The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1880-05-06
lngersOll ON Labor,


some time since thus expressed himself on
the labor question:
Every man ought TO be willing to pay
for what he gets. He ought to desire to
give full value received. The man who
wants 81 worth Of work for 81 is no honest
man. The man who wants others to work
to such an extent that their lives are bur-
dens, is utterly heartless' The toll of the
world should continually decrease OF
what use are your inventions il 10 burdens
are lifted from industry--if no additional
comforts find their way TO the home OF la
Dor?
Why should labor fill the world with
wealth and live in want?
Every labor saving machine should help
the whole world. Every one should tend
to shorten the hours of labor.
Reasonable labor is a source of joy, To
work for wife and child, to toll for those
you love, is haptess, provided you can
make them happy. But to work like
slave-to see your wife and children in
rags-to 81, at table where food is coarse
and scarce, to rise at four in the morning
to WORK all day and throw your bones
on miserable bed at night-to live with.
out leisure, without making those you
love comfortable and happy-this is not
living-it is dying, Glow lingering cruci-
6xion. The hours of labor should be
shortened. With the vast and wonderful
Improvements of the nineteenth century
there should not only be the necessaries of
life for those who toll, but comforts and
luxuries as we'll.
What is reasonable price for labor?
I answer: Such a price as will enable a
man to live; to have comforts of life; to
lay by something for his declining years;
so that he can have his own home, his
own Greside, 30 that he can have the feel
ings Of n man.
i sympathize with every honest effort
made by the children of labor to improve
their condition. That is poorly governed
country in which those who do the most
have the least. There ia something wrong
when men have to beg for leave to toll.
We are not yet civilized people. When
We are, pauperism and crime will vanish
from our land.
There is one thing, however, of which !
am glad and pround, and that is, that So
ciety in our country is not petrifed; that
the poor are not always poor. The chill
dren Of the poor of this generation may
and probably will be the rich of the next
The sons of the rich of this generation
may be the poor Of the next; so after all
the rich fear and the poor hope.
1t is the glory of the United States that
the poor man can take his son on his knee
and say, my son, all the avenues of dis
tinction are open to you. You can rise.
] here is no station, no position, to which
you may not aspire. The poverty of your
father will not be a mill stone around
your neck. The public schools are open
to you. For you there are education, hon.
or, fame and prosperity.
These thoughts render holy every drop
of sweat that rolls down the face Of honest
toll.
i sympathize with the wanderer, with
the vagrant out lof employ yment, with the
sad and weary men who are looking for
word. When | see one of them poor and
friendless-no matter how bad he is, /
think that somebody loved him once, that
he was once held in the arms of mother
that he slept beneath her loving eyes and
walked in the light of her smile. | see
him 10 the cradle, listening to lulabies
sung soft and low, and his little face il
dimpled as though by the rosy fingers OF
Joy. And then / think of the strange
and winding paths-the weary roads tina,
he has Travelled from that mothers arms tc
yagrancy and want.
There should be labor and food for all
We invent. We take advantage of the
force Of nature. We put shackles upon
the unseen powers. These slaves should
release from bondage all the children Of
men.