Sections (TOC) :
• 1
74 Words; 420 Characters
• 2
12 Words; 77 Characters
• 3
77 Words; 473 Characters
• 4
302 Words; 1,735 Characters
Sections (Content) :
• 1
In a society which has the wherewithal to cover, fatten, and cheer every one, Lords of Industry are acquiring the power to pool the profits of scarcity and to decree famine. They cannot stop the brook that runs the mill, but they can chain the wheel; they cannot hide the coal mine, but they can close the shaft three days every week. To keep up gold-digging rates of dividends, they declare war against plenty.
• 2
Let us face the fact that unemployment is not a temporary condition.
• 3
But in a country where population is already too abundant, the dismissal of more than half the field-laborers is a serious misfortune, particularly at a time when a similar improvement in machinery causes the dismissal of more than half the manufacturing population of towns. The nation is nothing else but the union of all the individuals who compose it, and the progress of its wealth is illusory, when obtained at the price of general wretchedness and morality.
• 4
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one of my neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of industry- his day's work begun- his brow commenced to sweat- a reproach to all sluggards and idlers- pausing abreast the shoulders of his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful whip, while they gained their length on him. And I thought, Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to protect--honest, manly toil--honest as the day is long--that makes his bread taste sweet, and keeps society sweet--which all men respect and have consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felt a slight reproach, because I observed this from a window, and was not abroad and stirring about a similar business. The day went by, and at evening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who keeps many servants, and spends much money foolishly, while he adds nothing to the common stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsical structure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the dignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add that his employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, and, after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, there to become once more a patron of the arts.
Chronology :
April 11, 2020 : Unemployment -- Added.
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