The Army of Idlers

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 28, 1872

The Army of Idlers.

Some have estimated that there are one hundred thousand men in the city of New York who absolutely do nothing for their own support. These are in addition to thieves and other classes who live by their “wits” without pursuing any honest calling. They come under the comprehensible class termed “loafers.” Only think what an army these men would make, and what results they might accomplish, if they would go to work. Why, there is physical ability here going to waste, which, if it were employed, would be sufficient to build five hundred miles of railroad in a year; or, if it were directed to agriculture, might supply food enough for the city of New York; or in the department of military affairs could conquer Mexico.

It is scarcely probable that any other community in the United States has so large a share of totally useless population. They would be sufficient to convert the whole State of Kansas into a garden within three months—if they were not too lazy—and might “drive the wolf” from the doors of half the humble homes in the nation, though, as they now are, their presence might be deemed a worse visitation than the gaunt wolf itself.