The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-08-01
THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH.

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THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH.
No one can settle down in European
city or village for month, and observe the
laboring classes, without noticing great
difference between their aspirations, ambi-
tions and habits, and those of correspond
ing classes in this country. He may see
great poverty in continental town, and
men and women laboring severely and far
ing meanly, and a hopeless gap existing
between classes; he may see the poor vir.
tually the slaves of the rich; but he will
witness measure of contentment and
daily participation in humble pleasures to
which his eyes have been strangers at
home. There is a 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, browning good for them
to aim at, SO they try to get what they can
on the way. They make much of fete-
dow nj nd
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 differ ent. A hum
BILE backwoodsman sits in the preside ltial
chair, or did sit there but recently; a tailor
takes the highest honors of the nation; a
canal-driver becomes a powerful million
aire; humble clerk grows into mer-
chant prince, absorbing the labor aud sup
plying the wants of tens of thousands.
In city, state and national politics, hun
dreds and thousands may he counted of
those who, by enterprise, and self-cuture,
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 enter
prise are many, and the rewards of success
are muniticont. Not year, nor, indeed, a
month, passes by, that does not illustrate
the comparative ease with which poor men
win wealth or acquire power.
The consequence is that all but the
wholly brutal are after some great good
that lies beyond their years Of toll. The
European expects always to be a tenant;
the American intends before he dies to own
the house he lives in. If city prices forbid
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 will realize for
him the dream of future ease; the Ameri-
can finds his labor dear, and it's rewards
comparatively bountiful. so that his dream
of wealth is a 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 beckons him on from the
far. off, golden future.
The typical American never lives in the
present. If he INDUCES in a recreation, 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 Generalization
which results in unscrupulousness concern
ing the methods of it's requirement. So
America presents the anomaly of labor
ing class with unprecedented prosperity |
and privileges, and unexampled discomfort
and discomfort.
There is surely something better than
this. There is something better than a
life long sacrifice of content and enjoyment
for possible wealth, which, however, may
never be acquired, and which has not the
power, when won, to yield its holder the
boon which he expects it to purchase. To
withhold from the frugal wife the gown
she DIES Tres. to deny her the journey which
would do SO much to break up the monot-
ony of her home. life, to rear children in
mean ways, to shut away from the family
life thousand social pleasures, to relin- |
quisl all amusements that have a cost at
tached to them, for wealth which may or
may not come when the family life is
broken up forever-surely this is neither
sound enterprise nor wise economy. We
would not have the American laborer, far
mer and mechanic become improvident
but we would very much like to see them
happier than they are, by resort to the
daily social enjoyments which are always
ready to their hand. Nature is strong in
the young, and they will have society and
play of some sort. 1t should remain
strong in the old, and does remain strong
in them, until it is expelled by the absorb
ing and subordinating passion for gain.
Something of the Old World fondness for
play, and daily or weekly indulgence in it,