Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-01-20
Editorial Comment
Bourgeois Ben
Boston Transcript

Some of the tributes that are being
paid to Benjamin Franklin, in this
Thrift Week remembrance of the 215th
anniversary of his birth on the pleas
ant premises where these lines are
written, show disposition to ignore
the disapprobation which our ethical
and. altruistic age has begun to visit
upon his well-known social and eco
nomic principles Franklin, though in
his time the most modern of moderns.
unquestionably. for us, belongs to the
past. His Poor Richard maxims prove
that abundantly. How Mr.. Gompers
and Miss Jane Adams would have dis
approved of him. He wanted boys to
be apprenticed- really to learn his
trade. He proposed that they should
win their way to leadership and wealth
in industry and commerce by diligent,
prolonged and conscientious attention
to their tasks, and by careful and
thrifty saving. Not in the whole range
of his maxims will you find word
about demanding higher pay or short
er hours. His idea was to get up as
early as possible and go to work as
hard as possible. Plough deep while
sluggards Sleep "Dost thou love
life? Then do not squander time, for
that is the stuff of which life is made"
Time is money" EARLY to bed and
early to RISE" These were his max
ims it is to be feared that faithful
obedience of them would send a worker
to his toll earlier than eight in the morn
ing, and keep him there later than five
III the afternoon.
Moreover. there is not a hint in
Franklin's philosophy, of the advan-
tage of trade combinations. Instead. he
is all for individual effort, for self-de-
pendent enterprise. God helps them
that helps themselves" That sounds
apti-altruistic. does it not? On it's sur
face, it seems to deny the foundation
maxim of organized labor, that in
jury to one is the concern of ALL" 1t
throws the man on his own resources
for his defence. Does ii even encour-
age him to grasp all that is in sight,
on the principle upon which the big
dog helps himself to the little dog s
bone? Possibly, though we do not be-
lieve that Franklin intended the max
i'm to be taken in that sense; he meant
simply that If you do not help your
seif-do not nourish and build up and
enlarge yourself-God will not do it
for you. But there the maxim stands,
and you cannot get solidarity } or So
cialism out of it; it is individual to the
last letter. With it goes his saying
about putting something by for the
rainy day. Rainy day philosophy is
anathema to our generation. 1t is
part of the altruistic system not to have
any rainy days; but if they come, there
must be a public shelter for people to
get under. That the individual should
accumulate stock of supplies and a
roof of his own, to feed himself and
his family and keep all dry and COM
Portable in adversity-that is undoubt-
eddy contrary to the spirit of our age.
Mott is probable that BENJAMIN
Franklin was hopelessly bourgeois He
believed in old-fashioned thrift and ac-
emulation. He wrote with rare
humor, at is hard for an empty bag
to stand upright" Poor Benjamin-to
have died without the chance to see,
at the present day, SO many millions
of empty bags standing up with moth
ing to hold them there but the wind
that is in themi "He that goes a-bor-
rowing" said Poor Richard, ''goes a.
sorrowing." And all the world goes
borrowing, and sorrows only when it
can borrow no more! "Idleness and
PRIDE Franklin said, tax with
heavier hand than kings or parlia-
ments; If we can get rid of the former,
we may easily bear the latter Worse
and worse! The Franklin idea evident
ly was that people are more heavily
taxed by themselves than they are by
the state. And day by day, now. we
joyously add to the taxation of idle