The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-09-01

to make the purchase. TWo-cent bread
will do a man no good unless he can
RAISE the two cents. II the bread trust
became, by another combination, a part
OF the General Industrial Company"
which controlled all the industries OF the
land and was the only employer of labor,
II Is questionable what wages the Cen
eIal Industrial Company without any
competitor in the labor market, would
choose to pay the laborers who had no
other place or way TO get employment.
Even If the bread department OF the
General Industrial Company" saw fit,
from economic or cleemoSynary consid-
e~rations. to sell bread cheaper than it
had ever been sold before, the benefit that
the community would get from this re-
duction III price might be neutrahzed by
a general reduction in wages so that
the community would have less money
with which to buy bread than they ever
had before.
3. Money is not always the most i'm
portant thing. Perhaps 1t or what it rep
resents Is the most important thing IN
the early stage Of civilization. There i
nothing so important TO a child IN Its
first year as food. 1t has TO nave bones,
muscles and nerves and all the parapher-
ralia of a body before its intellectual and
spiritual nature can be developed; but
later on the child comes to need other
things which it is more difficult for 1t to
get than food. In the infancy of the
race food was the important considera-
ton. Industrial methods Were so i'm
perfect that labor hard as one would, as
many hours as he could, the best he
could do was to get enough to eat. But
economic processes have improved so that
the Injuries of one generation become
The necessities of the next, and the
wants which man finds it difficult to sup
ply are not now ordinarily the wants
which pertain TO the nourishment Of his
body.
Manhood is more important than
money. A nation of freemen must nave
for its citizens men who have higher
aspirations than to fill their stomachs or
to attain simply 10 a condition of bod
l. comfort. A nation of free men must be d
nation Of men; of thinking men who can
intelligently solve the problems of life;
of men Of self-reliance who can work out
their own salvation; of patriotic men,
who are willing to devote their lives and
shed their blood. if need DE, for their
country.
SIdNOI . HUI d SOIOo "
Men who are not their own masters in
their private life are not the citizens that
a great and successful state needs.
A man who has no choice In life except
to work for a master whom he did not
choose, for wages that he had no part in
fxing and under conditions over which
he has no control, so nearly resembles a
slave that it takes a causit to draw the
distinction.
The men who followed Washington IN
the Revolution and won the independ-
ence of their country were men who were
brought up to take the initiative and de-
pend upon themselves. They had always
been their own masters. If they worked
for another instead of for themselves,
it was because they chose to do so and
not because they must. If they worked
for wages, they had a choice OF masters
and an opportunity to arrange Tor them
selves the conditions and the wages OF
service. They were free, proud Of their
heritage and prizlng Their personal tree
dom as the choicest thing on earth. Our
nation-great and rich and prosperous and
powerful as it has becomes not yet
through with its troubles. We have ques-
lions to solve and difficulties to overcome
quite as serious as any which confronted
Washington and our fathers Of the Revo-
luton in the early days of the Republic.
There are Tweeds and Czolgoszes. post
office scandals, Delaware lynchings.
Evansville riots, and strikes and labor
troubles OF perilous importance hat are.
IN our generation, quite as dangerous
and quite as difficult to deal with as
were the George the Thirds. the Lord
Ncrths and the tea duties of that day.
The nation has need of the patriotism
and the intelligence Of its self-reliant sons
today quite as much as it ever had III
the past. Would a nation composed of
the working men employed by one or a
dozen or a hundred great industrial COM
binations, which shall have absorbed the
industries Of the land, become the sole eX-
p~loiters of labor and the only furnishers
of their necessities to its people, be a
nation that could meet the great crises
that occur IN the history Of every nation?
Would such a nation as that have gone
through the trials and the troubles of
the Civil War? Would such a nation as
that have carried its flag as we carried
ours in the late Spanish War twelve
hundred miles farther east and seven
thousand miles farther west than it ever
went before? Would such a nation as
that have grown in power and in pros
perity, in wealth and in dominion as ours
has grown? No. If you are to have a
nation OF t~reenen. you must have free
men for your nation, and the men who
work for wages without being able to Sc
lect their employers are not frecmen and
can never make or save a nation. If our
country has vet TO fight for its
with the Slav upon the broad Pacific
or along the river valleys of Northern
China, or with the Teuton for its nation
al supremacy on the plains of the Orinoco
or the pampas OF Brazil. it must have
for its citizens and its soldiers such men
az followed Washington and Grant and
Dewey, men who are capable of taking
the initiative and are more than simply
fighting machines.
Better. far better, were it that the cost
Of a loaf of bread were doubled; better
even that the citizen had a scant al
lowance of it than that he should lower
his self-respect, lose his power to take
the initiative and become simply an auto
nation to work out the will of a master
whom he cannot even choose.
4. Edward Bethany was a man descend
cd from a long line Of strong New Eng
l. .Jor. ,-I h. -orror-o1 FL -