The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-09-01
DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES.
They Are Desirable for Many Rsasons
Both Economic and Patriotic.

They Are Desirable for Many HensouB
Both Economic and Patriotic.
There are two reasons why diversified
industries are Of advantage. The first
is purely economic; the second is ma
tional and patriotic. We believe that
diversified industries are an economic
benefit to the country, because every
man should have the opportunity to
faculties and talents, to earn his own
living in the most congenial way. Only
when this opportunity is present will
national wealth be greatest and the com
pensation Of labor be highest. When
there are but few industries, and all the
inhabitants Of country have to work
in those few, wages cannot be high, nor
can the maximum result in production
be attained.
Workingmen are not machines; they
are human beings, with oil the complex
motives, sentiments and aspirations that
form the grsndest part of human char
acter. They can and will do moro work
when they like that work and their
heart is in it than when they drudge
along in an occupation into which neces-
sity has forced them and which is I'M
congenisl and distasteful. 1t is because
free traders have entirely neglected to
consider this aspect OF the question that
they have failed to realize the impor-
lance of diversified industries.
Looking at laborers more than any
thing else as mechanisms that are to be
worked in some particular industry for
which, as they arbitrarily state, the
country is best fitted, they quite lose
sight of the fact that the primary factors
governing production and wages are the
ambitions and talents of the men and
women who work. Unless industries
are diversified, too, there cannot be that
steady and active demand for labor with
out which high wages are impossible.
Every industry has its periods of pros
perity and depression, alternating pc.
RODS of steady and unsteady demand
for labor, of high and low wages.
Now, when countryis limited to one
field or occupation, such period of de.
preston unhinges the industrial system
of the whole country, throws numbers
out of work, reduces wages all around
and produces hard times, from which il
may take years to recover. On the
other hand, when industries are diversi-
fed, while great depression in one un.
doubtedly influences all, yet the demand
for labor is not SO greatly impaired, MOI
does it require SO much time for oondi.
tons to again become normal, Profess
sor Denslow, in his Economic Philoso.
ply" expresses this idea as follows:
High wages are due to such an or
ganization of industries as keeps the
whole people employed, and to attain
the greatest possible diversity we must
not only tolerate those which we can
not avoid having but we must insist on
having those which, at the outset, free
foreign competition would be both in
terestcd and able to destroy. And we
must do this thoroughly in. order to
multiply the fields Of employment fol-
labor, and keep wages at the maximum
so far as human legislative effort can"
The other reason why v, desire diver.
sitied industries is one wh!ali should ap.
peal with force to every patriotic Cit.
zen. The spectacle of nation Will
many industries, with all its resources
fully developed, with all the natural
wealth with which it has been blessed
utilized, is surely far more inspiring, ia,
more calculated to rouse the pride of the
patriot, than that of a country devoted
to the exploitation of single industry,
with but one field for development, with
but one object of endeavor. We wish to
see our country supreme in every field
not closed to her by nature; in the
factory as in the farm, in the forest ~
in the mine. For the same reason thai
we love to behold well developed
human being, a man of good proper
tons, rather than one who is stuntcd
and badly formed, so as patriotic Amer.
leans we desire to see our country har.
moniously developing in every line-a
development which alone can make il
truly national in character.