The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-05-05
Get to Work

IIleTe are not enough young HIGH AL efS o""N--
ready to study scientific agriculture; not enough
studying technical matters of any kind; put
thousands seeking the empty honor Of being
called lawyer q doctor when they would
be far more wisely engaged in hoeing corn or
doing some other work in which the oppor-
tunities for creditable employment are for them
vastly better than that found by thousands OF
'shyster" lawyers and worse than "shyster'
doctors The professional ranks are over
crowded, and the lower rounds of the ladders
are packed with those who have neither the
brains nor the education to climb to greater
heights
No other spot in the world equals the South
in combination of resources and advantages for
the employment of people. Technically trained
men are needed everywhere throughout the
South on the farms, in the mines In the mills,
in the factories, in the forests and on our water
powers. Vast opportunities for devcopmert
work requiring the highest technical training
await the hands and brains that have been
trained do things In these fields of activity
the South offers far broader opportunity for
honor and profit than can ever be won by
the large majority of professional men. 1t is
the technically trained hands and brains that
will shape and guide the destiny of the South
during the coming years. and yet all over this
section there tens Of thousands of I'M
trained, undeveloped. unutilized hands and
brains than going to waste.
We talk about the need of immigration 10
the South. 1t is true that good settlers are
needed and that there is a limitless field for
them; but we are in danger of seeing n very
large proportion Of the people of this section
made "hewers of wood and drawers Of water
for people from other sections, and even for
the foreigner whom today many affect TO
despise. The foreigner comes with al appre-
cation of the opportunities which this county
affords He works, and to extent great
as possible he educates his children white train
ing them to work If the Western or Northern
people or the foreigners who are coming to
the South, and who vii, come in ever
Increasing numbers, can outwork the people
already here, they deserve success, and nobody
will have a right to kick If any Southern-born
men. because of laziness or Indifference be-
come the ''hewers of wood TO them. But what
a field of thought this opens up! How limit
less are the opportunities for class of people
now living in the South who doing moth
ing for their their countrys good!
The 1oafers around the street corners in every
city in the South, the loafers hanging around
every depot in every village. town and city in
the South, not foreigners nor are they
people from other sections To our dscredit
they are natives, white and black. If they could
be put to work and inspired with n
thusiasm for doing something, and be made to
earn an honest living, there would scarcely,
for some time TO come, be any actual need
for any great increase in immigration, for Aeere
would be workers enough at hand to do the
work that present needs to be done.
There ought to be campaign of education
IN every village, town and city in the South, in
every country district and wherever men loaf.
TO teach people that the idle loafng boy or
man. white black hanging around the
depots. is disgrace to the community and is
one of the communitys heaviest liabilities
1t is true that the whole country is cursed
with many idle, loaf1ng people, white and
black, living what others doing, sapping
the vitality of the community and becoming an
eVer-increasing burden. But it is with the South
that especially concerned. because it is
the South that the Manufacturers Record is
devoted. Let the campaign of education that
makes for the training of people to do honest
work and to be faithful to their work begin
in the South. 1t is needed everywhere. but let
the South lead in the good cause.-Manufac-
turers' Record.