The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-06-19
THE OLD MAN AND TIE BOYS.

No small amount of the third quarter
of the nineteenth century was consumed
in trying to determine what to do with
our daughters. Reams on reams of pa
per Were consumed in lengthy essays,
and book after book was sent out IN
search of some olive branch of truth,
which was to be the symbol that some
where in the waste of ignorance there
was tree of knowledge bearing the
coveted prize-even the solution of the
enigma, ready made. But no answer
came. The girls looked on, no doubt,
with conscious self-reliance, knowing
that at least half of the worlds popuia-
ton, from the beginning, had been girls,
and that, having been utilized in one form
or other during the ages and cycles OF
the past, they reasoned that at least
one more generation would be cared
for, or permitted to live in some fashion.
Just what all this agItation-these
books and essays had to do with the
final solution, is not known. There Is
reason to believe, however, that they
had little weight. save to incite the dear
girls to action. They may have figured
that, rather than be the subject OF a
riddle they would solve ii themselves,
and they did. Dating back fifteen years
we see half generation of heroic girls
invading the avenues of business,
hitherto regarded inaccessible to women.
1t was the quick solution. They entered
the ranks with winning habits,
deft handed and conscious Of their
native resources. The sequel
proves their efficiency, and the
wool gathered commentator upon social
ethics, so far as the girls are concerned,
can write of something else.
But as every age brings its response
bilities, so comes its riddles and conun-
drums. Now we are confronted with,
what shall we do with the old man and
the boys? Owing to tie invasions made
by women, and the still more patent in
ventions of labor saving machinery,
there is surplus of brain and Drawn of
the male variety not altogether favora-
bic to the peace of society, That I'M
known quantity of our being designated
as the mind is adjusted upon a
principle of automatic industry
which forbids even an idle moment, and,
for the most part, there are willing
hands seeking to earn a livelihood, but
the labor market exhibits a daily in
crease of supply with phenomenal
paucity of demand. There is hardly
room IN the professions; the
few places provided for capitalists and
men of leisure are all taken; there is not
a line OF branch of business which is not
worked to its full capacity; the peddler
and the "agent" are not even allowed to
show their wares or practice their ora
tory, and the tramp, even when organ
lied in the convenient form of an
"army," is denied the privilege of free
and as for aliment he
must depend upon charity alone.
The old adage that Mature abhors a |
in the physical world, is peril |!
nent here in economics. 1--WE are full \
up-have all the help we need" is pla-
Carded on the face of each |
and every citizen who furnishes !
in any line. Indeed we |
can think of but two vacancies IN the |
entire vocabulary of bread winning pur-
suits. One is at the giddy heights
known as the top. "There IS always
room at the top" in fact there is per-
petual vacancy in that position, and it is
the privilege of every American citizen |
to reach for it. The other is on the |
farm. There is vast domain of uroc- |
cupied acres, smiling a perpetual well |
come to the hungry and destitute. |
These acres are a veritable store-house |
of health, plenty and independence. |
Here is an opening-just one, which |
would furnish employment for every |
wandering exile; every head of a de- |
pendent family; every depoSed clerk;
every clientless lawyer; every statesman |
out of job-yes, every able bodied |
''lord of creation" of whatsoever trade |
or calling. When this contingent of our |
male population begins the stampede for |
the farms the problem Will be solved,
but not till then.