The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1896-03-15
PLOWMAN GAMBLER,
One Plods and Produces, the
Other Consumer
EMPLOYMENT AND POPULATION.
So Long ~ Industry Rests on Primary
iation Feeds ON Labor.

Copyright. 1896. by John Clark Ridpath.
In the modern scheme of work IL is the
plowman who plods and the gambler who
sweats. The common opinion has Ii other
wise In popular belief the plowman is the
sweater and the gambler the cool member
of society. but II Is not so. The man of
the felix's and orchards goes Ieisurely
about his affairs and fumes but little.
while the rusher. the pusher and the
piunger get humid and drip with excess
OF heat.
Between blowing and gambling stretches
a long lire of industrial stations. each
marked with its own register of heat and
corresponding register of productiveness.
The further we proceed the hotter is the
condition The whole world of men are
occupied somewhere along the line. and
the industrial temperature. which is the
measure of the nervous combustion. rises
with every advance, from puiverizing the
soil to pulverizing the stock exchange.
That elegant form of political lying
called statistics gives us TO understand
that large part of mankind is still In
touch with the soil. In the United States
we told that over ~ per cent of the
people are engaged in some form of that
primary production called agriculture.
The remaining 60 per cent are distributed
along the industrial lines that begin in the
cornfeld and end at Monte Carlo.
As general fact the occupants Of each
station along these lines are striving to
attain the station just beyond. The ag-
gregate of the movement constitutes what
may be called the struggle of the indus
trial world. Our 10 per cent of producers.
using the soil as the basis of their endeav-
or. are not satisfied with II, but wish to
get away to the station where things are
made without the assistance of nature
that is. TO the shops and the factories.
Another large division of original produc-
ers strive 10 reach the trading stations.
To such 1t appears much more desirable
10 handle the products of industry, to turn
them over from one owner 70 another
charging a profit for the act. than TO ere
ate products. whether OF the field or the
shop.
From these motives and motions the
great worlds of manufacture and trade
are people. but neither trade nor manu-
facture satisfies those who are engaged in
II. They long to escape from the pursuits
in which they are occupied and TO follow
some other pursuit beyond. The question
of transportation and traffic across land
and sea arises. and thousands rush on to
solve 1t. Modern civilization presents a
spectacle. The lines of communication
and commerce have become plexus over
all the world. vast web which no genius
can well understand or unravel. The
threads OF the web reach to every import
ant spot on the earth. They extend across
all seas. They penetrate to the interior of
barbarian continents. They take hold of
the remotest islands. They touch the
shores of frozen oceans and lose them
selves in mountain SHOWS and in mac
cessible jungles. Along these lines the
human tide flows back and forth.
But the process does not end here. The
elaborate contrivance OF commerce. hav-
ing just behind 1t the elaborate contriv-
10 %, a
suggests another series of stations at
which the ambitious hope to arrive. They
are constructed out OF the agencies of ex-
change. They are banks. clearing houses
custom houses, bourses and all that elab-
crate machinery by which the counting
and accounting Of commerce is effected.
Many there be who go in at these door
ways. What an ambition there is to be
banker. broker, dealer In stocks and
securities. controller of the iniices of
value. director and handler of that I'M
movable machine called money,
just beyond this region rises the ex-
change. First 1t is produce exchange
and then "A stock exchange. The first has
its foundation on warehouses. elevators
and cargoes. The other is built on bonds
and possibilities expressed on paper. The
two are located near together. and the sur
viving competitors, who started far back
I'm the wheatfields and have run with swift
strides the Intervening course, rush In
and crowd around the pit. Here they be-
gin again the tremendous contest OF man
with man for the possession OF the indices.
not the coefficients of value
II Is Just at this point that the thing
called speculation springs and flourishes
To deal in the eoefficients of value is TO
deal In value itself That is. It is to trade
that is. It is TO exchange one value for
another. But to deal in the indlces of value
Is TO deal in something intangihle--a some
thing very hard to define. a something
which In the jarson of the place is called
a margin. but which could never be discoy-
cred by any test of science or the senses
Here il IS that the winds blow high and
the human temperature rises TO 2l2 de-
grees II.
The noticeable fact in all this business is
that the children of the world cannot keep
up with the campaign. The children are all
in the first camps. They make vocal the
fields. They enliven the shops. They are
seen sometimes playing behind the coun-
ters- They appear in shoals in villages and
the humber streets where the simpler
forms OF industry are the basis OF life. But
they begin 10 thin out and disappear on
the public square ami in the commercial es-
adjustments. The hig store hardly knows
them any longer. The big store is inhabited
and propelled by beings who were once
children, but they have forgotten it,
Commerce in the larger sense has no chii-
dren. The railroad and the steamship can
hardly be said 10 contribute to the race.
They have their offspring but the Offspring
Is not OF the human kind. Further on the
child becomes more rare. In the Boulevard
he IS unknown. excer; at infrequent inter-
walls as an intruder. In the parks he is not
an inhah.tant. hut a visitor. Below Canal
street he has no show. AT the stock ex-
change the mention OF him produces a
burst OF laughter As We said above the
gambler has no children. and never had
Sometimes he has a woman for companion
and what she is may be seen by studying
for a little while Marcus stones Cciunl-
biaa painting OF The Gamblers Wife"
The population OF the world is produced
and reproduced on the Industrial plaae
Of the primary pursuits. The temperature
and coniitiou OF tha; level are favara-
hse 10 the man products as wen as to the
products OF the earth, The family is firm
~ established on this level. The child
host Is borne here. nuTtured here by m
tIral mothers, iaV.soratei and perfected
here for whatever enterprise there is In
the world. Herefron efnanate the human
forces that pervade the whole industrial
sphere and control T..
Win the very first advance from The
primary Industries Of mankind the family
t,'gins - weaken and population 10 wane
The rate n reproduction begins 20 fan
81. The offspring i reduced IN numbers
A. every stage. and i generally wee kaas9
with she praSrsss. The child Gess IA re-
rnanied % the care OF A Scandinavian ~er-
want. The newborn is:e becomes u-.ra-
riegs sad struggling. Il survives only N
sections The large 1Sck. vigorous ~
ru6iiy. dW udles 20 a small nock. atta-li-
stes AID pale The normal brain. sufFf-
- - a~