Honest labor

“ Let me say to you that all honest work is honorable work. If the labor is manual, and seems common, you will have all the more chance to be thinking of other things, or of work that is higher and brings better pay, and to work out in your minds better and higher duties and responsibilities for yourselves, and for thinking of ways by which you can help others as well as yourselves, and bring them up to your own higher level. ”

“ And let me say right here, all labor is honest. Whoever makes a useful thing, the labor is honest, no matter whether the work is done in a penitentiary or in a palace; in a hovel or the open field. Wherever work is done for the good of others, it is honest work. If the laboring men would stop and think, they would know that they support everybody. ”

“ And now, in the face of these facts, which are as notorious as sunlight, and of these conclusions, which are as clear as mathematical demonstrations, can any man who depends for his living upon the remunerative employment of his labor, a workingman, who, by industry and prudent economy, endeavors to improve his own condition and that of his children, be so utterly blind to his own interests as to follow leaders insidiously advising him, if he has strength to work, to strip that labor of its honest earnings, and if he has a dollar saved, to cheat him of its value? Are you men of self-respect? ”

“ Simple truth, simplicity, honesty, uprightness, justice, mercy, love, kindness, do good to all and evil to none, how easy it is to live by such principles! A thousand times easier than to practice deception! 14:76.
Honesty in Labor—I have tried to suppress dishonesty in individuals, and have tried thereby to make them honest. If I hire a carpenter and pay him three dollars a day, and he is three days in making a six-panel door that a good workman can make in one, or even a door and a half, I do not want to pay him three dollars a day for that labor. ”

“ The man, having been turned away from the doors of ten offices, feels his dignity as an honest laborer assailed in the very bosom of his own family, because he has vainly asked society for honest employment. ”

“ I have no doubt that, after calmly thinking out the problem to be solved, every intelligent workingman will be on the side of the honest dollar. The time is near when those of you who are not so now, will be ashamed of their folly. ”

“ To-night I shall address myself more particularly to the bearing it has upon the interests of the working-men, and in doing so, it will be more my endeavor to be truthful and clear than to be brilliant and entertaining. ”

“ Shun no work that will bring you an honest penny. ’Tis honorable to labor with our own hands. God works, and shall man be greater than God? Fools only think labor dishonorable. Wise men feel themselves honored in following the example of God, whose works adorn and bless both heaven and earth. ”

“ It is the duty of each party in a trade to give a fair and genuine equivalent for what he expects to receive.—Articles exchanged always represent work. And it is our duty to make sure that the article we offer represents thorough work. Good honest work is the foundation of all righteousness. Whatever we offer for sale, whether it be our [47] labor for wages, or goods for a price, ought to be as good and thorough as we can make it. To sell a day's work for wages, and then to loaf a part of that day, is giving a man idleness when he pays for work. ”

“ No, even under the best money system of the world, you will have to work for what you mean to enjoy, and none will exempt you all from trouble and misfortune. And thus, as an honest man, I shall not hold out to you promises which no contrivance can fulfil. ”

“ The honest workingman does not want to live merely from hand to mouth. He desires to lay up something for a rainy day. He has a praiseworthy ambition to improve his condition, to achieve an honorable independence, to educate his children and to start them well in the race of life. ”

“ He is the simple, honest laborer, ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. ”

“ Come then, let us examine the race of workmen and artisans. For these above all seem to live by honest labors, and the sweat of their own brow. But these too, when they do not take heed to themselves, gather to themselves many evils from hence. ”

“ When preparatory steps for the resumption of specie payments were to be taken, it was the apprehension of adverse currents of popular sentiment which staggered the resolution of not a few of our public men. From you whose vital interests are at stake, should now proceed an inspiration to their courage and firmness to complete the great work and to secure its success. Let the legislators of the country know that the workingmen of America insist upon an honest dollar for honest work, and that, desiring that end, they desire the employment of all the means necessary for its accomplishment. ”

“ I'm speakin' of honest, hard-workin', industrious folks, that give their labor and time to build up a settlement; and not of your mechanics who work for hire. Of course, they're to be paid for what they do, and there's an eend on't."
"I am not aware that all honest persons are hard-working, any more than that all hard-working persons are honest. I wish to be understood that, in the first place, Mr. Newcome, phrases will procure no concession from me. ”

“ But in a country like ours, where no barrier of privilege separates the different classes of society, where honest individual effort is hampered neither by legal obstacles nor by prejudice or custom, where every day we see millionaires as the fathers of paupers, and merchant princes who were rocked in a poor man's cradle ”

“ Whoever tells you that, under any money system, you can honorably acquire money without honorably earning it, or honorably get rid of your obligations without discharging them, let him be set down as a humbug. ”

“ I shall not attempt an elaborate disquisition on the relations of capital and labor further than to show that, with regard to what in a general term may be called the “money question,” their interests are the same; that a money system which inspires confidence to capital, and thus encourages it to embark in legitimate business enterprise will at the same time give fruitful employment to labor; and that, on the other hand, a money system which impairs the security of the capital will at the same time, injure the value of the earnings of labor, and vice versa ”

“ The disproportion between your wages and the cost of living has become so great that at last the employer must agree to pay you more. But will your wages he raised to the full amount of the rise of prices? — Never, — and why not? Because the employer will plead again the same uncertainty as to prices at which the products of your labor can be sold when they reach the market. He will have the same ability to get other men in your places, if you quit work, and thus the disproportion between your wages and the cost of living continues, and with it the loss you suffer. ”

