The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-17
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Edtoriai Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics Compiled Every
DAY Tor the Evening Telegraph.
OUT OF WORK.

clally-and many more at this season than at
others. They may generally be classified as
follows
1. Those who know how to do nothing:
9. Those who can do something, but no.
thing that any one wants TO pay them for
doing;
3. Those who are not willing to do what
they can do and might find to do, but will
only work at something lighter, more gen.
teel, and better paid;
4. Those who insist on staying where there
is no work for them, instead of seeking it
where it might be found.
This last-named class is very large, very
miserable, and quite undeserving of sympa-
thy or pity IF one were to go blubbering
about that he had fshed for pearls in Long
Island pond, or dug for gold in the South
Jersey sands throughout the last six months,
yet had not realized one cent from the pro-
ceeds people would reasonably ask what
right he had to squander his time on such
hopeless folly; yet day by day we hear this
story:-"I came to New York in search of a
clerkship-have been looking for one intently
these three months-have not yet found an
opening-have spent all my money, and
pawned my spare clothes-won't you lend me
money to get away with" What right has
one who acts thus madly to help or sympathy?
What right had he to idle away genial months
in evidently hopeless quest of employment in
an overcrowded pursuit, when he might have
found work in a week if he had chosen to do
such as was needed instead of persisting in a
vain quest of that which was not?
There is not man or woman too many in
the world, and not one more than might have
work if he or she would seek it Alright
Though this is the dull season, yet there is
still work to be had. But few days since
planters were in New Orleans hiring stout
laborers (white) to work on sugar estates for
$40 per month and board. This is high
rate but there are tens of thousands of mere
dlggers now grading new railroad tracks at
$3.50 to 81 per day all over our country Men
are wanted to cut timber in Michigan, Penn
sylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the
South chopping cordwood is Just beginning
In the vicinity of most railroads. ditching and
draining were never more active than now,
and good deal of building or repairing is in
progress all over the country. Here and there
work stops and men are discharged; as the
premium on gold declines nearly everything
else is sold cheaper, and wages share the
downward tendency; but there is still work
for those who can do and will seek it Alright.
But here is the difficulty. Too many imi-
tate the drunken vagabond hired to dig pota-
toes, who, reproved for not doing SO, managed
to hiccough out, ''If you want your potatoes
dug, just fetch EN- on; l amt going to run
all over the lot after them" They squat down
in great cities till they overcrowd them, and
then grumble that work is so scarce and rents
so high-both their own fault. Here are
scores of servant girls applying to the Labor
Bureau for places, but when offered them
few miles in the country, turning away
abruptly, and saying, Il won't leave the city"
Had they been born here, this would not seem
so irrational and infatuated.
We object to this crowding into cities that
it tends inevitably to the degradation of
labor. The employer and the employed
should stand on a footing of perfect equality
SO far as obligation is concerned. A wants
BIS work; wants AS money; they make
bargain and exchange commodities to mutual
advantage. If b does his work faithfully and
N we'll, he is under no more obligation to A
than is under to him. But if A don't want
BIS work, but is importuned into hiring him
in order to keep him out of the almshouse,
then the case is bravely altered. B is now a
cringing beggar, eating the bitter bread of
dependence and virtual charity. He has
sunk from manhoods high estate, and has
dragged labor a good way after him. Every
working man is injured and degraded by him.
There are q hundred thousand men in this
city to-day who ought to have long since
found their way to the public lands, each Sc
cured a quarter-section thereof, and made of
it home evermore. Had they done this,
thew would have aided to elevate labor instead
of conspiring to drag it down.
'sBut,' the slothful man says, ''there is o
lion in the way" Tt costs money to reach
the public lands; it costs years of patient
earnest labor to make of wild quarter-sec
tion a comfortable home. The poor pioneer
must put up very rough log cabin and bt
content with its shelter for years; he mus
live on coarse, simple food, and wear coarse
patched clothing; and he must work hare
through nearly every hour of light, Sunday
excepted. He must ''work OUT for thu
means which pay for breaking up his virgin
prairie; if he gets each acre broken for
n week of his own faithful labor, he must b.
thankful The life of thrifty pioneer is b,
no means an easy one; and it will take hin
from ten to twenty years to improve an,
fence his tract so as to secure him the com
forts of life. And yet there are hundreds o
thousands now living who have reason bitterl
to lament that they did not attempt this tel
to thirty years ago.
every ones duty to find something to do an
then do it. And it is very dubious charit
and worse economy to set men or women t
feed them and start them along to some plac
where their services are really needed.
In summer, when almost every farme
wants more help and pays good wages, an
when travelling is luxury, even though 20
go afoot and sleep under tree, thousand
cling to the city in idleness, vainly lookin
for something to do" Now that winter
at hand, this class say, why should we 6
into the country The weather is inclemen
and nobody wants to hire u.s. Perhaps no
il you are dead beat who can do nothing
but you should look for labor where 1t ma
4 .laAwn