Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-01-02

and consecrate this great industry to our
: home life. More than any other occupa-
ton it will dignity labor in our homes. 1t
J is prominently a family industry. Scarce
ly any capital, very small amount of
land, and no skilled labor are needed.
Women and children can bestow nearly all
J the required labor. In no event need the
work interfere with other home and farm
operations, and the industry can be pur-
sued when other matters are not pressing
THE woMAN's SILK CULTURE ASSOCIATION
OF CALIFORNIA.
This in fact is one OF the chief motives
that has aroused SO many wives and moth
ers OF late, and led them to organize the
Womans Silk Culture Association of Cali
fornia. This association seeks to enrich
the State through industry instead of spec
ulation, by fostering one of the most desir-
able OF all Industries in the homes of the
people. 1t is woman working for woman's
elevation ; it is the mother educating her
children to love their home, and find in
home employments such remuneration as
will make it worthy to be called home.
The benevolent and patriotic purpose of this
Association has enlisted the interest of
some of the best men of the State. The
| OONSIuUT OIL dG GDG HtdQ
of It's Advisory Board. With him are as.
ISOLATED bankers, merchants, clergymen
and other philanthropic men, who will not
permit the enterprise to fail, SO far as their
advice or their money may be needed to
insure success. The Association has re-
solved that it will use the press, and en-
| ploy every possible means to reach the ear
and heart of every mother in California,
and arouse every family to the Importance
of home silk culture. 1t will furnish all
needed information to those who seek in
struction. 1t will supply seeds and cut
tings to those inclined to enter upon the
work, to grow the mulberry. 1t will pro-
cure and supply eggs for the silkworm, at
the proper time. 1t will also probably pro-
cure land and establish school of instruc-
ton, if needed, to which farmers daughters
may come and in q few months be instruct
ed III all the steps of this industry, so that,
returning to their homes, they may impart
the knowledge to others.
OBJECTIONS AND DOUBTS CONSIDERED.
Men who have once failed and men who
| for other selfish and unpatriotic reasons
would wish us to fail, seek to arrest the
progress of this movement. They tell MS
that California is not suited to silk culture
and manufacture. They say that her men
are too speculative, her women too giddy
and frivolous, and that they will not awake
to the utility of this industry; that wages
are too high, and that land is held by large
monopolists. We have carefully consid-
cred all the objections of the pessimists,
and all the difficulties which others would |
suggest in order to discourage and dis
hearten, and we know that they are ground |
less. There is no good reason why home
silk culture should not be begun in this |
State, and prosecuted as a chief industry. |
To the chief objections Just stated we an. |
swer The few who have engaged in it |
have succeeded, and their success has as |
tonished the people of other silk growing |
countries. Speculation has run its race |
the fever cannot always last men are get |
ting tired of pursuing course of life that |
destroys their homes, beggars their families |
and ends in the suicides grave. Women |
are not so giddy and frivolous that they |
will not be heroines for the sake of happy |
homes, if men will show them how and en-
courage them to be what they were formed |
by their maker to be-helps suited to men. |
High wages might have been an objection |
once. They are not so now. There are |
idle people in California, begging for work. |
There are poor people, asking for bread. |
During the last two winters thousands were |
fed at public expense, and many man has
toiled for less than dollar day to pro.
cure food for his wife and children, who |
were on
THE VERGE OF STARVATION.
As to the land, it is true that vast tracts |
are held by large owners but it is equally |
true that thousands of acres of good land
can be bought in California to. day with less
money per acre than the annual rentage
would be in France, where the workers in
silk culture grow the mulberry mostly on
rented lands, live in rented houses, and |
raise, spin and weave the silk which yields
to their country S25, 900, 600 every year.
When Earth is freeing itself from win
ter's bondage, she sends forth hopeful |
messenger, u prophet of the coming spring, |
little flower, the snowdrop. Who, in his |
own childhood, has not seen and hailed |
this tender flower, fulfilling its mission,
calling to its companions to awake and |
decorate and clothe the earth with beauty? |
This beautiful prophet, standing amid the |
cold and desolation of departing winter, is
herald of new times, of blooming flowers
and abundant harvests. Thus, too, are
LlldIy iuScStHkCIo SGu0 W IlCuy W UIlDH
hope to the disappointed and help to the |
weary. To-day California needs hope to
quicken intelligent thought and cheerful
action to give profitable industry to the
people, and remunerative trade to her mer.
chants Is there not in home silk culture
the sure prophecy of new and nobler life
for this Golden State of the Pacific coast
That was a grand spirit that called into
81 ~
and stretched one of the worlds most mag
nificent railways from the Golden Gate to
the Atlantic. Doubts and difficulties fled
before such daring. And that spirit is not
dead For some reason it has been de-
pressed. 1t may be dreaming or paralyzed
It is not dead /; it will awake. Our silk
industry will help to give it new life and
vigor. What the discovery of gold did for
us in the past, will this do for us in the
future, and far more. 1t will help to make
industry more universal and honorable,
bring happiness to our families, and ever
increasing prosperity and solid wealth to
the State.
AN IMPENDING DANGER.
To all objectors and doubters we submit
now for their most serious thought the
consideration of an impending danger
There is at this moment in one of the ports
| of China a ship. builder from the Clyde
He is building steamers for the Chinese by
the aid of Chinese workmen, whose wages
| are three cents a day. England is
alarmed at the prospect. Russia is
preparing herself against this comnon
! Toe to our modern civilization and the
| blessings Of home life. Soon the distance
between China and other countries will be
lessened, by swift-running steamers, with
cheap fares and freights. In every country
where it is possible the Chinese cheap.labor
curse will spread itself. Wherever this
goes the American family system must per-
ish. There are already not far from $4,000
Chinese On the Pacific Coast they are
great factor in the ranks of labor. They
represent neither wife nor child. OF Ameri
can homes they know nothing for Ameri-
| can civilization they care nothing. Such a
number of American laborers would repre-
sent nearly or quite 400, 600 people-dwell-
ing in homes parents and children, jealous
for the prosperity of the State. But these
unassimilating workers are an anon ly.
/ The labor of $4,000 men, only such men,
crushes out the family, and SO puts the
future of the State in peril. When the