Carson daily appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1873-1877, 1876-05-11
the LABOR QUESTION.

The labor problem has exercised the
minds of political economists of the
thickly settled countries of Europe for
centuries. The same subject now en-
crosses the attention of a not inconsid-
cradle number of thinkers in the
United States. Possessing an area
of 2,9G3,6G6 square miles, our
population of forty millions only
gives about fourteen to the square
mile. With the total acreage OF 1885,
63G. 800 for our population, We still have
a surplus of laborers amounting. per-
haps. to q million. New York City alone
has one hundred thousand unemployed
laborers. Cincinnati and Chicago have
each from thirty to forty thousand idle
men seeking employment. And all our
large cities and smaller towns contain
more or less men seeking employment
in vain. Even Virginia City contains,
it is estimated, 1900 unemployed men.
The invention of labor-savins machinery
has more or less to do with this large
surplus of laborers. A shoe-pegging
machine, invented in Massachusetts,,
does the work which thousands of shoe
makers formerly performed. The gang
plows and mowers and reapers have
supplanted thousands Of farm-hands.
Even as the sewing-machlnes threw
thousands of seamstresses out OF en-
ployment, so have the other mechanical
inventions deprived skilled and unskilled
laborers of remunerative employment
| until the question ari ses-How can
we employ the needy thousands who
beg in vain for work But for the
breaking out of our war in 1861 this
question would have been pressed upon
rs before. That event, which absorbed
for time the services of millions Of
men, caused for the time being scarcity
of !aborers and brought into requisition
the labor, saving machinery which has
never been discarded. The same farm
labor which. thirty years ago. required
ten men, is now performed by one man.
Political economists have estimated that
every able bodied man is worth one
thousand dollars to his country. But
of what value is a man who wears out
his life seeking employment in vain :?
The advice of Horace Greeley to the poor
of New York, to ''go west and buy
farm" has been burlesqued good deal,
but still there is much wisdom in 1t.
Owing to our rapidly increasing popula-
ton the number of our laborers will in
crease rather than diminish. There is
only one way that we can see by which
our idle men can obtain that employ
ment they desire. They must become
tillers of the soil. We still have public
lands in plenty. At a dollar and
quarter an acre every man in the coun-
try out of employment ought to become
a landowner. 4 few may become rich
by mining; others will accumulate
wealth MS merchants, and the gifted of
earth will always be rewarded by the
practice of their various professions ;
but the large mass of men must acquire
their sustenance by tilling the soil. AS
we have before remarked, there is public
land in plenty, and he who secures
share of it to-day will become opulent in
the future. The time is not far distant
when our public domain will be ex-
hausted. and then the landowners will
become the rulers of the country. Every
unskilled laborer ought to direct his en-
ergies to the making of a home for him
self. In this way alone can the unem-
ployed million laborers of the United
find remunerative employment. AS it
is, there are too many seeking employ
ment of others when they should be at
work for themselves.