The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-06-25


man can make, 1 believe, ten shutters,
where an older workman made only
one. Yet the older workman got more
for making his one than the younger
mantle machine men-gets for his
ten. One set of workmen have lost,
but all people who use shutters have
gained.
What then9 Shall men cease craving
power and making machines4 Shall
this cease to be an inventive age! Shall
civilization go Backward or shall
laborers, hand 1abors, be doomedi
Man will go on making. Laborers must
rise to be intelligent enough to become
CO partners with the machine, n ele-
vate themselves.
Machinery, though it often appears
to be the Iaborers' enemy, Is, neVerEne-
less. his friend. There would not be
so much cotton to pick, were it not thai
there are machines to manufacture cot
ton goods. The machine has also Gre
ated a demand for more skilled labor,
and it has given a money value to
many commodities that hitherto had
no financial value. Pine straw, which
is SO plentiful, was, only q short time
ago, absolutely worthless, but ma
chimes have been invented which make
mating of this once worthless mate
rial; hence, it has been given a money
value. Cotton seed once lay in i'm
mense piles on every farm in the South,
considered worse than useless, but now
machines have a demand for it. Rocks
have been the greatest obstruction on
many of our roads, but where we have
ponderous machines to crush them,
they are wanted for improvement of
roads.
Terra Gotta, once u@eless mud, is now
valuable. Even we : is made more
valuable by the machine.
Many fertile parts Of country.
were it not for that wonderful machine,
the locomotive, would be almost mac
cessible, and crops grown there would
be almost worthless, could they not be
exported But the machine has made
almost every part of the world acces,
sible.
Without machinery, England would
not be powerful enough to rule her
widely separated dominions.
Man has increased his strengh by his
inventions. Powder and nitro glyce,
rine have enabled him even to burst
mountains asunder. The warships of
to-day, with their great rifed guns,
whose projectiles can pierce fifteen
inches of steel, r examples of the
great power and strength man has
gained with machinery.
Man has obtained many blessings
through machinery, but there is nc
blessing that cannot be perverted into
an evil, and there is danger in the
machine.
Mans most common fault is selfish,
ness. The machine, by making life so
easy to him, ministers to this selfish
ness. Machines carry caterers in every
climate and give man out of season,
the products of the world. The fruits,
vegetables and luxuries camper his
appetite and destroy his energy.
The machine relieves man of much
work that his own hands once did. To
take a familiar instance: Man used to
have to carry his baby. He become
tired, and the machine-the baby car
riage-relieved him and disconnected
every body else. He had to soothe his
baby's cheerful cries by jumping him
up and down. His soul grew weary
and he turned to the machine, he
invented the baOy jumper. He had to
lead the baby by the hand to teach him
to walk. He was lazy; the machine
was called for, and the perambulator
came. He had to chop food for the
baby. He didn't like to chop food.
The machine responded and gave him
beef extract already chopped.
He had to arise in the night to replen-
ish his fire so that his heir might have
enough warmth. Rising in the night
is contrary to a mans innate sense OF
dignity and moral rectilUde. He called,
yea, called loudly for his machine, and
oh, joy unspeakable the electric motor
steps to the front, and now he has only
to turn a button. and the machine does
the rest. No, he gets the rest. Thesew
tender offices, and countless others be
ing done for him by the machine, man
comes to think that he is not to be
bothered about anything, and the
growth of this feeling ministers alarm.
iDgly to personal selishness and love
Of ease.
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