The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-01-30
PRESS.
TUESDAY MORNING, JAN. 80, 1879.
THE TRUE LABOR REFORM.
National Education the Only Safeguard Of
Democracy and Protection against
Capitalization.
SPEECH OF MIR. noAR OF MASSACHUSETTS.

HOar OF MASSACHUSETTS, on tue Dtll COnseCrat-
ing the public lands of the United States to
the education of the people, and providing
that the annual proceeds Of the sale Of lands
shall be distributed among the States for edu-
cational purposes:
Mr.. Speaker, the earliest American consti-
tuition which contains n bill of rights was
adopted by Virginia on the goth day Of June,
lI76. 1t was largely inspired by Jefferson,
with the fires Of the Declaration Of Independ-
ence still burning in heart and brain. II con-
tains this sentence:
mo free Government or the blessings Of
liberty can be preserved To any people but by
a frequent recurrence TO fundamental princi-
pies"
This sentence Is repeated In the constitu-
tions of many of the other original States. Ii
was copied into that of Massachusetts,, by the
pen Of John Adams. Our late wise and ven
cradle Chief Justice delighted to quote Il. 1
suppose our fathers meant TO assert that IL
was not upon the form or mechanism that
they were contriving, but ON the ideas and
principles upon which Ii was based, that they
depended for the permanence of their work.
Possessed by this profound truth, the Demo
cratic party of the State of Connecticut, In
the year 1870, in State convention resolved
That the source Of power being in the
people, free schools and general education are
essential to good government and the perpet-
uation of free institutions"
What prompted this admirable utterance
do not know. Whether it was sincere will
perhaps be shown by the action of the politi-
cal associates of these gentlemen in relation
to this measure. Perhaps the Connecticut
Democrats were led to assert this fundamen-
tai principle by the memory of the fact that it
was to the statesmen of Connecticut largely
hot ha a1rniral,la diuieinx,
Of power between the nation and the States
upon which the permanence of our institu-
tions and the liberties of our people so largely
depend. desire, while so much fear Is ex-
pressed that the necessities of selfpreserya-
ton and reconstruction have caused an en-
croachment by the General Government on
the proper functions of the States, to spend a
little time in asking the favor of the House to
a measure calculated to secure State rights.
Our Republic differs from all other forms of
civil polity, not only in its object, but also in
its mechanism. The principle of democracy
was no new thing in history. Lofty and gen.
erous conceptions of the end of government
have in almost every age left charm to
the dreams of poets and the theories of philos-
ophers. But the peculiar division of powers
between the general and the local authority,
which is the distinction, and to foreigners the
puzzle of the American Constitution, was
was due largely to three or four of the men,
bers of that body. Men trained in European
methods of thought find it hard to understand
how there can exist two seperate and distinct
soyereignties, the State and the nation, whose
cover precisely the same territory
and are distinguished only by the subject
matter over which they extend, and yet which
no more jostle or jar each other than the light
and heat which pass from the sun to the plan
hal Af OF
chain them in their obits. This admirable
arrangement combines the strength of
great empire with the freedom of the smallest
democracy. The national power which de-
tends, the local selfgovernment which edu-
Gates the citizen are here combined. But the
sincere friends of State rights sometimes for
get, the noisy and blatant preten-
ders to such friendship cannot understand,
that as the division between these two func-
tions Is not material or territorial, so the Sc
curity which each has against an infringe
ment by the other is moral and not physical.
In their ordinary routine, the duties of the
State and the nation never conflict. The
lines which separate them are distinct and
plain TO be seen. The surest way TO prevent
them from being obliterafed is to prevent the
recurrence of those great State necessities in
the presence of which the people can afford to
neglect no means and fail TO use no instru-
mems WHICH nttuIul 10 but puDtlC bhACby.
If the Democratic party had opposed the
rebellion, the vast and underlined war powers
would have slumbered in the Constitution
forever. If the Democratic party had oppos-
ed murder and outrage on unoffending citi-
zens at the South, the legislation of last
spring and the proclamation Of martial law
would have been unheard of. If the Demo-
cratic party will honestly lend its aid in pro-
noting education at the South by State in
strumentalities, no Others will be needed or
desired.
Now, Mr.. Speaker the most earnest friends
Of State rights will certainly agree with me
that nothing can protect the local power
against the central so much as the promotion
of general education. The more educated
and intelligent the people become, the more
certain are they in the first place to take Just
views of the meaning Of the Constitution.
The better educated they are, the better their
capacity to grasp the fundamental principles
upon which the protection of the rights of the
State, the weaker power, against the nation,
the stronger power is in the end to depend.
The better educated the people, the surer
they are to see the importance of obeying the
general rules, of respecting constitutional safe
guards, and of opposing law and duty against
temporary inclination accompanied by power.
Education secures to a State the possession
of all those forces upon which it must depend
lOT tuc plObCCtiOh Va AlShto dodihSt d4AJ
other power.
Education means wealth, and equality in its
distribution. This is one great means of de-
fense against any encroachments from above.
Education, the simple capacity to read and
write, adds twenty-five per cent to the wages
OF the working classes of State, and of
course tends so much to the creation and dis
tribution of its wealth.
Education increases the number of patents,
index of the mechanical power and ingenuity
of State, which, in our history, we know as
one of the chief sources both of its wealth and
of its capacity for self-defense. In California,
where the number OF persons who cannot
read and write is OF ly four to the hundred, the
number of patents taken out during the last
year was one to every 2, 400 persons. In Con-
necticut, where the number who cannot read
and write is the same, the number of patents
during the last year has been one to every 966
persons; while in Arkansas, where the num-
ber of persons who cannot read and write is
sixteen to one hundred, the number of pa
tents taken out Is one to every 37,267 of the
inhabitants. In Florida, where the number
of persons who cannot read and write is twen-
ty-tbree to one hundred the number Of pa
tents taken out during the year was one to
every 81 POI persons; and the same general
principle holds good through the whole Unit
ed States.
90 tndt tuuCdtlUB pfObcCtS CIdGc TlBuIS, uISI,
by increasing wealth, which is power; sec
ondly, by distributing wealth, which is gen.
eral power; thirdly, by adding twenty-five
per cent. to the earnings of the laboring
classes, which is power and wealth to them;
and fourthly, by increasing the ingenuity and
mechanical power of the State, which is
wealth and strength.
Education also stimulates the wants of the
educated people, and develops and increases
the activity which supplies them, in that way,
also, bringing wealth in its train.
Education promotes in the State under
standing of the laws of trade and of polit-
ical economy, and so it promotes the under
standing of the laws by which the State best
asaarts its rights In a word, education is
General brain power, with which, in the con-
fest Of political forces, universally in the end
the victory rests.
Education Is also military power. The best
educated nations, by the common experience
of mankind, are the strongest in war.
Education is power of diplomacy render
ing the State strongest in defending itself BY
the arts of peace.
Education is influence over other men,
which, in the political contests in this coun-
try, determines political power.
On the other hand, ignorance creates weak
ness. creates dependence, substitutes blind
and Jealous hatred for self-respect and indie
pendence.
Now, what State, valuing its own rights,
can object to that development within itself
of its mental and moral forces, those forces
which govern the world? The naoit OF gov
erning himself, which grows up IN 'he citlzen
with education. depends on his mental and
,,ooroI ,,o,,ar And the habit of governing