The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1875-11-24
Views of Wendell Phillips OH the
Three WIS.

Three WIS.
Mr.. Wendell Phillips delivered a new
lecture in New York on Tuesday night,
his subject being "Labor, Temperance
and Women" Next year, he said, the
republic would have finished its century,,
and we should have many evidences Of
power to be proud Of as the natural re-
suit of our democratic institutions. At
the same time, while appraising the re-
suits Of hundred years of republican
institutions, it would be well to loox
ahead and remark what were the obsta-
cles in the way of progress. The tri.
umph of the past was that we had &C.
complished what no other constitutional
form of government had accomplished.
The republic had actually and finally tri-
umphed over slavery, and that was
great thing to say. Wherever you trace
the cancer that had eaten out the medi-
seval republics, if 1t was not wealth it
was bondage in some form, either by dis
tincti0ns of wealth or constitutional priv.
ileges. This republic had overcome the
greatest danger of all to a republic-sla-
very. But what was before it! Two
great dangers to our freedom. He had
seen the mayor of this empire city doing
the behests Of q drunken mob. He had
seen the same moo threaten and rule
when he had spoken in half dozen cities
in the Unisn during the struggles of the
anti-slavery society for its cause.
One of the great perils which in Saxon
races beset constitutional liberty was
found in the power Of the liquor dealers.
Gladstone was thrown out of the minis
try by the brewing interest. This nation
had made its flag respected wherever it
tioated; but we had never shown yet the
capacity of republicanism to govern great
cities. The spirit of the nineteenth CEN
fury was the aggregation Of great masses
in cities. The problem of to-day was
how to make life safe and comfortable in
them. London, with its police, was safe.
You might fill your pockets with gold
and walk up and down the Strand all
night; you would come home safe. If
you tried the same experiment in any
street either side of Broadway, your life
would probably be the forfeit. The his
tory of this country was proof thus far
of the failure of democracy to control
great city The release of the metropo-
lis from the hands Of knayes was not the
result of system or law, but simply a
popular revolution. In a great city
there were poor and degraded classes
who could be made ready tools
of rum drinkers and politicians.
Mr.. Phillips dwelt earnestly on the
tendency of the Anglo.Saxon. race to
drunkenness. He complained of the
thrifty progress of the nineteenth CEN
fury, which made it possible for man to
earn enough in day to enable him to
keep drunk for week. The dangerous
classes now being made by rum skulked
away in times of peace. but they emerge
in times of trouble, and become ready
tools in the hands of demagogues. He
would not speak for New York, but he
knew Philadelphia had been ruled for
years by chief magistrates directly chosen
by and under the control of the criminal
classes.
The labor question was treated by the
lecturer not in its sentimental aspects,
but only in relation to the ballot box.
The moment the people were divided into
two parties-on the one side wealth, on
the other labor or poverty-there was an
end to democratic institutions. There
must De lntermlngllng ana equalty.
Jefferson provided for the dangers of this
century by preventing the transmitting
of power or wealth. We were, however,
dawning on a new century, and new dan.
gers are coming. But Jefferson never
dreamed of the marriage of brains and
wealth that has taken place. Charlie
magne's power died with him. The pa.
pacy never faded because it was founded
on tho secret of wedding power to brains.
1t had no son or grandson. The New