Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-08-19
The Struggle for Wealth.

y
city or village for month, aod observ
the laboring classes, without noticin
q great difference between their asp
rations, ambitions and habits, an
those Of corresponding classes in thi
country. He may see great poverty i
q continental town, and men and VIC
men laboring severely and faring mean
ly, and hopeless gap existing betwee
classes; he may see the poor virtual
the slaves of the rich; but he will viii
ness a measure of contentment and
daily participation in humble pleasur
to which his eyes have been stranger
at home. There is sad side to thi
pleasant picture. Much of the appar
ent contentment and enjoyment un
doubtedly come from the hoplessnes
of the struggle for anything better. Al
impossible gulf exists between then
aAd the educated and aristocrati
classes-a gulf which they have recog
nized from their birth; and, having re
cognized this, they have recognized
their own limitations, and adapted
themselves to them. Seeing Just wha
they can do and cannot do, they yer,
nationally undertake to get out Of lif,
just what their condition renders at
tainable. There is no far-off. crowninl
good for them to aim at, SO they try t.
get what they can on the way. They
make much of fete-days, and socia
gatherings, and music, and do what
they can to sweeten their daily toll
which they know must be continued
while the power to labor lasts.
In America it is very different. A
humble backwoodsman sits in the pres.
idential chair, or did sit there but re.
Gently; tailor takes the highest hon.
ors of the nation; a canal driver be.
comes powerful millionasre;a humble
clerk grows into a merchant prince,
absorbing the labor and supplying the
wants of tens of thousands. In city,
State and national politics, hundreds
and thousands may be counted of those
who, by enterprise and self-culture,
and self-assertion, have raised them
selves from the humblest positions to
influence and place. There is no i'm
passible gulf between the low and the
high. Every man holds the ballot, and,
therefore, every man is a person of po-
litical power and importance. The
ways OF business enterprise are many,
and the rewards of success are munifi
cent. 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 American
finds his labor dear, and its rewards
comparatively bountiful, SO that his
dream of wealth is a rational one. He,
therefore, denies himself, works early
and late, aud bends his energies, and
directs those of his family into profit
able 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 indulgss in recre-
alton, it is purely for health's sake, and
at long intervals, or In great emergen-
cies. He does not waste money on
pleasure, and does not approve of those
who do so. He lives in a constant fe-
yer of hope and expectation, or grows
sour with hope deferred or blank dis
Out of it all grows the
of wealth and that demoraliza-
ton which results in unscrupulousness
the methods of its acquire
ment. SO America presents the anom-
aly of laboring class with unprece-
Tented prosperity and privileges, and
discomfort and discom-
Tort.
There is surely something better than
his. There is something better than
/ lifelong sacrifice of content and en-
opment for passible wealth, which,
however, may never be acquired, and
which has not the power, when won, to
Tield its holder the boon which he ex-
poets to purchase. To withhold from
he frugal wife the gown she desires, to
lenv her the journey which would do
70 much to break up the monotony OF
ler home-life, to rear children in mean
ways, to shut away from the family life
. thousand social pleasures, to relin-
Iuish all amusements that have a cost
to them, for wealth which
nay or may not come when the family
ife is broken up forever-surely this is
neither sound enterprise nor wise
We would not have the
American laborer, farmer and me-
,hanic become improvident. but We
would very much like to see them hap
pier than they are, by resort to the
laily social eDjoyments which are al
Ways ready to their hand. Nature is
'trong in the young, and they will have
'ociety and play of some sort. 1t should
.emain strong in the old, and does re-
,emain strong in them. until it is ex-
,elled by the absorbing and subordi-
,ating passion for gain. Something
If the Old World fondness for play,
md daily or weekly indulgence in it
'hould become habitual among our
Toll would be sweeter if
here were o reward at the end of it;
work would be gentler when used as a
means for securing a pleasure which
'tands closer than an old age of ease;
character would be softer and richer
md more childlike, when acquired
lmong genial, everyday delights. The
III. l.subOrdinating strife for wealth, car
led on with fearful struggles and con-
tant elf-denials, makes us petty, irri-
able and hard. When the whole
American people learn that dollars
worth of pure pleasure is worth more
han a dollars worth of anything else
lnder the sun; that working is not lv-
ng, but only the means by which We
win q living; the money is good for
lothing except for what it brings o
comfort and culture; and that we live
lot in the future. but the present, they
vill be a happy people--happier and
,etter than they have been. 1.-The
morrow shall take thought for the
hings of ITSELF" may not be an &C.
epted maxim in political economy, but
t was uttered by the wisest being that
yer lived in the world, whose mission
t was to make men both good and