Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-03-07
Something that Wealth Can Do for
81 Labor

ROUND the questlons arising from the
relations 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 right to get rich. There
is nota laborer in the country who is
not personally interested in the univer-
sal recognition of this right. The desire
for wealth is legitimate spur to en-
deayor, a good motive to the exercise of
wholesome economy, and a worthy in
centive to honest and honorable work.
1t is not the highest motive of life, but
there Is nothing wrsng or unworthy in
it, SO long as it is held in subordination
to personal integrity and neighborly
goodwill. There always will be rich
men and there always ought to be rich
men. There must be accumulations
and combinations Of capital, else there
will be no fields of labor and enterprise
into which, for the winning Of liveli-
hood and wealth, the new generations
may enter. We may go 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 them.
selves. What they particularly desire is
to become richer than they are. What
they supremely desire is to share in the
wealth which they see others accumu-
lating. This, of course, can never be
done, except by natural business pro-
cess. Practical cooperation and the as
sumption 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 it produces. All the
friends of labor-and there are multi
tudes of them among the rich-will re-
Iolce IN any success which cooperation
and combination of small savings will
give to it. There is no other mode of
procedure that is healthy or even legiti-
mate. Strikes and Trades Unions and
all organized efforts for forcing up wages
are just as unnatural and outrageous
and tyrannical as combinations of capital
are for the reduction of wages or-what
is practically and morally the same-for
raising the cost of the means of living.
Capital has something to complain of
as well as labor in the matter of service
and wages. 1t is undoubtedly and I'M
deniably as difficult to get days work
done by skillful and conscientious hands
as it is to get fair reward for such
work; and SO long as this shall remain
true it becomes labor to be modest and
somewhat careful in its demands.
After the Chicago fire, three friends
met, two of whom had been burned out
of house and home and the immense
accumulations of successful lives. One
of the unfortunates said to the other
two: +" Well, thank God, there was some
of my money placed where it couldn't
burn l''-saying which he turned upon
his heel cheerfully. and went to work
at his new life. His brother in misfor-
tune turned to his companion and said :
" That man gave away last year nearly a
million of dollars, and if l had not been
a fool | should have done the same
thing" This brings us to what we wish
to say in this article, viz: that it is not
wealth that is Objectionable, all the
wealth that man can use for his own
benefit and the benefit of his family and
heirs-but the superfuous wealth, that
is both care and curse-superhuou
wealth that goes on piling up by thous-
ands and millions while great public
charities go begging, while institutions
of learning languish, while thousands
are living from hand to mouth, while
the sittings of churches are SO costly
that the poor cannot take them, while
halls and libraries and reading rooms
are not established in communities in
which they are needed to keep whole gen.
erations of young men from going to
perdition, and while thousand good
things are not done which only that SUI
perhuous wealth can possibly do.
What, in fact, does the laborer want
He would like wealth, but will be en-
tirely content (if demagogues will let
him alone), if he can havesome of those
civilizing and elevating privileges which
only wealth can purchase. 1.-THE laborer,
at the close of his day or week of toll,
can walk into nice reading-room and
library, in which he has the fullest right
and privilege; if, on Sunday, he can
enter church which superfuous wealth
has made his own; if he can send his
ambitious and talented boy to college,
and so give to him the same chance to
rise in the world as that enjoyed by the
son of his employer; if he can feel that
if great disaster should come upon him
there are funds which wealth has pro-
vided to save him from want-funds
which he knows were dug by labor out
of the earth, and are thus returned to
labor by those who have accumulated
more than they need, he will be content
and happy, and he ought to be. Now
let us 60 still further, and declare that,
as a rule. he ought to have all these
possessions and privileges. 1t is rea-
sonable for him to ask for and expect
them. For this country to go on as it
is going now, is to bring upon it even a
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