Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-09-21


ducts In the domain of art and in
dustry at the Crystal Palace in Hyde
Park, April 20. 1867. Our work too gene
rally compels us to look down, to fix our
gaze on something petty and minute, to
shut out the view of star and mountain,
and concentrate our thoughts on bits o.
metal or few pounds of wool or cotton.
We work with bowed heads and bent
frame. We need occasionally to straight
en- up, to expand our chests with the Iuh
inspiration of the free air of heaven. We
need to realize that work has other and
nobler ends than the highly needful re-
plenishment of the basket and store, that
its best result is the skillfnl
modest, upright, faithful, large souled
workmen. Such is the lesson which this
Exhibition Is teaching to tens of thousands.
The material recompense of labor is indsi-
pensable, but the honor paid to the achieve
ment of the highly deserving workman Is
beyond and above this, as the sky is above
the earth. Nor is this all. see in every
great Exposition an incitement to that In
dustrial cooperation which seems TO me,
even though distant and difficult, neverthe-
less inevitable. Strikes for higher wages,
strikes for shorter days, lock-outs, trades
unions, all suggest to me the radical vice
Of our mode of determining The
workman's compensation. Hs should
manifestly be paid in proportion to the
value or excellence of his product. BE is
oftener paid In proportion to the time he
managest TO consume In creating or fsshiening
it. Hence eye service, dawdling, and the
production of fabrics or wares that look
well bat fail to wear or serve well. This
cannot always endure. You need not tell
me that any essential change is difficult, for
/ know already that all genuine reforms
are exceedingly SO; that they are only
achieved through suffering aud sacrifice,
and after repeated failures. You do not
frighten me by asserting that co operative
industry involves complicated, troublesome
account keeping, for | know that despotism
is the simplest form of government and
slavery requires less reckoning and
bargaining and bookkeeping thaq
any system of free labor. Do not ask me
to tell you how cooperation is to be re-
duced to practice, for can not tell that.
There will be experiments, mistakes and
failures, In the early tentsiive stages of the
reform. l foresee That rogues and charls-
tans will seize upon it in the hope of there
UH hACn oOlHou CuuSs
clearly see all this; but think discern
brighter vista stretching away beyond it.
Nov that the Republican theory has been
fully applied to government and proved a
success, after making all due allowance for
drawbacks, believe its application to in
dustry is only question of time; that the
workers who make the clothes or shoes or
whatever else may minister to human
sustenance; and comfort, will learn
how to do this as partners
rather than hirelings, dividing equally and
wholly the proceeds instead of accepting
share of them as wages Years, if not
ages, may yet be required to perfect the
safeguards whereby the cooperation of
workers alone may be rendered practicable,
beneicent and secure; ami yet feel assur-
ed that the day will come in which he who
wants house built in Cincinnati will apply
to a corporation of practical builders or
ganized like any bank or railroad, bargain
with the agent Of that corporation as he
now does with the master builder or firm,
and have his work done at the least as well
and reasonably as now, while the stipulated
price will be wholly and fairly apportioned
among those VINO have earned it. If you
ask where is the capital TO be had, | point
to the hundreds OF millions now deposited
in the savings banks, whereofE at least two
thirds belong to the working men and wo-
men, aud say there it is. The depositors
are careful, saving, thrifty persons, who
will not risk their scanty hards in rash ex-
periments, as indeed they should not. But
whenever it shall have been demonstrated
that they may as safely insert in co-opera-
tive undertakings as lend to those by whom
the laboring class are now hired and paid,
therr will be no lack of capital for such in
vestment, even though the rich should
supply none OF Il. Ours II prominently
an age Of invention, of
industrial progress. can remember the
time when the steamboat was still novelty
and fireside marvel, when no mile of iron
track had yet been laid on the surface of
our planet, when American canals were
merely contriyances for circumventing cata-
racts aud ofsmall account; anyhow when
no steam propelled vessel had ever crossed
a sea, aud wnen the electric telegraph was
as inconceivable as broad firm highway to
the moon. To NOW grass, cut grain, or sew
garments by machinery was then unimag.
ined. We exported no grain but that
grown near the shores of the Atlantic, its
DAYS auu Rlnlcto, dAu OuI HALLS were
wholly drawn by horses at an
average speed of less than 50 miles
per day. Looking back at the immense
strides of invention and machinery, of
steam and electricity, during the present
century, and mainly in my day, who can
nationally doubt that industrial progress is
vet on the threshold Of its career, that the
inventions of the next half century must
far surpass in scope aud utility those of the
preceding. Happy the generation just ell
tering upon this stage of being, if its
leaders and teachers shall realize
that the noblest achievement iowa:
which its exertions should be direct
ed, the highest attainment within It's
reach, is a more generous, more enlighten-
ed, more courageous, more devoted genera
tionto follow il, qualified and incited to
take up the work hich its predecessor has
laid down aud bear it on to still grander,
more beneicent triumphs.
This concluded, he went through the Ex-
position halls, followed by many curious
visitors, though the attendance at the Ex-
position did not appear to have been much
increased by the prospective presence OF
the distinguished visitor.