Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-04-20
TUESDAY MORNING, April 20, 1869.
MECHANICAL PURSUITS AND
WORKINGMEN OF THE
SOUTH.
N U M B L r T W o.

the mechanic ana laDorlnS man, ana
everything that would tend to promote
the interest of this class has always met
our approval and endorsation. The
editor and proprietor himself is me-
chanic and working man and it may
be to some extent owing to that fact
that our sympathies are enlisted in be-
half of mechanical pursuits and those
who follow them for livelihood-and
the additional fast that we consider the
mechanic as one of the chief instruments
of the States future prosperity and
power. We have always looked upon
it that the mechanic arts at the South
have been sadly overlooked, and this
overlooking has proved bad for the me-
chanic and working man, but still worse
for the prosperity of our section of the
country. Heretofore there has been a
| barrier in the way of the advancement
of mechanical pursuits in the South, and
that barrier was slavery. If the slave
could by any possible means have been
kept in the country, exclusively, and
the mechanic in the cities, matters might
have been somewhat different; but even
then, slavery would have been barrier,
as its tendency was to degrade labor,
and whether that degradation fell on ag~
ricultural pursuits or mechanical pur-
| suits, it was equally injurious to all in
terests in the community.
But now that the war has removed
slavery, a fresh field opens up in the
South to her mechanics, and we think it
quite important that the leading spirits
among the mechanics in our section,
should take proper survey of this field :,
with the view of lettering their own
nanditios..n.a tho UonufCfon OF those
who may follow in their footsteps here
after. Heretofore the most OF mechani-
cal pursuits followed in the South ave
been only those the products of whose
labors could not be brought h ere from
the North. This will not be the case,
necessarily, hereafter, if intelligent &C.
ton is taken on the part of the mechan-
les of the South. With their assistance
properly put forth We shall speedily
have all kinds of manufacturing enter
prises started in the South, and con-
Quoted by steam and water power, and
these manufacturing operations will re-
suit in giving all Of our mechanics and
working men plenty to do, with good
wages and will afford employment for
the numberless poor widows and orphans
we have in the land, who now suffer for
want of employment.
We, therefore, hope that some of the
leading minds among our Southern me,
cbanics may be induced to bestir them
selves in behalf of the mechanical in
dustries of our section. And wherever
they find a mechanical operation of any
kind can be introduced with profit, let
them agitate the matter among them
selves and enlist the aid of capital to
enter into the enterprise. For they must
bear the fact always in mind that CAPT.
tai and labor must work together, har-
moniously to produce satisfactory re-
suits.
AS we have stated above we have al
ways favored the mechanics interest,
and this fact has frequently elected the
inquiry from many of our friends who
are mechanics, why we do not come out
and advocate advancing the wages of
mechanics, the eight hour system, and
many Of the new notions that have been
brought into prominence in the North
The reason we have held aloof from
these matters is, because we do not be-
lieve them beneficial to the interests of
our Southern mechanics at present. We
not only believe them not beneficial to
their interests but we know them to be
Numerically opposed to their interests.
Our mechanical enterprises all need fos-
tering now, in order that we may build
them up and make them prosperous by
securing them as much work as they
can do. Our idea is, if we can get the
current of work to set in to our shops
that has heretofore passed our doors
to go North, and filled the Northern
shops and made their bosses wealthy,
and given their hands plenty to do
get this current of work we'll set in to
our shops, so that it will not go North
to be done, and then if you want to
talk about "systems" of any kind, it
will be time enough to talk; but Ger
tainly not now, while our mechanics
have not as a general thing more than
five or six months work during the
year, and the bosses have not got it to
give them, for the very reason that the