New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-05-02
How American Boys are Wronged.

The wrongs of women and negroes have
monopOlized public attention for many
years. Serious as some of them are, or
have been, the wrongs of boys are as bad,
if not worse. For series of years, the
boys of America have been shut out, more
and more completely with each years
advance, from the chance of learning a
trade. The trade unions, with almost in
credible blindness, have adopted rules
which prevent the employment of any ex-
cept very limited number of apprentices.
These rules forbid master to employ an
apprentice unless he employs a certain
number of iOurneymen. In some trades
the proportion is one to twenty men. The
few places left vacant by apprentices be.
coming journeymen are soon filled. Tens
of thousands of boys are thus deprived
of the opportunity to become reputa
BILE and selfsuppOrting artisans. When
they leave school and try to do
something for themselves they find
the doors shut in their faces. Instead of
becoming blacksmiths, silversmiths, carpen-
tiers, compositors, cabinet makers, coach
makers, hatters, macninists, bakers, tan
ners. timers, tailOrs, masons, shOemakers.
stonecutters, plasterers, brcklayers, weav-
ers, they have to become bootblacks, news
boys, errand boys, beggars, lOaters, dead
beats, paupers, thieves, etc. No one of the
OCCupdLlOuS OpCu w ouCh ouOAs duy cuuCd-
ton, except in sort of cunning which is
often q curse. If the members of the So
called liberal professions, the journalists,
LAWYERS, teachers, doctors and ministers,
should successfully combine to prevent the
education of boys and young men in any of
their specialtes, there would be universal
howl Of complaint. A far greater wrong is
committed, however, when trade education
is prevented. Many more boys are affected,
Tor one thing, and most of them must go to
work at once and labor constantly in order
to live. If they do not do this and do not
steal, they must starve.
The trades unions are perhaps beyond
the reach of reason IN this respect. If not,
their members may be made to see their
folly. This restrictive action keeps their
own sons as we'll as those of their relations
from learning useful trades. 1t drives a
great number of them into enforced idle.
ness. knavery and sin. 1t thus keeps full
the classes OF rogues who pray upon society
and live at the expense of honest men.
This necessitates costly retormatory, penal
and charitable institutions. The rate of
taxation is thus materially increased. and
most taxes, from whomsOeyer collected, ul-
tlmately fall upon the poor Forcing mas
tiers to employ men to do the work of APP
prertces raises the cost Of the commodities
produced, and 30 diminishes the purchasing
power OF the wages Of all buyers of goods
produced, transported or distributed by
means of those commodities. This policy.
again, discriminates, a Ia Chicago politics,
against Americans in favor of foreigners.
The fact that our workshops are full Of
foreign born artisans, and that the native
American mechanic is comparatively rare in
them has often been commented upon. 1t
is largely due to the studied exclusion CT
apprentices. The demand for skilled labor
is met by the importation of persons trained
in foreign workshops, instead of by a sun
ply Of American boys trained at home. IL
is money in the pocket of a person who
wishes to follow a trade in the United
States to be born ont Of the country. If
Benjamin Franklin. Roger Sherman, Willard
Fillmore, Andrew johnson, Horace Greeley
and Henry Wilson were just entering man.
hood now they might seek in vain
the apprenticeships in printing, shoemak-
ing and tailoring trades which gave
them their first start in life. Such evils
result from the selfish, short sighted
policy of the trade unionists. The
sole advantage claimed for that policy is
that it produces a scarcity of mechanics
and thereby an increase of wages. But if
an employer could hire boys to do part of
the work now performed by men, he could |
afford to pay higher wages to the rest of his |
men, and still sell his goods more cheaply. |
Their increased cheapness would produce |
greater demand, and this would involve the |
of more men who might be |
out of work. 1t is doubtful, |
mo, eover, whether any men would lose |
even for day, by the revival |
of the old apprentice system. For only a |
few apprentices could be employed, in the |
nature of things, in each shop, and the en-
plOyer would probably increase his produc-
1lOn by simply adding boy labor to man
abOr instead of reducing his supply of the
after, and so manufacturing only as much
ls he did before. In the long run, whatever
,heapens production increases demand, and
benefits the workingman as well as the rest
If the community When trades unions
earn that undeniable fact, they will cease
o strive to make production costly
But, if they refuse to learn it, stronger
power must interfere. The State now tries
o reform vicious boys by teaching them
rades, and SO giving them a chance for
onest living. Some time, it will not com.
'el boys to earn technical education by |
rst becoming Grimm ais. 1t will make
uch education part of the common schools
curse, as Germany now does IN some de.
rec. The Chicago High School is an insti-
utiOn of very great value. but a technical
chool maintained by the city would be of
en- times as much practical worth. If we
eny, or allow others to denv, the bows Of
merlca the opportunity to earn an honest
velihOod by becoming skilled workmen,
re they wholly to blame for getting q dis
cnest one,-Chicago Tribune
The Passing >ceptre.
The London Times of March | saws.