The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-04-22
GREAT, Is THE .
COMSToCK LODE

From the Denver Post:
There never was such time Of wild
deeds and frenzied folly and inspired
! wisdom as there was in the days OF
! the big bonanza on the Comstock.
And no wonder.
Think one minute of what the Com
stock lode has done for the world.
John Mackey went to Nevada poor
miner, with his pick on his broad
shoulders and nothing but the sweet
brogue on the tip Of his tongue, and
pair Of stout arms. between him ana
hunger.
A man named Fair, a Scotchman he
was, with pair of shrewd blue eyes
and a mat of black hair that made
him look like an outlaw. came to the
camp without dollar and boarded
with Widow Rooney up the gulch, and
good board he found there. too. they
say, while he was waiting to make his
strike so as to pay his little debts.
Two stout young Irishmen, one called
Flood and one named O'Brien, had a
little claim up the gulch they used to
talk about sometimes, when they could
get anyone to listen, and George
CLEAN of sharp humor in his gray-blue
eyes, worked in the hills with the rest
Of them, and said little to anybody.
And John Mackey it is who took his
Comstock gold and tied the continents
together with a strand Of talking wire,
and the daughters of James Fair and
the widow OF fashion in the gay re-
think, to look at Mrs. Willie Vanderbilt
or at Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, that every
dollar that has strewn the paths under
their feet with roses, and showered
them with golden fortune. was dug out
OF the gray ground OF old Nevada.
Little Jennie Flood, who used to hang
over the back gate of her fathers hum
could sign her check for $5,o00,00o to-
day, and never miss the money when
the check had been cashed.
The son of George Hearst took the
money his father found in the ground
up there in the cactus state and built
him chain of papers that stretch from
ocean to ocean, and are quoted and
copied in every civilized country on
the globe.
1t was the Comstock lode that drove
the buffalo back from the plains, herd
ed the gray wolves and sent them
snarling to the hills for shelter. And 1t
was the Comstock lode that broke the
pride and the stern enmity of the red
men and turned them into American
citizens, just as it was the Comstock
lode that built the Mackey-Bennett
cable, for did not the COmstock Dulld
the railroad?
Who would have spun the gigantic
spider web we call the overland across
the continent If it had not been for the
Comstock lode?
Have you ever climbed the sweet rise Of
smiling ground that leads from the silver
edge Of the Pacific up to the Sutro
Heights in San francisco?
Have you ever stood there in that gar
den, one Of the moss beautiful pleasure
grounds in the world, and watched the
white dancers of the surf throwing up
their arms in their strange, melodic
measure-down there below the cliffs?
The Comstock has done something for
you. too, for Sutro, poor Jew, with
nothing but his brain and his indomitable
will, had not built the Sutro tunnel up
there on the Comstock and snatched the
gold out Of the nenurious earth before the
greedy water could get at 1t.
The Comstock lode build cities, made
states and subdued the savage heart Of
wild continent.