The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1874-07-25
Cur Olio.
The Struggle for Wealth.

No one can settle down in European
city or village FIR month, and observe
the laboring classes, without noticing a
great difference between their aspirations,
ambitions and habits, and those Of cor
responding classes in this country. He
may see great poverty in a continental
town, and men and women laboring severe
ly and faring meanly, and hopeless gap
existing between classes; he may see the
poor virtually the slaves of the rich but
he will witness a measure of contentment
and daily participation in humble pleas
esto which his eyes have been strangers at
home, There is sad side to this pleasant
picture Much of this apparent content
ment and enjoyment undoubtedly come
from the hopelessness Of the struggle for
anything better An impossible gulf ex-
lists between them and the educated and
aristocratic classes--a gulf which they
have recognized from their birth; and,
having recognized this, they have recog-
nized their own limitations, and adapted
themselves to them. Seeing just what
they can do and cannot do, they very ra-
tionally undertake to get out Of life Just
what their condition renders attainable.
There is no far-off, crowning good for them
to aim at, so they try to get what they can
on the way. They make much of fete-
days, and social gatherings, and music,
and do what they can to sweeten their
daily toll, which they know must be con-
tinued while the power to labor lasts.
In America it is very different. A
humble back-woodsman sits in the presi-
dental chair, or did sit there but recently,
tailor takes the highest honors Of the
nation canal-driver becomes powerful
millionaire humble clerk grows into a
merchant prince, absorbing the labor and
supplying the wants of tens of thousands.
In city, state and national politics, hun
dreds and thousands may be counted Of
those who, by enterprise, and sulf.culture,
and self-assertion, have raised themselves
from the humblest positions to influence
and place. There Is no impossible gulf
between the low and the high. Every
man holds the ballot, and, therefore, every
man is person of political power and i'm
portance. The ways of business enterprise
are many, and the rewards of success are
muni6cent. Not year, nor, indeed, a
month, passes by, that does not illustrate
the comparative case with which poor men
win wealth or acquire power.
The consequence is that all but the
wholly brutal arc after some great good
that lies beyond their years of toll The
European expects always to be tenat; the
American intends before he dies to own
the house he lives in. If city prices for
bid this, he goes to the suburbs for his
home. The European knows that life and
labor are cheap, and that he cannot hope
to win by them the wealth which wiIlreal-
ize for him the dream Of future ease; the
American finds his labor dear, and its re-
wards comparatively bountiful, 50 that his
dream of wcath is rational one. He,
therefore, denies himself, works early and
late, and bends his energies, and directs
those Of his family into profitable channels,
all for the great good that becons him on
from the far-oif, golden future.
The typical American never lives in the
present. Ifhe INDUCES in arecroation, It
Is purely for health's sake, and at long in
tervals, or in great emergencies. He does
not waste money on pleasure, and does not
approve of those who do SO. He lives in
constant fever Of hope and expectation,
or grows sour with hope deferred or blank
disappointment Out of it all grows the
worship Of wealth and that decentralization
which results in unscrupulousness con-
cerning the methods of its requirement.
So America presents the anomaly Of Ia
boring class with unprecedented prosperity
and privileges, and unexampled discomfort
and discomfort.
There is surely something better than this
There is something better than lifelong
sacrifice Of content and enjoyment for !
possible wealth, which, however, may
never be acquired, and which has not the
power, when won, to yield It's holder the
boon which he expects il 70 purchase. IL
withhold from the frugal wife the gown