San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-10-26
Work and Wealth.

of the Exhibition of the New Eng.
land Manufacturers and Mechanics
Institute in Boston, summarizing the
conditions of work and wealth in this
country as compared to those abroad
concludes that ninety per cent OF our
working population earn their daily
bread by their daily labor. The great
problem is to make the struggle Tor
| life easier, and the first requirement.
toward its successful solution Is TO
develop hand and brain together SO as
to increase the purchasing power OF
every dollar. We are the most waste
full nation in the world, mainly be-
cause there is greater abundance here
than elsewhere. Our crops may be
increased one-half by applying the
last discoveries of science to our
methods of agriculture, Economy in
machinery is the field that will vt
weld the best results. The best steam.
engine and boiler waste nine-tenths OF
the potential energy of the fuel 1t con,
sumes. In our great locomotives ana
heavy trains of cars only one pound
in o. hundred of the fuel used is ac-
tually applied to the movement OF the
load. In the self-operating cardlng
engine, spinning'frame, and loom'
four-ffths' of the power is wasted IN
operatingthem, and in putting cotton
fiber into cloth three forth of it's orig
inal strength is lost by its rough treat,
ment. Half our vast crops OF food
and more than half of our fuel are
wasted before their work is done.
Saving in this and in any other form
of production or transportation goes,
for the largest part, to the benefit OF
consumers and help them in the work
of gaining their subsistence. Every
application of science to manufacture
ing industry, to mining or agriculture,
by which the aggregate of things is in
creased, while the labor is diminished,
tends to increase the comodltles to be
divided among the laborers and en-,
riches the workmen in far more rapid
proportion than the capitalist. The
great purpose of worlds fairs and
local exhibitions is to bring into pro-
minent notice every new application
of science by which production may
be increased, and to develop the nat
ural resources of the country. They
are great object-lessons in human wei
fare. The first requisite, however, is
to qualify boys and girls, men and wo-
men, to take advantage of the oppof-
tunities thus spread before them. Ii
methods of industrial instruction can
be added to the mental training of
the public schools, if the hand and the
head can be educated together, the
causes of want may be wholly re-
moved.
The greater the skill, the larger gain
alike to workman and capitalist. The
more effective the application of la
Dor and capital, the larger the profit
to the latter and the payment to the
former. Abroad, large proportion
of the annual product of labor is ta-
ken from the people to maintain great
standing armies. Measured by the
standing armies of France and Ger
many, the United States, with its
fifty-four millions, would have to keep
seven hundred thousand men in arms,
more than one in twenty of all the
adult males in the country, who would
be withdrawn from the producers to
become consumers only, and one man
in every nineteen of those remaining
would be forced to labor IN order to
pay the taxes necessary to sustain the
seven hundred thousand idle men.
We keep that army to mork in the
field, the forest, the mine, the ship,
the workshop, the office, the school,
in building houses and railroads, etc.
The cost of the great European
armies of destruction is more than
equal to the sum of all the wages
earned in this country by the iron
miners, all the iron workers., and all
the men, women, and children in our
textile factories put together. The
wages and earnings in this country
are higher than in any land burdened
with great standing armies. The
quantity of things to be divided, the
true earnings must be just so much
greater, and the cost of making them
Just so much less. The last man or
woman discharged in hard times is
the one earning the most. The first
to be discharged is the one that does
the least work and earns the least
wages. As it is with persons, so it is
with whole countries. Where the
conditions are best, where the natural
resnnrces are the greatest. there will