The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-09-20
Trades for Americans:

A careful inquiry was SNORT um0
ago instituted in Philadelphia, as to the
relative number of foreigners and ma
tive Americans engaged in the trades
and as skilled handicraftsmen of every
kind. The result was startling. For
eigners, especially Germans and Scotch
Irishmen, had shouldered our own peo-
pie altogether out of almost every such
occupation. The American boys could
be counted on the fingers who were
learning the trade of weaving in the
great wooden and carpet manufactures.
The same story was told in the cotton
mills, at the stocking looms. Yet the
wages paid to these skilled workmcn
are high and steady. The Scotchman
or North Irishman earns from $lS to
800 per week in Philadelphia, owns
his comfortable dwelling, and brings
up his son to the same trade which his
own father most probably followed in
Glasgow or Londonderry. The Ameri-
can boy has not learned this sure, slow
road to comfort from his father.
There was the same report from the
manufacturers of paper, soap. shoes,
clothes, furniture, ,shipbuilders, cutters
every industry, in short; but two. The
American boy of the class which does
not enter the professions, is not to be
found in the trades, pa,tly because he
is barred out by the trades unions, but
more because he does not choose to go
into them. To this general rule there
are. however, two notable exceptions
printing and machine shops. Each Of
these trades is crowded with native
American apprentices. 1--WE turn
h1 far, Of
great engine works, hundreds of ap-
Plicants in year, for whom we can
find no place"
Now here is significant hint of ma
tional character. We are perpetually
told that the American lad of the par
tally educated class refuses to learn 8
trade, and becomes salesman or clerk
on q miserable salary. from the snob-
bish, vulgar desire to be considered q
gentleman. Yet the same young fellow
in a printing office or machine foundry
works harder and comes out of his daily
drudgery more grimy and shabby than
any other mechanic. 1t is no ambition
for gentility that moves him in these
pursuits. But they open to him pos.
sible short roads to success; they give
his inventive faculties some play. 1t il
only one man in q hundred, who, out
of the composing room or press room,
becomes editor or publisher, or who
turns out to be a lucky Harrison OIL
Winans in the machine shop. But each
boy is confident that he will be that
man. When he ''goes into business
as salesman at 90 per week. he knows
he will some day be an Astor or 9
Stewart. When he goes out to Colo
RADIO as q cowboy, he sees in vision
his own cattle grazing on g thousand
hills.
Hence he turns his back on the trades
In which there is no chance for sudden
success, and by which the plodding
German or Irishman, generation
after generation, secures steady limit
ed competency. Our lad must put on
seven league boots to go to his fortune,
or he will not go at all. In certain
sense, therefore, there appears to be no
remedy for this present condition OF af-
fairs. The leopard cannot change his
spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, and the
vivid inventive, sharp eyed American,
fond of earning and squandering money
in bulk, will never be brought to plod
and save and enjoy life a pennyworth
at a time, like his European neighbor
who was not born prospective heir to q
great estate. A certain grade Of our
skilled trades will always remain, it is
probable, in the hands of foreigners.
But one lesson our American lad must
learn before he succeeds, and, as he is
exceptionally sharp, he generally does
learn it when he finds he does not sue
coed without it. That is, steadiness oi
Manu- facturer and Builder.