Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-10-28
NO. 25e

thoroughly and finally established between
capital and labor.
have now given you very imperfectly,
but, believe, faithfully, as far as it goes,
an account Of the great industrial move
ment in England. l am not sanguine
enough to hope that all our troubles are
over; but l do believe that all serious
danger for us is past, and that if we lose
the lead, which according to the latest re-
| turns we still hold among the producing
nations of the world, it will be because we
are fairly beaten in invention or applied
skill, OF in that dogged persistency in
work which has hitherto done so much for
us, and not because our employers and
work-people are any longer engaged in
the time-honOred and wOrld-old pastime of
with you here, my friends? Have you
nothing to learn from the old country in
this matter? Well, it is exceedingly diff
cult for stranger coming among you for
few months to Judge, but, unless am
much mistaken, see the threatenings of
trouble for you over this labor question.
Labor and capital in the New World seem
inclined to ignore or despise all the les
sons of the Old, and to fall together by the
ears instead of marching together hand in
hand toward the grandest work the earth
can offer just now, the subduing and de-
velopement of this vast and magnificent
continent of yours. have no right to
offer counsel to either side, and may pos
sibly be even regarded with suspicion by
employers of labor over here as have
been till lately by those of England. But
as | have helped the workingmen at home
to fight their battle, and have had the hap
piness of earning their confidence, I trust
their brethren here will take the few
words l have to say to them in good part,
and as those, at any rate of a friend. Is
it then the fact that you, the workingmen
of the United States, are running simply
on the old track, and are furnishing up the
old weapons of trades unionism which
have SO often run into the hands of those
who welded them? Are you really try
ing, by your organizations, to control the
tree-will OF those of your own body who
are not Unionists, to put restrictions and
limitations on the hours of labor, the ad-
mission ofapprentices, the use of machin-
cry, the rate of wages, to carry out your
ideas of the old method of strikes? These
things may have been done often enough
in England. If not wise even there, at
least they had justification which here is
wholly wanting. Where the labor mar
hel ID OfcIStOckcu, anu LucIc dTc Ollcu
two men waiting for one mans place,
can understand, and have often sympa-
thized with and defended rules and prac-
tees intended to spread work evenly. and
requiring self-sacrifce from the ablest
workmen that all of fair capacity might
earn a livelihood.
DIFFERENT POSITION OF woRKINGMEN
HERE.
| Where all the natural wealth of the
country Gf l may use the phrase) is
already monopolized, where land, mines,
waters-all the raw material out of which
wealth is created-are in private hands,
and there is the keenest competition for
the use of them, as there is with us, one
must not be too critical as to the methods
by which the great body of producers have
endeavored to secure their share of the
products of industry. But here you have
well-paid employment waiting in one
State or another for every man who is
willing to do an honest days work. Here
the natural wealth Of the country is for all
practical purposes unappropriated, and
lying around you in almost unbounded
profusion. You have nothing to do but to
exercise little thrift and foresight for a
few short months, or perhaps for year,
to spend for that time less than you earn,
and there are the means in the hands of
every one of you of obtaining house, land,
whatever form of wealth you are most
eager for with only too great facility
On what possible plea of reason, or JUS
tce, or necessity, or even to hand or
mouth policy, can you undertake to con-
troll or limit the right to work on his own
terms, in his own way, of any man, when
there is ample room for twenty times your
present numbers, and your land is crying
out for all the good work which every
man among you can put into it? When
the great Trades Unions of England are
becoming every day more peaceable, and
reasonable, as they become more power
full, and are jealous of every expenditure
which is not for some provident or benevo-
lent purpose, are the Unions and the
working men of America going to pick up
the old armour instead of leaving it to rust
where it lies, and to spend the earnings
which belong to their wives and children
as much as to them in a crusade for
preaching the gospel of idleness?
l cannot believe it, for if there is one
truth which this nation has hitherto preach
ed faithfully to the rest of the world it is
the gospel of work. The worth and noble
| uCso VI SOO0 udl III WOIk 10 TIC UcSt OutCOiuC
of your history so far as can read it, and
the signs that the old belief is not dead
are among the most cheering memories
which shall carry back with me. / have
the pleasure of knowing senior classman
at Harvard College who hired himself out
as laborer this last vacation in order to
learn the business of farming from the be-
gining. and earned $40 week beside his
keep. At Cornell University the students
who live by their own labor, in the print
ing house or on the farm, are precisely on
the same footing as all the rest, and one
rejoices to find that not one will lose caste
there by the performance of any kind of
honest work. So hope soon to hear that
the Unions in this country are getting more
like the best of those in England, and have
ceased to move in the old extravagant and
tyrannical ways. Donotmisunderstand me-
i am not speaking against your Unions. I
have always advocated them; have main
tanned that they are an absolute necessity
in England, and have been very useful in
placing the work people in a position in