Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-04-01
The AGE Dead Line.

| students IN social economies are not
ing that the age limit of mercantile and
industrial employment in the United
States is being lowered, and that men
past 40 are finding it more difficult to
secure steady employment at living
wages thar was the case 10 years ago.
The Southern Pacific, for instance, will
no longer take new men who are over
3S, and on some of the northern trans
continental lines, the arrangements are
throwing out all employees past a GER
tain age, without regard to duration or
quality of service. 1t is getting to be
a fad in certain lines of industry and
commerce to look only for young, able
bodied men and women as employees, as
Stunning on general principles that after
one is over 80 to 40, the bodily and men
tai powers fail, or are unreliable.
This is an indictment against our
civilization, although it may be claimed
that business should not know
any more of sentiment than the Mosaic
law does of mercy for the violation of
q lldIllOl vi llS .. LII llot OlllS 10
this policy an indictment, as suggested,
but it is in itself unsound political econ
omy. The tendency of this century is
to deprive men of steady work before
there is sure to be some sort of reaction.
A nation in which men of 40 or so are
unable to find work, is in a questionable
way, to say the least, and is availing it.
self of only a part of it's strength for
maintenance. Moreover, the growth of
his policy is an Indictment of the GUS
toms and habits of the nation. 1t is an
assumption that the average American
young man is so given to excuses and a
violation of. the laws of correct habits
in life that he becomes too debilitated
and prematurely old, after say the age
of 40, to hold his own in the competitive
struggles of life. Consequently, the
only thing to do is to cast him aside, as
a Worn out piece of human furniture,
for a less antique and more stable ar
ticle.
After the recklessness Of American
youth in the consumption of "the deadly
cigarette" in keeping late hours, in
horizontal bar performances in saloons,
in designations Of an immoral nature,
and such a general violation of the laws
of nature as to burn up both ends of his
candle, it may perhaps be not so strange
or without excuse for hard headed, I'M
sentimental employers of labor to argue
that the follies and vanities of the g
are uniting the rising generation for
positions requiring any special mental
and physical test, and so the tendency
is to lower the age limit of employment
still further. There Is no just reason
why the American young man should
be decrepit and Enthusiastically at 35 or
40; but if the weaknesses and sins of the
present age continue, it will not be
many years before the age limit Of en-
ployment will be lowered to 80.
There Is only one line of employment
where work a be found as long as
ones bodily powers actually hold out,
and that Is work on a farm, where la
Dor of some kind obtains for the aged
as well as the youth. And the immuni-
ty of the farmer from the limitations
imposed by the restrictions of city life,
his comparative independence of I'M
pleasant economic conditions to which
residents of cities are subjected, and his
enjoyment of out door life and health
full farm work, are features bringing the
calling of an agriculturist more into
favor than for some years past. The
healthy, rugged farmer Of IS and 10
ought to be an object Of envy to the city
man of IS and 40, thrown permanently
out of work because his employers ar
que he is past his prime at that age,
and no longer reliable. This untoward
state of things should set people to
thinking about a remedy. and the rem
edy ought to be not far away.