Ottumwa weekly courier., 1877-08-08

| |MlscEnANg.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE UNEMPLOYED MILLION.
A Desperate Psobiesn.
In searching for the cause Of the
existing excessive redundancy of
town labor, attention must be given
to the circumstance that, during the
last twenty years, and especially since
the civil war, there has been going on
rapid revolution in the comparative
population of the cities and the rural
districts, CHASING the latter as the ag-
riculturai and the former the COM
mercial, mechanical and laboring
population. At the time of the Amer
lean Revolution, more than three
fourths, or Is out Of 100 Of the peo-
pie, lived upon farms and plantations.
At this time the proportion is revers.
ed in some States. In New England
the farmers have become a small mi
nority of~he whole, and the six
States may be said to be one vast
workshOp,-thef farmers amounting to
little more than truck-raisers. New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Maryland have lost all
distinctive character they once had
as agricultural States. They are now
covered with cities, towns and viii
lagos, in which commerce is conduct
ed or manufactures are produced,
and the people no longer live by
work on tho farm. In Ohio, which
one generation ago, was the leading
agricultural State Of the Northwest,
the same change has taken place, and
a large majority Of her population
live in cities and towns. In Indiana,
half or more of the people have
crowded into towns, and even in IL
linois more than one-half the people
do not live on the farm. In most of
the Western and some Of the South
ern States the city population is in
creasing much faster than the agri-
cultural. The Pacific States and the
Territories consist chiefly of city and
mining population. Take the whole
North together, the towns represent
60 per cent. and the country but 40 Of
the total inhabitants. Congregated
around New York harbor are at least
two millions of souls, whereas at the
beginning of the century there were
not to exceed sixty thousand.
For number OF years the drift has
been into the cities. All over the
Northern States there has been an
abandonment of the farm for city
life the young men and the young
women have to an unfortunate ex-
tent, tired of the honest, respectable
industry of the farm. They have
been weak enough to seek "genteep'
employment in the cities. The young
men have no trades they do not
want to work at trades; they want
to live in the cities as clerks, and en-
joy the eXcitements, the amusements,
the gayeties they want to learn bill
iards, witness horse-racing, learn the
mysteries Of fast life, wear fashion.
able clothes, high collars, fancy neck.
ties and gloves. This surplus labor.
ing population of American cities
has in like manner been enormously
increased by immigration. Of the
millions of immigrants to the United
States during the last twenty-five
years, four-fifths, if not greater
proportion, came from the farms, but
not one-third of them sought out tht
country and went on the land tht
other two-thirds, without trades OF
professions, squatted in the cities
and here they have continued to in
crease until the city and town pOpu
lation in the Northern States has
been recruited from abroad and from
the interior with men uneducated tt
any trades, and dependent wholly
upon such rude and precarious EN-
ployment and occupations as may b,
picked up from time to time, ant
which require but little skill or ex
perience. The great calamity thes,
people bring on themselves ant
upon society is in abandon
ing the honest, independent, ant
self-supporting work Of the farm
in which they have had experience
10 seek living in the already over
crowded cities, without any knowl
edge Of mechanical, mercantile o
professional occupation and in tn
fact that they seek this life in the cit,
because it promises opportunities TO
: habits and associations fatal alike I
} temperance, industry and integrity
ii The war stimulated demand 70
certain lines Of manufactures, and tn
war tariff raised the prices of a
! goods very greatly, and excite
: the cupidity of capital with the gill
q tering prospect Of sudden wealth.
Under the hope Of excessive prof,
on dear manufactures, capital wa
enormously invested, production wa
stimulated, and labor was seduced b
: the prospect Of high wages from tn
: farms of Europe as we'll as this couu
! try; while fleets were employed /
transporting the peasants of lrelan
= and other foreign countries frol
their farms to the cities of Americ
Under this hotbed system Of stimuli,
: ting manufactures, q vast scheme {
II railroad building was inaugurate,
and myriads of laborers were set ,
!, work grading tracks, boring tunnel
. excavating cuts, constructing en-
r banFments, building bridges and Ia,
= ing tracks.
The production of iron and co,
became enormous. Hundreds
: thousands Of men were put at wor
: ! in the bowels Of the earth, extractin
. ores and coal, and put ct work 4
= furnaces and mills making iron an
= steel. The imitation extended to q
: other similar productions. Betwet
:. the end Of 1856 and the end of lS7
= there were built 3S.2N miles of RAJ
. way, at . cost Of $2,5OO, 600, ,0OO,
more than whole national debt. TIL,
there was a crash. Then all this
Dor ceased. Then these men car
ont OF the mines and the furnac,
y the mills, the factories and the shop
40 there was NO more work for theT
and they have been idle In great d
W gree ever since.
Rt All this explains how IL is that
OF fore the strike there were one milli,
IN of men out work, receiving no wag'
in the cities of the Northern Stat,
Assuming that al the men who we
put out Of employment by the la
a strike should be restored to labor,
I'd will not change the fact that one m
h. lion of able bodied men will still
or idle or slightly employed.
rk Now where 10 the remedy? II
n constant rush of persons from
he farm to the city-this constant aggl
b. CATION in the cities of the immigrs
n lpopulation-cannot II. on without
Of time producing . social revoluti,
lie The superstructure Is becoming he.
e. Ter than the foundation. The c
he population 10 too largo for the az
to cultural. The latter are no Ions
,e- numerous enough to consume
ny surplus which the excessive to,
m, population can manufacture.
The only branch Of labor which