Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-05-10
abe 4aiIp Sgg.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1854.
ELIHU BURRITT's SPEECH,
Al the Opening of the Crystal Palace

Mr.. Barnum now introduced ELTHU BUR-
RIFT, the learned blacksmith of Massachusetts,.
Learned he is truly, yet the representatives Of
labor present seemed to look upon him with
feelings of high, honorable pride, not because
he is learned, but because he became SO while
working at the FORGE with the blacksmiths
hammer and anvil. He spoke as follows:
Mr. President and Gentlemen IF there is
one thing more than another that shall give
this extraordinary occasion a memory that
shall live and glow in the hearts Of coming
ages, it is the idea which we this day inau-
gurate-the coronation Of labor. [Applause.]
Glorious are the circumstances, and most
suspicious and hopeful are the auguries of
time, and associations of place, with which
we have met on this May morning Of the
year to throne that monarch, God, upon tho
mind of the age. The coronation OF labor -
This, indeed, will be great day, if we shall
make worthy browning for the noblest and
most honorable prerogatiye Of humanity, with
all these brilliant offerings and trophies Of this
world wide realm of activities and industries;
if we shall make worthy browning for this
noble ovation of humanity. Worthy of the
| grandest circumstances which could be thrown
around human assembly, worthy of this oc-
casion, and hundred like this, is that beau
| tiful idea, the coronation of labor. 1t were
| worthy the most august solemnity the world
| has ever seen, and for thousand years,
merely to christen that idea in the infancy Of
its conception. Aye, more, if I may say it
without irreverence, this Crystal Palace were
not too good for the manger cradle of that
God, and all the silent and sublime regalia of
human art and industry which it contains
were not dignities too costly to put upon its
baby brow. [Applause.] But, ladies and
gentlemen, we have not come to the christen-
ing, but to the browning of labor--not to cell
citrate the advent OF an idea, but to install a
fadt--to seeptre condition, which, for more
than four thousand years, has been deposed
from its legitimate dignity; condition which,
with all the lineage and hneaments of its di-
vine origin and lofty destiny, has had its
| Egyption prison house, its Red Sea of tribula-
ton, its long and painful sojourn in the vast
ing wilderness of poverty and oppression;
condition that has had Cain-marks and task
marks, and chattel-marks burnt deeply into
| its forehead by the red hot branding iron,
prejudice a condition which has been driven
to the wall, to the galley, and the gutter; a
condition that has worn upon its fretted sim
ews all the features of bondage; condition
| that has gathered down by day for the couch
OF indolent wealth, and slept on straw by
night a condition that, clad in sheep and
goat skin, and unseemly rags, has wrought
With fingers weary and worn,
! With eyelids heavy aud red,
the robes Of ermine and costly tissues OF the
spindle and loom to grace the palace of royal
ty and the parlor of elegance aud fashion. In
short. ladies and gentlemen, it is that condi-
ton which the Great Architect OF the uni
verse after His great six days work Of crea-
ton called labor, that we would now raise to
that high place in the estimation of the world
which He designed it should FILL Coronation
of Labor Not American labor, not British
labor, not French labor, not the labor of the
new world OF of the old, but the labor Of
mankind as one undivided brotherhood-la-
Dor as the oldest, the noblest prerogatve of
duty and humanity. 1t is this which is the
distinguishing feature of this occasion, that
gives brothvrly welcome to the sea-divided
and diversified tongucd families of mankind
| all opportunity to fraternise with all other
races and generations. 1t accepts with the
homage of respect, and with the sympathy Of
life-r relationship, all other primary ideas and
| ideals of art and industry, which have been
embodied and perpetuated in these magnif-
| cent specimens of mechanical science and ar
tistic taste. We stand in the majestic pres
euce of more than four thousand years Of hui
man ingenuity and invention. Every one of
these implements, wrought of brass or iron,
holds inwrought within its fabrication an un-
broken lineage of improvements and concep-
| tons, reaching back across the food at its
| widest expanse, aud linking that implement
with the forge of Tubal Cain. All Of these
| glorious triumphs Of art and workmanship of
nearly all the living nations of the earth have
each long train of consecutive antecedents
reaching back to the day of that normal ma
chination OF the antedeluvian world. The
model of the largest ocean steamer that plows
the pillows Of the sea inherited its idea from
that mighty vessel with which the patriarch
of the past deluvian world embarked with his
single family upon the shoreless deluge, bear
ing with him the treasures Of the first ideas of
art and industry which had been developed
from the time of Adam. Here then under
this crystal dome that over arches like sky
Of glass these noble works of mechanism,
science and artistic taste, we may say with
greater propriety than Napoleon said under
the shadow of the pyramids, g forty centur-
les are sslooking down upon us with their
grand and solemn antiquity" TApplause.l
All these noble, these glorious works are the
congregated result Of the long line Of ideas
and activities of six thousand years.
Mr. President, other countries have had their
great International exhibitions Of art and in
dustry, which have commanded the admira-
tioh Of the world; but the novel and bold as
pirations of the Directors of this institution
soar to a nobler height-the coronation Of in
dustry. There is moral grandeur in that
very assumption which seems to comprehend
a patriotism that beats with all the pulses of
the human race. | trust that every heart that
responds to this idea will generously share the
responsibilities which it involves. The coro-
nation of labor is the grandest word that
continent Republic could utter in this year Of
the world, in the meridian of its manhood
1t grasps all the painful and progressive histo-
ries of humanity, and, standing on some Pis-
gah's height, proclaims a new Canaan, and
unfolds its green fields Of promise tothe view.
A coronation of labor! Let not the lips of man
or woman in this crystal temple or in this
broad land repeat the words with levity. Let
us not lower the dignity of this day by unfurl-
ing to the myriad-handed. industry Of the
world a deceitfal and empty abstraction. The
coronation of single human brow does not
consist merely in encrcling it with the regalia
of king or queen. The diamonds that gilt
ter in the diatlem are not the measure Of the
homage or duty involved in that act The
real crowning is in the devotion of loyal hearts
that shall be true, faithful and unswerving in
the fercest trials. Nor is it coronation of
labor to build for it palace, crystal palace,
surprising in magnifence the royal habita-
tons Of oriental monarchs. 1t is not tho
crowuing which we owe to labor to enrich its
brow with brilliant jewelry OF its own handi-
work, nor to clothe it in the crimson robes of
mock royalty, and bring It forth to the people
once in a century. No; there are weighty and
sober obligations devolving upon every person
in this assembly or out of it, who accepts the
/ term by which this demonstration haa hean