The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-15
LOOKING FOR WORK.

Half a Million People in the Country
Engaged at this.
There are in the United States, in this
year. 10000 seekers for work-a half mil
lion people of both sexes and all ages, look
ing for employment in gainful occupations
and only 100000 places to be filled, says
the Scientific American. The figures are
based upon actual returns, from the census
and other sources, of the total number OF
persons employed at different periods, and
the increase of the population, showing an
average percentage added yearly to
the number of persons engaged in all occu-
pations. That is, to keep up the integrity
of the work of the country--to keep it up to
its full average standard of progression,
and fill up the places naturally made vacant
100000 new places will have to be filled
while the increase of the population shows
that there will, in natural order. be 100000
inhabitants for these places without count
ing, in either case, 'the great army of un-
employed, which, through all ages, has hung
on the outskirts of civilization These
figures are arrived at. not only by the ordi-
nary process of uivisi over a decade of
years, but by separate calculations based
on the death rate and other elements. 1t
is evident from the bare statement
of the case that the problem will be, as it
ever has been, a most serious one for a large
proportion of the seekers for work. But
calculation. The figures given include
women and children engaged as we'll as
men, and according to the census of 1880,
the employed in all occupations were IS per
cent. male and 10 per cent. female. In the
different kinds of work agriculture en-
ployed 44.10 per cent. of the laboreEs. pro-
fessional and personal service required 23.43
per cent, trade and transportation 10.41
per cent, and manufacturing, mining and
mechanical industries 22.O6 per cent. 1t
will be seen, therefore, that there is not
only a great diversity of employment Of
fered to the upcoming seekers for work, a
wide range of industries, to which new ad-
ditions are beng daily made-but that the
computation includes all probable candi-
dates for work from both sexes. In a COM
petition that is SO general, among competi-
tors urged by motives eff every degree of
fo~rcefulness, it can hardly be said that
there is any inexorable law which DEGREES
that only the most TT shall survive. 1t may
we'll be, nevertheless, that the II
Of survival, the degree of success obtained
by each will, as a rule, be deter
mined according as the competitors are most
fit for the places they are moving forward
to fill. In all the new industries so con-
6tantly arising, experiences IN the lines out OF
which these industries are developing is a
vital necessity, or the proposed new depart
ure is almost certain to be a foredoomed
failure; and in all the old industries the divi-
sion of labor has been carried to the minutest
detail, to obtain the greatest perfection in
the work and utmost economy of production.
General intelligence is an excellent qualifi-
cation, amind disciplined to perceive things
luminously n reason logically is of high
abstract value, but IN trying to obtain en-
ployment the question will be. What can
o do? 1t does not SO much matter what
line of business or avocation one chooses,
but the doing of more and better work
therein than another matters everything.
The humber the employment entered into
with the right spirit, the more rapid as we'll
as the more certain will be the advance
ment. The foundations are thus deeply
laid, which, with energy and right direc-
ton, will never, fail to support a solid
grow tn.