The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-08-09
The Struggle for Wealth.
tScribner's Magazine.


| billions and habits, and those of correspon-
ing classes in this country. He may see great
poverty in q continental town, and men
and women lab ring severely and faring
meanly, and hopeless gap existing be-
tween classes ; he may see the poor vir-
! witness measure of contentment and a
daily participation in humble pleasures to
| which bis eyes have been strangers at
I home. There is sad side to this pleasant
picture. Much of this apparent content
ment and enjoy ment 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 frofnstheir birth and, having
| recognized this, they have recognized their
| own limitations, and adapted themselves
to them. Seeing just what they can do
and cannot do, they very nationally under
| take to get out of life just what their con
dition renders attainable. There is no far
| off, browning good for them to aim at, 30
! they try to get what they can on the way.
| They make much of fete days, aud social
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 hum
BILE back woodsman sits in the presiden-
| tial chair, or did sit there but recently a
ton a 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. aud self.culture,
and self assertion, have raised themselves
from the humblest position to influence and
place. There is no impossible gulf be.
tween the low and the high. Every man
holds the ballot, and, therefore, every man
is O person of political power and jmpor-
lance. The ways of business enterprise
are many, and the rewards of success are
munifcect. Not year, nor, indeed, a
month, passes by, that doee 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 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 rational one. He, therefore,
denies himself, works early and late, and
penuS his eueTSleS, anu 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 a
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-
corning the methods of it's requirement.
So America presents the anomaly of q la.
boring class with unprecedented prosperity
and privileges, and unexamped discomfort
aud discomfort.
There is surely something better than
this There is something better than a
life. long sacrifice o! content and enjoyment
for a possible wealth, which. however, NAV
never be acquired, aud 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
desires, to deny her the Journey which
would do SO much 10 break up the mono.
tony at her home-llfe, to rear children in
mean ways, to shut away from the family
life "A thousand social pleasures, to REIN
qulsh all ADJUSTMENTS that have cost at
tached to them, for wealth which may or
ken up fcrever-surely this is neither
sound enterprise nor wise economy. We
would not have the American laborer, farm
er and mechanic become improvident, but |
we would very much like to see them hap
pier than they are, by resort to the daily |
social eDjoyments 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 in them, until it
ls expelled by the absorbing and subordin-
attnS passion for gain. Something of the
Old World fondness for play, aud daily or
weekly indulgence in it, should become
habltual among our workers. Toll would
be sweeter if there were a reward at the
end of it; work would be gentler when
used az "A meaus for securing IA pleasure
which stands closer than an old age of ease
would be softer and richer ant
more childlike when acquired among gen
al, every day delights. The all,subor-
1Inating strife for wealth. carried on with
eartul struggles aud constant self denials.
II tty- toINl