| From the Wilmington Journal |
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| November 14, 1861 |
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| Skilled Labor |
| The man who can make a good gun to shoot
with, would really be doing better service by staying at home and making
guns, than by going off to the wars to shoot with one gun, while so many
thousands are waiting for thousands of guns. |
| Skilled workmen on railroad work would
also serve the cause more essentially at work in their shops than they
can do in camp, for work must be done to keep the machinery of
transportation in order. Without transportation the army cannot be
supplied nor kept efficient, and without skilled workmen to see to the
repairs and efficiency of the locomotives and rolling stock,
transportation cannot be satisfactorily carried on. |
| So in many other departments. We may
think, and do think that this struggle cannot last over a second winter.
But this is only thinking -- it is not knowing. If the war is to be a
long war we must go to work at once to develop our manufacturing and
productive industry or suffer. We need not calculate with any confidence
upon European intervention; for our own part, we do not. We must wrestle
this thing out and we must put our houses in order so that we may do so
with effect, and bring the struggle to a triumphant close, and at that
close be truly independent. |
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