Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-04-25
The Labor Question.

IIdtCOT itBIGuil0 H6FQN - W enutl
Phillips, in bis talk" recently, at the
Opera House, said 1.-THE two great ques-
lions now before the civilized world to
be met, are Temperance and the issues
between Labor and Capital"
1t must be evident to all thoughtful
men (and women too who have noted
the course of trades unions, strikes
among the operatives in the large min
glg and manufacturing districts through
ott Europe and America, the Paris Com
munc, the numerous labor reform con-
w. 7tions held throughout England, Ger
many, France, and in our own United
States, thst this issue between labor and
capital must soon be met and a con-
clusion reached that shall in some man
ner be satisfactory to the great masses
of laboring people. | have read much
and carefully studied the question in its
various aspects. and find the most rea-
sonable and probable solution in the fol-
lowing article from the graceful pen OF
DR.. J. G. Holland, in a recent number
OF ScFtOttCF = 4huYb~tftc.
Blu. one point not touched on in the
article may bring the subject 'nearer
home" There are thousands Of poor,
steady, patient, toiling men, living from
hand to mouth and supporting large
families, without any hope for the fu-
ture but their continued good health and
life.
Would you let the warm, bright sun
shine of hope in upon their dreary lives
and give them happiness and content
ment, let the wealthy men of Vermont,
and even of the town of Rutland, begin
now and help carry forward this great
reform. Let rich corporations and COM
panies insure the lives of their poor en-
Dloves. Let the wealthy men of the
community look about them and insure
the lives of some of the poor toiling men
who have large families dependent upon
them for comfort, and it will give them
hope and Contentment to think, should
great disasters come and they leave the
labors and anxieties of this life, their
widows and children would not be left
entirely to such charity as the almshouse
affords.
But for the article
SOMETHING THAT WEALTH MAY DO FOR
LABOR"
However much of perplexity may sur
round the questions arising from the re-
latlons of wealth to labor, there are some
aspects of these questions about which
we are sure there ought not to be very
great difference of opinion. A man has
a right to get rich. There is not laborer
in the country who is not personally in
terested in the universal recognition of
this right. The desire for wealth is a
legitimate spur to endeavor, a good mo-
tive to the exercise of wholesome econ
omy, and worthy incentive to honest
and honorable work. 1t is not the high
est motive of life, but there is nothing
wrong or unworthy in it, so long as it is
held in subordinatiOn to personal integ-
rity and neighborly good will. There
always will be rich men and there al
ways ought to be rich men. There must
be accumulations and combinations of
capital, else there would be no fields of
labor and enterprise into which, for the
winning of livelihood and wealth, the
new generations may enter. We may 90
further. and say that there always will
be. and always ought to be, laborers. -
Men are born into the world who are
better adapted to labor with the hands
than with the head-better adapted to
production than trade better adapted to
Execution than invention. Nobody is to
blame for this. 1t is the order of nature,
and, being the order of nature, it is wise.
The world could not move were the
facts different. By the capital and the
business capacity of one man, whole
neighborhoods and towns made up of
laborers thrive and rear their families
and the relations between the head and
the hands of such towns and neighbor-
hoods seem, and doubtless are, perfectly
natural and perfectly healthful.
1t is not with the fact that a man is
rich that the representatives of labor
quarrel, for the representatives of labor
would all like to become rich themselves.
What they particularly desire is to be-
come richer than they are. What they
supremely desire is to share in the wealth
which they see others accommodating
This, of course, can never be done, ex-
eept by a natural business process
Practical cooperation and the assump-
tion of the same business risks to which
capitalists expose themselves, and the
exercise of the same business capacity,
can alone give to labor all the wealth
which 1t produces. All the friends of
1abor-and there are multitudes of them
among the rich-will rejoice in any sue