Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-29
WEALTH Is NOT ALL.
Inventions Fail if They Only In
crease Labor's PrOductivenesS
HAPPINESS is MORE IMPORTANT.
Will Electricity Serve to Make the World
Brighter and Better?
The TELEGRAPH AND THE INTELLECT
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH,

| WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATcH.1
The great advances made in electrical
science during the last few years have drawn
many thinking men to look forward in con-
temptation of its probable results. Science,
they say, has hitherto increased only the
effectiveness and productiveness of man
kind, but added nothing to its happiness.
The men and women who lived and toiled
before the great forces of steam were utilized
were doubtless as happy, ii not happier,
than they who fill the factories and work.
shops of to-day. The shoemaker at his
bench, the blacksmith at his forge, the viii
lage miller in his mill, the farmer in his
fields, worked longer hours perhaps, and
made less money than do the wage workers
of the great manufacturing concerns OF to-
day, bnt they were more independent and
therefore more contented.
| At least so we are told by those whose
memory goes back to the day when the
shoemaker could stop to gossip with his
visitors, or sing songs as an accompaniment
to his own industry, and when the black
smith could crack jokes with the village
pundits and shower them with sparks from
| his anvil and his wits. Nowadays the mo
admittance" signs on the mills and factories
preclude the social intercourse so dear in
| days of old.
LORD sALISBURY's GLOOMY VIEW.
But as the old times can hardly be ex-
| pected to return, the present business is to so
| adapt the new force as to avoid the failures
that have followed the adoption of steam
power and the vast inventions that have
| revolutlonized society in the past century.
| In recent speech, Lord Salisbury, who in
| the leisure of his ministerial duties makes
study of electricity, expresses himself as
doubtful that its effects will tend any more
to the happiness of mankind than have the
great labor-saying inventions of the present
century. He has an idea that If electricity
could be so diffused that work could be
done in the rural districts and villages in
stead of the great cities, much happiness
would result. This would do away with the
evils and miseries of living in tenement
houses, back alleys and the haunts of vice
and crime. If it does not do this then his
fears outweigh his hopes.
But if Lord Salisbury knew it, this
is what is being done, or at least something
akin to it, around Pittsburg, not so much
as the effect of electricity, perhaps, as of the
growing taxes of great cities The large
corporations, while said to have no souls,
tition that in self-defense they are establish
ing their great works and manufacturing
interests in the rural regions.
EXAMPLES HERE AT HOME.
Homestead, Jeanette, Wilmerding and
Creighton are examples here at home where
careful, well-doing working people can Sc
cure pleasant homes and rural surround
ings at low rates. The quiet, rustic village
life of the old days. when mute inglorious
Miltons," and "village Hampdens," and |
''guiltless Cromwells' were laid away in
the village churchyards with "names and |
years spelt by the unlettered muse" may |
never return, but nevertheless science, in |
telligence and wealth can establish villages |
and towns with surroundings, appliances
and devices ior comfort and health and |
happiness such as were never dreamed of by |
those who see in the decay OF the picturesque |
old villages and their clod-hopping inhabi-
tants decrease of happiness, and all that |
makes life contented and cheerful.
We have in our minds view a country |
village, not hundred miles away, where |
the people still live in the most primitive
Puritan style. In spots it is picturesque,
and artists would rave over it, but while it
might be pretty in picture, in reality it is
about as ugly as it could be made. Its plain,
inconveu1ent houses are built in most cases
out to the clay road that in winter is a deep
expanse of mud, and in summer dusty be-
yond description. This state of affairs
requires a locked front door and closed win
dows, shaded by blue paper blinds. Around
the corners may be seen, perhaps, a half de-
cayed lilac bush, or a hopeless looking
grapevine struggling with abounding weeds.
No convenience tor the housewife is dreamed
of; the we'll may be 40 feet from the kitchen,
and the coalshed even further, while the pig
crrr ho tod rhnr ifc ndn ha |
interior with sickening smells. Here frowsy
women live, and 'raise children" and when
they die go to the neglected churchyard over
the hills. Their one amusement. perhaps, is
talking to their neighbors over the broken
back fences, and discoursing upon the mys-
teries of Providence in decreeing that so
many children shall die of the "summer
complaint" and "dipthery." Those in the
village who have a little pride are derided
as trying to be people of quality.
THE MODERN VILLAGE.
What contrast is such village to that
where intelligence, cultivated taste and
science have united In providing healthy
drainage, comfort and beauty. Each house
is set back among trees and shrubbery. the
water is in the house, and the streets are
lighted by electricity. Pigs are shut off
and cows confined to proper pastures. Such
towns are growing common, ana they Will |
become more so when corporations and capi-
talists find that such surroundings make
their employees more contented, cheer ul
and less given to strikes, that despoil both
masters and men.
What men need and desire is to enjoy the
earth and all that therein is, and this, those
can never do who have to grub and drudge ,
for long hours under the hardest conditions
for barely enough to keep themselves alive.
II by means of electricity some abatement I
in working hours can be made, If the util-
ziDg of natures forces can bring its benef- s
,ence into the working women's kitchens q
and deliver the toilers therein from martyr t
1om, it will be most blessed boon. But if, b
Is Henry George afirms, discovery alter 9
discovery, invention after invention have a
rot lessened the Soil of those who most need +
.espite, nor brought plenty to the poor, nor
diminished the deadening pain and keen
anguish that fill the world with
listress," nor given the highest and noblest s.
Qualities in man full scope to grow-if, in il
hort, progress has made wider and deeper !,
he gulf between poverty and wealth, and :.
f the new forces of electricity will only Z
orm part of "the immense wedge, not un- :
lerneath society, but forced through society,
o that those above the point of separation
re elevated, while those below are crushed
own." then the new force will only make
he misery OF the masses deeper and the y