The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1872-03-29

u oHu tuc ltuIcu Va lutlI lOtc
a manual labor. / call the earnest ,
n tention OF these men to this terrif
l. struggle through which we ha
Y passed, anc to what has been achiev
i for the poor toiling men of this cou
g try during the last twelve years.
9 feel that have the right to spe.
b for tOiling men and to toiling me
a l was born here in your county
Strafford. l was born in poverty
r want sat by my cradle 1 know VIII
2 it is to ask mother for bread whe
r she has none 10 give, l left m
( home at ten years OF age and serve
, an apprenticeship of eleven year
, receiving months schooling eac
year, and at the end of eleven year
OF hard work, yoke of oxen and 81
sheep, which brought me eighty
four dollars. Eighty, four dollars fo
eleven years of hard toll! / neve
spent the amount of one dollar i
money, counting every penny, fror
the time / was born until / wa
twenty one years of age. l kno,
what it is to travel weary miles an,
ask my fellow-men to give me leav
to toll.
remember that in October, 1888
l walked into your village from M
native town, went through your mills
seeking employment. If anybody
had offered me nine dollars a montl
l should have accepted it gladly.
went to Salmon Falls, l went to Do
yer, l went 10 Newmarket, and tried
to get work, without success, and
returned home tootsore and weary
but not discouraged. / put my pacE
on my back and walked to where
now live, in Massachusetts,. and
learned a mechanics trade. i know
the hard lot that toilIng men have to
endure in this world, and every pull.
sation of my heart, every conviction
of my judgment, every aspiration oi
my soul, puts me on the side of the
toiliDg men Of my country-ay, OF all
countries. / became an anti slavery
man thirty six years ago, because the
poor bondman was the lowest, most
degraded, and helpless type OF man
hood. An anti-slavery man from
conviction is by logical necessity not
only The indexible foe of the doctrine
that capital should own laborers, but
the unyielding friend of the rights
of the sons and daughters of toll.
Let US see what the Republican
party has done for the laboring men
of this country during the last twelve
years. 1t struck the fetters from
four snd half million laboring men
and women; converted them from
things into men and women. In
making them free, it struck down that
proud baughty, and domineeriDg ar
istocracy of the South that held the
doctrine and proclaimed it, too
that "cspital should own labor;' that
the men who toiled for wages were
"the mud sills of society,"" that the
slavery of worklngmen produced "a
class of gentlemen, who were the
substitutes OF an order Of nobility"
Those were the doctrines proclaimed
in our ears for forty years by the
Calhouns, the McDuffies, the Ham
monds, the Rhetts, the Ruffins, the
Fitztughs, the Herschell V. John
SONS, and men of that class, who laid
down the doctrine boldly everywhere
that ''slavery was the normal condi-
ton of laboring men, black and
white" In emancipating these four
and half million Ilack men and
women we struck down the power of
the owners Of wOrkingmen and work
ipg-women in this country forever.
They made labor dlshonorable in
eight hundred thousand square miles
of the United States, in the sunny
South, as they were wont to call it.
Laboring men from abroad would
not go there to toll northern labor
ing men would not 60 there to live /;
they would not stand by the side OF
fettered bondsmen where labor was
dishonored. But by the steady, per-
sistcnt adherence to principle of the
men trained in the faith of opposition
to slavery, who now stand in the
ranks of the Republican party, all
this has been changed, SO that TO- day
the laborlng men of New England
can stand up in South Carolina by
the graves of Calhoun, OF McDuflie,
OF Pickens, Of the leaders of the slave
power, who proclaimed free society a
free men and women
when they emerged from bondage
into freedom were classeG in four
subdivisions. "the hireling, the beg
gar, the chief, and the prostitute"e
and "look up and be proud in the
midst of their toil.' We have made
labor honorable. even in the rice
swsmps of the Csrolinas and Geor-
gia; we have taken the brand OF dis
honor from the brow OF labor
throughout the country and in doing
that grand work we have done more |
for labor, for the honor and dignity
of laboring men, than was ever
achieved by all the parties that arose
IN this country from the time the
Pilgrims put their feet upon Plymouth
Rock up to the year 1860. Ap
olause.1
That grand and immortal achieve
nent is not all. We have opened |
hat eight hundred thousand square
niles to laboring men; they csI 90
here now, they are going there now
The German, the Englishman, the
lrishman, the New England Yankee,
he man of the Middle States, of the
Northwest, can 60 there now, engage
n the mechanic arts, cultivate the
'oil, and, in all the pursuits of life, no
onger feel the degradation that rested
lpon workingmen when labor was ex-
crted only by the lash. Let the man
Who tolls for wages, whether in the
mill, on the tarm, or in the mechanics
hop, realize what has been done
Turing these last dozen years to lift |
rom toll the badge of dishonor, and
o open the great South to the free
aboring men of the world. Let him
with grateful heart that he
yves it all, under Providence, to the
Republican party.
The Republican party was brought
into being and won the
7ictory, when 1t elected Abraham
Lincoln to save the magnificent ter
.itories of the United States to the
rec laboringmen of our country, their
children, and their children's child
en-, "while grass shall grow and
water Iun." 1t saved that magnifi-
,ent territory to freedom. Auction
blocks, bloodhounds, the lash, chains,
cannot 60 there now.
They have sank down to the place |
rom whence they came - to the |
pit, and the lower deep of
he bottomless pit.
The Republican party maintains
he policy of the small tarms against
he great plantations. The Demo
ratio party Joined with the South on