The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-09-10
The ToiIer'S Lof
Years Hgo and Now

Penn" in Philadelphia Bulletin.
One feature of the celebration of Labor
Day is the disposition of the orators to
tel the workingmen that he has never
been more oppressed than he is now, ard
that his lot ought to have been cast upon
earlier and better days. The fact is-and
there is not the slightest difficulty in Of
fering the proof of it to any intelligent
and thoughtful workingman-that there
has been no time in the history of the
country when, taken altogether, he has
had as large n share of the comforts of
life as he has in this decade; when he has
had more opportunity for rational pleas
ure, and more facilities for giving his
children a better start in life than he
himself had. AS a rule, the workingman
who spends less than he earns. VINO pays
his debts, who keeps out of bad company
| and who does his own thinking, Is in
clined to admit this. or course if he were
not discontented and did not want to
| have his boys make further Improvement,
he would stand still, but he does not all
low his discomfort to become unreason-
able or to destroy his own peace Of mind
| And despite all the croaking which he
| hears about him concerning monopoly
and wealth. he knows that he has as
much of an opportunity as any of the
men who from country lads have devel-
oped into the Wanamakers and Dolans,
provided he has the same share of brains
that nature gave them.
| %
| The poor or the workingmen of Phi.a-
| delphia are better fed peter clothed, bet
| ter housed, better informed, better be-
haved and better treated than in any gen.
Grafton that preceded them. In the thou
sands of two-story houses inhabited by
the mill hands of Kensington or the Ia
borers of the Neck" may be found COM
forts which millionaires like Robert MGR
ris or William Bingham would have tcen
unable to purchase. The most crowded
of the fetid-looking streets in the Rus
sian or Italian quarters OF the down.
town wards is cleaner, more wholesome
and less disease-infecred than the best
streets which humble FAMILY could af-
ford to live in early in the century. Men
then had TO labor from sunset to sunrise
with hardly any other relaxation than
they could find in the coarse comforts OF
a sanded-hoor tavern in their neighbor-
hood. A workngman who owned his own
home was looked upon as a favorite OF
fortune, but today he Is numbered by the
tens of thousands. The late Judge Kelley
used to say that when he was boy with
an ambition to read books and with lit
the time to do it until after nightfall, the
house he lived in was so poorly lighted
that in the summer time he would some.
times go up to the roof and feel glad oi
the privilege Of porting over them in the
moonlight! The smallpox, the yellow
fever and the cholera were long terror:
to the poor, carrying off thousands ir
their annual swoops, but the smallpox Is
no longer feared, there has been no chol
era since 1856 and no yellow fever since
1858 The workingman's wife can spread
a more varied table, can wear more and
prettier gowns and can send her young
sters gratis to schools such as were no
even dreamed of hardly more than sixty
| oil Ynh ~
the family poor enough to justify putting
them to work, they can acquire knowl
edge from such institutes as the benef
cnce of DreXel and Williamson has estab
lished, while many Of our churches-onc,
almost abhorrent to the workingmen IL
their stiff and dry service and patroniz
Ing methods-Sive him now a social anC
intellectual stimulus to manners and self
Improvement and not infrequently the ra
| tional comforts of q club house. Their
was a time when rum and tobacco wer
the chief, IL not only, luXuries that poo
man had or could expect; but there ar
tens of thousands of workingmen toda,
who are habitually temperate, while 1t I
the judgment of most sociological obse "
ers that in sexual morals the plain peo
pie of the United States were never NOR
wholesome than they are now. Ere
Love convention of women such a
startled the country before the war woul'
= Il
phia is not so prevalent or so offensive
proportionate to the population, as It wa
. when the Magdalene Home was founded
, o.
Let me turn to Horace Greeley's "Recol
lections Of a Busy Life for one or two ex
, amples of tn betterment of the working
, mans condition. The first Job of work h
, had as journeyman printer in New Yor
! paid him Sc a week, although he woul
! stick type for fourteen hours a day Ye
, ordinarily decent board cost as much
and coal was $16 a ton, and the averag
earnings of mechanics cid not exceed i
: a week. 1t was at that time that Jack
sons fight against Nick Biddle and tn
United States bank In this city caused
series of political campaigns in which tn
I rich were howled at as much as they haV
! been by either Mr.. Bryan or ex-Governo
Atgeld. Then came the awful panic {
lS8-the most disastrous OF all America
panics. In It's social and physical effect
5 the panicof 1893 has been a mild one con
: pared with that, Greeley tells us, for e1
. ample, that he was a member OF poe
committee. and that the filth, squalo
! want, rags, vice and suffering he encolr