Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1886-08-25
MAINE POLIrxCS.
Tho Republican Campaign Opened
Addresses By blaine and oshsrs.

Tho Republican Campaign Opened
Addresses By blaine and oshsrs.
lBy telegraph to We Dispstch.l
SEBAGo LAKE, MAINE, August "a.
The formal opening Of the Republican
campaign in Cumberland county took
place this afternoon, when James u.
Blaine and Congressman Reed of Maine
and Gibson of Ohio made addresses be-
fore large assembly.
Touching the
LABOR QUESTION
Mr.. Blaine said: The leading feature
in the industrial field of 1885 and 1886
is the discomfort among the men who
earn their bread by skilled and by un-
skilled labor. Uneasiness md uncer-
tainty are found on sll sides ; there are
wise aims among many, and with not
few there is aimlessness with its inevi-
table result Of disappointment and dis
couragemsnt. The man who could by
any prescription remove this discon-
tent and at once restore har-
mony and happiness would be
philosopher, patriot, and statesman.
The man who processes to be
able to do it will generally prove to be
q compound Of smpiricism and igno-
rance. But in the end, perhaps by toll
some paths, with many blunders and
some wrongs, no one need doubt that
sound and just and righteous conclu-
sions will be reached. Perfect freedom
to test the virtues and secure tho adj
vantage Of organization, to exert
strong power through combination,
are certainly among the common
rights OF all men under .
republican government. Labor asso-
Citations have the same sanction and the
same rights that any form Of incorpora-
ton may assume-subject, IS all must
be, to the conditions that the persons
and property of others shall be re-
spected. II is well for every citizen of
q free Government to keep before his
eyes and in his thoughts the honored
maxim that "the liberty Of one man
must always end where the rights Of
another man begin"
The speaker then gave expression to
his tariff views, endeavored to make it
appear that the Democratic party was
entirely and absolutely for free trade,
and continued
Another portentous fact has been
omitted, 80 far as | have observed,
from the consideration and judgment Of
the labor organizations. They seem to
have taken little or no heed Of the OK
istence Of more than . million and o
half of able bodied laborers in the South,
with dark skins, but with expanding
intellect, increasing intelligence, and
growing ambition. While these men
were slaves working in the corn and
cotton.felds, in the rice-swsmps, and
on the appropriations Of the South,
the skilled labor Of the north
ern States felt no competition
from them. But since they be-
came freemeH there has been great
change in the variety and skill OF the
labor performed by colored men in the
South. The great mass are, Of course,
still engaged in agricultural work, but
thousands and tens Of thousands, and
in fact hundreds Of thousands, have en-
tered and are entering the mechanical
and semi-mechanical field. They are
making pig and bar.iron in Tennessee
and Alabama. They are manufac-
turing cotton in Georgia and the
Carolinas. They are bricklayers
and plsstsrsrs everywhere; they are
carpenters and painters they are black
smiths; they mako wagons and carts
they make cigars they tan leather AND
make harness they are hremen ano
pilots on river boats; they cslk vessels
in southern ports; they lay railroad
track they are switchmen and section
men on the line and firemen on locomo'
tives. In fact, they are generally On.
tsripg al the avenues and channels o.
| skillkd Iahor or o0urso they are un'