The record-union., 1896-11-29
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS
BY MEMO.
fCopyrigi,tpdo

for their exclusive publication)
In relation to employers liability for
injuries To workingmen Massachusetts
is decidedly advanced. New York wo-
fully negligent, and varying degrees Of
interest in the matter are shown on the
statute books of other States. You
young men, many of you legislators
that are to be, may we'll take up this
subject for exhaustive study and deter
mine in your minds to secure certain
uniformity and justice In such laws. The
mechanic of to-day, debarred from in
innate acquaintance with his associ-
ates gathered by hundreds in factories,
and by thousands on railroads, is hope
lessly at the mercy of the carelessness
of others.
1t seems to be in keeping with our
present state of civilization that the
burden of maintaining the legless or
armless, and certainly hopeless. sufferer
from injuries received While at the post
of duty for some definite employer,
should fall on the strong employer and
not on the community at large, through
the poorhouse or almshouse. or what
ever else you may style the form that
cold, perfunctory charity takes. The
wife and the children, deprived of the
bread-winner by another's negligence,
would seem to have a righteous claim
upon the man or corporation that had
been served. even as the families of SOL
diers have worthy claim upon the coun-
try whose battles disabled the husband
and father
l suggest no wrongful imposition up
on the employer, nor do L utter any
rawlings about illegal profits and heart
less grindings. Employers are men
like ourselves, and in the average quite
as reasonable as the toilers. But | do
speak out emphatically for uniformity
in relation to liability as much for the
sake of the wage-payer as the wage
Garner; for the intensity of competition
has rendered the employer in some
cases even less certain profit than the
workman of wages. Any charge, there
fore, upon the employers in one State
not equally borne by men in similar
business just across the border of an
other State would be quite naturally re-
sisted
Still, you will find among employers a
decided willingness to have this burn
ing question of manufacturing age
properly discussed and forever settled.
Wherever progress is made in any
State equal to that in Massachusetts,
the natural result viii be the formation
of insurance companies to assume the
monetary responsibility Of the employer
at so much per month or year for every
employe This is one of those subjects,
young men, quite worthy of your in
tense consideration. It may not have in
it any money rewards for your efforts,
but it will have in it an element that no
money ought TO be able to buy, justice.
A child just learning to toddle can
prattle forth a string of Whats" and
Why's" that will be the desperation of
the most learned philosopher. I heard
of one recently that was propounded
when a child by former United States
Fish Commissioner. Papa" said he,
before there was anything. what was
there, and what did it look like?"
These questions of childhood signify
much to them, if properly and patiently
answered. Their little inquisitive minds
are like magnets, gathering particles of
metal here, there and everywhere, and
individuality.
Dear mother, whose whispered Yes"
is working in it's effects on the children
gathered around you, and will work on
generations of men whom your eye
shall never behold strong father, whose
purpose of life has been to win and to
honor that wife with worldly goods and
moral purity, I thrill at the knowledge
that thousands of eyes like yours look
over these written words. Let me put
to you a question. How will you an
swer your child when with a puzzled
look and a growing sense of it's own ex-
istence it come to ask, Where did I
come from?" VIII you evade the ques-
ton With blushings and confusion, and
tell the child some story about storks
or gooseberry bushes?" So surely as
you do you will soon find it listening
with avidity to the story told by some
more knowing companion, and YOUR ST.
lence and evasion will seem to it like an
association of impurity and shame with
the child's existence. Learning about
holy things at the unholy fount of in
named guessings, little wonder if later
in life the child should regard love and
marriage as merely refined names for
lust and qualification.
L cannot do better at this point than
quote beautiful passage written by DR.
Mary Wood-Allep: but supposine ar
the time when the innocent child Game
with his honest query, the mother had
taken him in her arms and with ho1v
"oros had told him of the days when he
had been a part of her own life, when
heid In her close and protecting en-
brace he had grown with the beating Of
her heart and been nodded by the
toucn OF her thought, when her love
mad enfolded him, and her PRAYERS had
created the tenor of his own thoughts.
when through long days she had
dreamed of him, and worked for him.
and prepared for his coming. and finallv
had gone down into the vale of physica1
pain, perhaps even to the gates of death
with brave courage to welcome him
TO his independent earthly existence.
DO you not believe that the holiest of
IeeHhgS would have been aroused in
lhat chllos heart, and henceforth to
him mother would be the tenderest.
hottest word, and love and marriage be
symbolic of unselfish loyalty and most
sacred responsibility? When the sweet
story fell upon the ear of one child. he
threw his arms around his mothers
neck, exclaiming, Now, mamma. I
know why I love you the best of all
the world"
NO apology is needed for bringing in
this subject here. Just as 'intensest
love begets the fiercest hate" so the up
lift and the downfall of our race both