The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-09-03
INGALLS, SPEECH.
Address of the Ex-senator on
Labor Day.
Should Be No War Between the
Glasses.
EQUAL RIGHTS OF ALL
To Become MilliOnaires if They
Have the Ability.
Monopoly Combinations of Cap
ital Should be Suppressed.

Senator Ingalls, address on labor mat
tiers was made to fully 1000 people at
Garfield park yesterday afternoon. It
was in full as follows:
In view, ladies and gentlemen, of some
recently published utterances in this
city, it may perhaps not be inapproprl-
ATE for me to say that l am not an In
truder upon this platform, nor am pres
ent on this occasion as an unbidden
guest 1t was said in the Geographic an
nouncements few days ago by
a man whose career is one of the
most mournful and melancholy of our
time, that it was q dishonor and dis
grace that I should be invited to appear
upon this occasion. The first reason ap-
piled to my personal appearance. L
have never boosted much, fellow citi-
zens, Of my pulchritude. In fact, have
often said that l supposed l was the only
man who had ever been at all prominent
in the affairs of Kansas to whom CARL
cature did no injustice at all; to whom,
in fact, it was rather complimentary.
Laughter.
The next reason why it was alleged
that the committee should be denounced
for having invited me here was that
was pampered son of luxury. think
my personal aYoirdnpOis will not bear
out that statement
The third reason was that l was an
uncOnquerable enemy of the cause of
labor in this country. 1 only wish to
say in regard to this criticism that in
my judgment there is no man who in
hicts such injury upon the cause of la
Dor in this country as the man who at
tempts by such appeals to array the
labOring man against other classes in our
community. 1t is not necessary, ladies
and gentlemen, to enter upon any en-
cOmium of the cause of labor, thank God,
in the United States of America l
speak to men who are aware that there
is no great leader in our history in the
past generation, civil or military, no man
who has been prominent in public or
private affairs. who has not sprung from
the humblest and lowest walks of life.
Their Origin Obscure.
From Lincoln, the great martyr and
emancipation, whose origin was more OBJ
scure than that of the remotest pioneer
upon the frontiers of the west, through
Grant, the tanners apprentice, and Sher-
idan and Garfield, who were the canal
towpath boys in Ohio. and Henry Wilson,
the shoemaker, afterwards vice -presi-
dent of the United States, to Oliver P.
Morton, the great war governor of In
diana, who told me with his own mouth
that the proudest moment of his life up
TO the time he was 21 years old was
when he marched into his native village
at the head of band, playing the key
bugle, when he was a hatters appren-
tice; to Mcdonald the saddler and har-
ness maker-from the highest to the
lowest, there is no man prominent and
powerful in civil or military leadership
or anybody of private affairs who has not
sprung from the humblest and lowest
walks of life. On my hearthstone in the
library at home stands the anvil Of my
grandfather, upon which an hundred
years ago. long before machinery had
been introduced for the manufacture of
agricultural implements, before there
was an iron plowshare in this country,
that old patriot used to beat out the pillow
points and the hoes and shOYels and
blades and axes Of his friends and neigh
bOrs in that rural constituency in New
England. Talk to me about laboring
classes doomed to iucessant and endless
toll! 1 say to you, fellow citizens of
Shawnee county, that this is the only
country in which the son and the
grandson of the blacksmith and the
farmer and the carpenter has the right
confidently to aspire to the highest re-
ward that wealth and fame can bestow
Applause And there is no greater
enemy of republican institutions, there
is ~ greater enemy of labor than the
man who upon any pretext attempts to
establish the theory that there are labor
ing classes in this country who are doom
ed to unceasing toll. We are ali labor
ing men in this country. Some of US
labor with the hands; some of US labor
with the brain; and some of us labor, as
] am labOring now. with the msxillary
bone. [ApElause.l
An Honest Competency.
Those who have labored to keen what
they possess, and those who have not.
are endeayoring to acquire an honest
competency that will put them beyond
the reach of vicissitudes and infrmity.
There is no laboring man in the country
that has not the right to aspire to be an
employer. There is no laboring man
who cannot by industry, by fidelity, by
sobrlety, by courage and by the practice
OF the humble and homeIy virtues, spire
to attain anything to which his
ambition may point And say
TO you that of all that much execrated
class, the plutOcracY and millionaires.
with the exception of two or three fami-
lies. there is not today even in that great
order above as many as you can count on
your fingers that did not spring from the
ranks of obscure, and humble toll. saw
in Cleveland not great while ago man
who is reputed to be the second richest
man in the world. He testified in a court
of justice that he had $140OOOO OO that
his annual income was ten or twelve mill
lion dollars, and how much more it was
he did not know and did not care. And
citizen Of that same town on that same
visit told me that that man, with this
great aggregate of treasure piled I'D be-
yound the wealth of Croesus, less than a
generation of lifetime ago tried to per
suade him to discharge an office boy
then in his employ that he might
have the place at the salary of two
dollars and half a week! Talk to me
about this being a land where the labor.
ing classes are doomed to perpetual
toll I say to you. fellow citizens, that