The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1913-08-01
Too Many White
Collar People Here
Nobody Wants to Work with His
Hands-Everybody Seeks
A Clean Job.

Wells County Free Press: We
believe the Free Press has before
called attention to the deplorable
fact that the youth Of today seems
to be determined to avoid manual
labor if possible. Especially are
farmers boys ever anxious to
quit the farm and secure forty
dollar-a-month jobs in some city,
either as clerks; stenographers or
whatnot. This state Of affairs
is one of the chief sources Of the
scarcity Of farm labor and makes
it almost impossible for the farm
to diversity or to conduct a dairy
or keep stock o. to intensity his
operations.
That this condition is nation
wide is evidenced by a recent
editorial in the Saturday Evening
Post, and the writer calls par
ticular attention to what he styles
"cleancollar jobs as being the
cause of the cityward attraction
Of the country youth. He says
that some shop-grease, with some
pay and some prosp let's Herewith
is surely preferable to an un-
specked hand that is certain to
be empty forty-eight hours after
every payday" In bringing in the
farm the article in that popular
weekly continues:
"Yet the latest statistics do
show that one beautifully dirty
occupation-the most healthful,
most free and most uplooking Of
all-is still Stunned to an appreci-
able extent. Farmers boys-who
might out of few scientifically
, and intensively cultivated acres
at home, make more money, health
and future than they can possibly
mike running a street car, clerk
ing in store or manipulating an
adding machine-persist in going
to town. They leave an occupa-
ton which, among all occupations
it is easiest to make an independ-
lent start with little capital, and
which the future is most direct
ly within their own hands, for
various jobs in which indepen-
dence is out Of the question and
where mere chance plays a much
larger part in future advance
ment.
teamwork the year round
taxes nerves and muscles less
than the average city office or
city job; but the country boy is
apt to associate clean collars with
holidays-and consequently to
imagine that the bookkeeper who
totters on the. verge of nervous
prostration does not work hard
because his linen is unspotted. +"
The uncalled for desertion of
manual labor-especially health
full farm work, which pays a COM
1pentency with prospects-for the
"cleancollar 1health-wrecking city
! job, with it's hand-to mouth exis-
tence, is noted and deplored by
many writer's who have thorough
knowledge of present conditions.
Among these is William Marion
Reedy, who in sizing up "Specu-
lation and Business in his brill
liant little weekly, says, discuss
ing letter by financial expert,
Albert r. Gallatin:
"There is one great fact that
Mr.. Gallatin forgot to mention
in his list Of causes of the de-
preston and that is that in this
country there are too many peo-
pie living parasitically. People,
that is to say, who are doing no
work of any value, people who
are not rendering real service,
people, in short, who are not pro-
ducing. Nobody wants to work
with his hands. Everybody is seek
ing q Job in which he won't soil
his hands,
Young people, especially farm
ers boys, should be taught that
q white collar has no virtue Of
itself and that instead Of being
q badge Of honor or distinction
| it may be that its possessor is
only one Of many who prefer out
ward show to real worth; that
character is above conventional
resp reliability; that manual labor
with competency is more COM
mendable than a white collar
snap (i) with it's bare living
and it's uncertain future.
"A certain class Of frivolous wo-
men may dote on the kid with
the clean collar but real men and
women recognize real worth whe-
ther possessed By . dirt -begrim.
med laborer IN honest and pro-
lductive toll Or 4 city man III clean