New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-05-29
P0G1rICA1 ECONOMY.
BY HoEACE GREELEY.
LABOR PRODUCTION.

Of human faculties and sinews to create, educe'
or shape, articles required by his needs OF ms
tastes. Though Providence is benignant ana
Nature bOunteous, so that it was possible, IN
the infancy of the race, that the few simple
wants of handful Of savages might be fitfully,
grudgingly. satisfied from the spontaneous pro-
ducts of the earth; and though thin popula-
ton of savages is still enabled to subslst, on
n few fertile tropical islands, without regular,
systematic industry-their number being Kept
below the point of mutual starvation by In
cessant wars, by cannibalism, by intanuclde,
and by their unbounded licentiousness-the rule
is all but memorable that human existence,
even, is dependent on human Labor. TO the
race generally, to smaller communities, and to
individuals, God prOfers the stern alternative,
Work or perish Idlers and prOfligates are
constantly dying out, leaving the earth peOplcd
mainly by the offspring of the relatively indus
trious and frugal. Philanthropy may drop a
tear by their unmarked graves; but the idle,
thriftless, improyident tribes and classes VIII
nevertheless disappear, leaving the earth to
those who, by planting as well as by clearing
away forests and by filling, irrgating, fertlzing
and identifying the earth, prove themselves
children worthy OF her bounty and her bless
ing. Even if all things were made COM
mon, and the idle welcomed to perpetual
feast upon the products Of the toll OF the dill
gent, STILL the former would rapidly pass away,
leaving few descendants, and the children OF
the latter would ultimately inherit the earth.
Labor begins by producing and storing the
food and fabrics required to shield men from
the assaults of hunger and thirst, from storm
and frost, from bleak winds and the austerlty
of seasons and climates; but it does not end
here. Mans wants expand and multiply with
his means of satisfying them. He who would
once have deemed himself fortunate if pro-
vided with the means of satisfying his most
urgent physical needs, and "passing rich on
" forty pounds year," learns gradually, as
his means increase, to number a stately man
sion, with spacious substructures and grounds,
costly equipage, sumptuous furniture,
rare pictures and statuary, plate and
precious stones, among his positive needs.
"The heart of man is never satisfied" with its
worldly goods; and this is wisely ordered, that
none should cease to struggle and aspire. The
pOssessOr of vast wealth seems more eager to
increase it than his needy neighbor to escape
from the squalid prison-hOuse of AFFECT want.
The man Of millions, just tOttering on the
brink of the grave, still schemes and contrives
to double those millions, even when he knows
that his hoard must soon pass to distant rela-
tives to whose welfare he is utterly Indifferent
The mania for heaping mp riches, though 1t
has very material, tangible basis, outlives all
rational motive and deies all sensible limita-
tions Many a thoroughly selfish person has
risked and lost his life in eager pursuit of gain
which lie did not need and could not hope to
enjoy
Yet, when poets, philanthrOpists and divines,
have said their worst of it, the love of personal
ACQUISITION remains the main-spring of most Of
the material good thus far achieved on this
rugged, prosac planet Columbus, YEARLY
bearing from court to court his earnest petition
to be enabled TO discover a new world, insisted
on his claim to be made hereditary Lord High
Admiral Of that world, and to 1.-THE of all the
profits that should flow from its acquisition.
The great are rarely SO great or the good so
good that they choose to labor and dare entirely
for the benefit Of others; while, with the multi
tude, personal advantage is the sole incite-
ment to continuous exertion. Mans natural
love of ease and enjoyment is only
overborne, in the general case, by his
consciousness that through effort and self
denial lies the way to comfort and ease for his
downlll of life and more fortunate career
for his children. Take away the inducements
to industry and thrift afforded by the law which
secures to each the ownership and enjoyment
of his rightful gains, and through universal
poverty and ignorance, even Christendom would
rapidly relapse into utter barbarism.
But, though Industry is mainly selfish in its
impulses, it is benefcent, and even moral, IN
its habitual influences and results. Closely scan
any community, and you will trace its repro
bates and criminals back to homes and haunts
of youthful idleness. OF the hundred youth this
day living in a rural village or school district,
or on city block, if it be found on
inquiry that sixty are diligent, habitual
workers, while the residue are growing up III
idleness broken only by brief and iitful spasms
of industry, you may safely conclude that the
sixty will become moral, useful exemplary men
and women, while the forty will make their way,
through lives of vice and ignominy, TO crimi-
nails, drunkards', or paupers' graves The world
is full of people who wander from place to
place, whining for Something to Do" and
begging or stealing their subsistence for want
of work, whose fundamental misfortune is that
they know how to do nothing, having been
brought up to just that, They are leeches on
the body polite and must usually be sup
ported by it in prison or pOor-house and finally
buried at its cost, mainly because their igno-
rant or vicious parents culpably failed to teach
them or have them taught how TO work Now
they will tell you, when in desperate need, that
they are "rillin9 to do anything" but what
avails that, since they know how to do nothing