The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-27
THE MAN BEHIND THE
PLOW, BY WALTER
H. PAGE,
Annual Address to the A. &
M. Graduates Last
Night.
A MAGNIFICENT EFFORT
Representative Crowd Filled Academy Of Music
10 Hear the Powerful, Practical, ElC-
qlent Words of the Great
Lditor.

Lditor.
"The Man behind the Plow," was the
subject of Mr.. Walter Fl. Pages address
last night to the A. and NJ. graduates in
the Academy Of Music.
A splendid, representative Raleigh au-
dience completely filled the big hall to the
very back seats, and istened with wrapt
attention for over an hour and half to
one OF the most practical, powerful, com
nonsense and at the same time eloquent
addresses on farming and North Caro-
linians opportunities ever heard in this
part Of the country.
1t was all the more interesting to Ra-
leigh audience from the fact that Mr.
Page, the well known editor of Worlds
Works, a member of the publishing firm
of Doubleday, Page & Co., of New York.
is a native of our own Wake county.
Mr.. Page said in part:
Twenty years ago there came to Raj
oigh company of men from New England
who were on a prospecting tour. They
stayed heer a day and Governor Jarvis
and the Commissioner of Agriculture made
speeches to them, telling them pleasant
things about our climate and our soil and
our people. We were that year just
about to receive great inflow of immi-
grafton from the Northern States, and
our industries were to start up at a rate
that would put the rest of the world to
shame, and all our land was to be put into
cultivation.
Il was a patriotic young citizen of
this city then, eager to serve my coun-
try 1t SO happened that when this com
pany Of men took the train to go further
South, / went with them little way. At
Cary the train had to wait, and l improv
ed the time by mounting lumber pile
and making a speech to them myself.
told them the same things the Governor
had told them the day before, e,-told them
all the stock arguments why man should
come to North Carolina One of these
stock arguments was the cheapness of la
Dor. / compared the wages that they
hda to pay men in Massachusetts with the
wages that men could be hired for in
North Carolina When my speech was
done, one grissly old Vermonter said to
me:
Young fellow, that's just the trouble;
Then it daY5ned on me that 1 had made
a fool of myself He didn't expect to
hire men. He was looking for IA job.
The next day / was still more certain that
my speech had been a failure; and l
gradually began to get hold on the great
truth that cheap labor is the curse of any
country where it exists, because it means
inefficient labor.
''You smile at the notion now that
cheap labor is advantageous; but, when
was a boy III Wake county, it is a fact
that most of the men were looking for a
chance to boss a job, and very few of
them were looking for job. They didn't
SO much wish to work themselves as they
wished to hire somebody else to work
Somehow, everybody took the point of
view of the employer. Men who had
nothing to do talked about the advant
ages of cheap labor. 1 was among them
Although / had learned trade and was
looking for a job myself, 1 spoke in long
sentences to those New Englanders about
the cheapness Of labor! While I was
starving for lack of decent pay for my
own work, 1 was boasting about the low
ness of wages. For was so i'll paid at
my trade that l couldn't make a living.
Wages were too low. l wept and went
away and ceased to think of myself as a
boss. took an honest job wherever ]
could get it, / have kept at work at the
same trade ever since; but although r
also am an employer of labor, some of it
very skillful labor, but / am not any
longer in favor of low wages any more
than the old Vermonter was in favor Of
them.
The boss habit of mind has played havoc
with many a man here during these TWEEN
ty years; and the men in Raleigh and
aobtu here who were actually doing good
work then are the men who are now DOM
inant nithe community. The old bosses
are nearly all dead or-forgotten. The
young fellows who were then seeking jobs
at good trades-some as bankers, some as
builders, some as teachers, some as manu-
facturers--these are the men who are
your foremost citizens today.
The history of Raleigh-its commercial, /
financial and social history-these twenty |
years proves this truth as clearly as the
growing corn proves the presence of sum-
mer This is a conservative city, and old
city, not city of rapid changes. Yet "a
only twenty years it has so completely /
changed in the personal relations of its
citizens, in the relative Importance of its
families, in the nature of its industries,
that an old resident must get all his
bearings anew. And most of the changes,
so far as | know them, admirably illus