“ In fact, you have nothing in the world to sell except your labor from day to day. Everything else you and your families need, or that would contribute to your comfort, you must buy. You must live in houses, and your tenements you have to rent of the house-owners. You and your families must wear clothes and be provided with hats and shoes, and those necessaries you have to buy of the dealers in those articles. And when those things rise in price you will have to pay that increased price from day to day, for you and your families cannot remain without shelter and without the necessaries of life. ”

“ No sensible man in America objects to the wealth acquired by righteous means. But human ingenuity can scarcely devise a contrivance which gives such enormous advantages, not to the honest business man, but to the unscrupulous speculator and gambler in the accumulation of wealth at the expense of legitimate business and labor, as a paper money with its fluctuations of value. ”

“ A revival of business activity, which is to give employment to the industrial forces of the country, cannot be expected without a revival of that confidence which induces capital to venture freely into business enterprise. The revival of confidence is, therefore, the first condition of a general and remunerative employment of labor. ”

“ Who will deny that, when the depreciation of such a currency drives up prices, the laboring man's wages rise last and least? Who will deny that, when the bubbles of paper speculation burst, the laboring man's earnings are cut down first and lowest? Is our country an exception to the rule? The statistics compiled by the Labor Bureau of Massachusetts, corresponding with those of the United States census, show that the cost of living had risen sixty-one per cent. ”

“ That experience teaches us that wages, under such circumstances, do not only not rise higher in proportion than general prices, nor as high, but that the wages of labor are among the things which, under the influence of currency depreciation, rise last and rise least. ”

“ What would have become of you had the counsels of those prevailed, who pretended that they could cure all the ills of the social body, and give you prosperity and wealth by flooding the country once more with that cruel deception, an irredeemable paper money? In the hour of need and distress you would not only have been without remunerative employment, but even the earnings of former years of hard toil would have shrunk to a miserable pittance. ”

“ At this junction you, workingmen, need only open your eyes to find the right path. I have not come among you as the mere advocate of a party, but as the defender of a cause, and that cause the honor of the republic and prosperity of the people. “The party, right or wrong,” has never been my battle cry, and it never will be. But at this moment, when a great decision is impending, I feel free to recommend to you a safe rule of action. Do not trust any public man or any party as your friend who does not advocate the honest dollar as wages for honest work. ”

“ And, whenever anybody tries to make you believe that you can increase your earnings by introducing a dollar which loses its value over night, or that you can improve your condition by stirring up bitterness and strife between those elements of society which must harmoniously work together for the common benefit, repel him as your worst enemy. ”

“ Even before the cost of living comes down, while you are still compelled to pay exorbitant prices for your necessaries, you are some day informed by your employer, who sniffs the coming storm from afar, if he is a prudent man, that the market threatens to be weak, and that work must be reduced or stopped altogether. Now the crash comes. If you are fortunate enough not to be thrown out of employment, you will have to be contented with lower wages. ”

“ An inflation of our paper money, producing an inflation of prices, would inevitably injure the interests of the laborer for wages more than those of any other class of society; for, in the very nature of things, and as universal experience shows, it would increase the cost of living far more than the rate of wages. ”

“ You must not judge me by the calling necessity has now forced me to follow, for I hold it right, and in strict accordance with the nature of our institutions, that when fortune forsakes us, we stand not upon the order of a reputation, which at best is but a poor thing in time of need, but give ourselves manfully to any labor by which our hands may preserve the honesty of our heads. ”

“ As I read and observe I think workingmen hear much indiscriminate denunciation of the alleged selfishness, injustice and heartlessness of employers of labor, and but very little, if indeed anything, in the way of admonition or advice to themselves to do faithful, intelligent and efficient work, and in that way to command desirable positions and adequate pay. ”

“ Certainly, right thinking naturally impels people to work.
We learned no theories about "the dignity of labor," but we were taught to work almost as if it were a religion; to keep at work, expecting nothing else. ”

“ Under no circumstances would anybody receive money from the government as a gift. The merchant will have to sell merchandise for it; the farmer will have to raise crops and stock for it; the manufacturer will have produce goods for it; the laboring man will have to work for it and earn it as wages. For a dollar in greenbacks or in fiat money, as long as it is worth anything, he will have to work just as hard as for a dollar in gold. To-day the greenback dollar or a national bank note he receives in the shape of wages is, in point of value of purchasing power, as good as a dollar in gold. ”

“ Who would honor obtain, With the sweat and the pain, The praise that man gives to the master must buy.— But the blessing withal must descend from on high! And well an earnest word beseems The work the earnest hand prepares; Its load more light the labor deems, When sweet discourse the labor shares. So let us ponder—nor in vain— What strength can work when labor wills; For who would not the fool disdain Who ne'er designs what he fulfils? And well it stamps our human race, And hence the gift to understand, That man within the heart should trace Whate'er he fashions with the hand. ”

“ And it is the mark of nobleness to volunteer the lowest service, the greatest spirit only attaining to humility. Nay, God is God, because He is the servant of all.... All honest men are daily striving to earn their bread by their industry. And who is this who tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, and calls labour vile, and insults the workman at his daily toil? ”