The Portland daily press., 1879-07-28
Parker Pillsbury.
HIS ADDRESS AT ARCANA HALL LAST
EVENING.
Nothing Good in the Past, Present or
Future.

The veteran Parker Pillsbury spoke last
evening at Arcana Hall to q small audience.
ebegan by saying that he was trying to
round out his life's work by doing in his old
age such work as he could for the cause of hui
manity. The saddest sight on earth is the
man who is willing to work and yet has no
work to do. This nation extends over half a
hemisphere, and is capable of maintaining
population of not only 100000 of people, but
of hundreds of millions. Our land is held at
too high rate. Here in the North it is in the
hands of only the rich, while over immense
distances makes our presumption laws but
meckery. The original Yankee farmer, it is
said, could be content only with all the land
around him." which made too many people
Gland poor" Title to the land, except as con-
slant occupancy and improvements give title,
has begun to be called in question. In 1866
was fought the battle of Hastings, which gave
the land of England to William the Norman,
The land so conquered William parceled out
to his chieftains, and from this sprang the sys-
tenn of land monopoly in England, which
John Bright recently declared had gone far
enough. He says that 935 land owners own
$4,000, 900 acres.
clear that there must beslabor agitation, which
no system OF legislature can cure. 1t is only by
force and by arms that nations arise and sub
due land, just as we leased Texas at the cost of
thousands of lives and $10,000,000 of money.
This is an age of progress Men expect and
made an exact science, and it may be that we
shall yet fight for the air as we fight today for
the land Progress is made slowly. great
moral agitation must commence far from the
pulpit. OF what purpose is free religion If it
but clears the upper Oh amber of the older and
musty tradition, if it leaves all the rest of the
edifice of humanity to be filled with dust and
ashes? Of what use is Spiritualism if it only
seeks to bring back its grandmother's ghost
while it leaves its children to starve?
Then, too, there is the cause of women who
have no rights which any mortal male is
bound to respect; taxed to death, chained to
husband by law and religion, the unpaid SER
want by day, the welded mistress by night.
Cursed in Eden we are told by her Creator,
and cursed ever SINCE sThy desire shall be to
thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"
was the divine edict, and church and state,
religion and husband have ever since respond
edl Amen and amen.' What is religion worth
that looks to a life to come and leaves I'M
touched the suffering present? For that reason
l long ago left the sacrament and the pulpit of
one religious denomination to return to it, and
its like, never. (Applause.)
The speaker here referred to the Indian
question. and said that slavery was as wasteful
as it was wicked, and repeated the story of the
seizure of the Cherokee lands by Georgia,
which cost the government $30,000000, the
conquest of Texas $40,0O0000, the purchase of
Louisiana $15, 900, 10000, total of $50, 10000
for slavery and be it remembered that our
whole system of government is founded on a
like SYSTEM Land monopoly threatens our
national existence as slavery did once. We
are backward. The native race here are
placing or trying to place all drudgery on
others, both in and out of the house; and this
is why there is such a hungry swarm of office
seekers and loathesome office-holders, and has
brought forward crowd of "bummerS," COM
mercial travellers, lightning rod agents, medi-
cine and corset vendors, peddlers and book
agents, and the like, all trying to get living
without doing any work.
The speaker then INDUCED in characters
tic Jeremiad over the condition of politics and
society. Government does nothing but
plumber the people on the one hand and punish
them on the other, and is only robber of the
earth.
Mr.. Pillsbury here reviewed the financial
system from the Greenback standpoint which
he pronounced fraud, as only one dollar in
five could honestly say, II know that my re-
deemer liveth." He predicted the coming of
a time when the property Of the rich would
be plundered and stores Quilted. Is there no
hope for the nation he asked, in this hour but
through violence? Who shall answer that
solemn question? Must the starving striker
become our savior as once did the slave? The
nation must learn to help themselves, first
with the ballot if they can The ballot first,
last and successfully if possible but let it be
remembered that the bullet is the specie pay
ment of the ballot, and the bullet has never
been demonetized.
The entire address was full of the ancient
fire of the man and recalled the past to the
minds of many of the older Of those present,
while to others the address was the recalling
of an historic memory. While it is to be re-
GREETED that the aged soldier of the right is
fighting in his old age for the wrong, yet for
the sake of his past all this is to be pardoned
and Parker Pillsbury is to be received and
honored, listened to,and written of, for the sake
of the past, to which he belongs.