Los Angeles herald., 1890-06-16
WHO ARE THE PEOPLE

lasts-the former will imagine the lat
ter are their slaves, and these slaves
will envy the lot of their self-constituted
masters. Yet go back far as one may,
and it will be discovered that every
where not the rich, not the great, not
the noble, benefit mankind by their
great achievements. Moses, the great
law-giver of the Hebrew race, was the
offspring OF slaves, and was born to be
instantly put to death, but for the de-
vice of his wretched mother. David,
the poet king OF Israel was the son of
shepherd, and kept his fathers sheep.
Neither Herodotus nor Homer had any
patent of nobility to inspire them to pen
the story of the one or the verse of the
other, yet both story and verse are i'm
mortal. The father of Socrates was a
sculptor-not an artist, but
laborer who did the rough work. 1t
was Alcibiades, Hippias and other scions
of noble houses, who brought discredit
and ruin on Athens, while the children
of humble origin shed lustre on her
name and won grand victories over her
enemies. Fabius and Cincinnatus were
among the most brilliant generals of
Rome, but they were both farmers.
Cato, too, titled the ground, and Cicero's
father also followed Adams profession.
In the notable corporation of the Meis-
tersingers, or twelve wise masters of
Germany, the acknowledged head of
them, Hans Sachs, followed the humble
occupation OF a cobbler. He left thirty
four folio volumes Of the production of
his genius, containing the enormous
number of POS plays, 1,700 comic tales
and 450 lyric poems. OF the other mem
bers of this noble association, one was
painter of armorial designs, another was
barber, still another tailor, and one
more blacksmith. Nearly half of the
dozen were men engaged in actual
manual labor. Another of the twelve
was a surgeon, and one more lawyer.
Not one of them bears any mark of the
nobility that depends on birth, richly
endowed as they all were with abundant
marks of the highest nobility that gen.
erous nature lavishes on her favorite
sons. Napoleon was subaltern officer
and had no rank derived from birth.
Shakespeare, the Peels and long list
all through the history of England down
to Gladstone, have not derived any ad-
vantage in life from their birth.
In the Poets corner, over which the
legend runs, Here sleep the men
who kept the world awake" where
many Of England's greatest men are laid
at rest, there are dozen commoners to
the one man of noble birth. Nature is
fond of cradling genius in strange places.
In our own country our distinguishing
institutions are founded on the recogni-
tion of this elementary principle. So
much is made of the manhood of man
that individual merit is the only test of
worth. The men that landed on the
bleak rocks round Massachusetts bay,
or in the wilds of Virginia, to carve out
an empire in the wilderness, had little
use for other distinctions than that of
personal achievement; and from the
days of Raleigh and the Mayfower the
men OF mark in America have been the
men who could make a mark for them
selves. The heroes of the revolution
the founders of the republic, the states
men of the early days, were plain
gentlemen like Washington and
Jefferson, artisans like Franklin,
farmers sons like Webster, mill
boys like Clay, rail-splitters like
Lincoln, or tanners like Grant. The
history of the world has been wrought
out by common men; the arts have
been developed without the aid of COR
onets; it's victories have been won by
men whose titles were afterthoughts if
they had any at all; its great achieve
ments are all the work of the people
rather than that OF the mobiles. Our
country is the fruit of all the ages, and
tittingly it is the country of the people,
1t is place where mans manhood is
about all that counts; where money
does not constitute merit, and where
birth confers no privileges. 1t is no
place for even aspiring nobility; or for
any man to impose a badge of slavery
on an employee, however poor that one
may be, or however menial the services
he performs