New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-06-10
WORK as THE FASHION.
for war

more than within this generation that the SEN
timent has been generally and practically
adopted Singulary strange is it that what
almost everybody claims to believe should be-
in fact, so slowly accepted. Medieval history
teaches that those nations were most prosperous
that held work to be honorable, and proved by
deed the sincerity of their holding. The Re-
publics of Genoa and Venice gained their SUI
premacy and highest glory by their wide
spread commerce, in which the first men OF
the State were actively engaged, and werejustly
Dround Of such engagement The distinguished
family of the Medici, who made the annals OF
Florence so illustrious, were largely occupied
in trade, accommodating thereby the immense
wealth which enabled them to be the most
liberal patrons and efficient promoters of their
time of literature and art. Giovanni de Med
lei, who, with mere handful Of men, cut his
way through a MIlanese army besieging Scar
peria, and relieved the town, was merchant.
So was SalvestrO, who, a few years later stood
for the people, and checked the tyranny OF
the mobiles. COsmO, the Father of his Country,
and Lorenzo the Magnificent, were happy to
be known as bankers and tradesmen. Elan
ders achieved her greatness by traffic. Hpres,
and Bruges, and Client, and Antwerp
rose to the foremost rank of European
cities by their commerce and manufac-
lures. Every one remembers Charles VS. pun
ming jest in the sixteenth century, that ne
could put Paris into his Cant glove, and that
it was Clients business burghers who made
the Jest telling by its truth. The Dutch were
Woodworking people when their countless
canals were crowded with the argOsies of all
nations: and their gallant Admiral who beat
the English fleet off Plymouth, burned the
shipping at Sheerness, and compelled the
boosted masters of the sea to sign a treaty Oh
peace at Breda, had been an apprentice to
shoemaker. Napoleon BOnaparte-himself or
humble origin, and the greatest dOer OF mod
ern times-twitted the British with being a
nation of shOpkeepers; and yet to the derided
shOpkeepers, more than to aught save circum-
stance, he owed the thunder-strOke at Water
loo.
All the world over the men who work are
the men who win. 1t has always been so and
always will be. They who despise labor de-
spise themselves. The drOnes III the hive of
humanity are stung to spiritual death by con-
seriousness of their own folly. Still, in the
face of self-enforced morals, of indisputable
facts, there have been, and there are, men and
women claiming distinction because they do
nothing imagining idleness to be an honor.
Because they are zeros they fancy they make
a figure in the world, fOrgetful that zerOs add
naught to the sum of progress or prosperity.
Fortunately. and fifty in this era of uncOm-
mon sense, rarer than genius always, the con-
ceited do-nothings are disappearing fast. By
Ia, civ Nat
what she does not need. The days of Show
and Sham, of Title and Theory, are rapidly
passing. Civilization has come to mean rea-
son, truth, practically. This generation says
to every man: 81 care not who you are; but
"what can you doP If idle or inefficient,
"stand aside for your betters; for they are
"your betters who can and will work. Judge
leach and all by their labor and its fruits!"
Work, in a word, has become the fashion
a fashion set ages ago, but never largely fol-
lowed until now. Antecedents and ancestors
and authority no longer count even in oil
garchies unless sustained by acts. The gov
erning heads of the globe have active brains
and busy hands. Only to the striving and
strenuous are the badges of distinction given.
Only to those who are up and doing come
strongest nation of the Continent is composed
of the hardest workers, and owes her position
more to her work than to her genius or her
advantages. Germany believes in education
and exertion, not in precedents, self-adulation,
or military glory, and for this reason she pre-
vailed over confident and naughty France.
The lesson, though severe, has not been lost
on France Her defeat will be her triumph in
the end. She has learned the value Of labor,
and will not hereafter underrate or contemn
laborious foe. Henceforth, from the Rhine to
the Pyrenees, the newest and best OF fashions,
in the home of fashions, will be the fashion
of Work. The mode is prevailing in Russia,
Austria, Italy, and Spain Each year it is
more firmly established: its every movement
forward is movement upward.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that can be
offered of the fashiOnableness of work is the
fact that in England (there caste-feeling
and rank-wOrship, by strange anomaly, have
been more deeply rooted than almost any
where else), some of the highest noblemen
have placed their sons in commercial houses
with view of educating them as merchants.
This audacious innovation may endanger the
British Constitution, of which the Britons talk
so much and know so little; but the shadOwy
old bugbear has fallen of late into such discs
TEEN that cads and costermongers alone re-
we're 1t. England is undergoing social revo-
luton, and labor is the pivot on which 1t
turns. The whole question is, Who shall rule
they who work without reward, or they who
are rewarded without work. This pertinent
interrogatory thrusts itself into oil politics;
demands Of all Governments that 1t shall DO
answered refuses TO be cajoled or delayed OF