The Placer herald., 1872-12-28
LABOR OMNIA VINClT.

We find the following able, appropriate
and timely article in the Napa Reporter and
commend its teachings to all our readers.
Unquestionably has labor conquered the farmer
in California. Commencing on the San Joaquin
the vice has frightened all over the State, and
unless immigration will relieve onr farmers, they
will have to farm their lands within themselves
1t is rather dismal lookout for farmers gener
ally and will hurry up that inevitable result, the
cutting up of our lands into small farms on
which the farmer can become almost independent
of help Scarcity regulates demand; Therefore
it is futile for farmers clubs to try and establish
a fixed rate for labor The Chinese, already aware
of the scarcity of white laborers, are not slow to
take the advantage and the evils of Chimes immi
grafton which has driven so many white men to
the East is beginning slowly but surely to tell
on the community The dearth of boys wiling
to work farms, is great blowto farmers IN
the supply of help. Like everything else Il
there be no reservoir to draw from, the supply
diminishes before the demand like snow beneath
the sun. Men hire to work who arrived here
penniiess and when they receive little money
so many avenues are opened to them that few
flil to avail themselves of chance to do business
on their OWN account. Thus there is an endless
round of hiring and fresh faces appear on the
farm each succeeding year. That Chinese labor
Will not do on the farm for outdoor work, rs an
acknowledged fact; cooks they will do, but white
women are infinitely better, so that the ''heathen
Chinee, is, after all, only make-shift. Speak
ing of boys, the wonder is, where all the boys 60
to; few, if any are to be found the farms at
tow
found there, it is true, but they are the exception
to the rule. City boys or rather the boys in the
country towns. seldom leave the town limits, and
vet not many of them work in the various branches
of trade open to them here. What do they do
then? Alasi the kindiess of parents, the ndul-
gence Of friends makes each FOR them pande-
monium Allowed to run the streets at night, to
loaf around by day they fail into the society OF
questionable characters who, though they may
never be found guilty of murders in the first de-
gree, still have stied the breath of honest i'm
pulse and strangled the desire to work IN many
Il precious sou, upon whose future many fond
mothers hopes we're based and over whose young
life the brightness of that mother ; love has
| poured in vain. Wrecked you may find them
! either by day or night, in some back room behind
! a whisley nil playing cards for dimes or quar-
t rs W Tia all the ardor and resumption of then
| elders in crime This is fancy picture. Il
! is. unfortunately, too true, though the father OF
| the mother may not know the whereabouts Of
their young hopeful, and think that in him per
| fecton is linked With innocence. Labor would
be the ''conquering hero" whose coming would,
! by giving employment to these boys, draw Their
attention from the dangerous plays and hoodIum
! tricks that laziness enjoys. Why do parents allow
! thir children so much liberty, and while gyne
! them an education, throw all the care of then
| boys upon the teacher Why not require from
| them strict an account of their time out Of
school as during school hours? or, why send
| them TO school all the time. to the utter exclusion
! of their learning work? Does the mother allow
| her girls to haunt the streets by night the sa
| looms by day? Whoud not that family whose
! girls played at nights aound railroad depots b
/ ''scnt to coventry Immediately? Yet nothing
! - said though sometimes thought, of the father
| whose boys nightly training as street gamins
| Put these boys to work. Teach them trade
! If no tladesman viii take them tritl owing to
/ the false impression that good boys are an i'm
probability, if not an impossiblity III California
! take them out the ranches, give them chance
| to exercise their muscle. thereby giving theii
bIais rest, and allowing new paths to BE-
opened to their vision. infinitely more bcneicia
to them and the community ut large than "the
! broad road that leadeth to destruction" "