a 
means to an end; now it is the end itself. Forgetful of the fact that shrouds 
have no pockets, men rush on in pursuit of the mere counters in the game 
until they tumble into the tomb, never having had a moment of enjoyment in 
all their lives any less gross and senseless than that derived from the 
exploitation of their fellows in the process of accumulating their substance. 
And this is all they do accumulate, for in all their cunning processes they 
are not smarter than their fellows; they are only meaner. They do not owe 
their increase so much to superior intelligence as to superior absence of 
conscience. Not infrequently their victims, whom they despise for being easy, 
are fully aware of all the peculiar processes by which these vampires are 
sucking the life-blood out of their superiors, but would scorn to resort to 
the same methods in order to circumvent them and hold their own. They would 
rather be victims than victors at the price that is paid.
  But not all of the salt of the earth has passed away. Here and there 
remains a gentleman of the old school with sufficiently refined sensibilities 
to know when his legitimate needs have been supplied and who is willing to 
devote a little of the life that God has given him to developing other 
demands of his being than the mere feeding and clothing of his body. And, 
beside this, what more is there that money can do for the purely physical? 
Anything further is simply the savagery of predatory greed that derives its 
real satisfaction not from possession so much as despoiling. And despoiling 
whom? Not the great and mighty, but the helpless and despairing, for the most 
part.
  However, the purpose of this screed is not so much a diatribe on the 
foolishness of spending a lifetime in the pursuit of mere money as to pay a 
tribute to that rara avis, the man who has sense enough to know when to quit.
  The writer met Jerry Davis on the street this morning, and, though he had 
met and looked into his genial face a thousand times before, he had never 
before been so impressed by the rare philosophy of his life. Jerry has been a 
gentleman of leisure for some years now, but the man who takes him for a 
tramp has another guess a-coming. A single grip of that mighty hand of his 
will disabuse the mind of the most skeptical of any notions that he may 
entertain that Mr. Davis has been an idler. In a single handshake he will get 
all the evidence of heartiness, power and capability that he needs to 
convince him that, whatever other reasons this genial gentleman had for 
abandoning active pursuits, laziness or incompetency was not one of them.
  The truth is that for many years he worked purposefully, powerfully and 
like a horse, and when the competence came he was so far superior to most of 
his fellows that he had the wisdom and strength to walk out of the work-a-day 
world and make room for some one who had not yet arrived.
  Forty years or more ago, he began his life's work as a butcher's apprentice 
to Martin Runyeon, one of the pioneer business men of the city. Having 
mastered the business, as he would have mastered the details of any 
occupation in which he might have engaged, he set up business for himself. He 
had all the regard for the virtues of industry and thrift that are supposed 
to be the inheritance of all true Americans - minus the hoggishness of a lot 
of them. He every day killed hogs as a business and means of subsistence, but 
did not acquire any of the peculiar traits usually ascribed to the porcine 
family.
  But is it not rather a reflection on the hog to compare him with the greedy 
human animal that never gets enough this side of the grave? Even the hog will 
abandon the trough when he has eaten his fill, while the other fellow, in his 
excess of providence, will go hungry, perjure his soul and sell the soul of 
his mother to fill troughs of greed for money or power that he can never 
assimilate, and that in many instances only serve to render him ridiculous.
  With Jerry Davis work was a virtue and accumulation a grace. He was serving 
his fellows in a useful and honorable occupation, and when he felt that he 
had performed his share of the world's work he was content to quit that sort 
of thing and spend the remainder of his days in peace and content with time 
for the amenities of life. And as he goes about shedding the light of his 
genial countenance and beaming smile upon less fortunate mortals, who shall 
say that the good he accomplishes is not as great as if he were still 
tramping the treadmill? He does not smile on every one alike. Men who do that 
are usually hypocrites and their smile can always be discounted. If he likes 
you, he likes you; and if he don't, he never pretends to. He has the courage 
of his convictions in all things, and while he never assumes any airs of 
superiority or proclaims his independence, he always does what seems to him 
to be good without much reference to what his neighbors may think about it.
  For all that, he is not selfish or careless of the public good. On the 
contrary, he is one of the sort of citizens that give substantiality to any 
community, and if they all nearly approached him in character, the community 
would be an ideal one. He has never displayed any particular desire for 
political place, though his fellow-citizens have several times sent him to 
select council, and there are traditions that he was a very select selectman.
  Jerry is a joker and he has some humor mixed with his philosophy, and 
always finds a good reason for not regretting the absence of anything that he 
lacks. For instance, on being twitted about his bald head, he remarked that 
there were worse afflictions. He would sooner have no hair than some hair, 
especially red hair. He realizes that life has its compensations and he is 
always happy. May it long continue!

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