St. Paul daily globe., 1895-06-24
HULll ON AGITATION
AS AN EDUCATOR THAT WILL
HELP MANKIND TO BE
BETTER.
TWO PRIMARY ELEMENTS,
CONTRACTED AS TYRANNY AND
FREEDOM, HAPPINESS AND
SORROW.
HORRORS OF PEACEFUL TIMES.
Outworkings of Intellect Indi-
Gated in Protests Against
Despotism.

Agitation as an Educator was
the. subject of Willard J. Hull's ad-
dress last evening before the Society
of Ethical Culture. The speaker said
in part:
The struggle for existence has made
liberty the crown of all suffering.
The contrast between tyranny and
freedom is seen only as both es-
tates are experienced. Happiness
and sorrow are the wings of con-
trast. Without the knowledge and
experience of hell we cannot enjoy
the raptures of heaven. Thus every
life is hedged about with two diverse
primary elements The good, the
evil; the joyous, the sorrowful; the
tyrannous, the free. This is an ir-
revocable law of nature. We behold
its operations everywhere from the
di-atom to the philosopher who
plucks knowledge from the stars.
The pathway to freedom is streWn
with the wrecks of all struggles for
existence. Conquest, strategy and
cunning have divided the nations of
the earth, and the horrors of peace
are sometimes worse than the wars
fought to achieve it. No right of
humanity has ever been bestowed
by an open hand. Only in the effort
to shake off tyranny have the peo-
pie of any nation ever secured per-
sonal liberty. Human nature is such
that great sociological questions cam
not be solved without correspond
ing trial and ofttimes violent strug-
giles and sacrifice of life and treas
ure. Ethnologists cannot solve that
universal racial quality which re-
bels at innovation. The established
has always been a fetish and has
more often than otherwise been the
greatest detriment to national prog
ress and welfare. Superhuous pros
perity in individuals breeds con-
servatism, the hatred of new ideas
and the fear of being disturbed.
Self-satisfaction is thus to be seen
the most cogent of errors. This ele-
ment of our present system is per-
ceived in the brakes and checks
placed upon the efforts of those who
see a better condition for the masses.
The doctrine of Laissez Faire makes
10000 mendicants where is makes one
lord chamberlain. The protests
against uSurpation and the domi-
nance of despotic rule are among
the most glorious of the outwork-
ings of the intellect. Where is there
a grander bit of reasoning and right
eousness than Burke's speech against
the ty.-.2nny of his country in our
colonial Affairs? You viii find that
ale the best OF s.uman thought is
on the side of justice. The agitator
is to be found only where the lib
critics of the people are in jeopardy.
You never hear of agitation Of
thought in Turkey or China-and OBJ
serve the mental status of the Turk
and the Chinese. The intellectual
caliber of any nation can be found
by striking a
BALANCE BETWEEN THE IDLERS
whether rich or poor. And we may
apply this rule to our own land; there
IS no need of going to Asia or Southern
Europe. In the Island of Sicily, dur
ing the reign of the Caesars, young
men and women were sold for p cents
a piece. Conquest and the accumula-
ton of slaves made it cheaper to work
men to death than to feed and care for
them So 1T is now Within the sound
of the bell on st. Paul's city hail there
is plenty of slavery that 0utvies Sicily
or the Rome of the Caesars. SO it is
in every center of population in this
COUNTRY of the presumably free. There
are seven hundred sweaters dens in
Philadelphia within a radius of one
mile of Independence hall, that cradle
of American liberty. In the middle
ages sweater" was the name given to
a man who put gold coins into a bag
and shook them till particles of the
metal were worn off. This constituted
the profits Of the sweater, while the
coins passed for the same value as be-
fore the sweating operation. The
sweater of our day puts human hearts
into bags of avarice and shakes them
as a ferret shakes rat, and out OF
the throbbings he CONS his profits.
The vampire has reached it's final eVo-
luton in the rapacity of the modern
sweater. The Hiberian houses his pigs
in a sty. The den of a sweater is
sty in which no pig would ever fatten.
Here creatures make clothing which
you and l, perhaps, are wearing this
evening. In their human stys the
workers eat, sleep and perform all the
functions of nature.
There is no moral coce printed over
the doorway Of a sweat shop. No code
obtains there except the turning OF
human souls into spot cash. In the
process of Transformation the souls
are ground between the neither and
upper milstones of avarice and dis
honor. The refuse of the milling is
their reconpense. Here it is: For
overcoats, 45 to So cents; frock coats,
40 cents to 81; sack coats, 30 to Is cents;
vests, IA to Is cents trousers, % to so
cents pair; boys knee pants, 81
dozen. This Is one reason why clothing
is so cheap. But not so. cheap as
flesh and blood ana souls. Does civil
lization require men and women to
work for 50 cents a day While profits
to the employer aggregate from Is to
$50 per cent? If it does then were it
far better that I've name our civiliza-
tion something else.
Heaven speed the day when the man
who holds the handles of the plow shall
have that which the share turn over.