Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-01-13

day, in many branches of industry, is
nearly obsolete. Piece-work affords OPP
portunity for experts, and for all skilled
/ and nimble workmen, to obtain pay In
proportion to their merit, not according
/ to the number of hours worried through.
They are not all tied down to one scale,
| including the dull, weak, and the most
inferior workmen at the same price.
The eight hour law is sometimes sup
ported by the argument that the work
j ingmen require the two hours OF ad-
ditional leisure for educational and moral
culture. This may be at once admitted,
/ but it will then by no means follow that
the culture will be thus secured, and it is
/ not difficult to show that it will not be.
Except among trained students, though
men are never too old to learn, it is to be
/ more than suspected that there is little
scholastic culture acquired by those who
have passed their majority and entered
upon the active duties of life, and moral
culture as we'll as religious finds its no.
blest opportunities in youth, and after
that its best teachings on the Sabbath, a
day of Christian rest. A full day, a week
or month at a time, exclusively devoted
to study, by such as have the will, in adj
/ QltlOu 10 medub dAu tAAuc, Will 10 AOuhu
of far more value than the scraps of time
found on the edge of weary labor. To
have thing done well it must always be
one thing at a time. Mathematics in
'sbroken doses" confer few benefits
Americans have no veneration for mere
wealth. "Each man." to quote the words
of Ruskin, "says by posture and epithet,
Il am as good as you" Capital is here
acquired easily and is spent freely. Even
it's owners show it very little reverence.
Laboring men work no more days and
hours then than they want pay for, and
the great majority get it. They live most
| frequently on their own land, dwell in
their own homes, hold deposits in savings
banks, subscribe to newspapers and mag
azines, travel on railroads, send their
children to school, do their own voting
and their own thinking, and in clean ap-
parel attend church on the holy Sabbath.
Masters of all the primary elements of
good living, they also are not Strangers to
many of the luxuries of life, one of which
| is freedom to make their own bargains.
They will thank no one for legislative
permit to work more or less. To maintain
their positions in life and enjoy its con-
veniences and comforts, they know re-
quires work, and they are willing to work
for its full compensations. In proportion
to the ample field, labor here is not
abundant, and is relatively dear especial
| ly skilled labor is dear. No wave of emf
grafton which rolls in from the Atlantic
creates any flood, but each one is at once
absorbed by the great West, and leaves
very little drift on the shores. There is
no army, not even squad of professional
paupers. The winter season does not find
men, women and children starving for
want of employment, and public work
houses are rarely known except by the
image reflected of examples found else
where. We have no annual "hiring fairs, -
as in England, where meu and women,
boys and girls, gather 20 be hired for only
six months at from twenty to ffty-fve
dollars, and for the pick among able-bod-
led men at seventy dollars. What would
Americans think of the civilization which
| tolerates such scenes as recently occurred
at Kendall, "the like of which," London
paper says, "goes on in very many British
towns besides pretty little Kendall ?"
To argue that as much and as good
work can be done in eight hours as in ten
is to argue against the most obvious facts,
uho 10 AlO uIOIC IL uc bLdu lu5I TUG luAJOT
term is just equal to the minor, or that
ten quarts can be crowded into a peck
measure. The history of mankind shows
that health, power, and longevity have
not been diminished by long hours of
labor so much as by fast labor, and hur-
ried work is proverbially i'll done. Fast
men prematurely wear out, not steady
men. Intense, not regular, application
kill both mind and body. Walter Scott
might have brought forth his usual annual
work for years, but when oyertaken at
the age of ffty.fve by financial ruin. he
tasked his great power to create and save
for his heirs an ancestral home, and by
debt of $750,000, the Wizard of the
lost his life. Meteors strike out all their
brilliancy in a single flash and are ex-
hausted, while the sober planets, ever
mildly radiant, roll on to the end of time.
But workingmen have right, singly
or by association to set their own price
upon their labor. Time ia the working
mems capital exclusively but they must re-
member that if not discreetly used it cam
not be stored up, and its value III the
twinkling of an eye departsforever. They
have a right in time of peace to stipulate
for wages in gold or its equivalent. Paper
money is their bane. They have the
right to join cooperative unions. Beyond
wages a participation in some annual
share of the profits of the business where
in they are employed would secure their
hearty good will to do the most and not
the least in their power, and not only pro-
mote the welfare of workinen, but it
would in the end prove beneficial to all
those who might be induced to furnish
capital for such enterprises on such
terms. Yet, as / have already intimated,
the greatest boon which can be conferred
| by the State upon its people, and one
which workingmen should insist upon
having, is sound elementary education,
made compulsory and free of cost to every
child within its domains Thus only will
higher sphere of usefulness be reached
and higher social organization be main
tanned.
This eight-hour class of legislation in
! the nineteenth century, no more~than the
| shilling-a day class, becomes Americans,
never supposed to be very timid in boast
! ing of their progress. To make war upon
| foreign nations because they will not pay
the price of bushel and half of wheat
| for one bushel would hardly be justified.
| Then how shall we defend law to com
pei the wages of full days work for any
thing less
There can be no prosperity without
work. Our reputation as people of
universal industry has been honestly won,
and the proposal to reduce our measure
to an infexible standard of eight hours
per day for the weak and the strong, the
dull and the dextrous, or to curtlil our
aggregate product by more than one-ffth,
if this rule were to be universally adopted
and applied to machinery as well as to
men, will be>to debase our character for
industry just as we have developed our
highest powers, and the debasemeht will
occur at that most inausT icious moment,
the close of war rawing heavily upon
our national capital, when every brain
and every muscle of our country should
be actively at work for the speediest
/ reparation of the rayapes of the conflict.