The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-12-03

States. You young men, many of
you legislators that are to be, may
well take up this subject for exhaus-
tive study and determine in your
minds to secure a certain uniformity
and justice in such laws. The me
chanic of to-day, debarred from init
mate acquaintance with his associates
gathered by hundreds in factories,
and by thousands on railroads, is
hopelessly at the mercy of the careless
ness Of others.
1t seems to be in keeping with our
present state of civilization that the
burden of maintaining the Iegless or
armless, and certainly hopeless, suf-
ferer, from injuries received while at
the post of duty for some defiant en-
plOyer, should fall on the strong en-
ployer, and not on the community at
large, through the poorhouse or aims
house, or whatever else you may style
the form that cold, perfunctory char
ity takes. The wife and children de-
prived of the bread-winner by an
others negligence, would seem to
have a righteous claim upon the man
or corporation that had been served
even as the families of soldiers have
worthy claim upon the country whose
battles disabled the husband and
father
l suggest no wrongful imposition
upon 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 not speak out emphatically
for uniformity in relation to liability
as much for the sake of the wage
payer as the wage Garner; for the in
tensity of competition has rendered
the employer in some cases even less
certain of profit than the workman of
wages. Any charge, therefore, upon
the employers in one State not equally
borne by men in similar business just
across the border of another State
would be quite naturally resisted
Still, you will find among employers
a decided willingness to have this
burning question of a manufacturing
age properly discussed and forever
settled, Wherever progress is made
in any State equal to that in Massa-
chusetts, the natural result will 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 consideration.
1t may not have in it any money re-
wards 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 'whys'' that will be the despera-
DlOll VI UllC IllOEU lCttI llCNl Dl1lIOSOlJllCIs
l heard of one recently that was pro-
pounded when a child by a former
United States Fish Commissioner.
Papa said he, "befOre there was
anything, what was there, and what
did it look like?n These questions of
childhood signify much to them, if
patiently and properly answered.
Their little inquisitive minds are like
magnets gathering particles of metal
here, there and everywhere, in imbu-
ing those particles with their own
individuality.
Dear mother, whose whispered
yes is working in it's effects on the
will work on generations of men whom
your eye shall never behold; strong
father, whose purpose in life has been
to win and to honor that wife with
worldly goods and moral purity, |
thrill at the knowledge that thous-
ands of eyes like yours look over
lllCSC MlItlCll WI Nto. i4NI pun w
you a question. How will you an
swer your child when with a puzzled
look and growing sense of its own
existence it comes to ask, Where did
l come from?' VIII you evade the
question with blushings and confu-
sion, 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 compan-
ion, and your silence and evasion will
seem to it like an association of i'm
purity and shame with the child's eX-
istence. Learning about holy things
at the unholy fount of inflamed guess
ings, little wonder if later in life the
child should regard love and marriage
as merely refined names for lust and
self qualification.
l cannot do better at this point
than quote beautiful passage writ
ten by DR.. Mary Wood-Allen: But
supposing, at the time when the in
nocent child came with his honest