Travois

“ The laborer whom he saw in the early morning swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he could recall. ”

“ How about the workers toiling in the factories, day and night, endlessly? The pale, stooped men and women, plodding back and forth to work, blinking in the colorless light, eating synthetics—
"You shouldn't be so bitter," he said. ”

“ I was informed that upwards of 200,000 labouring men were employed in daily toilsome work, but to avoid any imputation of an exaggerated statement, I shall suppose the number not to exceed one-half of the thousands mentioned by my informants. As to those whom I saw engaged in mere labour, one look at their wrists and ankles—one glance at their weather-bronzed features and high cheek bones would suffice to satisfy any observer of the unceasing exertions incident to their avocations. ”

“ Duty-labour calls the days of fair sky and sunshine, and leaves him the gloomy hours of winter, when, with darkness without, and despair within, he may brood, as he digs, over the disproportioned fortunes of his tyrant and himself! ”

“ Little dreamed those day-laborers, as they broke ground for their rude mill, in that solitary wilderness, that the results of that day’s labor would give employment to thousands and tens of thousands of such implements as they then used; that the one spadeful of red dirt, at which they gazed so intently, at the bottom of which a few yellow bits of shining dust appeared, was soon to exert a mysterious, a profound influence upon the commerce, the welfare, the destinies of the whole human family. ”

“ Why was it necessary for men to quarrel and jangle, and strike and fight, all about the matter of getting work? Why wasn't there work for all?--Only that morning, and she shuddered with the recollection, she had seen two scabs, on their way to work, beaten up by the strikers, by men she knew by sight, and some by name, who lived in the neighhorhood. ”

“ They proved themselves to be labor sons
In all of the workers' fights;
They have been hounded by power unbounded
Of capitalists throughout the land,
But all are astounded, our foes are confounded
For we still remain a union grand.
Then hail to this fighting band!
You live on coffee and on doughnuts;
The Boss lives on porterhouse steak.
You work ten hours a day and live in huts;
The Boss lives in the palace you make.
You face starvation, hunger, privation,
But the Boss is always well fed. ”

“ To those, also, who condemn all forms of mechanical and unproductive labour, it may seem unduly rigorous to have insisted so minutely on the exact performance of a task of so-called first class hard labour. ”

“ But the principal evils resulted from the wretched conditions under which, before the factory legislation, the work was performed; and there is good reason to believe that a deterioration of the type of labourer, both moral and physical, was effected. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that on the whole the use of machinery tends to dispense with skill. ”

“ We have not forgotten the advice of the "Grand Master" of the Knights of Labor, that every workman after drinking smash his beer bottle. How much work it would give to labor! How many unemployed could at once be set to work! ”

“ Men doing heavy work, and doing it every day—men like farmers, blacksmiths, railway firemen, factory workers, miners, etc.—are among those cured by this truss; cured while working right along, cured while earning good incomes. ”

“ And the laborer who for twelve hours long, weaves, spins, bores, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stone, carries hods, and so on—is this twelve hours’ weaving, spinning, boring, turning, building, shoveling, stone-breaking, regarded by him as a manifestation of his life, as life? ”

“ Go to some manufacturing town where steam hisses and pants, and there is the throb and whirr of machinery from morn till night—yes, and onward still from night to morn—where the furnaces are never allowed to slacken—go there and visit the infirmary, and you will find plenty of wounded in the course of the year. You have the same result, too, in the agricultural districts, where, peaceful as is the labourer’s pursuit, he cannot avoid mishaps with horses, waggons, threshing-machines, even with his simple working tools. ”

“ No laborer on his farm had worked so many hours or so laboriously, the impression having seemed all the while to abide with him that if he did not labor he would have only eye-service, and nothing would be left him. ”

“ The whole field, indeed, was thus soon made to exhibit the animated but singular spectacle of men, engaged in a wholly voluntary labor, putting forth all the unstinted applications of strength and displaying all the alertness and zeal of men at work for a wager. ”

“ The physician who shortens the illness of a farmer contributes his share toward raising the farmer's crop. The lawyer who makes property safer, and the minister who gives stronger motives for exertion, are sharers in the force that brings the product.
Physical, mental, moral labor.—The classification of labor according to the powers employed serves to call attention to the wide range of exertions rightly classed as labor. If the exertion is chiefly muscular, labor of hands, shoulders, legs or any part of the body, it is properly called physical. ”

“ More than one aged, toil-spent laborer, broken at the loom in the service of his insatiable master, fell prone in the drifts and lay there till his thin life-current froze and his tired heart stopped. ”

“ In many states the hours of labour have been limited by law in occupations in which, on account of their dangerous or insanitary character, the health of the employés would be jeopardized by long hours of labour, or in which the fatigue occasioned by long hours would endanger the lives of the employés or of the public. The occupations for which such special legislation has been enacted are those of employés on steam and street railways, in mines and other underground workings, smelting and refining works, bakeries and cotton and woollen mills. ”

