Labor

“ Labor! labor! labor! physical, mental and spiritual labor!
Labor, therefore, is the fulcrum of the great lever of progress, lifting humanity from the material up to the spiritual realm. One short century ago nearly all physical labor was performed by the hands of man. Since then the mind has come up to the work, and rescued the body from the laborious servitude of former times; and now a single mind, directing a single machine, produces an hundred-fold more than it could when acting through its own personal machine. ”

“ Let us do all we can to help labor. Give it a square deal—an honest and generous wage for an honest day's work. Labor is neither a commodity or a chapel; it's human. Let us inject more of the human element into our dealings with labor and with those of others. ”

“ Was all that labor more wearing to health and strength than the cruel bondage in which we live, while laboring to secure, from servants, the care and efficient work absolutely necessary to the present style of living? ”

“ For a time I felt that having brought about in my own mills a relation between capital and labor which I may go so far as to term ideal, and having published my book, my philosophy of an employer's life, I had contributed my utmost to the cause of industrial civilization. ”

“ It is the high born, the cultivated, the intelligent, the brave, the generous, who are now constrained to work with their own hands. Labor is thus associated in our minds with all that is honorable in birth, refined in manners, bright in intellect, manly in character and magnanimous in soul.... Now that labor has been dignified and cherished we want it to be recognized in our schools and colleges.... ”

“ He brought to the solution of the question of labor in this country not merely a mind, but a body thoroughly in sympathy with labor, full of the culture of labor, bearing witness to the dignity and excellence of work in every muscle that work had toughened and every sense that work had made clear and true. ”

“ To the employer of unskilled labor this flow of aliens, many of them used to dirt floors, a vegetable diet, and child labor, and ignorant of underclothing, newspapers, and trade unions, is like a rain of manna. ”

“ Labor defined.—Exertion of any kind for meeting individual wants we call labor, whether it simply gathers food from the forest, or contrives the most intricate machinery for satisfying wants that may take years to grow. ”

“ So material do I deem this point—the true nobility of labor, I mean—that I would dwell upon it a moment longer, and in a larger view. Why, then, in the great scale of things, is labor ordained for us? Easily, had it so pleased the great Ordainer, might it have been dispensed with. The world itself might have been a mighty machinery for the production of all that man wants. The motion of the globe upon its axis might have been the power, to move that world of machinery. ”

“ The platform contained many expressions of sympathy with labor. "As labor creates the wealth of the country," ran one plank, "we demand the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its rights." ”

“ Our great-grandfathers, say you, our grandfathers, our fathers, our ancestors in a word, have labored, and we also, as you see, labor till old age. All that they gained by their labor they left to their children, and these have transmitted it to theirs.
Then why am not I rich? why can I not even practice the least economy? ”

“ Labor builds our meeting-houses, temples, court houses, fine halls for music and fine school houses; it is labor that teaches our children, and makes them acquainted with the various branches of education, that makes them proficient in their own language and in other languages, and in every branch of knowledge understood by the children of men; and all this enhances the wealth and the glory and the comfort of any people on the earth. 16:66.
We say to the-Latter-day Saints, work for these capitalists, and work honestly and faithfully, and they will pay you faithfully. ”

“ Labor is the source of wealth and all culture, and since useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society. ”

“ But the result, or the earnings of labor, as is readily seen in those primary and fundamental occupations in which labor first engages, and which, even in the most highly developed condition of society, still form the base of production, does not depend merely upon the intensity or quality of the labor itself. ”

“ The term labor is used, thirdly, in a more restricted, very popular and current, but very ill-defined way, to designate a limited sub-group among those who live by contributing productive efforts to the work of society. ”

“ But when we consider the origin and natural sequence of things, this order is reversed; and capital instead of first is last; instead of being the employer of labor, it is in reality employed by labor. ”

“ And while the unexampled and almost incredible use of machinery would seem to supply the place of labor, labor still finds its occupation and its reward; so wisely has Providence adjusted men's wants and desires to their condition and their capacity. ”

“ Modern view of labor. It is only in the most recent times, and imperfectly as yet, that labor has been recognized as a blessing, or, at worst, as a necessity which has great moral and social compensations, and which, if rightly understood and 162wisely used, brings joy and satisfaction. This can only be true, however, when labor is crowned by achievement, and that is when it is productive of wealth. ”

“ Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold, consolations, if there be no employment. ”

“ As labor is the divinely appointed lot of man, in this degree the rewards of industry are set forth in emblematic forms, and the recipient is taught the exercise of diligence and industry, that by the faithful performance of his task he may, in due time, be entitled to the wages for which he has wrought. ”

“ Labor has awakened the state to a sense of responsibility for its great sins of neglect and has made it conscious of its social duties. Labor, like other elements of society, has often been selfish, narrow, vindictive ”

“ Labor is either bodily or mental; or, to express the distinction more comprehensively, either muscular or nervous; and it is necessary to include in the idea, not solely the exertion itself, but all feelings of a disagreeable kind, all bodily inconvenience or mental annoyance, connected with the employment of one's thoughts, or muscles, or both, in a particular occupation. ”

