Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1872-04-04

| lrsAducers..A speech for ali 1hOugsAt. Z.
fui Men to Read.
We present some Interesting extracts from
a full report of the speech delivered by Sena.
tor Wilson at Great Falls, New Hampshire,
on the Oath ult:
WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS DONE FOF
LABORlNG MEN.
Let US see what the Republican party has
done for the laboring men of this country
during the last twelve years. 1t struck the fet-
tiers from four and half millions of laboring
men and women, converting them from things
into men and women, in making them free
it struck down that proud, naughty and dom
ineering aristocracy of the South that held the
doctrine-and proclaimed it, too-that ':cap-
ital should own labor;" that the men who
toiled for wages were ''the mud-sills of soci-
ety; that the slavery of working men pro-
duced "a class of gentlemen, who were the
substitutes for an order of nobility" Those
were the doctrines proclaimed in our ears for
forty years by the Calhouns, the McDutfies,
the Hammonds, the Rhetts, the Ruffins, the
Fitzhughs, the Herschell V. Johnsons, and
| men of that class, who laid down the doctrine
boldly everywhere that ''slavery was the nor
NAL condition of laboring men, black and
white" In emancipating these four and half
millions of black men and women, we struck
country forever. They made labor dishonor-
States-in the sunny South, as they were wont
to call it. Laboring men from abroad would
not go there to toll; Northern laboring men
would not go there to live; they would not
stand by the side of the fettered bondman,
where labor was dishonored. But, by the
steady, persistent adherence to principle of the
meu 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 laboring man of New
England can stand up in the Carolinas by the
graves of the Calhouns, of McDuff1e, of Pick
ems, of the leaders of the slave-power, who
proclaimed free society a failure-that free
men and women were classed in four subdi-
visions, ''the hireling the beggar, the thief
and the prostitute, and ''look up and be
proud in the midst of their toll" We have
made labor honorable, even N the rice swamps
of the Carolinas and Georgia. We have taken
the brand of dishOnor from the brow of labor
throughout the country and in doing that we
have done more for labor, for the honor and
dignity of laboring men than was ever achiev-
ed by all the parties that have governed this
country from the time the pilgrims put their
feet upon Plymouth Rock up to the year 1860
Applause. And that is not all. We have
opened that eight hundred thousand square
miles to free labOring men; they can go there
now. and they are going there now. The
German, the Englishman, the lrishman, the
New England Yankee, the men of the Mid
die States and of the Northwest can go there
now and engage in the mechanic arts, IN cul-
tivating the soil, and in the pursuits of life,
and no longer feel the degradation that rested
upon working men when labor was eXtOrted
from men by the LASH. Let the man who
tolls for wages, whether in the mill on the
farm, or in the mechanic shop, realize what
has been done these last dozen years to lift
from toll the badge of dishonor, and to open
the great South to the free lnboring men of
the world.
SMALL FARMS VERSUS GREAT PLANTATIONS.
The Republican party maintains the policy
of the small farms against the great planta-
tiOns. The Democratic party joined with the
South on that issue, as it did with everything
and ON every issue. We passed the home
stead bill, and James Buchanan vetoed it.,
and the Democratic party supported him in
that veto. The object of that bill was to
save the vast public domain to landless men,
that they might have small farms. rather then
that few men might have great plantations.
We were defeated, but the first year the Re-
publican party came into power in the midst
of the struggle for national existence, we
passed the homestead bill, and saved the pub
lie lands to the free laboring men of this
country forever and forever.
CONDITION OF THE LABoRING MEN.
In 1882, in the great debate in the Senate
on the tariff, it was said by those who advO-
Gated protective duties, that ii had raised the
price of labor in the United States so that it
averaged fifty cents day. How is it now
This winter is the most prosperous winter the
United States has seen in its history. Every
body is at work. There is very little suffer-
ing anywhere Why this change? Why this
improvement? 1t is because we have smitten
down the slave system, broken down the
slave power, lifted up and dignitied and
hOnored labor, tried to protect and diversity
our own industries. To-day the laboring men
and women of our country are earning from
three to four times as much in a day as they
could earn thirty or forty years ago, and a
days work is shorter now than it was then.
After had learned trade in the place where
| lived worked fourteen and fifteen hours a
day, month after month, to earn about forty
dollars month. There are hundreds of men
there now who in ten hours can earn a hun
dred dollars more easily than / could earn
forty in fifteen hours. | am grateful to God
that this is so. do not care anything about
few men or corporations piling up a great
amount of money | believe God meant this
world TO grow good men and women, and not
to pile up money. That is my belief, and l
want to see the men and women who bear the
burdens and do the work have Il full share of
all they earn, and that an honest days work
shall always have fair days pay. Loud
applause.