“ The march of the workmen themselves was not without the semblance of order. But idle men on every corner joined them, vicious men, whose only occupation it was to prey upon society, fell into their ranks; hoodlums and hotheads, shouting their enthusiasm, went joyously along; the curious and sensation loving followed on behind in scores; even women and children [340] mingled with the crowd that was headed ominously toward the mills. ”

“ Hard labour—occupation toilsome and unremunerative; at the same time useful: just the proper occupation for criminals. Rig out all our rogues and thieves in blue and scarlet, turn them into postmen, and give them six months, or upwards, of 8 miles an hour for several hours daily letter-carrying. ”

“ I once knew a workman—one who was paid by the job, not the hour—to voluntarily undo half a day’s work, at the cost of much heavy lifting, just to alter, by a few inches, the position of a stepping-stone in a garden. ”

“ Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to 6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of the day, often in the night—and which give work to women and children as well as the men—work of the most healthful character and most free from demoralizing influences. ”

“ The labourer, abandoned to his reflections during his work, felt the sharp stimulus of remorse, and quitting his waggon in the midst of his fields, threw himself upon his knees, and while prostrate on the earth, sought for pardon, and took all nature to witness that it was violence alone that he had obeyed. ”

“ All that we have addressed to the manufacturer on the subject of his Mill, applies even more cogently to the minor superintendent of labour and his workshop. There, the evils complained of are often far greater. Ventilation is less attended to; less pains are taken to diminish the peculiar dangers of the craft; the hours of labour are more numerous; and the children sometimes exposed to cruelties utterly unheard of in factories. ”

“ He corrected me: "'Twill be no trouble, master, only labour."
The labourer does not appreciate a sudden order or an unreasonable change in work once commenced; he does not like being taken by surprise in such matters: the necessary tool—for farm labourers find their own hand implements—may not be readily available, may be out of order, require grinding, or a visit to the blacksmith's for repair or readjustment. ”

“ The ideas of the power of Labour which are suggested by the phenomenon of the [177] strike are, as I shall by and by show more fully, curiously fallacious. ◆2 Men can strike—that is to say, cease to labour—only when they have some store on which to live when they are idle; and such a store is nothing but so much Capital. ”

“ In turn I questioned them,—about their work, their hours of labor, their wages, and their means of improvement. When I urged them to occupy their spare time in reading and study, they seemed to understand the necessity of it, but answered sadly: “We will try; but we work so hard, we tend so much machinery, and we are so tired.” It was plainly to be seen that these operatives did not go to their labor with the jubilant feeling that the [205] old mill-girls used to have ”

“ AVENUE OF MOSS-COVERED OAKS, NEAR ORMOND, FLORIDA.—Laying aside the question as to whether the command to work, that was imposed upon our first parents, was a curse or a blessing, it is easy to conceive that one reared among such scenery as this, where there are but few wants which the spontaneous growth of nature does not supply, would naturally regard hard labor as the greatest curse that could be pronounced against mankind. ”

“ Machinery has been called "labour-saving," but the immediate result of its introduction has been to throw people out of work—labour-saving in the sense of taking their work from them, or the bread out of their mouths. ”

“ Whenever possible a man is set to the trade or occupation which he has been accustomed to follow. For farm labourers and gardeners, for example, there is always a place. Where inmates have had no particular training, the occupation in which they are likeliest to be most productive is allotted to them. Thus I noticed at work: smiths, wheelwrights, cabinet-makers, straw-plaiters, tailors, shoe makers, sempstresses, chair makers, wicker workers, bakers, paper bag makers, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some places it was even worse, for they saw women laboring in the fields, while the men lolled on the fences, or sat smoking under the shade of some tree. The implements of labor used excited their surprise. ”

“ His case was an illustration of the numerous accidents to which the agricultural labourer is liable. Twelve years ago he had had his foot crushed in a wheel-rut, rheumatism had seized the leg, and had at last taken possession of his whole body, so that he had never been able to do a day's work since. His wife set to work bravely, sometimes leaving home at live in the morning to stand at the wash-tub all day. ”

“ He had never had health or strength for hard labour, but had gained a subsistence by making baskets, weaving new seats into old chairs, collecting herbs for spring beer, and digging medicinal roots from the mountains: miscellaneous offices, which are usually performed by one person, where the great principle of a division of labour is yet unknown and unnecessary. ”

“ Owing to causes which are obvious enough, the physical worker is being better and better paid and less and less hardly tasked, while just the reverse obtains in increasing ratios for those who live by the lower form of brain-work; so that the bribe to use the hand is growing daily, and pure mechanical labor, as opposed to that of the clerk, is being "levelled upward" with fortunate celerity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bid Labour claim her treasures from the earth.
On GILES, and such as Giles, the labour falls,
To strew the frequent load where hunger calls.
On driving gales sharp hail indignant flies,
And sleet, more irksome still, assails his eyes ”

“ Accounts of living and working conditions, for example, as obtained from workmen and their families often give a better picture of the circumstances that produced the strike than do formal statements by labor leaders. ”

“ The Labor Problem is with us quite as acutely as it was with the Romans when long ago the plebeians left the city and camped on the hillsides, leaving the patricians to do their own manual toil. Whether the employer gives too little or the employee asks too much in any given struggle, the demon of greed plays his part again. ”