"They Certainly Have To Be Smart To Get It," A Gentleman
Said To Me Whom I Had Taxed On The Subject.
"You see, on the
frontier a man is bound to be smart.
If he aint smart, he'd better
go back East, perhaps as far as Europe; he'll do there." I had got
my answer, and my friend had turned the question; but the fact was
admitted by him, as it had been by many others.
Why this should be so is a question to answer which thoroughly
would require a volume in itself. As to the driving, why should
men submit to it, seeing that labor is abundant, and that in all
newly-settled countries the laborer is the true hero of the age?
In answer to this is to be alleged the fact that hired labor is
chiefly done by fresh comers, by Irish and Germans, who have not as
yet among them any combination sufficient to protect them from such
usage. The men over them are new as masters, masters who are rough
themselves, who themselves have been roughly driven, and who have
not learned to be gracious to those below them. It is a part of
their contract that very hard work shall be exacted, and the
driving resolves itself into this: that the master, looking after
his own interest, is constantly accusing his laborer of a breach of
his part of the contract. The men no doubt do become used to it,
and slacken probably in their endeavors when the tongue of the
master or foreman is not heard.
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