The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-05-29
NUMBER l3.
Saving Better than Striking.

"A time VIII come, 1t Is to be hoped,
when labor societies will consider
themselves under obligations, not
alone to maintain the rate of wages,
but to see that when earned those
wages are nationally and usefully en-
ployed. Hitherto there has been too
much question of what men should
receive for their labor. and too little
question of how they should expend
their earnings. Workingmen insist
that the sympathy of the public ought
to be with them in their struggles to
improve their situation. They do not
reflect that to deserve this complete
sympathy it is insumbent on them to
show that they do not waste their
earnings. Ifa man earns a thousand
dollars year, and chooses to spend
fourth of his income in superfluities.
and. moreover, In mischievous SUPER
fiuities such asdf1nk. he cannot matte
much of showing in complaining of
his poverty. 1t is alleged that the
drink-bill of this country is S9OO,OOO,-
900. To apportion half of that outlay
to the working classes is certainly not
an unreasonable division. What
fund for the Improvement of the con-
dition of labor is here worse than
flung away.
Even retrenchment of so per cent
in this one source of waste would pro-
duce capital large enough to estab-
lish co operative industries all over
the country, and to give to organized
labor the impetus which its leaders
declare can only be supplied by
money. But in face of the fact that
the workingmen at present prefer to
spend this great sum in drink, is it
not nonsense to assert that they are
handicapped in the race for prosper
ity by any hands but their own?
Nothing more cOnclusively demon
states the familiar axiom that the
capitalization Of wealth implies thrift.
The capitalists are not, as too many
workingmen seem to imagine, class
OF wicked men who by some unhoIy
means have got hold of masses of
money. They are simply the men
who have practised self-denial who
have saved instead of spending their
surplus earnings who have put it to
interest prudently as opportunity
served who have always expended
less than they earned. Hundreds of
them began poor not seldom by day
labor. But even when they only
earned $1.50 day they saved some-
thing, and this rule of life has brought
them competence.
The man who cannot practise self
denial will never be rich, though the
hours of labor should be reduced one
half. and the current wages be in
creased hundred per cent. The
thrifty man can save out of the
merest pittance. The unthrIfty will
fall behind on an income of $4,000 a
year. When the labor of country
complains of its condition at the same
time that it is spending $4OO, O,0OO.0OOa
year upon beer and whiskey, what
can be thought of the genuineness of
its grievances, of its intelligence, of
its fitness for progress Let it be ad-
mitted that under existing conditions
every man is entitled to waste his
substance as he pleases it assuredly
does not follow that. having wasted
it, he is entitled to claim as the effect
of general injustice the material in
Jury he has deliberately brought up.
on himself. American labor owes it
to itselfto help itself, and its first duty
is not to disturb the national indus
try and commerce by unreasonable
strikes. but to show that it has the
self denial, thrift and temperance
which alone can lift it to a higher
plane. While the enormous leak in
the wage-fund represented by the
drink-bill continues to drain away
the earnings of labor it is impossible
to regard as wholly serious the COM
plants advanced by those who pay
that bill. All can see that they need
not do it that if they kept the money
in their pockets two.thirds of their
difficulties would vanish at once; that
if they haye not the force of character
to refrain from self-indulgence, no
legislation. no increase of wages, no
shortening of hours, can help them
permanently. They should begin
with the conquest of themselves, and
tina. accomplished, all things will be
easy for them.-N Y. Tribune.