Rhode Island American And Providence Gazette

THE MECHANIC,
We have more than once had our indignation roused against a certain class of the community who affect to despise that portion of their neighbors who obtain an honest livelihood in mechanical employments. We have known many worthy young men mortified and pained to the heart by the unceremonious and purse-proud haughtiness of their superiors in wealth and impudence only—crowded into the back-ground to give place to idlers, and gentlemen at large, merely because they happened to be vulgar enough to choose industry, rather than idleness and dependence.—But let not the mechanic relax his praise-worthy exertions. He can give back the sneer of the conceited fop with interest. He can stand up in the strength of an independent spirit in the proud sense of the superiority of real worth over tinsel and borrowed ornament. He fills an honest place in society, and it is time the true merit of his services was appreciated. It is time for republican America to cast off these fetters of prejudice, forged by the aristocracy of the old world, and awake to her peculiar legitimate interests. The industrious mechanic may be ranked among her firmest supporters, and the time is not far distant when he shall be placed in his just station in the scale of society.
[American Manufacturer.]