Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1854-12-09
Support your own Mechanics.

Support your own Mechanics.
The following sensible remarks, which
we find in some of our exchanges, we
transfer TO our columns, and we earnestly
commend them 10 our readers in the town
and parish:
There is no truth more undeniable than
that it is the bounden duty of every COM
munity to support its mechanics They are
a worthy and indispensable class of men,
and we find no town or village fourishing
without their aid. Indeed their presence or
absence is always true index of the con-
ditlon OF the place-whether il is advancing
in wealth and importance, or sinking in
decay. Whenever we pass through a
village and hear the frequent sound of the
carpenters hammer, the clink of the black
smiths anvil-that village, we say to our
selves, is fourishing. 1t cannot be other
wise, for the producers are actively en-
ployed, and outnumber the consumers.
Whenever and wherever this is the case,
the people are growing wealthy, and at the
same time training up the rising generation
to habits of industry and morality. Where,
If village pursue the opposite of this
course-negects its mechanics and supports
those of some foreign town-those who can,
will be compelled to go 10 some other place,
and those who are compelled by the force Of
circumstances to remain, will become idle
and igate-they will cease to produce
and be consumers-in few years they
become beggars and their children ignorant
and vicious.
If there is any truth in the assertion that
we ought, as nation, to give the preference
to domestic manufactures the fact is
equally true with regard to the community;
both are sustained by the same arguments.
If merchant would have around him SUBJ
stantial customers, let him by every means
in his power support and foster the me-
chanics of his village, and as they become
more wealthy their custom will increase,
especially in those articles on which he
makes the greatest profits, for it is un-
diniable, that as men become more wealthy,
they also become more luxurious, and no
merchant will deny that articles of luxury
always afford the greatest profits. The
habit of importing large quantities of cheap
and halfmade articles of competition with
our village mechanics, is short sighted and
W lUuS, UUlh dS t1AC uAOCLoIilC 1uo
consumer; and the merchant would look
further into the operation of things, he
would find that he crossed the path of his
own interest by doing so. Let the merchant
bring the case to his own door, and he
perhaps may better understand it; suppose
that every individual who possesses the
means, and who uses in his family four Or
five hundred dollars worth of goods per
annum, should instead of buying of him at
retail, go to some city wholesale establish
ment and purchase his years supply
would he not in bitterness condemn such an
illiberal course, and would he not say to him
with truth that he was warning against his
own interest, by destroying the business of
his town and giving it to another: and that
his lit,leness would leact upon him in double
fold by the decrease of his property and
business! So, in the case above instanced,
could the mechanic say the same to the
merchan.-we say, then, let all classes
support each other, and by mutual ex-
changes, keep that wealth at home, which,
if unnecessarily expended abroad, tends to
destrop the business of your neighbor, and
which in turn destroys yours.