The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-26

ried men, too, VINO now 90 TO the corner gro
cery and pass the time by taking q socia-
BILE drink, would save their money and i'm
prove their leisure hours in the company of
Intelligent craftsmen or of readable books
and papers. There are five or ten thousand
carpenters in this city, and they no doubt
have some kind of an association, but we
have never heard that they had a
library, or even meeting room. Suppose,
too, that the shoemakers had q such q place,
where they could meet and discuss the wants
and interests of their profession, instead of
being called together, as they were on Thurs
day night to be lectured by Small wood and
johnson into kind of fever about matters
which they cannot rectify except in given
way.
Every mechanical profession that has a
responsible standing in New Orleans ought
to have a reading-room and lyceum. The
members who are too domestic to spend their
evenings at such places could nevertheless
make use of the Lyceum as a resort to meet
their friends on occasion, and there also they
could rely upon finding such books and such
information as every man sometimes wants
in the course of his weeks work Besides,
it would afford place for the interchange of
thought and suggestion, which never comes
amiss in this world of activity and intelli-
gence. Fathers who are raising sons to be
mechanics and employers who are instruct
ing apprentices, would have place at which
they could trust their charges, satisfied that
nothing immoral would be seen, and nothing
intoxicating would be sold. How many in
ventors might New Orleans turn out, and
how many fortunes might her children amass,
if they only had the appliances to study
scientific mechanics as it is printed and illus
trated in the organs of the trade! 1t is now
almost impossible to find in the city a rela-
BILE or recent book on any of the subjects
that engage the attention of our artisans.
When mechanics of any class assemble to
discuss politics as O branch of their profess
sion, they make mistake. And a sad one,
at that for themselves, for they are only
playing game which some shrewd old Office
hunter is watching to take advantage of.
Politics is greatly misunderstood by the great
mass of people. Almost every man believes
he is fit to be a politician, and he not only
votes himself to be entirely competent to run
the State, but he is willing to trust any of his
neighbors to do the same thing. This is a
great mistake. 1t is the most serious error
into which the otherwise clear-headed people
! of this country ever fell. Politics is pro-
fession, and in providing for its conduct So
ciety should be more careful than it is in
selecting a lawyer, doctor or matchmaker,
because the politician has to make laws to
protect mankind against the uufaithful law
yer, doctor or matchmaker. If all the trades
had reading-rooms at which the members
attended for their mental improvement,
the craftsmen would soon learn that the
evils in legislation about which they COM
plain SO much do not spring from politics,
but from the want of it. A badly mended
watch is never reported as the work of
a matchmaker, but of botch; and so it is
with good and bad government. Character
is the main thing in politics, as it is in every
other trade. If a politician is reliable and
trustworthy in private life, there is no great
danger of his doing much evil in office; but if
he is unsafe in his personal relations, and if
he is not a reliable adviser in general mat
ters, there are great and overwhelming OBJ
jections to his being fastened on the public
as a politician. Mechanics ought to do one
thing, and that is to forget that they are
a class. Politics is designed for the bene-
fit of ALL and the laborer or the professional
man who sets himself up as entitled to enjoy
it's benefits is just the man to be
avoided He develops selfshness in his
egotistic claim, and whether he is a shoe
maker, like Mr.. Mueller, or whether he is
Democratic moutbpiece, like Mr.. Small
wood, he ought to be discountenanced
and discouraged. The true science of our
d popular system is for every man who can not
trust one or the other of the great political
parties, to make himself conversant with
political principles and with the public men
on both sides, and when the day of election
arrives to vote for the best men, satisfied
that the interests of society will never be be-
trayed by good officers. And this is what we
recommend to the shoemakers who had their
ears tickled by Messrs. Smallwood and John
son. These two men have an axe to grind,
and if they can get the shoemakers to turn
the grindstone, it will be so much clear gain.
We do not ask their support as class. We
only know them as individual citizens. II
our platform suits them, let them support
that 1t was made in the interest of all, and
not for any set of men. 1t offers protection
and support to the high and the low, the rich
and the poor, the black and the white. II
the shoemakers want more than this, OF
something special for themselves, they can
not get il from us.