The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-07


 THE WORKMAN'S GOLDEN AGE." A certain popular conviction of the day ascribes to the condition of the workman, urban or rural, constant
 deterioration. His wages are held to
 be declining, and his comforts lessen
 ing; his security of employment is de-
 clared to be less stable, and his eco
 homie freedom to be disappearing.
 Growing out of this conviction has
 arisen the notion of sort of golden
 age somewhere back in the early days of the republican, age when the york;
 CTS of town and country enjoyed life
 of almost idylic comfort and indepen-
 dence Occasionally, indeed, variation
 of this view is shown; the worker ad- mittedly receives more wages than his mid-century or earlier predecessor, but it is held that his employment is less regular and his freedom more curtall- cd and that he has failed to share in the enormous growth of the general wealth. This latter view, however, Is not popular with the radicals, since it admits too much
 It Is hard to determine upon what historical or statistical basis is built this notion of Golden Age and of the laborer's deterioration. Certain Euro pean travellers of the early days, who commented upon the comfort of the American masses, may be qouted some what in it's favor; but, on the other hand, consideration must be taken of the contemporary state of the English, Irish, and French masses with which the condition of the Americans was compared The extreme of hardships suffered at various times in this coun- try never reached so low plane as the extreme suffered by the English peas- antry during the years following the wars An English travel Ter visiting this country at that time, even had he seen the New Hampshire farmers living on bean porridge, or heard the thousands of unemployed in the cities clamoring for work, would yet have been forced to admit the su perior comfort of, the American masses. M. Levasseur, in his recent volume, The American Workman" quotes Mi chel Chevalier, the economist, who vis- lted this country in 1885. as saying: Here the laboring class feels it's pow sl, iIlu 10 oPCiis i'ut tt that time combination was prohibited In France; and, moreover, it was just 1t that time that the Equal Rights party of the city of New York was vaging a political agitation, and that 1 , number of strong trade unions came l nto existence throughout the country l The contrast between France and | America was for the moment extreme. l Two years later this situation had 1 hanged entirely. Judgments of this nature are always relative; Arthur Young, 1t will be remembered, at a ime G7SS-90) when the English peas ,ntry were in a deplorable state, con ,ratulated his country that it could how no such scenes of misery as he witnessed in Savoy and Brittany.
 The mass of testimony, from the time f Yorktown to that of Bull Run, tells
 story of anything but Golden Age or the American workman. It tells, n the hand, the narrative of nation uilt up by hard work, resolutely per- ormed under the keenest privations. t tells of the growth of a gigantic ational wealth, and the heaping up of immense fortunes; but at the same ime 1t reveals the earlier condition of he common workman the mechanic, he farm laborer, often even the farm r, as generally one Of pathetic desti- ution. the maximum of comforts being ound toward the end of the century nd the minimum toward the begin- ing Not even in the worst days since he civil war--in 1873, for instance ave conditions been as bitter as they ere in some of the earlier periods; nd no one could write of any of the re- ent years of average prosperity such
 tale as Horace Greedy wrote of the good year. of 1881 32.-W. !. Ghent in he Forum.