The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1866-05-19

Z a-stJ Or Eu8Llf EhbDg AAfs 1Vy 1uOUsl
In speaking tonight to the workingmep
Z of Chicago, Iwsnt 10 begin by stating thai
= by birth and breeding, and by education and
training I am in the most literal sense q
workingman myself. As far back as | can
trace py family, they were sailors and me
chanica y The men Of my liue, suppose
ike Sydney Smiths, sealed their letters
With their thumbs. anathe women with their
tbimbles My fathers father fought under
Nelson, and went overheard one black night
il storm. Ny father, wording very ha, d
at his anvil one hot July day in '4s, fell
d. wn dead, bursting a blood-vessel ON the
brain was then smith myself, aHd had
be IN at the anvil SIX years / stuck to il
steadily for sixteen years after that. When
came 10 this city In 1859 came directly
from the anvil When went back to Eng
land last summer, IEent into the old smithy
first entered as IN apprentice boy twenty
eight years before, made some nails at the
old firs and had photograph taken OF the
place. can still shoe horse and tire a
wheel, and make hammer, and make 4
hammer ring, believe, with the next man
and there moments when am not sure
thai had not rather be lack in the black
smith shop, smiling stubborn steel and iron,
and hitting it every time, than in the pull
pit trying to smte stubborn hearts, often,
fear, as one that beats the air. And | say
this in the outset because want you to feel
that, IN what say, | haze in some sense
the inside track of my subject.
A gentlsm in London lately, suspectir 2
that the 5oor who are compelled TO 90 %
the wofi houses for nights lodging, were
T. badly Gealt with, went ia AS che of them
. ,rh ~ oil ftar ora lrv,r
ter nght; printed a stateL nc of his
experience, and sUorlned the hearts Of Eng.
lane with hrs words, and so | do not come
to YOu as man ignorant Of your life, ex-
cept as | have seen it from the outside
know It like book, ray, may not say
know it by heart, and know very little be-
side and so ] want to speak as q working.
man 10 workingmen, though you may heard
Of me only as a minister. pas q ministe,
for many long year and q mechanic at thu
same time. will tell you what got a year
for the first ten years Of my life as a minis
ter, and let me say that believe preached
as the Scotch have it, no that badly" For
ten years I preached once every Sunday
often twice, and my paw for preaching av-
eraged seventy.fve cents a year, or seven
dollars and half for the whole Job. get
more now, but | arr not sure that | preach
better. NJ good old Methodist Fl lends, OF
whose church was then member, tel me
do not preach so well. But so il 10 that
claim place in your very closest life and
experience for what say, and desire you "a
remember tbatifI seemto speak from the pul
pit to the anvil, first carved my own way
without patronage from Ihe anvil to the pull
pit And il is for this reason, as well as
that believe it to be the best thing to do
thst lshall not try 10 amaze or astonish you
with wonderful flights Of eloquence on sub
jects that would be like the old definition Of
metaphysics "a man talking to another
man whoscannot understand hun on a sub
ject he cannot understand himself" but shall
try to give you what have got, mainly BY
hard working some plain thoughts about
plain things. in the simplest possible Ian.
guage, and that is what should try 70 d.
10 airy audience, because 7 believe it is the
best thing to do. -'
.Wecarne Of the old Saxon stock. 1t was
a.short, strong, sturdy stock, and we ought
always to use its words, for they are short,
* strong, and sturdy too, and carry their char
acter on their face. Workingmep, indeed,
never use any other. They have no time,
and when listen to men that use words
tremendously long to express thoughts as
simple as daylight, l always feel what a
blessing j. would have been to such men to
go into that best Of all schools for short,
strong words, aworkshop, and learn there
TO talk to the sound Of hammers, for then
they would understand Inv a TOTALLY new
sense the worth Of our expression, "a word
and bow land make the word sound as
brief and enphaicas the other And / can
not feel satisfied to say one thing befbre just
this, that every workingman who hears me
to night may wei be thankful that he is .
workin gman, and not one Of the uncounted
thousands Of things that are merely a pre-
tence o. workings, that never bring one
atom OF solid satisfaction, and that are sim
y ply disgrace, only less disgraceful then to
hive by stealing. know a great many men
in this city and q great deal about them,
and what know sometimes reads me strange
and impressive lessons. meet in the same
block, going 10 their hsmes, this TO- hls
white stone front, and that to his one story
cottage; this worth his quarter Of million,
and that worth what sixth there is in his
head and hands, and little property IN his
home. This snug End@ sleek, and that be-
grimed with labor; that being carried in his
carriage, and this carrying ms dinner can
a w9rkIngmah and speculator, "a map who
has made something solid and good out Of
p board pr 9 pieoe # iron, o. a. stqnsd and .
man'who has merely manipulated with such
things Akeya sharper, with cards, or thin
b!es and peas. Now, do you think have
.ry difficulty in deciding which of these is
Il . laan; and Which ID merely the makebe-
be,ieYs. That my heart hesitates for mo-
meatwbich Of these -mea to honor and can
my brother / tell you, to me the face swsrt
with labor looks fair and the fair face. black |;
the woTkingman is the wealthy MAJ, but the
butl or bean whichever be may be, has not
one rag on his back he ought to call his own
He PRODUCES nothing, he merely consumes !;
no distributes nothing, he merely pretends;
he does nothing, and be is nothing But
that man Oh the sidewalk with his dinner
can on2hissarm, is soldier in the great ar
my recruited in. every generation to ccnduer
a..thaawsFid, 20 make the wilderness and the
solitaEs place glad. sadAthe desert rejoice
and blossom as the rose. Two men says
Thomas Carlyle, honor, and no third,
First, the man with hands hard, crooked,
snd coarse, but skiilfuL aad face rugged,
weather tanned, and solled the hands and
iface'of d man living nianlflte, whose limbs
and fingers, are SO deformsd, whose back 10
bent, and face clouded with hard and honest
tabey fl,d the ether man bpnoE 10 the man
Il who tolls as thinker. Inc earthly crafts
Vnan and the inspired thinker, these two in
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