Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-10-12
NO CHANCE FOR BOYS.
The PenitentTary and the House
of Refuge Their Only Hope.
From the chicago Tribune.l

of Refuge Their OhAy nope.
% - From the chicago Tribune.l
- An advertisement in the Tribune for an
office boy will be answered before 10
O'Clock by not less than 100 applicants 3
: and if the place be left open a week the
number who win seek it will not fall
much shorter 500. This is not only true
of Chicago, but of all other large cities.
There are daily hundreds of boys here,
} from fifteen to eighteen years of age,
who go from store to store, and Office to
Office, arxiously and often piteously
seeking employment. ItSis sometimes
asserted that these boys are idlers, and
that if they wanted to work for a living
they would hire themselves out to learn
some useful trade. But the statement is
not true. Assuming that there are five
thousand boys in Chicago of proper age
to learn mechanical trade, and they
were all presented to the employers, it is
not likely that more than one in thou
sand could find an employer who dare
give him place The right to appren-
otice oneself and to learn a trade is no
longer recognized in the United States.
BOYS may present themselves by legioRs
employees can not take them except at
the risk of closing their shops and having
no other workmen.
The trades-unions of the country have
enacted laws which exclude all except
limited numberSof boys from the me-
chanical trades. Each trade has pre-
scribed the number.of apprentices who
shall be permitted to work. This num-
Der varies in the several trades. Thus,
in one trade, the allowance Will be one
apprentice to five journeymen; and this
limitation is not regulated by the aggre-
gate number of journeymen, but to. the
number employed in any one shop, or by
any one master. Thus, where the regu-
lation is that one apprentice shall be
allowed to every five journeymen, if
there be six, seven, eight or nine jour-
neymen in that shop, only one appren-
tice can be employed. If the employer
have ten journeymen, and thus be entit-
led to take two apprentices, and, for want
Of work or other reason, should dis
charge one encouragement, he must also dis
charge one apprentice. Ordinarily, un-
der that Limitation, where there are two
hundred workmen of, n particular trade
, engaged in city, there ought to be forty
boys learning the business; but, in fact,
these workmen being distributed in
irregular numbers among thirty or forty
shops, it may happen, and as rule tits
3 the case, that the number of apprentices
does not exceed twenty. In all shops
employing less than the regulation num-
4 ber of journeymen, no apprentice is al
:, lowed and thus in ten shops employing
: four journeymen each not an apprentice
i, can be found, nor would one be tolerated.
We are confident that there are thousands
6 of boys in, Chicago To-day who would
willingly learn trade, but no employer
, dare engage one of them. y
s - The evil of this is two-fold. A boy
NAV want to be carpenter, but cannot
gain admission toashop- He must aban-
don all idea OF learning q trade. or he
must accept whatever may be open, and
. thus a boy who would have made skill
ful carpenter becomes an Indifferent
Blacksmith, or one who would be an ex-
cellent machinist becomes wretched
cooper or bricklayer; while the boy
whose taste and inclination would have
made him a finished painter, becomes,
perforce, a aboiler-maker. Boys have no
choice. An expenditure ofSmoney may
purchase an appointment to the Military
Academy but toimake the same boy
plumber or printer involves the up
heaval of the labor system of America.
3 Another form in which this evil affects
society is, that it increases the number of
persons seeking professional and mer-
camille employments. An advertise
ment for a boy, or man to drive grocer's
wagon, attend in a store, to run errands,
serve on the police, or work as a porter,
will be answered by whole regiments of
men and boys. These applicants honestly
seek to labor; they are neither idle nor
lazy, Incorporate nor dishonest; they
more or less, have somebody dependent
upon them for food, home and shelter.
The ranks of this class of unskilled labor
are constantly increasing; they far eX-
ceed any employment that the city af-
fords, and in the winter time they con-
.stitute that immense class of honest, in
dustrious poor, who suffer, not the less
severely because silently, for the want of
fuel, clothing, and, perhaps, food. Be-
longing to this class are the great army
o1 boys, growing up to be the men ofthe
future, wanting to work. but as effect
ually denied the privilege as if they
were conspirators against the peace of So
ciety. In fact, as boy in Baltimore a
few weeks ago informed a public officer,
learn trade is to be sent to the Penlten-
tiary or the House of Refuge" There
are at this time in the reformatory insti-
tutions of Chicago about 500 boys. learn
ing mechanical trades; that is the only
chance the majority of them have-first
to become vagrants or criminals, and
then the State furnishes them with the
opportunity to learn mechanical trades.
There arrive in the United States an
nually from all parts of the world, large
numbers of skilled laborers; these con-
stitute the governing power in all the
American urades-unions. They admit
to membership every fresh arrival; but
they deny TO the native STOCK the prlVl-
Iege of being skilled workmen. The
reasons given for this exclusion are
numerous, but the main reasons are two
l. That the only protection workmen
have against employers is that of strik-
ng; that so long as an employer has a
large number of apprentices, more or
less proficient, he can defy a strike, and
in time can organize body of workmen.
2. That to admit as apprentices all who
wishst learn the trade, is to create an
ducing wages. There may be other rea-
sons, but these embody all that can be
The firstreasons is censured because, in
case of strike, the employer has only at
his command unskilled labor, which upon
becoming skilled, will abandon him
that he cannot carry on business with
such labor in competition with others
having skilled labor, and, though his ap-I
prentices may for time enable him to
protect himself from a total suspension
of business, he must eventually suspend,
if he has no other labor. The second
reason assumes that the man who makes
shoes has monopoly and that until he
Sliac M other man shall ha