Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1876-07-01

man or woman, is living without oc,
cupation is leading life of immortality.
\ lazy man is not Il moral man. We
have often proved that idleness is mex
pedlent, that it is wasteful. that it re-
lakes the vigor Of the body and tie
mind, that it is a deviation from the
path in which He walked who said.
"Mv Father worketh hitherto. and 7
work.: bnt We have II. sufficiently
emphasized the fact tina, il is an express
trunsgression of the moral lawn
other words, u sin: put by the divine
Lawoiver n'o the same category wi;h
image worship and blasphe;ny aaA theft
and murder and i.nrurity. and sharin.
with these sins iii the di~plcaeure 81
Gol.
It hardly needs It, i,e sad, tiiut ;!:;5
rule Of hfe, ike every Other, has is
exceptions. Some ..vi, u. ara lawfully
exempted from labor tn sick. tIlc
aged aud iitirm, infants, and tie in
beetle are not required to woih. Ability
always limits obi 9ation. Whatever
theories the theologians may have about
1t, God never expects of any one I'M
possibilities. Young persons. pursuing
courses of education, are also partial
exceptions to this rule. They are pre-
pairing for work 1t is not, however,
we'll for them to be entirely relieved of
labor. It is vastly better for their
minds and for their bodies, that they
should have some duties to perform
outside tl,, routine Of school life.
I can think of no other limitations to
the positive command Six days shalt
thou labor And il is high time that
not only the dignity but the duty Of
work were enforced upon the men and
women of our day. We had battle
to fight with the false philosophy Of
former generation, in order to maintaia
the dignity of work. There were those
who Insisted that labor was dishonora-
BILE and degrading; that the laboring
classes ought to be servile classes.
That fallacy we have pretty effectually
exploded, through it took not a little
gunpowder to do it. 1t is now generally
admitted in all parts of the land that
labor is honorable; that men, at any
rate, are not disgraced by it, however
it may be with woman; that if any one
chooses to work, rather than live on
the earnings of others, rather than beg
or swindl, or steal, it is nothing against
him. So far, SO good. But there is
another step to take. Now We must
make it equally clear that labor is not
optional, but imperative; that it is i'm
perative, too, upon all men. and all
women alike that have sound minds
and sound bodies; that it is not only
respectable to work, but that it is not
respectable to be idle.
From the sentence pronounced upon
Adam after his transgression in
Eden, "By the sweat of thy face thou
shalt eat thy bread" it has sometimes
been inferred that labor was the pen
atty of sin; that if it had not been for
the fall we should have subsisted some
how without work 4 most mischievous
and unwarrantable Inference! Doubt
less the tendency of moral evil is to
make more difficult, hazardous and
painful; doubtless the ''whole creation
groaneth and travaile!h' under its
burdens of toll as it would not have
done if man had never sinned; but if
there were not, and never had been,
mora: evil in the world, there would
still be need of labor. For sinless as
we'll as for sinful beings, work is the
indispensable condition of development.
Why, if you go back to the story of
Genesis for your theories on this sub
iect, please to remember that, before
the fall, 'sThe Lord God took the man
and put him into the Garden of Eden
to dress 1t and TO keep it," No, work is
no part of the curse. It is part of the
original divine constitution. Laziness
that is the curse. The terrible inertia
of body and soul, the unwillingness to
labor, which makes some men paupers,
and some panderers, and some swim
dlers and some eves,-that is the re-
suit of the fall, one of its worst and bit
terest results. -" Working People and
their Employers, by Washington Glad
den.
So Fletcher Harper is the youngest
and sole survivor of the four brothers
who for fully forty years composed the
firm of "Harper & Brothers, pub
fishers" These brothers were James,
born 1895, died in 1869; John, born in
1897, died in 1875; Joseph Wesley,
born in 1901, died in 1870; and Flet-
cher, born in 1906. The present men,
bers are Fletcher Harper and his son,
Fletcher Jr., born in 1929; Philip j.