The Labor enquirer., 1886-08-28
PHILLIPS.
His Address Before the Girls,
pins Organization .
in 1872.
Relation of the Labor Movement
to the Republics
Future.
zone Third Of the People In the
World Never Have Enough
to Eat"

GENTLEMEN: l feel honored be this
welcome of your organization, and
especially so when I consider that the
marvelously rapid success of the political
strength of the labor movement, espe.
ciallY in New England, is due mainly to
this organization. There has never
been party formed that in three years
attracted toward itself such profound at
tention throughout the United States
Some of you NAV be old enough to re-
member that when the anti slavery SEN
timent, nearly thirty years ago, endeav,
ored to rally a political party, it took
them some seven or nine years before
they had an organization that could be
considered national in any real sense
The political labor movement in three
years has reached a position ofinhuence
which it took that idea nine years t.
obtain.
trace that rapid progress in popular
recognition to the existence of these
Crispin lodges and trades unions of the
state. You cannot marshal $4,000 men
taken at once promiscuously from par.
ties and sects they must be trained tc
work together, must be disciplined IN
cooperation, and it is the training and
the discipline W hich the workingmen
got in these organizations that enabled
the labor movement to assume its pro-
portions 80 rapidly.
Then, again, stand here with great
Interest from another considerations
stand in the presence of a momentous
power. do not care exactly what vour
idea is as to how you will work in this
channel or in the other. I am told that
you represent over 10000 men here and
elsewhere. Think of it! A hundred
thousand men They can dictate the
fate of this nation. Give me $4,000 men
in earnest, who can agree on all vital
questions, who will plant their shoulders
together, and swear by all that is true
and just that for the long years they will
puttheir great idea before the country
and those 50 900 men will govern the
nation So if l have 100000 men repre-,
sented before me, who are in earnest
who get ho!d of the great question Of
labor, and, having hold of it, grapple
with it, and rip and tear 1t open, and in
vest it with light, gathering the facts,
piercing The brains about them, and
rrowding those brains with the facts,
then | know, sure as fate, though may
not live to see it, that thev will certainly
conquer this nation in twenty years.
1t is impossible that they should not
And that is your power, gentlemen. l
reJOiCe in every effort Workingmen
make to organize do not care on what
basis they do it. Men sometimes say to
me, Are you an Internationalist ?" |
cay, II do not know what an Intern =
tionalist ls ;" but they tell me it is sys-
tenn by which workingmen from Lon
don to Gibraltar, Moscow to Paris, can
clasp hands. Then | say God speed, God
speed, to that or any similar movement
Now, let me tell you where the great
weakness Of an ASSOCIATION of working
men is. 1t is that it cannot wait. II
does not know where it is to get / IS food
for next week If it is kept idle for ten
days, the funds Of the society are ex
hsusted. CAPITAL can fold its arms, and
wait six months, it can wait wear. 1t
Will be poorer, but 1t does not get to the
bottom of the purse. IL can afford to
wait; it tires You out, and starVes you
out And what is there against that i'm
mense preponderance of power on the
part Of capital Simply organization
That makes the wealth of all the wealth
of every one, So | welcome organlza-
ton. | do not care whether it calls
itself trades union, Crispln, lnterns
tional or Commune; anything thai
masses up a unit in order that thev may
put up a united force to face the organi'
Lation of capital, ANYTHING that does
that | say amen to it. One hundred
thousand men! 1t is an immense army
| do not care whether it considers
chiefly the industrial or the political
questions it can control the nation II II
is in earnest. The reason why the aool'
itionists brought tie nation down tc
lighting their battle is that they were
really in earnest, knew what they
wanted, and were determined to have 1t
Therefore they got it. The leading
statesmen and orators of the day saio
they would never urge abolition but
determined man in printing office said
that they should, and-they did 1t.
An so it is with this question exactly
Brains govern this country, and hope
10 God the time will never come wheI
brains won't govern it, for they ought TO
And the way in which you can compel
the others to listen and to attend to YOU
on the question of labor, actually to con-
centrate the intellectual power of the
nation upon it, is by gathering together
by hundreds of thousands, no mattel
whether it be on an industrial basis o
political basis, and say to the nation
we are the numbers, aud we will bt
heard, and you may be sure that vol