Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-06-11

therefore produces no fruit-that man is a
fool and is uncivilized. The brain plans. the
muscles execute. The one is useless without
the other.
But this is the age of iron. Yol remember
it was only few hundred years ago when
Shakespeare gave us his grand philosophical
tragedies, not to the century, but to eternity !;
when rare Ben. Jonson gave us his rich and
juicy comedies. 1t is only few hundred
years ago when poets sang the inspired strains
in England. 1t was the age of poesy Mems
hearts were full of song T; mems minds were
bent upon the pursuit Of literature No one
exercised his muscles but the serfs of the soil,
men who were unintelligent, who were with
out education, and were beneath the notice Of
such poets as Shakespeare and Jonson. That
was the sge of poesy. Upon the heels of that
came another age, when the philosophers be-
gan to give US their theories. Then came the
age Of Franklin, the age of Washington and
the age of Jetferson-sreat men arose over
the world. 1t was the age of great men, but
it was an age of educated, intelligent great
ness This is the iron age, the age of muscle,
the age of iron. This is the age to which
Senator Johnson has referred, in which the iron
rails span the continents aye, do more than
that-embrace the continent in one gigantic
iron circle. This is the age in which
the iron horse shoots across the plain. This
is the age in which iron carries our
messages from one end of the world to
the other. This is the age in which iron
instead of wind pushes and forces our vessels
of war upon the high seas. This is the age
in which iron is hurled against the fortifca-
tions of our enemies. This is the age in
which stone warehouses and granite walls
burn like chat. and iron buildings are our
places of business and our houses of merchan-
iY,r vhtoh fba
man are called into play to manage and han
die the muscles Of God..the iron ribs of the
world. This is the age in which our heroes
are not poets. They are behind the curtain
for our dreams of night. This is the age in
which our professors and philosophers are
simply by-plays for US in our daily life. This
is the age in which such men as Bell, as Edi-
son, and others, who have handled iron, and
whose muscles aye in iron and whose hands
are hard and horny, and whose nails are like
pieces of iron upon the ends of their hard
worked 6ngers-this is the age In which such
men as those who labor are our heroes, and
we worship them for their productions.
My ideal civilized society is that state of
society where all men may not only be edu-
Gated, but where all must be educated, and
where neither money, nor land, nor muscle,
shall measure the standard of the man in So
ciety, but where native ability, education and
cultivation, shall be the only aristocracy
which shall rule.
Labor Injuries no mans mind. It Injuries
or interferes with no mans trains of thought.
Is a man the worse who enters my parlor
and engages in intellectual coEcourse with
me simply because yesterday saw him with
his red shirt and overalls en- handling iron IN
the railroad shops? Is that man in the least
unfit to be my fellow in society and my init
mate in my own household simply because
he stands beside the ship and shovels coal
| into its bosom, If he has native worth? Ii
he has obeyed Gods injunction to labor, and
to his labor has added intelligence. he is as
civilized as I am he has as much right in
society as l have.
Now do not judge of what | am to say be-
| fore finish. The sinews and the backbone
of civilization are labor and capital. These
| two must he handled together. The one is
the centrifugal force, the other is the cen.
tripetal Labor has tendency to fly
cut at tangents Each mans ultimate
object is himself. He cares not in
the abstract for society. 1t is for
himself and for bis family that he labcrs, and
| if all men pursued that course, and that
course alone, labor would fly off In different
directions, and our civilized society would
not gain an advantage from it. Capital Is
the great loadstone which draws labor
| around it, as the loadstone brings the par.
ticles of iron filing to a common center.
Capital is concentrated labor. l believe it
| was Jules Verne who tells US in one Of his
delightful romapces of, l think, Captain
Memo, who travelled under the sea. and for
| want of air carried behind him, in his helmet,
bricks of concentrated air, and as he placed
them behind his neck they were gradually
dissolved into atmosphere in his helmet, and
he could live beneath the waves of the sea.
Capital is to civilized society what these con-
centrated bricks of air were to Captain
Memo. They are concentrated labor-the
representative in the aggregate of labor. Cap.
| ital is the product of labor. Now, the end
| and aim of capital is not, sometimes, under
stood by the workingmen. Whatever, how.
ever, it is to the rich, it is bread to the poor.
The man who cries out against an honorable
use Of capital would himself in his turn be q
tyrant if he were capitalist. The honor.
able use of capital, the reasonable employ.
ment of labor with capital, is both useful and
necessary in civilized society. wish to say
that 1 do not agree with capitalist who.. q
few years ago, said to me- " Mr.. Cheney,
we need servile race. The greatest
the blacks of the South were freed
| We need seryile race. We need unedu
Gated men of muscle under the control o.
capital All have met with a few such
men as that in the world. 1t is true that
capital is sometimes oppressive. 1t is true
! that here in America we do not employ ouI
capital as we ought fer the benefit Of the
/ laborer. read here tonight in newspaper
of this celebrated English Duke who is low
travelling and is stopping in San Francisco
! that he has upon his lands in England ovel
q, 900 men, but so intimate are his relations
with them, so generous is his heart, so kline
| =. l., hal a thorn lilya G
! father among his sons, he instructs them II
the use of new machinery for the cultivation
of the soil. He enlarges their views hs
teaches them. He provides for them hos
| pitfalls. he has them cared for that they never
fear for want. Such man as that is madt
by the Almighty to handle capital, and ht
ought to have the possession of it. But here
| in America we have a selfish class OF capital
! its-men who seem to forget that there was
a day when they, too, were simple laborers
and under the control of others who handled
the lines OF capital. These men seem to for
get that to-morrow's sun may rise upon the
| laborer whom they have cast out of Their
! path, that it may rise upon the laborer anC
| sat upon him in possession of the capital, anc
that he may in turn become the laborer. Sc
rapid are the transitions of possessions Of
capitalists and laborers in the United State:
of America, that to-day the capitalist is, anc
| tomorrow ne is not to-day the laborer, the
horny-handed son of toll, is; tomorrow he i;
not. For he goes up also in the scale of life
Mind you, would not defend these men-mer
whose very pulsations are the jingliDg OF gold
pieces; men whose eyes, as they look upor
you. seem to glitter with yellow glare; mer
who, as they talk to you, can but center theil
intelligence for moment upon some educa
tional topic and who must turn the con
versation towards capital, money and EN-
ployment men whose children grow up witt
the idol before them-not God-but money
men whose dreams of night are money
money, money men who go to the church o.
God and hope to buy. their way to the COLDER
payements Of Heaven for money given to the
priest or to the church; men who woult
grind the very souls and the intelligence ou
of the workingman to make money-and the
only hell that they can ever have will be thu
want Of money! do not defend such men al
those, but neither do 1 ignore thu
fact that advancing civilization would b.
checked, were it not for the corporations ant
for aggregated capital. We cannot deny
the fact that it has been capital and corpora
tions directing intelligent labor that ha
opened up to the pillow of the farmer the grea
wastes of the United States. We cannot for
get that labor directed by capital has deyel
oped the resources of our own beloved State
| and when these two are welded together il
harmony, when one does not pull and tbs
other strike, but when both work together
and are welded together, then we have one o.
the nillars of civilization