Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1869-02-11
From the New York Independence.
LIFE IN THE CITY AND IN
s. .et ~ THE COUNTRY. $40
BY HORACE GREELEY.

/ Widely rega-dedas an Unreasonable and
inconsistent contemner of migration to
thecities, especially to.:New York I would
fain be moro correctly understood. let
my consistency take care of itself,
tefS6ugls 1t be the fact that my home is,
and for sixteen years has been, on farm
in the rural township of Newcastle,
Westchester County N. T., where [
spend all my leisure and some of my
working hours, mean to spend mOee and
more yearly and hope to close my eyes
/ in death. Let that pass, however; and
let us attend to q matter of wider and
graver consequence. islr .
Understand that fully concede the
right of every rational adult to live just
weere he or she will, provided that this
does not involve resort to crime or beg
gary. If you think you can do better
here or elsewhere, come and go as you
may see fit. But-do so in full view of
these following facts 1-
l. There is now, as there almost ever
is, an immense surplus of unemployed
capacity in this city, and 1 presume in
most cities. Men and women, young
and older, are ever pacing the stony
sidewalks of our streets, looking anx-
iously for something to do" i judge,
from what 1 have seen and heard, that
there never so few as ten thousand per-
sons seeking employment in New York;
while in Winter the number is swelled
to many scores of thousands. 1 estimate
that there are at this moment Half
Million persons within sight four City's
steeples who are hungry and destitute
because they Tor their parents) can find
nothing to do. e2sc n ta
III. Certain favorite pursuits are always
overstOcked. The demand for book
keepers, clerks, music-taachers, sopysts.
governesses, and other employees in v0-
cations}ranked more intellectual than
moro manual labor, is always far short
of the supply. So many aspiring, san
guiRe young men are eager to gain
foothold here on any terms, that they
inevitably underworld each ether, to
their generable inevitable loss. cannot
doubt tina, if A. 7. Stewart should ad-
yertise for clerks at 800 per anum and
board, he would have five Thousand ap-
plicants before the weeks end. And 80
Of copying and music-teaching.
III. Labor is inevitably degraded by
this incessant scramble for place. am
life-longworker for others, as we'll as
buyer of others work and insist on
standing on the same plane with those
I employ and those who employ me. If
my money is not worth their work, if
nay work is not worth their money,
we'll, if pay fully and promptly for the
should be kindly regarded by the other
party to the bargain, as regard him if
he does right by me; but L am under
no more obligation to him who buys my
work with his money than to him who |
buys my money with his work. The |
obligation in either case is reciprocal and |
equal, and neither party owes sdecial |
obediance to the other. 81
But the scramble for place in the cities |
subverts this natural and healthfuI re-
lation of employer and employed. The
man who begs me to give him something |
do, whereby he may win
bread for his famishing babes. approach
es me not as a manly: free-souled work.
er, bit as a sniveling mendicant. He
cannot afford to tell me that the work I
require of him is too hard, or too poorly
paid, or Inconsistent with noblsness of
soul. He must earn the greenbacks
fling him, in half-contemptuous charity,
that It Ia not made more bitter.
He has andicated manhood, and donned
the badge of serfdom, by choosing to
where he is not wanted, rather than
where he Is.
For there Is work enough for every one
who will seek it where it is, rather than
where it is not. He who has not provi-
iei beforehand for the inclement season
now upon US may, indeed, have difficult
" in finding work just now; but no one
Who takes hold with alacrity of what
,ver comes to hand, and keeps a keen
ookout for chances ahead, ever need be
. month idle. The trouble is that more
persons insist on living by trade, by
or in some other way that in
,olves little manual effort, than it has
pleased God to accord such employment ,
"a accords with their fastidious tastes; so