Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1853-07-27
LabOrers for tE,e west.


than it ever was. Never was there so
much work to be done, so many forests
to clear, SO many towns to be built, SO
many tunnels to be bored, or so many
railroads to be laid down. The true
work of the west is only beginning
The fgreat country which has been
growing up for the last twenty years
was but the preliminary step to the vast
nation which is now beginning fully to
develop itself west of the Alleghanies =
The enterprises, chiefly railroads, alrea-
dy undertaken, will cost hundreds of
millions of dollars their consequences
such as new States, new cities, new
towns and still more new railroads, will
lead to an outlay Of as much more, and
thus there is an indefinite amount of
work to be done, and an indefinite "a
mount of money to be expended. Any
approach to an estimate of the amount to
be laid out in improvements in the next
few years is utterly beyond all human
apprehension. But it must go on until
the whole territory is occupied from the
Alleghanies to the Pacific, and can only
end when that territory is finished like
the old countries of Europe.
But the drawback felt universally
throughout the West, is the scarcity Of
hands to do the work contemplated
The annual hundreds Of thousands of i'm
migrants from Europe, are not equal to
it. They are lost iii the vast territory
before them their labor, distributed O.
yer the immense space, is scarcely felt
their predecessors, grown proud and in
dependent, are above the common work
of railroad and canal making, and retire
TO some more ambitious business-per-
haps to keeping groggeries or to running
for office. The supply, therefore, does
not equal the exhaustion from the causes
natural to our country and its social or
ganization, and it would require four
times as MANY immigrants as now come
from Europe, to keep up with the incon-
ceivable strides of Western progress.
But while our brethren over the noun
tains, on the ,prairies, on the shores of
the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Lakes,
are deploring the scarcity of hands, we
have seen in their own cities hundreds
and thousands of able-bodied men who
seem to have nothing on earth TO do
We have them, too, by thousands, in the
E.ast--men created to earn their bread
by the sweat Of their brows, who yet vi
olate the order of nature, the decree OF
Providence, and the rights of society, by
doing nothing, or at least nothing credita-
BILE or honest. They may be seen by
thousands IN Chestnut street and Broad
way; some seedy, shabby and drunken
some mustachioed, white-kldded and per-
fumed-but all the absolute drones of
society, who claim the protection CT the
laws and the dignity Of citizenship, while
doing nothing to entitle them to either.
They may be seen too, now especially
on Pennsylvania Avenue, where hun
dreds of displaced ofice-holders are la
menting their hard fate, and, with hands
folded, are calling for sympathy in their
sulferings. They may be found in bar
rooms, dance houses and bells, living
either by their own wits or by other
peple's want of wits. The public at
large has to support them-perhaps in,
perhaps out of the alms-house /; but in Ell
Their case they are burden on the peo-
pie, tax to good citizens and disgrace
to the community.
If the hundreds of thousands Of strong
armed but ak-headed men of this kind,
who are now living in idleness through
out the land, could be set to work, there
would be no scarcity of hands in the west.
Stop the grog, take off the gloves and
stir up the pride of these drones; put
pick-axes and spades ir their hands, and
send them westward, and there will be
no scarcity of laborers. The west
will receive an accession to its forces,
and the cities and towns east and west
will be rid of worthless, corrupt, and
corrupting set of mortais, who spoil the
morals and increase the taxes of the
people among whom they are now living
in idleness.-[ Saturday Gazette.