The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-06-25
THE ~UNPREACHED GOSPEL.

Tn Industrial Commission created by the
last Congress, composed Of ten senators and
representatives and nine citizens selected
by the President for the purpose Of consid-
ering the conditions of the industries of
the country, is taking what is called testi-
mony at Washington. 1t was TO this COM
mission that Mr.. Havemeyer gave his views.
During the past week men who are sup
posed to have views regarding the condition
OF agriculture in the South and East have
been occupying the time of the commission.
Those from the South are quite sure that
the condition Of agriculture is not so good
now as a few years ago, and that the pros
pect is gloomy. The prices of their staples
are low, diversified farming is not satisfac-
tory. help is shiftless. the rates of interest
are too high, the railroads extort high rates
for transportation, and so on. This so-called
testimony is the same that one may hear
wherever a group Of idlers is found. In the
assemblages of well-dressed men with
schemes to get money without earning it. in
the knots of statesmen who sit on the shady
side Of the country store discussing national
finances when they should be looking after
their crops, in the struggling bands Of no.
boes who have rebelled against labor. the
evils each complain of are similar TO the
complaints which the Industrial Commits
sion has been listening 70 the past week.
Those who casually read the abstracts of
this testimony will be inclined to share the
hopelessness which these men express. but
those who read between the lines will be
quite sure to discover that the complainants
are not real workers in any field of human
effort. They are wanting in energy and,
very naturally. when those who should be
leaders in industrial pursuits spend their
days in idleness the help will be certain to
be shiftless. When this idleness falls
upon a whole community all its re-
sources will fall into decay. and in
the midst of the elements which.
with energy and labor, would yield abund-
ance. there will be poverty not only in ma
terial things, but a lethargy falls upon COM
munities which stiles intellectual life.
The Industrial Commission can find no
remedy for the conditions which are the
results of physical and intellectual shift
l~essness and Incidence. Even if it could de-
wise a scheme by which the shiftless and the
indolent could be furnished with money to
put them on their feet, so to speak, their
condition would not be materially improved.
They would still be shiftless and idle be-
cause it would not arouse them TO that con-
tinued effort which is essential to all prog
ress. The United States has been trying for
fifty years to better the condition of sew
eral tribes of Indians by generous annuities,
but no measure of success has been attained
because they have not been compelled to
labor.
The universal curse of the human race is
the desire to escape labor. To that desire
can be traced nearly all the ills and most
primal curse which has been inherited from
our first parents its name is laziness. Adam
and Eve went to the bad because of the life
of idleness into which they came. Their sad
experience was doubtless intended as an OBJ
ject-lesson to all their successors to show
that the idle and aimless are sure to come
to no great purpose in life.
The duty of all men to engage in some
employment may be said to be the un-
preached gospel, while idleness and Sinking
should be declared not only to be at war
with the divine economy. but to be offenses
TO which the penalty of physical and intel
lectual death is attached. No man who has
attained great things in any walk of life was
a constant idler. If the gospel of the duty
and the blessings of work were practiced
Industrial commissions would not be neces-
Sary.