Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-03-28
Miseellaneous.
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| The farmhouses of our New England
States are changing hands and occupants
end characters with rapidity and result
which few, perhaps not one in thousand
have stopped to notice. The attractions
| of the city residences and business, or of
the aggregate industries of our manufac-
turing centres. have been drawing away
hundreds and thousands of vigorous young
men born in those homes, and who should
inherit and occupy them and make the m
what they have been in the best years OF
New England history What is the pro-
| cess that results from this course The
| fathers Of the thousands of young men are
| alone on these homesteads to carry them
on through seed-tme and harvest with the
hired help of Irish and Germans. As age
comes on them. and their sons being no
longer with them to occupy and keep up
| the old home of their foreiathers, they of
| fer their farms for sale. to the highest bid
der, and retire to some house with small
garden in some village or small city. The
highest bidder is almost sure to be an
lrishman or German, and he enters into
possession of a home which has given to
New England a long succession of those
families which have had such part in its
history. This is the process now going
on in every farming town in New England,
and thousands of its old Puritan homes
are already occupied by Irish and Ger
| mans. Is it not time, then, for thought
full minds to consider the moral bearings
OF this transformation on the future char
acter of both city and country life in New
England
But the economic aspect OF the question
is still, il possible. more serious. Can any
observant witness of the present condition
OF things shut his eyes 10 its tendency and
result? Can anything be more evident
than the fact that masters are rapidly de-
creaslng and servants increasing in num-
ber in every considerable town or manu-
featuring village? Do we not see this
process going on at an increasing pace
before Us at all such centres? There was
time. which many of us can remember,
when two or three men trained to the bus
mess would put their small capital togeth
er and manufacture articles at profit.
But that time is gone forever. Private
firms have been swallowed up by large
Joint stock companies, against which no
common partnership could stand day.
These great corporations have brought in
kind of absenteeism, and almost akin to
that of Ireland or the West Indies under
the old regime. In some cases, nearly all
the stockholders and directors, live in diff
ferent aud distant cities, leaving none but
an acting manager and two or three other
subordinates to carry on the business with
a steady and unwavering eye to regular
dividends. The company is an invisible,
intangible, inaccessible entity, not only to
the general community around the facto-
ry, but to the operatives themselves. |
After having swallowed up all small firms,
their appetite for deglutition grows by
what it feeds upon, and they begin to
swallow each other, or to amalgamate, to
increase their power and suppress COM
petitions.
Now, then, what chance can any young
man see for his ever becoming his own
master. while living his best years under
the steam whistle of such corporation ?
Look at his prospects and possibilities in
the present condition Of the country. |
When business is the best, the utmost
strain his strength and skill will bear is
put upon him in order to house, feed and
clothe himself and his family up to that
level of comfort which he feels constrained |
as well as ambitious to maintain.
Expensive habits grow with the growth
of the manufacturing village. and he dares
not be singular by close economy. These
expenses swallow up good wages. He
lives well, but finds it hard to save for the
day when he can no longer work. The
steam whistle calls him to the factory while |
it is yet dark on winter mornings. He
seldom sees his young children except on
Sunday, as they are asleep in their beds
when he leaves in the morning and returns
~. l. f hx-I Iiut
of extraordinary economy he can lay by a
little at the weeks end, it is to build
house for his later years. When built he
gets back the interest OF his money in free
rent. minus the taxes. This is all. Should |
the factory fail. his house would sell for
half its cost Not thing he owns earns
him a cent when he is asleep or away from
his work And these late years prove how
precarous is manufacturing labor, and
what immeasurable distress comes upon
hundreds OF thousands Of men in the prime
of life hen paying labor fails. Even
when the iourneyman mechanic has full |
work aud wages, he must sometimes,
while carrying his dinner pail to the fac
tory, measure the comfort and dignity of
his position with what his father and |
grandfather enjoyed on the old homestead |
among the hills. But how the contrast |
must bear upon his manhood when the
corporation shuts down its gates and his
work is at an end
do not know if these reflections will
reach dozen of those Tor whom they are
Intended But if that number of farmers,
sons should read them at their fathers fire.
sides, would say to them, stay by the old
homestead. Treasure it, till it, beautify |
and enjoy it. Do not sell or pawn it for a
mess of pottage. Do not exchange the
crown OF Independent manhood for the
collar OF corporation, for on no other con-
dition can you leave the farm for the fac
tory.
To the thousands who have been tempt
ed to make this exchange, and are now
looking with downcast eyes and heavy
hearts upon wives and children whose
bread they can no longer earn for want
of work, would say Do not go West;
go North. East or South, here in your own |
New England. Here within days Jour
ney, you may find plenty of farm home
steads Of every size and price for your