The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-05-20
rHoUeHrs FOR woRKINaMEN.

The lack of classification among work
ingmen works a serious injury to the
employing class, but it is not nearly so
much of a detriment to them as it is to
the workingmen themselves. The in
sistence of the industrial classes upon
the exact equality of each member with
every other member tends to repress
any ambition to excel and to make The
individual workman content If he be
sufficiently expert to pass muster. The
theory of the equality of each member OF
a craft or class is something that obtains
in no other walk of life, and is so mani
testify merely a theory that it is evident
that its practical adoption can work
nothing but evil. 1t is with pleasure,
therefore, that we note growing feel
ing that partial solution of the labor
question lies in classification and grad
ing of individual operatives according
to their proficiency, the proposition
being to divide each trade into first,
second and third classes, the rate OF
wages and standing in the craft to be
determined by the class the workman
is in.
As a matter of course, employers look
with the utmost favor upon such a
movement, and would take steps to in
IL UllGlllSClNCo WC1O ~ III OhSAA
power, but the matter really lies with
the workingmen themselves, and few
of the more thoughtful are beginning to
see the simple common sense and justice
embodied in the idea. 1t is patent to
the most superficial observer that there
is a vast difference in the capacity of
different individuals, Jven though they
NAV have had the same training and the
lo,, Of xraorSi nYnnrinnnn nnA
| printer may set job in half the time
that it takes another, and do it so that
| it presents a much more attractive APP
pearance when completed, or a book
binder may do his portion towards the
binding of book in a similarly effective
manner, yet by the rules of the union,
the inferior workman must receive the
same pay as the superior one. To state
it in anothe way, the superior workman
must submit to a weekly tax-indlrect,
it is true, but none the less real for that
to help support the inferior one, who
has not the ambition or industry to be-
come equally proficient.
Manual dexterity is only one of the
essentials in a good workman, for to do
good work intelligent observation and
the use of his brains is equally necessary.
AS the case now stands, there is but
little incentive to ambition, for the only
reward offered is a promotion to fore
manship, and these prizes are naturally
few, and appeal only to the more am,
bilious. With the gradations mentioned
above the apprentice would naturally be
placed in the third class on becoming a
iourneyman, and he would be made of
very poor stuff indeed if he did not
aspire to the second class, and work
hard to secure promotion into it. Like
wise, when he had attained to the second
class he would be ambitious to get into
the first, and with each promotion he
would not only have the honor of be-
longing to higher grade, but he would
have the increased wages that would GO
with it.
The chief difficulty that would be en-.
countered in the reform would be that OF
grading those who are already journey
men. There are, however, in every
trade and in every city, men who clearly
belong to the first class, and who have
the confidence of their fellow workmen
and it ought not to be difficult to form
committees whose duties it should be tc
make the classification. Such com
mittees would certainly be of far greater
advantage to the trades than are the
present walking delegates, and need no
be an unproductive class, as the latter.