Year: 1877

Professor Robert Ellis Thompson, or
the University of Pennsylvania, has
published pamphlet on Hard Times,
and What to Learn from Them-a
plain talk with the Working People, "
which may ne commended to all who
are trying to get at a ssolution of the
great question Of the day. 1t, is import
ant that the truths that lie at the bot
tom of all discussion ofsthe labor prob
lem should be placed in every available
form before the parties in interest, en-
ployers and employed. Prof. Thomp-
sons effort is put in plain, pungent,
earnest phrases, that commend them
selves to the public really interested in
the best method of meeting serious
difficulty, while his little pamphlet is
an answer as well as corrective for
much of the mischevious talk of profess
sional agitators. Hard times are the
times to think, and we ought to come
out of them sobered and instructed by
the experience of the past, as warning
and preventive of the future. Among
the best results of the Centennial EX-
hibitiOn, as stated by the foreign visi-
tors is the recognition of the fact
that one distinctive feature in Amer
ican industrial progress..is the inn
provement in the quality of work due
to good wages. 1t is found that it pays
the employer to give the highest wages
he can afford to give that, in the long
run he is the richer for it, not the poor
er; that well paid labor is cheaper than
i'll paid labor, and every rise lin wages
tends to better the quality of the work.
1t Is again distinctive characteristic of
this country that the number of very
rich men is so small as to be compara-
lively insignificant, while real wealth
is so broadly distributed that in ordi.
nary times the great body of the peo.
pie are in comfortable independence.
Pennsylvania is especially proud of her
large house-ownng population, and
with them economy has been the magic
by which their earnings lave been in
vested in their own homes, beyond the
usual risks of loss. To the man who
owns his own house, or who has his
earnings safely invested in Building
Association or in any way outside of
the risks of trade aud the influences of
the stock market, communism and So
cialism may appeal in vain. But Prof.
Thompson tells us, although our Build
ing Associations are numerous and well
supported, only one in five Of those who
live by wages are members, and not
onehalf of those who ought to belong
have anything thus laid by. Now this,
If true, is due to the fact that, IN, the
times of good wages, earnings were
either not saved at all or they were not
safely invested. AS healthful laborers
and as wise economists, Professor
Thompson appeals to everybody to dis
courage waste in liquor and tobacco
and to replace these lower sorts of re


taxation or dissipation by higher kinds
of enjoyment, notably self-culture,
pointing out the instances in which
worSingmen have added TO the stock OF
the worlds knowledge in science, and
art and literature, and urging that the
very effort after Improvement is Of it.
self an individual benefit and a public
advantage. Working men would dc
well to take to heart Prof. Thompson;
advice to improve their political knOwl
edge, not by becoming schemlng poll
! ticans, but by intelligent study of po
litical history, and thus forming theil
own opinions, instead of taking then
at second hands.