The Portland daily press., 1888-10-06
MIR. HEATH's ADDRESS.

iHtIOuuceu. ln Tie course OF MS ADDRESS, ne
said
MIR. HEATH's ADDRESS.
If some good citizen OF this ancient town,
who was laid away among his fathers hun
dred years ago, could come out of his grave
today, what would he think of the sights
about him? The telegraph wires flashing
across a continent would seem too high for
wire fence. The iron horse spouting fire
and steam would remind him of the fabled
monsters of the deep and perchance send
him back to his grave in terror. If he saw
a neighbor speaking at the wall and pre-
tending to talk with friend in Watarville,
his first impulse would be to rouse up Old
Cotton Mather and have the necromancer
tried for witch-craft. He would think you
daft If you assured him that after dark you
intended to illuminate the town with light
ming manufactured expressly for the occa-
sion. The only sewing machine he knew was
the th,n one s.nIna he married But as for
ming he would as you not to
tax his credulity too much. The old gentle
man would amble off to his grave satisfied
that the whole world had become crazy. If
the next century. is equally inventive, who
can foresee the advance of civilization? We
are surprised at nothing. If Edison should
announces tomorrow that he had discovered
a process for raising the dead, the world
would gravely say, what next" and organ
ize stock company to develop the inven-
ti0n.
Mr.. Mulhall, the famous English statisti.
clan, has recently estimated the wealth of
the nations OF the world. Above the wealth
of all the Russlas, beyond the accumulations
of the Germans, more than the savings of
prudent France, above the massive wealth of
no xUif bar f1ariac of
trade and commerce, above and beyond them
all stands the United States of America AS
nation we are today the richest upon the
globe. These are not figures born of the en-
thusiasm Of Fourth of July orator wrest-
ling with the American eagle, and soaring to
heights that would frighten even that proud
bird. They are not the froth of the cham
payne of an after-dinner speech, when pOliti-
clans speak of millions with. the assurance
of common individuals humbly speaking of
hundreds. 1t is the reluctant testimony of a
loyal subject of Americas ancient and nat
ural enemy. Whether great fortunes are an
unmixed good is a problem Vast wealth
locked up in land and made inalienable by a
system of land tenure. conceived to support
as;ristocracy. has dwarfed the growth of Eng,
leave two hundred millions, and Jay Gould
be master Of hundred millionsare facts that
furnish food for sober reflection. But time
is the great distributor. Such fortunes must
crumble as surely as the ice beneath the rays
of the up-climbing sun. 1t cannot be denied
the years roll on. That the rich are growing
richer and the poor poorer is the idle vapor-
ing of the demagogue who loves the labor
ing man for the ballot he controls
l cannot subscribe to the recent declara-
ti0n of Maine statesman that every village
in Maine has its millionaire. We have rich
men, but, better still, in no State in the
Union will there be found so small a per-
centage Of the extremely poor. We run but
little to either extreme. The great mass of
our people are neither rich nor poor; they,
are content to say, BLESSED is enough"
Man needs no more.
This piled up wealth is the product of a
century's labor. The massive factories, the
iron arteries of trade, the white-winged ships
upon the sea, all are the extract of human
sweat The alchemist who has turned the
rude products of the earth into gold is the
laborer telling in the heat and burden of the
day. True, it is, that labor receives less than
its just share of the wealth it creates. La
Dor fashions garments it cannot wear, builds
houses that it cannot enter, carriages that it
cannot ride in, and grows crops that it can
not eat. Under the factory system labor
must be disappointed at the division of prof
its. Labor is perishable article; it is con-
sumed by idleness, but wakes great by use.
The contract is theoretically mutual, but a
starving stomach disturbs the element of
free consent But century has seen great
advance in wages.
In 1777 the town council of Newburyport
ordained that the wages of a day laborer
should not exceed four shillings, carpenter
five sbillings, and a mason six ShillingS a
day. These prices were higher than the 60
ing rates. In 1888 the unskilled laborer re-
ceiyed as the fruits of his daily toll the mani
ficent sum of two shillings. When his
advanced to fifteen shillings week cry
went up that it was extravagant. Imagine
a N fOdaV
two dollars and half week. Nor were
prices correspondingly low. Corn was three
shillings a bushel, wheat stood at eighth and
sixpence, and salt pork at ten pence pound.
He endured life lat these starvation wages
o Upon his table wa was nothing but the toughest
and coarsest food. Fresh meat once week
was the exception and not the rule. Sugar
was luxury only within the means of the
rich. Tea and coffee, today the poor mans
blessings, were then strangers to his table.
Today there is no country SO remote that It
does not contribute to the humblest
table, His flour is of the finest. Broad
fields, ingenious machinery, cheap freights,
Yankee invention have cheapened its
productian, until wheat grown upon the
plains of Dakota gives life and muscle to the
arm of the Eastern workman; and the sur
plus travels to feed the millions of crowded
Europe. Beef from the rolling prairies,
mutton from the valleys of Montana, fish
from the rushing waters of the Columbia,
sugar from the lowlands of Louisiana
countries then unknown, but today the bull
warks against famine or distress. I would
that the vast difference in houses, homes
and food could be pictured in all its force
but neither tongue nor pen can do it, Every
invention that has cheapened goods has lei
new ray of light into the homes of the
poor. The working men of America live
better than the mechanics of any nation upon
earth. Surely, they ought. Citizens of the
richest nation, themselves the producers of
wealth, their share should be liberal.
N. W. Brainard, ESQ.,, then read an histor
ical sketch of Fairfield, presenting the
history of the town in an interesting manner