I CAN’T FIND WORK by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 21, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 25.

“I CAN’T FIND WORK.”

By T.

YOU will meet thousands of men and women to-day who will pitifully tell you that they are out of a job, and that they can't find work. There are thousands of families depending upon the daily wages of the husband and father, and when he is thrown out of employment starvation stares the family in the face. And usually this father's industrial education is such that he knows how to do only one thing. And no matter how much work there may be around him, unless he can get his particular kind of work he must go unemployed.

This is a condition of things that did not exist fifty years ago. There may have been a case now and then where a man was out of work, and could find nothing to do, but there were so few in this condition that it is hardly worth while to mention it. But now it is no uncommon thing, particularly in the winter-time, to read of from 40,000 to 70,000 in a single large city like Chicago who are on the verge of perishing from hunger and cold because they can find nothing to do to support them.

Fifty years ago the rule was for every man to be his own master. If he was the village blacksmith or carpenter he had his regular customers, and usually had a small piece of ground of his own on which he did his own gardening and raised very much of what he used on his table. The farmer not only raised what he ate, but also raised his own sheep to supply his family with wool for clothing, and also raised his flax and cotton out of which to make fabrics for his household. The raw material was prepared, spun into threads, woven into cloth, and worked into garments right in the home. And every member of the family learned how to do all this variety of work that was necessary in that form of domestic life. And, furthermore, the people were contented, independent, industrious and happy. But the last half-century has worked a complete revolution. The factory has come into existence, and men and women and even the boys and girls, have been taken from their happy and independent lives and worked over into mere parts of a great machine. So long as the factory runs all goes well. But if the factory is mismanaged and goes into bankruptcy, or if for any other reason it has to be shut down, then all of its wage-earners are simply adrift, and a drug upon the labor market.

To be sure it is to the interest of the factory owners and large employers of laborers in general to keep the market full of men and women that can be hired at a moment's notice, and who can be just as promptly discharged. But it is not for the best interests of humanity in general. And if the present industrial system is allowed to produce its legitimate harvest, it can be nothing short of an industrial revolution. And with the high-wrought state of feeling, this revolution will be the most bloody that the world has ever seen. To be sure it is beautiful to sit down and dream of the present difficulties being settled in a peaceable manner. But such is a moral impossibility. Capital is too self-centered, too grasping and greedy, too haughty and indifferent, for the peaceable methods to prevail. And even if the capitalists should begin at once to reform and work upon right lines, it is altogether improbable that they could avert a clash with labor; for the laboring element has allowed such a feeling of intense hatred of the rich to take possession of their minds, and this hostility has rankled in their breasts for so long, that they are surcharged with a spirit of revenge, and nothing short of a mighty miracle will stop the revolution that is even now upon us.

But the laboring class have made and are still making one great and fatal mistake. Men should never allow themselves to become a part of a mere machine in a factory. It is true that circumstances seem to chain some men to the place where they are always dependent on some one else for work. But every effort should be made to break the shackles and get away. You might not find something on the start that was quite so much to your liking as work in a factory, but the mind should be set to hard thinking in regard to what can be done to support yourself and family without being dependent upon some capitalist or factory boss to hire you.

There are millions of acres of unoccupied land. If you are not able to buy you can rent for a time. Five or ten acres well cultivated will furnish a family with more than it can use.

But whatever else you do, begin at once to study some plan by which you can set yourself profitably to work. Do not go through life depending upon some one to dole out work to you. God created men to be more independent than that, and He will help every one who is struggling for godly independence. And in the times into which this world is drifting the condition of those who have no independent means of subsisting will be awful. If you are out of a job and temporarily under the necessity of hunting work, do not allow that to hinder you from studying as hard as you can how to make profitable work for yourself. You may think that circumstances have you down. But do not give up too easily. Trust in God and look up. The way of escape may be hanging right over you.