The Forrest City times., 1897-09-10
4 TRIBUTE TO JAY GOULD
Col S. w. Fordyce's Labor Day Ad-
 dress At Pine Bluff.
,ne Who Conceives and Executes Great Enterprises a Better Friend of Labor Than the Chronic Agitator and
 Ranting msgogue.

delivered at the Labor Day celebration at Pine Bluff by Col. $. W. Fordyce, president of the St. Louis Southwestern railway Cotton Belt route), which was attentively listened to by hundreds of emploves of that road, as we'll as thous- sands of citizens of every calling and profession. The good feeling and har- mony existing between the highest off eial of corporation and the thousands in its employ could not have been more strongly impressed upon the general public than it was on that occasion. when Col. Fordyce, the official, and rep resentative employees of the Cotton Belt, discussed from the same platform and before tl.e same audience question of vital interest to both capital and labor Col. Fordyce said:
 Labor is the cornerstone and lies at the very foundation of our civilization and pros perity. Labor was created before capital and without labor capital would never have been acquired. Hence the dignity of labor is super for to and surpasses the dignity of capital The dinge of the workshop and the dust of the field are equally as honorable as the gaudy epaulets worn by officers of the army or the ,eweled crown of kings and queens
 The interest of labor and capital are essen tially the same. They are allies and not enc mics Concentration of capital provides employment for labor. stimulates enterprise eheapens necessaries of life ard thus elevates the standard of living Without concentration of capital great railway systems are not possible. Cheap transportation facilitates an advantageous division of labor, enables each section Of the country to devote itself to those industries for which its natural conditions best adapt 1t, and makes the prices of staple articles virtually uniform throughout the country by converting the nation as a whole into one market. eliminating local conditions ss factors in the law of supply and demand. The profits Of those who have spent their lives and risked their money in the building up of your railway facilities are often assailed by political demagoguss as If they were the consequences of violence and fraud In the exceptional cases in which substantial profits have been made careful examination of the method of their accumulation will show us that they represent but small part of the labor that they save men from doing, and not work that men are compelled to do, The work the promoters of your transportation facilities has been to so reduce the cost of transporta- tion that years subsistence of western bread and meat can now be transported thousand miles to the east for less than the measure of one days labor by an ordinary day laborer Your railways have abolished distance; a service so great that the profits to their build CTS, in the isolated cases in which they exist, are but trivial compared to it's benefits
 Factory system and labor-saving devices are factors iD cheapening the necessaries Of life The modern mill or factory in which hundreds of operatives are given employment is often hkened by chronic agitators and demagogues to some great mechanical monstor, grinding wealth out of the blood and bones of it's opera siyes Hard as the lot Of the modern working man may seem, it's hardships sink into insig- nihcance when compared to those of our fore fatheIs 100 years ago. Then the homespun fabrics in which our ancestors were clothed required the arduous labor of at least one person in every family of five or six to spin and weave the scanty clothing for the others. Now one person in each 250 only need work in the factory to produce the cotton and woolen fabrics that constitute the garments of the most enlightened nation of the world.
 Concentrated capital has removed much of the drudgery of life. The great mass of capi- tai earned and saved, no matter into whose hands 1t has fallen, and whether the motive of US accumulation may have been pure selfish ness or enlightened self-interest, represents not the work that men are still compelled to oo, put rather part of that which they have been saved from doing. AS combined inven- uon and competition have more and more reduced the amounts of human labor to pro- duce the crude products of the soil and the mine or the staple and necessary products of factory and the furnace the drudgery formerly required to meet the bare necessities of life has been removed and 1t has become possible that more and more time can be given to the production Of the comforts and luxuries of subsistence which millions now enjoy, to whom 'hey would have been impossible century or even half a century ago.
 lh a democratic form of government such as ours' iapor is too often the prey of political oemagogues and sentimentalists who strive to ~orK up dissensions among the employees oI individuals, firms and corporations rms IS generally done without any thought or intention of bettertng the condition of the isoorlng man, but in the hope of prejudeing them against capital and corporations and securing their votes for some political office promising In return for their votes that they VIII nave laws enacted which will rebound greatly to their advantage. The professional omee-seeker as a rule has no other stock in iaoe-too lazy to work, too proud to beg and aaiaiu to steal, as was once said by the illus Hious Clay in another sense, but equally applicable here. Such men have neither brains nor capacity for originating or direct ng enterprises of any character. or. if they nave any at all, they are of very inferior ofuer Their aim in life is, if possible, to u'iiiIe Tor their own exclusive benefit what ever they can extract from their fellow-men
  "iracle, or the death of rich relative, they come into the possession of money or property, .ne poor laboring man is least in their thoughts
 uo not undertake to say that the laborer siways fully rewarded for his labor, or that al employers are just and considerate Of .nelr employees When this is universally the ,ase the millennium will surely have come. The .auorer er himself is as frequently unjust to his t1ho"-laborer as are his employees. We must aii work for higher and better civilization; nooler and grander Christianity; better form i government; approach as near as possible ~ " 'he golden rule which tells us to do unto o'ners as we would have others do unto us; Fu. ourselves in his place; have our law maAers enact laws to enforce the principles suuhelated In the Declaration of Independ- sH0o, which says that all men are created . nsual' that they are endowed by their Creator ,, certain inalienable rights; that among a .aeni are life, liberty and the pursuit of happ- ,n That to secure these rights govern s s-ehes are Instituted among men, deriving their .S .So. powers from the consent of the governed; s na' whenever any form of government be- ~ osues destructive of these ends 1t is the right .ne people to alter or to abolish it and to pntue lax