The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-07-10
TRUE REWARD OF LABOR.

We clip the following from The
Southern Alliance:
The reward of labor is not money.
Money is only a purchasing commod-
ity. 1t is not food, o clothing, nor
comfortable surroundings of life. The
highest reward of labor in this life
is honest contentment. That content
ment comes to each man according to
the measure of his desires. There is
certainly no population SO devoid of
unreasonable desires as the farming
people. Intellectually they are far
above any other large class of working
men and women. They do a great
deal of thinking. They learn content
ment from the natural world around
them. They seek the direct results of
their labor, and see 1t come out of the
ground to pay their delving and dig
cling. The workmen in cities who are
paid money for their work, look at the
money and at once ask "what will [
do with it ?" There are a thousand
tempting objects, and if he cannot
afford to invest, the natural desire for
more money springs up. The laboring
classes of various countries are tempted
by the luxuries of their surroundings,
and are discontinued if they cannot
afford them.
Immigrants who at home saw meat
scarcely. once once a month, tea, coffee
and sugar almost never, and did not
desire them, here demand them daily.
Women who were happy in calico are
unhappy now unless they "walk in
silk attire and siller haze to spare"
Social life creates discomfort or con-
tent according to the rules which it
enacts in this o. that locality. Rival
ries and e~nvies, unspoken, uncon-
fessed, are nevertheless very prevalent
where social life looks with admiration
upon dress, furniture, equipage, etc.
There are sad changes going on in
the social system of some parts of the
farming country, especially where
railroads have come in with the curse
the railroads always bring by annex
ing country to city. But many hun
dred thousand farms had never been
reached by these malign influences,
and thus it comes about that so many
farmers are contented and happy with
rewards of their work which the city
laborer would despise. For all this
talk about a farm for every man is a
humbug of the purest kind, because
the city laboring man who gets two
dollars a day for ten hours work would
scount the idea of working a farm for
all the pay he could make it produce.
The reward which keeps so many
men and women at farm labor is happy
contentment, with happy surroundings,
in the assurance that they live among
who have a kindly interest in
one another. The social system is
where it is a system of uni
versal brotherhood, practical in it's
workings. Every n knows every
one who lives within five or more
miles. If there is any one sick all the
people are interested and anxious. If
one dies all the neighbors attend the
funeral. The good of n is cause of
delight to all. Affections and losses
are easy to bear with help all around.
TO live where such a social inter-de-
pendence and confidence exists is to
live in the highest community relation
which men r capable of forming.
Out of this social system came our
political system and our
giant statesman of old time. And it
is to foster this "good will to man "
that the grand army of laborers have
come together under the name of the
Alliance.
1t shows a pitiful want of charity
and dense ignorance as to the true
aims and objects Of the Farmers ALI
ance for any man or any set of men to
oppose this movement on the part of
;he honest yeomanry of our country
who are laboring now to better their
condition, "~socially, morally and
financially"
When such able and far seeing
authorities as the New York Journal
# Commerce and others align them
selves most positively with the farm
rs, it is high time for the rights of
he farmer, the real working man of