The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1889-11-15
THE STATUS OF LABOR.
A Working-Man's journal on the In
srenSe of Nom Irodueers.


crease of Non-Iroducers.
The tendency of American youth. to
forsake the industrial field and join the
great army OF non-producers has long
been bewailed by magazine writers
and popular lecturers. Their SUPER
fetal determinations on the subject.
however. have conspicuously failed to
enlighten the public as to the real un-
DERIVING cause of the dislike of the
young for manual labor. Nobody pos
fesslng even an inkling of the truth
will be apt to imagine that the evil
will be checked in any appreciate de-
gree by greater attention to industrial
training. What the latter movement
will accomplish. if wisely carried out,
Will be to better equip those who now
desire to follow mechanical calling for
The battle Of life-to prepare them for
becoming skilled artisans in place of
half-trained botches. 1t will require
some far more radical change than in
dustrial schooling to stem the current
which has set in from the farm and
the workshop toward the counting
house, store and Office. Young people
with even a smattering of education
can easily see that there are prizes
within reach of those who enter upon
a mercantile Or professional career,
such as the working-man can hardly
hope to obtain. They see. moreover,
tlat even if they never rise beyond the
lower steps of the ladder there is
greater degree of social consideration
extended to the clerk or book-keeper,
even though he be struggling to exist
upon a wretched pittance, than to the
mechanic or laborer. The man who is
able to wear black coat at his work,
and to keep his hands clean, who
can assume enough of the conventional
'gentlemanly appearance" to pass in a
crowd, occupies a far better social po-
sition than his father, the carpenter or
farmer. The female clerk or sales
woman has better chances of marriage
than the factory girl or domestic. So
long as this is the case it is folly to
expect that technical education or any
scheme of the kind will materially
alter the situation. The simple fact
that labor is despised caste is quite
sufficient both to explain and to justify
the intense desire of most young men
and women to attach themselves to
the non-producing class. When. in
addition to this, it is borne in mind
that toll is Systematically expoliated
for tle benefit of the idlers and the
supe sfous and improbable brain
work ers, and that every one who
entels commercial or professional life
has at least chance, though it be but
SIN all one. of attaining a position
where he can share the spoils, the
preference Of the rising generation for
light and easy head-work appears not
only natural. but, from the competi-
tive point of view, sensible and worthy
of apI roval. There is no remedy for
this State OF things, and there ought to
be no emedy short of complete justice
to labor. Until the development of a
sOunder and healthier public opinion
raises The status of manual industry in
the social scale, so that an honest
worker receives as much consideration
as the genteel idler, and by just
system of distribution secures the
whole instead of mere fraction of his
earnings the constant study of the
alert and quick-witted young American
of either Sex will be, not how to fit
him or herself for useful toll, but how
to escape from the prison house of
despised aud ill-requited labor. Not
until labor receives its due, both in
social estimation and improved mate
rial conditions, will any less funda-
mental reform suffice to stay the exc
dus from the farm, the workshop. and
the factory to the over crowded high
ways and byxays of business and pro-
fessional life. journal of United La
Dor.