The Labor enquirer., 1885-03-28
CONSUL BALLOU,s REPORT.
Showing How the workingmen ofAmer.
lea Are to be Educated DownwardsI
Their Condition in Alsace.
rBy Associated Labor Press. l

BY Associated Labor Press.
WASHINGTON, March 24.-The following
extracts are taken from Consul Ballou's re-
port upon labor in Europe, issued by the state
department. 1t is fair sample of the other
reports sent to this department, and shows
very thoroughly how the workingmen of
America are to be educated downward, in
stead of elevated to the high standard that
they deserve;
sin former times-up to- the French revo-
luton of 1889 the division of the burgher-
ship into guilds was a powerful bulwark
against the impCvishment and the demOral-
izatiOn of the working classes. There was a
sort of familiar bond between master, work
man, and apprentice; they belonged to a
class; they had common interests and solid
esprit de corps; spirit of brotherhood exer-
ted a wholesome restraint promotive of a
certain responsibility.
Yet this system, which has regulated the
for so many centuries has outlived its USE
| fulness, and has been swept away by the
hurricane of modern liberal ideas. 1t him
dered the development of industry on large
scale.
''Yet, though many an artisan of the old
school, proud of his skill and dexterity, sunk
to the level of almost a laborer, it must be
owned that the condition of working people
of sober habits, journeymen as we'll as labor
ers, is not worse than before.
"But the subverting pDlitlco- social notions
that are current among those classes in most
parts of Central Europe, inordmate longing
after enjoyment, an undue love of dress and
luxury, with some want of temperance in the
use of spirtuous liquors, the envy Of their
suDeriors, the spirit of indisclpline, all char
acteristcs of our epoch and not shared by the
working people alone, unbalance their minds
and render them unhappy, dissatisfied, and
unruly. And, indeed in many parts of Cen
tral Europe the harShness of circumstances
is such that in most cases the journeyman
mechanic, and more still, the laborer, only
live from hand to mouth, happy even if he
succeeds in that.
SIN Alsace, one of the most fertile regions
of the valley of the Rhine, the picture is per-
haps somewhat less dark. In this district
manufacturing industry was started under
good auspices and has taken a development
rarely surpassed. This success is mainly due
to the capable men who introduced manufac-
turing industries into Alsace at the end Of
the last century and the first half of this.
They established their manufactures in the
very best manner and used the most perfect
machinery then eXtant. Discipline, ofcourse,
there is, and must be, but the operatives have
the feeling that their EMPLOYERS take no un-
due advantage of them, and they therefore
respect them. b fi.
The Alsatian working population are per-
fectly aware of the intellectual superiority of
those who succeeded in starting and raising
the different industries of Alsace to such a
high degree of prosperity, and therefore
they yield ready and willing obedience to
masters who, on their hand, show practical
sympathy and kindness to their workmen
and their families. That spirit of envy which
throws such dark shadow on the relations
between employers and employed in other
parts of Central Europe does not exist in
AlSace.
"These satisfactory relations explain also
why Socialism, which unbalauces the minds
of the working classes and poisons their morals
whilst it keeps the better situated classes
of Europe, as it were, in constant uncomfor-
table state of suspense. never took root in
Alsace. The workmen know too well that
their own personal interest is intimately con-
nected and dependent on the general pros
perity of industry. They know that in order
to insure the success of industry in general,
as well as their own well-being, there must
be strong scientific organization under the
direction Of competent men of intellect and
manifold knowledge, and that mere work.
man. or an associate of workmen, could not
but fail producing the desired effect Thus
their good sense saves them, as we'll as their
employers, much trouble and unpleasantness,
as well as loss of time and money" g..
CRAFTSMAN.