The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-03
BISMARCK ON LABOR.
WOrkmen Cannot BE Made Happy Be.
ings by Means of Legislation.

From the Literary Digest.
In view of the many labor troubles
which at present agitate the world the
Echo, Berlin, reviyes an interview held
with Bismarck, whom it regards as one of
the greatest authorities of labor legisla-
zion. The interview was published by
the Daily Telegraph, London, but the
Echo thinks the strikes of the American
miners, the English engineers and the Ger
man iron-molders give it renewed inter
est. We quote as follows: Tell me"
said Prince Bismarck, have you ever
known banker who was satisfied with ?
million, or a lawyer, a scientist a poll
tician or an artist who was satisfied with
his position and his income? 1 will go
yet further and ask: Have you ever en-
countered contented person among the
mgh-born, the high-placed, the successful?
HOW, then, can you expect the laborer to
be contented, whose life has so many wor-
rles, so few pleasures? Suppose you pay
him pound sterling per day; two weeks
after his wife will have found that she
needs an extra shilling or two and will
communicate her discomfort to him. The
more the Workmen are paid the more they
need. You know how enormously their
condition has improved during the past
ntty years. Have they ever been salts
hed, even for a day2 Therefore, let them
do what they can to better their condition
without state assistance. State interfer-
ence would hurt them more than it would
dement, them, not to mention that legisla-
ton in their favor would injure a great
number of people who have as much right
TO be considered as workingmen. / think
II is very arrogant and unseemly to die.
tate TO workman how many hours he
should labor, or to usurp authority over
his children, if he needs them in his bat
tie for bread
1T has been said that I assumed the
Initiative in labor legislation. that l in
troduced a kind of state socialism. That
Is not true. What | did was in the di-
rect1on of charity rather than interfer-
ence | favored the establishment of some.
provision for aged or otherwise incapaci-
tated Workmen l felt that if workma n
is cripvted by accident or rendered I'M
INT for his calling through overwork. or
through illness, something should be done
to shield him from want. l also thought
it would be best to leave such funds to
be managed by the workmen themselves,
to emancipate them from bureaucratic
supervision, to arouse their tendency for
self-help, their love of manly independ-
ence. [ wanted to give them a feeling
OF security against the worst calamities
which beset their path, such as Illness,
old age and the bltterest want But to
make happy beings out of the workmen
by means of legislation is a delusion, a
phantom which cannot be caught.
1T is well that it should be thus. 1t
would be a great misfortune if every one
were satisfied. Nothing could be a great
er calamity than the dead-level of general
satisfaction or a thousand years of con-
tentment. 1t would kill ambition, hinder
progress and produce moral stagnation.
Capital and labor should be the best OF
friends, and they would be, were it not
that each seeks to get an advantage over
the other But that is only human. and
me may not hope ever to change that. The
rights of capital are no less real and re-
spectacle than those of labor. We should
not forget this"