The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-10-04

1 line of legislation original to Texas
IS pursued.
We have no poor appealing to our
save those who are created so |
by reason of the delirmity of age or
these we will always have
with us. They certainly are not
available as factory hands. 1t IS
prevalent and growing notion that
honest labor of certain kinds IS de-
grading. A proposition to wash or
cook at places suggested by common
sense as the abodes of inquiry, and
strengthened by the personnel of the
occupants is received as a grave in
suit. White labor is impossible. Col
ored house labor is impossible when
not controlled by a resolution not to
hire Eeyond certain streets, or when
not conflicting with the cotton field,
or when the agreement is not an
nulled by the wishes of father, a
brother, Il husband, a lover or a
friend. But this colored labor, so
easily acquired and of such perma-
nent value, is not the material out
of which to make factory hands.
When every truckman and porter is
vainly bribed, beSought and tiattered
on ali sides to aid in obtaining per-
sons to do light housework, for short
periods, at high wages, where
can labor be found to fulfill the exact
and faithful requirements of manu-
facturers. The cotton fields of Travis
county will give the laborer greater
and easier returns than any factory
that could be established. The cotton
seed mill, the cotton gin, the cotton
compress and the circular saw are the
factories for Austin.
A prominent obstacle to steady la
Dor, at any one kind of employment,
is found in the fact that certain
part of our population is wholly ire
SponSible as regards the civil laws.
Their caprice, however oblique, is be-
yOnd the reach of every legal process
compelling regard for the civil obliga-
tions of society. The divine and the
business man, the man of capital and
| integrity, can be reached by civil law,
but the loafer, the professional voter
and the bar-room habitue are perpetu-
ated by law, and placed under no other
obligation than that suggested 10
them by their sense of honor. They
have full recourse for every wrong
done them or their families, but the
only remedy for the evil done by them
is to bear the wrong patiently
until the moral popular
sentiment is better educated( y
| A protected homestead and protected
wages may be good things, but it is
difficult to admire the immigration
solely induced by these laws. but, as
Stunning them to be good, there ought
| 1, TO viz
and in all cases where no civil remedy
can exist, the evil becomes Il INSIDE
meanor, and should be reached by
fine. Servants do not apply for
places, but are applied to, and recon-
mendatiOnS are never required, and
disgraceful conduct and discharge is
no bar to Immediate hiring. If the
underStratum of society is so morally
sassy where can be found the
patient, perSeVering, diligent factory
hand? High rents and Overcrowded
| tenement houses in the large cities,
create bidders for work, but both
time and patience, and vast OUTLAWS
and national protection, even in the
| atmosphere most favorable to manu-
facture, were required before the es-
tablishment Of that nice balance be-
tween profit and expense. Northern
factory hands are paid Il certain
amount of what they cate, and that
per cent is sufficiently small to guar
| antee certain quantity of work for
( each day. They are not paid for
being present ut the factory so many
hours daily but certain per cent of
the value they actually create during
fixed hours, and capital takes the
balance as payment for use of machin-
cry, risks, etc. With such prospects
of land and plenty as Texas offers for
undirected work, what labor will be
true to the eXacting conditions of a
paying manufacture? Is there any
one who does not know that in Aus
tin as one deScends in the scale of
humanity, he finds greater comfort;
in other words, that the lower the
people the more of life'S comforts and
luXuries are enjoyed proportionate to
the mental and physical energy eX-
pended for them? Relatively, the
laborer in Austin is better off than
the professional, the merchant or the
mechanic. Ten or twenty years
hence Austin may become the seat OF
skilled manufacture-not now. All
crude manufacture will pay now;
probably, with the development of
railroad enterprise, foundries and
rolling mills will be established, but
the greater the skill required, the
more distant will be the enterprise.
A remonStrance with local factory
hand for careleSsnesS of execution or
Indifference would cause a flight 10 his
or her home, so sensitive lsthe spirit
of independence. Let an expert
teacher be brought from the north,
-t AID II VII. turn out that his first les
son will be upon the advantages of
organizing a strike. Let skilled work
mon be brought from abroad at great
expense, and a residence here of but a
few months will be sufficient to make
them strike for higher wages than
agreed upon us an inducement for
leaving their native state. What is
the recourse, to import more strikers
or to aceede, and to accede? The fact
is, just now manufactures requiring
skilled labor would be like untimely
births, and full of serious risks. Where
will you seek for factory hands? In
Texas, where nature gives so much
and asks for so little in return-Where
the law says indirectly to the lowest
laborCr, You may violate every hon
est obligation, for you are fully pro-
tected so long as you do not come
within the criminal precinct?" Skilled
manufactures, depending, as they
must, upon the honor and moral obli-
cation of local or imported labor, do
do not promise much in Austin at this
time. There is every guarantee, how
ever, of success to such industries as
can most quickly utilize labor of the
ordinary kind, and they will least feel
the shock of frequent changing. Such
will find an alabama" upon the
banks of the Colorado. "TEXAS."
Money for Somebody.
Under the law, after October LIST, all
letters will be withheld by the post