“ And thus28 when the division of labor is fairly inaugurated, and instead of each attempting to satisfy all of his wants by direct resort to nature, one fishes, another hunts, a third picks berries, a fourth gathers fruit, a fifth makes tools, a sixth builds huts, and a seventh prepares clothing—each one is to the extent he exchanges the direct product of his own labor for the direct product of the labor of others really applying his own labor to the production of the things he uses—is in effect satisfying his particular desires by the exertion of his particular powers ”

“ With a flood of words, carefully prepared to appeal to men in your position, and with stories that are supposed to illustrate the points he wants to make, the man on the street-corner will try to persuade you that labor is the sole factor in wealth production—that the workers produce all the wealth of the world—and that this wealth belongs rightfully to those who made it. ”

“ That labor is best, in which the laborer knows that he will derive the profits of his industry, that his employment depends upon his diligence, and his reward upon this assiduity. He then has every motive to excite him to exertion, and to animate him in perseverance. He knows that if he is treated badly he can exchange his employer, for one who will better estimate his service ”

“ Let us call them (in brief general terms) laborers on the one hand, employers of labor on the other; including, however, along with employers of labor not only retired capitalists and the possessors of inherited wealth, but all that highly paid description of laborers (such as the professions) whose education and way of life assimilate them with the rich, and whose prospect and ambition it is to raise themselves into that class. ”

“ Take the advance in quantity of products for ten years only, and by the aid of machinery, and more intelligent labor, we have gained more than two hours. Why should not labor get its due proportion? We are fast turning the drudgery of labor to pleasure. ”

“ Now it is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity. ”

“ yet the produce of the whole labor of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire. ”

“ Down to the day when large production began, the labor employed in the production of the necessities of life took up the whole time of those engaged in it; it required the fullest exercise of both body and mind. ”

“ “There is this difference— where a man works for himself, or where, when working for an employer, he takes his wages in kind, his wages depend upon the result of his labor. Should that, from any misadventure, prove futile, he gets nothing. When he works for an employer, however, he gets his wages anyhow—they depend upon the performance of the labor, not upon the result of the labor.” ”

“ A most important question for every nation, as well as for every individual, to propose to itself, is, how it can best apply that quantity of labor which it is able to perform. Labor is the great producer of wealth ”

“ According to the doctrine of Jesus, labor is the inevitable condition of human life, and food is the inevitable consequence of labor. [202] Labor produces food, and food produces labor. However cruel and grasping the employer may be, he will always feed his workman, as he will always feed his horse; he feeds him that he may get all the work possible, and in this way he contributes to the welfare of the workman. ”

“ But can the condition of labor be improved? Yes, if labor is entirely in earnest about it. Labor’s principal need is brains. I don’t mean they must increase their own brains; but in their conflicts with employers the laboring men should be led, or their interests should be managed, by men who know both sides of the question. Are there such men in the ranks of the laborers? ”

“ Labor.—Labor is one of the great elements of society,—the great substantial interest on which we all stand.—Daniel Webster.
Hard workers are usually honest. Industry lifts them above temptation.—Bovee.
Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind; and hence arises the happiness of the poor.—La Rochefoucauld. ”

“ Every one is a laborer who is not a person of leisure. Public men, or other workers, if any, who labor but receive no pay, might be excluded from the category, and we should immediately pass, by such a restriction, from a broad and philosophical to a technical definition of the labor class. But merchants, bankers, professional men, and all whose labor is, to an important degree, mental as well as manual, are excluded from this third use of the term labor. ”

“ Considering then that a society demands as the socially necessary labor within a definite time for the production of trousers 10,000 labor days and for suspenders 1,000, that is to say, this amount of labor is necessary in order to satisfy the social need for trousers and suspenders at the present stage of the productivity of labor. ”

“ The conditions of labor, which creates exchange value, as shown by the analysis of the latter, are social conditions of labor or conditions of social labor. Social, not in the ordinary, but in a special sense. ”

“ Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital. ”

“ With the laborers, on the other hand, may be ranked those smaller employers of labor who by interests, habits, and educational impressions are assimilated in wishes, tastes, and objects to the laboring classes, comprehending a large proportion of petty tradesmen. ”

“ Labor has organized and it has made a manful fight, and all down the pages of history you will find that labor, thru its organization and thru its lawful methods pursued under its organization, has gradually bettered its condition. ”

“ And inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened, in all ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have without labor enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. ”

“ It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation. ”

“ PLATFORM OF THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY.
Labor being the only creator of all wealth and civilization, it rightfully follows that those who perform all labor and create all wealth should enjoy the result of their toil. ”

“ The time has arrived for you to contract for another year's labor. I wish to impress upon you the importance of doing this at once. You know that if a crop of cotton is raised, the work must be begun soon, and the hands employed for the year. If you do not contract with the men who wish to employ you, what do you propose to do? You cannot live without work of some kind. Your houses and lands belong to the white people ”

“ Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; ”