Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-05-06
Labor is Honorable.

OF course 1t Is. W no ever a1nrmed tne con-
trary? But it is not enough to say so. This
is not what is wanted. There is anair of pa.
tronage about the phrase (says the Charles
ton Neys,) which we'do not like. They who
most frequently give utterance to it, seldom
put their own hands to the plough. And yet
this is the only sure method of making la
Dor honorable. Show your faith by your
work.
We have frequentlyof late conversed with
strangers, tourists and business men, who
have passed through the State. They express
great surprise at seeing so many, idle per-
sons, whites as we'll as negroes, congregated
at.the railroad depots, and about the villages
and country stores. Nowhere else in ciViiz-
| ed Christendom, save perhaps in Naples and
some other parts of Italy, can be seen so large
proportion of the stout and able-bodiet
population, lettering about on week days.
perfectly at leisure. 1t is not healthy sign,
and every patriot, every right-minded citizen
ought to try mis- utmost to remove this can
ker from our midst.
In almost every country in Europe, where
population is dense and land high-where
single acre not unfrequently rents for forty or
fifty dollars year-the great aim and OBJ.
ject Of the poor man is to gain o homestead,
even though it be on rented land. He will
set to work with awill to make bread for his
family; and, unless the rent is too high, Or
some unforeseen calamity befalls him, he gen.
orally makes support, and "gets op."' Ii
otherwise, he emigrates; goes to the United
States, to Canada, Brazil, Australia, or the
Cape of Good Hope. He goes there not be-
cause hewishes to eschew work, but because
land is cheap, and he may have reasona-
Bile hope to obtain the rewards of his in
dustry.
Our negroes should take example by the
immigrants; and our young white men like
wise should cease to complain of the negro
and Of the worthlessness of "labor." The
surest way Of improving the labor of the
country is by going to work ourselves. All
witnesses agree in the statement that wher-
ever farmer has worked along with his ne
groes, the result was favorable, out of all pro-
norton, in the amount of cotton to the hand
or to the acre, to the places that have been
left to negro drivers" cr have been "oVer'
seed" by hired white man. Nothing is
more common than to hear the complaint,
"What can 1 do? / am just one man; l
have no capital and have no labor" Land
can be had everywhere-that is capital. AS
to labor you have your own two hands; and
in the language of Scripture, whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, dc it with all thy might.
No man should complain of the want of "la-
bor," as long as he has his own strong arms,
back upon. Once let the idIsg ahtA htAHfH 70 jail
dent negroes see you fairly at work, clearing
ground, betting and cutting down trees, roll
ing logs, splitting rails, and making fences.
and they will come and beg to be employed
on any terms.
Only in this way will you vindicate the
dignity Of labor. A very vigorous article in
recent number of the New Orleans Picayune
on idle White Men," concludes with the
following paragraph;
1t is not the idle negro who most curses
the South ; it is the idle white man. That ne
curses the North also, chiefly its cities and
towns, does not make it less true of him here.
There are q few men among US who cannot
work, BY reason of age or intirmity there are
Others, like Hood and Scmmes, who being
crippled or otherwise unfit for hard labor,
should have lighter or intellectual tasks, and
who work ceuragcously and steadily in them
but multitude of those who are out OF em.
ployment might find it easily if they were not
either falsely ashamed to work or too lazy to
be useful
To cure such, and to renovate and recon
struct the South, we need to make idleness
disEonorable.