Work in Progress: Plantation Owners Defend Unpaid Internship Programs

A Solipsist Exclusive

(A note to Solipsist Nation: Not sure where we're going with this. Started writing this in response to a colleague who posted an article about the growth of unpaid internships in American industry. Take it for what it is: Part of our ongoing attempt to be selected for the staff of "The Onion.")

August 3, 1860

RICHMOND, VA--The cream of our Southern gentility yesterday issued a proclamation in which they full-throatedly endorsed their unpaid internship program, despite vehement denunciation form our northern cousins.


"We believe that these programs offer young people--and more than a few older folk, as well--the opportunity to gain valuable workplace experience. And that experience holds more value than any mere paycheck could afford," said Colonel Willis P. Throckmorton of Old Chestnut Farms. "Why, sometimes I do feel that they ought to be paying me."


Another of our venerable entrepreneurs, Mr. Simon Legree, agreed. "Why, my interns learn fortitude and strength of character that simply cannot be obtained through any more conventionally remunerative occupation."


Legree's longtime intern, Thomas "Uncle" Legree (no relation) concurred. "Why, yes," he said, "I would be most discomforted by any insinuation that I were somehow suffering exploitation at the hands of my Master." ("Master," he further explicated is a term of the profoundest endearment bestowed upon Mr. Legree by all his interns, who hastened to point out that they were under no compunction whatsoever to refer to him thusly.)