The Harvester World: Volume 3, number 8, August 1912

              The Harvester World

23

THE COLLECTION MAN

By E. R. Gruger, Collection Agent, Wichita, Kan.
We of the collection department seemingly occupy the position of the court of last resort. That is, after all other departments ol the business— manufacturing, traffic, sales, credits, etc.,—have performed their several
duties, it becomes ours to turn the proceeds of that part of the business which is done on the credit or time plan into cash.
Our plan is to follow up closely the claims which are not paid promptly rather than the obligations of our many customers and friends who do pay promptly and who have our sincere thanks for a duty well done. The first mentioned, the claims on which payment is de¬ layed— the "submerged tenth" or fifteenth of tlie business — are the ones which are responsible for the gray hairs in the col¬ lection man's head. This is where he can show his value to the Company and where he must exercise his duty as the court of last resort and overcome the hindrances, real or imaginary — mostly imaginary, but sometimes seemingly very real — which stand between him and his object, the collection of the money due the Company.
One must have had the experiences of a collection man before he can appreciate fully the satisfaction, sometimes akin to fiendish glee, felt over accomplishing some difficult collection of some old debt or the obtain¬ ing of security which will result in its collection. These experiences are not always without their humorous side. In the handling of security on such claims many of us have often been much astonished at the very great mortality among mortgaged livestock, particu¬ larly horses, and will remember having been taken out behind the barn and shown a pile of bones when the debtor was asked about the animal on which the mort¬ gage had been given.   There is a case of the kind in
E. R. Gruger
Setting up machines sold by Dragoo, Urie & Brown, of Lucas, Kan—forty in line, all sold
connection with one of our travelers, whose usefulness to the Company, I might add, does not lie in his clerical ability, but in his ability to do things. This man who had been up against the proposition of the disappear¬ ance of mortgaged horses, the mortgage having been given less than six months previously, reported very briefly as follows:
" I demanded the horses ; they said they were dead. I demanded the bones, which were produced."
These bones, it was afterwards found, were not of the mortgaged horses, which were subsequently located and identified by this same collector and the note col¬ lected.
Another case which did not result so successfully is in connection with Little Rock.    A debtor, who moved
K. J. Mt:riilicld, I II C Dealer,  of Bloomingd.ile, Mich,, delivering Hoosier and Empire Drills
to Oklahoma from Arkansas, was one of those who is always going to pay but never gets to the paying point,—^a procrastinator. In response to one of our requests for settlement, he wrote us as follows:
" Oct. 11, 1911. " Dear sirs your note recived. In ancer will say in reply a small part of the companes wagon is here sub- jeck to there will. You can sue if you wish and then pay some cost on the 26 of Aprile. Our town were storme sweept and the house I were liveing in blew down on the darned old wagon and broke boath hind wheels all to pices and the bed in too neare the midel. So come up and pay shop exspence and taker. I owe your Co. $25.40 that I wod pay after a while when I git back on my pegs again.
"Respectfully yours
He never got on his "pegs" again, has left our terri¬ tory, and we are informed returned to "Arkansaw," and we have so far failed to locate him there — some say he is dead.
C. F. Bozell, of Kansas City, taking a flying trip through Kansas