BUY OF THE FIRMS WHO ADVERTISE IN THE CONDUCTOR Mr. Pearson's Neōlin Soles Wore Six Times Longer Than His Leather Soles How much money can Neōlin Soles save for you? That depends. Sometimes Neōlin Soles last twice and three times as long as leather soles -and this in the case of $5 shoes. Sometimes they last six times as long-as this letter from Mr. Chas. A. Pearson. C. S., of San Diego, Cal., indicates. And the pictured test below shows that sometimes they last even longer than that: "In September of 1915 I bought a pair of shoes at a cost of $4.50. These shoes had the regular leather soles, which wore out, and they were repaird with Neolin Soles probably some time in November. "Since then I have worn these shoes and these only, with no further mending. Summed up, this means that in the year 1916, I expended not one cent for footwear for my personal use, and this statement holds good for the elapsed four months of this year, 1917. "An examination of the soles does not reveal any break, the appearance today being the same as when the newness wore off, away back in 1915." We have many experiences like that. And we invite yours. And remember, Neōlin is not a substitute for leather. It is a synthetic sole actually superior to leather. And Neōlin Soles are not rubber. Yet they are flexible as rubber. They are ready broken in. They are gripsure when you spring to the moving cars. Neōlin Trade Mark Reg US Pat Off Better than Leather Wore Six Times Better JUL 7 1917 LIARY The Railway Conductor PUBLISHED MONTHLY AND ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE, CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA. SUBSCRIPTION, $1.00 PER YEAR. F. H. PEASE, EDITOR. A. B. GARRETSON AND C. E. WHITNEY, Managers, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. VOLUME XXXIV JULY 1917 3 NUMBER SEVEN We Travel Upon the Fourth Interesting Features of the National Birthday Celebrations as the Traveler Meets Them on the Seas. BY FELIX J. KOCH. When all is said and done, the American people, speaking generally, are not prone to be away from home on the Fourth of July, any more than they'll be away, if they can help it, for Christmas or New Year's day. one Summer vacations are planned for departure "right after the Fourth;" trips abroad, even in peace times, are arranged to allow children time between school-close and leaving to "make ready;" and so, well, not that there is admitted reason for it, but, "might as well stay home for the Fourth." Away down in the heart of the pater and mater-familias having charge of the details, admit it if they will or no, there lurks a fear, still, that the house might be fired by a paper balloon, or else a sky-rocket lighting upon it; and even the spread of the safe and sane Fourth movement has not fully succeeded in assuaging such fears. Thanks to all of which, to repeat, the per cent of people who have traveled by sea or by land on the glorious Fourth is comparatively small and just what may obtain, at such a time, in transportation quarters remains, to the great body of later peripatetics, almost unknown. Take just that most popular of American summer cruises of the eastern seaboard, the trip by boat from Portland, Me., the gateway to the "down east" country, to New York. You come upon the deck just before breakfast, perhaps a bit flurried over the approach of landing time; for the vessel is due to dock at 8 a. m. About you the waterways that admit to New York City are quiet; attractive as ever, with no clue, for the moment, that this may be the Fourth. Here at hand, however, tell-tale pennants speak the story; at foreship and rear long runs of rope extend from deck to mast, and, at proper intervals on these, the signal flags stand revealed in every breeze and go to discount the most attractive bunting. It's a wonderful picture, that kaleidoscope, tossed about, high in the air. and every tourist with a camera snaps first it, of itself; then poses and has some fellow-traveler "snap" him. Meanwhile the good ship rides on and on toward her port and things significant of the nation's birthday begin appearing. A British merchantman lies close by, in the stream, and she has decked out with flags, in courtesy, also. A smaller boat passes, some excursionists aboard; and a cornetist on this plays the national anthem. Strange bit of human psychology that folk will travel many hundred miles out of their way to be home for the Fourth; then, forthwith, go off on some all-day excursion! Meanwhile, to repeat, you continue. Through Hell Gate, with the wild. waters foaming the rocks; rounding to where the big city clusters dense and compact ahead now. A bend and, ahead, the Harlem Bridge is stretching; a turn and Blackwell's Island is at the side. The waters about you grow strangely turgid now; there's an Italian hospital at your right and then, lo, your eye sweeps long, long streets of tenements and here every house seems to have an American flag or two set outside of every window. Somehow or other, perhaps through the very contrast with what is to come, this picture makes a curious appeal to you, to your heart-strings. The lowest of the lowly of big, throbbing New York; foreignborn, the most of them; many not yet naturalized and only coming-Americans, invest their spare coppers in the national emblem, and flaunt this, proudly, joyously, on the country's birthday. Come to port and riding out among the homes of the well-to-do, then the unspeakably wealthy, the fact of its being the Fourth of July will be made conspicuous to you, well-nigh, by the utter absence of even a penny's worth of display. Just before your ship rides beneath the Brooklyn Bridge a fleet of American battleships is encountered. Navy regulations prescribe with care just what they shall wear on the occasion of the day of national independence, and so these grim old bull-dogs of the sea appear quite gay, for once; with long lines of flags set, in broad rows, on an angle into the air, across the length of the ship well-nigh; then down, on an angle, at the other side. Beyond these, through the bunting, the sky-scraper compound for which New York is notable becomes visible; this now wears no trace of the holiday. Off a bit you make out the Statue of Liberty; 'round and 'round this an aeroplane is circling, traveling to greater heights and diverging from the course at intervals; part of a great exhibition contest arranged that the rider may be seen by the great est numbers possible and, hence, set for this especial holiday. Nearing Ellis Island other vessels, smaller craft of all sorts, greet you. Each has taken the contagian from the other and mounted flags on ship-ends, masts. It's indeed a pretty picture, this, of the dense-packed harbor; though you lose much of it in the making ready, of yourself, to land. Such; then, and such alone, the vignettes presenting to the coastwise traveler coming, on the nation's birthday, from the open ocean up to the very docks and wharves of the largest harbor of the western world. In contrast, what occurs upon the Fourth on a liner traveling from such port,--American tourists its greatest asset,-in normal, peace times, offers an interesting foil. The vessel in especial point was a huge foreign liner, headed for Naples and Genoa, with Gibraltar as a side. stop on the way. By noon of the Fourth she was due to reach 39° 26' N. Lat., 58° 43′ Long.; which the prim young officers in the navy blue trousers and the white jackets considered very good speed indeed, by the way. Withal that no idle tourist was presumed to rise at such an hour, already at six the ship's band played the decks; the "Star Spangled Banner" this particular day. Come, then, to breakfast, American preparedness manifested itself in the numbers of the travelers who had remembered that they'd be away from home at this time and so had brought wee flags along. These flags they wore then as bouttonieres, largely; some attached them with pins to the vest lapel; others to the coat-turn itself. Women, as well, donned the colors thuswise; one ultra-patriotic dame, from the midwest, appeared at the table wearing an American flag by way of a tie. Nor would the line permit the thoughtless to be embarrassed by going unprovided. Up on the deck the cabin boys stepped about, carrying little trays of such flags, which they retailed at a nickel apiece. Business was brisk till a Daughter of the Revolution, on |