ed will work rather than starve; and these we propose to bring as
rapidly as our means will permit.

We head our appeal, as you see, "Work wanted for a thousand starving
men," because we know that we can get more work out of men who are just
on the edge of starvation than from any other, and in that way we shall
"develop our resources" most effectively and rapidly.

It is quite true that we already produce more cotton cloth and more
boots and shoes than we can possibly sell; but we know--for have we not
political economy to teach us?--that when we get them cheap enough, say
to one-half their present starvation prices--every man, and every
woman, and every child will wear two shirts, and two hats, and two
pairs of shoes; and thus we shall have in a superior way that
blessedness of which poets write--the making "two blades of grass grow
where one grew before." Now, I ask any liberal-minded man if "two pairs
of shoes in place of one" is not higher and nobler than two blades of
grass? That goes without talking.

If work be indeed the curse of curses, why, let the sons of Ham
(Africa) and the sons of Shem (Asia) do it; for it is well known they
are accursed, and have been since the days of "good old Noah"; besides
which, having colored skins, we know just how to mark the helots; can
import them as fast as needed; can put all labor upon them, and can
thus keep our own Japhetic skins and hands clean and white.

Deferring to a not wholly extinct public opinion, which is now and then
announced by some orator to some small schoolboys, in words like these,
_Labore est honore_, and in the vernacular, "_Labor is honorable_," I
am compelled to deny it clearly and distinctly. Almost all know it, but
it may be best to say to those who do not:

If labor is honorable, why does every man refuse to hoe in his garden,
to make his fire, to raise his food? Why does every woman refuse to
cook her food, to make her clothes, to take care of her children? Why
do every father and every mother take special pains to so bring up and
educate their children that they can do no sort of hand work? Why is it
that high schools, and academies, and colleges are held as the most
majestic of blessings, except that they are intended to wholly unfit
boys and girls for the _necessary work of life_?

Why is it that those who do no work are always called "upper classes,"
and those who do much work are called "the masses," unless it is so?
Being so, let us agr