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But next to the absorption of invalids into their original homes and places of residence, is the duty devolving upon communities to provide them with means of steady and continuous employment. Admitting at the outset the chronic and permanent character of their disability, the obligation to aid them in earning their livelihood is co-existent with life. Wherever, therefore, places originally obtained by them are relinquished or lost, either through increasing infirmity, or the expiration of the term of service for which they were employed, it is incumbent upon society to see that new avenues are opened to them. Their claims for employment (qualification and good moral character being always assured), should be treated as preferred ones before the tribunal of public opinion. In other words, they are the wards of the community, and must never be cast off, so long as their own acts do not compel a forfeiture of this beneficent relation. The reason of this is obvious from the status assigned them. They are the adopted children of the State -- mutilated and invalided in her defence, and it is for her, in their weakness and decrepitude, to insure them as a reward, and not as a compensation, the vantage-ground of her assistance in earning a living. For awhile, indeed, after the war, as at present during the living realization of the great debate of battle, there will be a hue of romance thrown over benefactions to invalid soldiers. Unorganized and immethodical efforts will, for some time to come, continue to lavish means in answer to calls of this kind. While such movements are fashionable, they will be popular, and in that sense may be trusted for supplying all immediate wants. But mingling with this thought is the sad reflection that the interest of many givers, and they perhaps the largest, will too often be limited to the actual contribution, and cease with it, looking no higher nor beyond that which satisfies the pride of one's social position. Plainly, this is not the kind of assistance to be relied upon through the long years that are before us. It lacks the qualities of regularity of system, and finds no fitting place in the political economy of a State.

In truth, political economy as the expression of a system of checks and balances, regulating the relations of capital to labor, is essentially material and un-emotional in its dealings with mankind. It has no equitable side, in the legal sense of that term, and makes no provision for those whom fraud or accident have deprived of equal advantages with their fellow-men. In the operations of the labor-market, the law regulating supply, as contra-distinguished from demand, is always in favor of physical ability. Hence the weaker workman must yield to the stronger in obtaining opportunities of employment. The hirer, on his part, naturully (sic) seeks the largest return in manual power or skill, for the wages offered by him. It is not his policy, whatever, his humanity, to employ invalids as against strong and healthy men. Even if he could obtain the services of the former at a reduced rate, it would not be expedient to undertake any enterprise with them requiring continuous labor. Time being an essential element in all contracts for personal services, no man would select from preference, invalids, predisposed from their very physical condition to interruptions of health, to perform any work whose period of accomplishment was prescribed within fixed limits. Stone-masons, brick-layers, carpenters, joiners, painters, etc., etc., would not stand much chance of employment, if their engagements to do a certain piece of work were always qualified by a proviso relating to their infirmity. The danger of fresh outbreaks of disease would deter employers from retaining the services of those who might, at any moment, cause a serious interruption to their business, and the possible forfeiture of a contract.

This is undoubtedly the practical, brick and mortar side of the problem, but precisely because it is so, and the one to which all employers first look, must we face it with boldness. It must be admitted, as all will agree, that where two men equally skilled to perform a given labor present themselves before an employer, the one an invalid, the other a sound, healthy man, the invalid will stand no chance as against his rival. This may not be humane, but it is certainly human, and as dealings between men on the great stage of life are regulated more by figures than by feelings, we must not expect to find any very strong accentuations of humanity in their commercial relations. Do ut des and facio ut facias is the rubric which governs the intercourse of the market-place. The basis of its transactions is a purely legal one. It recognizes nothing more strongly than the right to expect as much in return for wages as the laborer can give. Hence the invalid, always representing the minus side of the services which the market proffers, cannot, in justice, expect to compete with his sound and able-bodied rival, who represents the plus side of the same problem. His condition is, therefore, one of permanent inferiority, and he must submit, not only to accept inferior wages, but even to wait wearily for employment until the list of better-conditioned men is first disposed of. In order to meet and overcome the sad results of this inevitable law of demand and supply, communities must either create new channels of employment, or else they must provide invalids with the advantage of a preferred claim to certain places and kinds of occupation, of which none can dispossess them.