The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-09-29

/ o'h Diol DiolhlCl-EDENELEh hNOWLION.
The Foe OF the Farmer aud the Labor
| -.s#f ing Man.
EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS BY GEORGE
WILLIAM CURTIS.
Would the supply of men of the Curtis
stamp were not so limited-men who are
scholars without being pedants, gentlemen
without being fops, orators without being
difluse and tiresome. Curtis "touches moth
ing which he does not adorn" As author,
editor, lyceum lecturer and legislator he is
equally brilliant and successful Delivering
agricultural addresses would seem to be some
what outside of his special lines OF effort.
but his remarks before the Franklin County
lMass.) Agricultural Society, last week, prove
that he can bring the same gracns of style
and viSor OF thought to performances of that
sort as to his inim liable EASY Chair ESSAYS
In Barper's Monthly. We cannot forbear to
lay before our readers the concluding Dor
tion of that address, in which Mr.. Curtis
describes with admirable precision the causes
which have kept the farmer in subseryience
to aristocracies in other years, and in other
lands, and which still threaten his inde-
pendence even in America:
But beneath all other reasons of the his
torical condition OF the farmer is the Iunda-
mental reason, and that is the leudal or ar
lstocratc principle, which has always pre-
vailed In various forms in every country and
which oppresses the farmer most of all. 1t is
a theory that God made little OF his human
clay INTO porcelain vases to hold the dizzy
wine OF exclusive power but the most of it
into common crockery tor base uses; a theo-
ry that the many are made for the few, or as
Voltaire defined it in government, 1T is the
art OF making two-thirds of nation pay all
1t possibly can pay for the benefit of the
other third"
This system is the fourfold enemy of the
farmer. First, it distributes all the land to
few proprietors. Second, 10 those tew pro-
prietors it gives exclusive political power.
Third, it degrades labor by making the labor
er wholly dependent upon those few; and
fourth it fosters their ignorance that they
may be willing slaves. In a word, the aris-
tocratic system gives political power to the
land and the land to few The popular
system divides the land and derives political
power from manhood. What is the result of
this aristocratic system upon the general wei
fare, and especially upon the farmer? Look
at England. The united kingdom is COM
posed OF 7S,O00,OO0 acres OF land, and has
nearly 30000000 of inhabitants Thirty
thousand persons own all the land, and the
English school system is the worst of any
civilized country. What follows? MIR. OlH-
stead, in his most valuable and delightful
book, "The Walks and Talks of an American
Farmer in England" says: II did not see in
Ireland OF in Germany, or in France, nor did
ever see among our negroes or Indians, or
among the Chinese or Malays, men whose
tastes were such mere instincts and whose
mode OF life was so low, so like domestic an
imals altogether--as these iarm laborers"
He spoke OF them to an intelligent radical,
who replied, "We are not used to regard that
class in forming Judgment oil national
character, and yet it is probably the largest
class in England"
The wisest English statesmen agree that
the root OF the Irish difficulty is the land ten
ure. They will presently see that it is the
root OF the English difficulty, and that Eng
land is in constant danger so long as 10000
proprietors own the soil of the country They
will soon question the right of the Marquis of
Bfedalbane to turn sheep walks into game
preserves ;and unless some method of increas-
ing the ownership of land is adopted, perhaps
by redistributing taxation so that the land
Will be sold to escape the heavy burden, the
great proprietorships will be abolished iu
vuisiOn.
Wherever the agricultural laborer does not
own the land and has no share in political
| power, there he will be an ignorant and de-
| graded man and the instinct We attempt of
an aristocracy to keep him in that position
will sooner or later involve any country IN
the most relentless WARRIOR it the gov
ernment is popular government,
the arstOcracy will ann to subyert it or
m oh re Tho
the United States tor generation illustrates
this truth. Our southern system of society
and labor was an aristocracy which controlled
the government by the power derived from
| our millions of agricultural laborers deprived
ofevery right, and by its alliance with ignor-
| ance and avarice elsewhere. Seeing the
alarming tendency of nation OF small pro-
| prietors and of tree schools to oppose aristo-
| catic influence in every peaceful and legal
way, it steadily aimed to change the charac-
ter of the government by nationalizing its
spstem OF slavery. II pursued this purpose
with relentless energy, and with apparent ap-
palling success. In 1860, Alexander II. Ste
phens retired from Congress because he was
sure the supreme court would uphold the
| arlstocratic claim. In Massachusetts Daniel
| Webster the son of New England farmer
bowed his great head TO the cap OF Ges-
Ter. and asked New England to conquer its
prejudices in favor of liberty. In New York
| Charles OConor, son of the ireland which
the same aristocratc spirit had ruined, insis-
| ted before the highest court that slaves should
| be held in tie State. III lney cUulu De ncTu
| they could be sold, and thus the slave trade
be restored to the banks OF the tennessee and
the valley OF the Mohawk
| EmDoidened by apparent success, the aris-
tocratc power laid Its hand upon Kansas, the
| heart and the garden of the continent
| T,I... los fha Ia themselves face
10 face with their Old, remorseless enemy
who had puI sued them in every country and
in every ace. If slavery could be planted in
Kansas. the Yankee boy who had gone there
tor more elbow room--tor richer fields and a
better chance for himself and his children,
would find the field slave who could be kept
for less than hundred dollars year, in
british ignorance, his immediate rival. The
snatch at Kansas was the old policy of the
arstocracy, everywhere and always, to per,
petuate ignorance and degrade labor. The
| response was the tremendous political cam
| paign OF 1860. when the battle cry OF the lar
mers rang from sea to sea, Tree land, fret
speech. free schools, tree men" and Abraham
Lincoln. the representative OF working
people against proprietary aristoeracy, wa
elected president.
But aristocracy is brave,-and it did moi
falter Foled at the polls it drew its sworc
to overthrow government whose nature !
could not change. Still the air thrills Will
the tremendous story. The farmers who's
ancestors in the evolution had LETT the plov
! in the turrow to march to Bunker Hill, di,
not DELAY. Over all these sunny hill:
through all these silent valleys, rolled th
loud drum beat, and the bugle rang. Thou
n sands and hundreds of thousands of farme
bows marched away. Over all these siler
: valleys, are the darkened homes and th
broken hearts to which thousands of the ia
mer boys returned no more.
Gentlemen, it when Lee surrendered +
Grant under the Appomatox apple tree, In a
r spirit.oi aristocracy had also surrendered II II
purpose in this country, we should to-uay y !,
the happiest of nations. But to renounce ~ y
purpose would be to change its nature; De
leat does not convert. A cause which ha
been a tradition and a passion, when 1t is
lost cause becomes religion. 1t awaits il
r onnortupity. Fooled at one point, it tries an
r oiher King Charles the First trie,l to assel
o the royal prerogative by force. He lost h
Q head. But his cause survived, for it was