The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-09-30
BEVER|DGE MAKES
REPLY TO BRYAN
Indiana Senator Talks TO Peo-
Pile At 1erre Haute
WORK FOR COMMON GOOD
Beverage Recounts the Legislation at
Washington In Interest of Labor
and Tells What May
Yet Be Done.
WORK FOR COMMON GOOD

Terre Haute, Ind, September Eek
planning the policy of the republican party
in reference to capital and labor. and re-
counting republican legislation in the in
terests of workingmen. Senator A. J. Bev-
eridge of Indiana tonight delivered the
second of his replies to William J. Bryan.
Senator Beveridge was greeted by large
and enthusiastic audience. He said:
This is a nation of worlxingmen Its
founders were Iaborers. The Pilgrims
were toilers. 1t was the "embattled farm
ers' who at Lexington fired the shot
heard round the world. The bleeding
feet that stained the SHOWS of Valley
Forge had followed the furrow. Corn
wallis surrendered at Yorktown to men
who ate their bread in the sweat of their
faces. Lincolns call was answered from
the farm and mill and shop. And so this
nation, founded and saved by working
men, belongs to workngmen. The Stars
and Stripes is the flag of industry; every
idler beneath it's folds disgraces the ban
ner which protects him. The life of ease
is not the American life.
All Are Workmen.
Labor means every useful effort by
brain or hand, or both Edison's wizard
mind tolls as hard as all the thousands
of hands his genius has furnished with
employment. The railroad builder, whose
eye sees barren plains made golden
fields, swamps drained great mountains
pierced and oceans Joined. and makes that
vision good, is a harder worker than the
thousands who blast tunnels, build grades,
lay rails and drive the engines of the ma
tions trade
The doctor Fastening to the bedside or
sickness; the statesmen. writing just laws
and fighting evil; the clerk selling goods;
the merchant who employs him; the ac-
countant at his ledger; the scholar In his
study; the reporter gathering the news OF
.he world the pressman who prints-afl
are workingmen.
Every man or woman who does a useful
thing in any field of human endeavor is
a toiler. All belong to the one vast
brotherhood Of human betterment And
the man who would divide them into war
ring classes is the enemy of that progress
which rests on mutual effort mutual USE
fulness and mutual confidence.
This is the age of cooperation. That is
what civilization means. We are so close
ly woven together; the needs of our mil
lions are so vast and so many that in
dustry must be organized to serve them.
The Pennsylvania railroad is necessary.
but one mans money could not build it.
So the money of hundreds of thousands
of men is organized to build that COM
mon highway. The same method builds
telegraph lines. operates factories, opens
Mines This principle explains every
combination of capital that serves hu-
manity; and the same principle applies to
labor.
A scale of wages is necessary to the
best results from labor and to justice for
the laborer himself; but one man cannot
get this equal scale of wages. So thou
sands of laborers unite to get 1t. High
wages could not be secured by each man,
separately, where thousands were EN-
ployed: so these thousands combine to de-
mand it. Steady employment was not
certain when each workingman looked out
for himself; so thousands of workingmen
form unions to secure it.
Rights and Wrongs of Labor.
Thus the unions of labor and capital
are justified by the same great prin
ciple Both work for the common good:
both advance that common brotherhood of
useful effort in which abides the hap
piness and saftey of the nation. But
while organized labor and organized cap
ital are equally indispensable to human
life; while each is an equal wheel of
progress yet each has it's special prob
lens. As have spoken elsewhere at 9TH
er times of the rights and wrongs of cap
ital, so tonight l speak of the rights
and wrongs of labor.
Organized labor asked that congress
pass a law making interstate railroads
liable for injuries to their employees. 1t
asked justice; and it got it. The old
rule that the laborer must take all the
risks of his employment, suffer for the
fault of his fellow laborer for which he
was not to blame, has been made obsolete
by advancing humanity. So we passed
the employers liability act, which gave