The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-05-12

l.. 1t would be a hopeful effort to
lessen the terrific strain of competition
among laboters. It is estimated that
the army of the unemployed in this
great city is fully $50, 600. There is a
~sickening sight you may witness any
day you are to go where there has
been a call issued for workingmen to,
do the ugliest jobs Hours before the
time appointed, crowded and jostling
for the place nearest the door, are
scores on scores more than can possibly
be employed. Hungry and dirty and
anxious, they wait for the scramble for
the privilege of earning bread enough
to keep body and soul together. Any
earnest effort to wipe this stain from
our Christian civilization should have
our firm support and active help.
LIFE OR DESPAIR.
2. Itswould vastly enlarge the hori-
ION of the life of millions. liam come
that they may have life" says the
Master. He implies life here and here
after more intellectual and social life,
as well as the higher spiritual expan-
siOns of life. Fewer hours of depress-
ing toll would give the laboring men
hundreds of opportunities, where all
is now a sickening black, if not the
blackness of despair. He would have
opportunity of rest and recreation.
Life is a burden and a horror, if wholly
devoid of these, and is rich and strong
as they are properly woven into its
threads. 1t would give opportunity
for study and education, and the de-
velOpment of the higher faculties of
mans nature, that express themselves
in art, letters and music. The founda-
tiOns of all these beautiful worlds are
divine, and the man who is lead away
from the clay up and into them is
brought face to face with the divine,
and must catch the breath of God
among the perfumes of their flowers.
ECONOMIC GAIN.
3. It would improve the skill, eff
cheney and value of labor. The testi-
mony of several great English firms is
emphatic on this point. They have
made the test. They have proven it's
success beyond serious question. They
declare what they have lost in higher
wages they more than regain in the
new zeal and energy put into the work
by the men. Interruptions were fewer.
The men had better spirit, stronger
hearts and stronger arms.
II THE SPHERES.
4. 1t would not lift men out of their
spheres, but lift the spheres. 1t would
lift the life of man as a whole for the
benefit of all at the expense of none.
This is a lesson the world is sadly in
need of learning to-day. We have had
in the past a mad struggle to the death
among men to rise" 1" to get on" to
get out of the sphere in which they
move into a so-called higher one. The
clodhopper rises. That is, he drops
a lawyer. The carpenter rises; that is,
he throws down hammer and plane
and saw, and becomes a real estate
broker and then a banker. Every man
who thus rises steps on the bodies of
weaker men as the rungs Of the ladder
which he rises. The whole process is
anti-C Christian. To shorten the time of
labor in these undesirable fields would
make them more desirable, and would
be to give justice to those who are
called to do what we dislike, and by
superior genius OF luck have avoided.
1t would give more dignity and self
respect to the Iaboring man; and he is
entitled to it. He needs this more
than he needs money.
PREACHER AND LABORER.
The preachers and teachers of New
England receive salaries that do not
average quite as high as that of the
labOreTs in the manufactures, who are
skilled. Yet the preachers and teach
ers of New England form a sort of class
~aristocracy, head and shoulders above
these thousands-of toilers. What the
toilers need and should have by right
of manhood is more time for the de-
velopment Of the higher faculties Of
man..
IMPROVE POLITICS.
5. 1t would improve the politics of
the world. The politics of State of the
coming century are certainly to be
shaped in large measure by the aspira-
lions and demands of the undertaking
world. Manhood suffrage is the event
toward which the old world is being
driven with resistless power to-day.