New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-03-19
Beggary.

4LNCh niou 10 oCObAbS w co"NAc III ~~~~~..
on seine other man. The Patriot loves hts
Country, but loves the dear People all the
more that fat Offices are given or withheld
at their option. He would scorn to beg
money, yet he can easily stoop to begging
support in Conventions and votes at the
Polls. The aspiring youth looks anxiously
round for some rich relative or benevolent
friend of the family on whom he can quarter
himself for the cost Of an education. At
the seminary he forms literary association
of some kind to supply himself and part
ners with periodicals and unblushingly. pro.
ceeds to beg them of the Editors and Pub
fishers whose labor and property the soterie
thus convert to their own use without
rendering an equivalent. So nine.tenths of
our young men, with many of their seniors,
are constantly importuning influential
friends or acquaintances to procure for them
places where they can obtain more money
for less or lighter work. And thus the
world runs over with servility, fattery,
fawning, whereof the radical impulse is
Beggary. The wooden-legged negro or
blind stroller who cumbers the sidewalk
with an unseemly carcase while he whines
out his appeals for charity is but type of
the universal condition, or universal ten.
dency. Everybody is trying to ride on
everybody's shoulders. Can't you get
me place in store, on steamboat, or
railroad? 2 implores the man Of forty good
years, as if his existence depended on some
other man wanting to borrow his brain and
muscles, and being willing to pay him for
their use in the hope of making profit out
of them. 1t seems to be the general notion
that God has given most of US nothing to
do in this world, but left US to perish in in
dolence and want unless some trafficker in
human sinews should fancy that he has
need Of US.
How deplorably this operates on mental
freedom and activity, need hardly be de-
picted. A. B. would naturally like to have
an opinion of his own, but he must stop to
consider whether he can or cannot afford it.
His livelihood depends on his standing high
in the good graces Of this or that local dig.
nitary, who has no patience with cratic
and visionary notions so A. b. swallows
and keeps down his convictions, lest he
should be left with nothing else to swallow.
Hence the world is full of servility, truck
ling and fawning, which have their impulse
in the fact that the majority prefer to live
as satellites rather than step out, AZ in
hand, into the worlds rough places, and
there hew out each his own fortune.
Borrowing money, buying goods on long
credit, begging endorsements, soliciting in
fuence toward procuring an Office, an en-
gagement or q settlement-it is thus that
half mankind are content to wriggle and
crawl through life. Hence the man of mOa-
ey, with or without heart or brains, is infat-
ed into enormous consequence, because ev-
erybody wants to use him. If we were
willing to work on without him till the right
time, the loan we ask of him might be re-
gaIded a. a mutual favor; but while fifty
are scrambliDg for it, he may dictate ais
own terms and still hold us the solely obliged
party. To be in debt or some ones hireling
is regarded BY a majority as their natural
and almost inevitable condition; to be un-
der mortgage seems the natural state of the
poor mans farm, if he has one.
We must gradually cure all this. Our
lads must be taught to prefer laboring for
an education to obtaining it at q charity
school, or by running in some ones debt.
Our young men must De imbued with
preference for forty acres Of rugged will
derness and an ak wherewith to convert il
slowly, steadily into = productive farm, to
a elerkship, a custem-house place or any
subordinate position which is only attained
by interest and favor. Our laborers must
lean to work cheerfully and faithfully on
farm, a railroad or wherever fair wages
may be manfully earned, but with resolu-
ton to be their own masters As soon a,
they can save the means of buying a snug
little place, and, with this view, to post
pOne marriage uktil they have home to
take wife to. Or, better stiil, our young
men must learn TO combine as well as save
their earnings, ahd thus provide themselves
with houses to iDhabit, soil to cultivate and
the best implements Of industry, with Iess
than half the outlay that would be required
if esch were to strive for solitary house
and farm. Half the necessities and def