The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1909-06-26


and the self-binding reaper and harves-
ter were invented. Brush gave the world
first successful electric lights. In
rapid succession came the many. forms
Of electric lights, electric motors. the
electric railways. and the telephones.
1t was inevitable that this astohish-
ing mechanical progress should effect
the business and the industrial world.
Trades, occupations, industries of all
sorts, began to concentrate and COM
bine, and corporations took the place Of
individuals and small companies. The
Western Union Telegraph Company
and the Standard Oil Company were
thus formed.
AS old lines of industry were expand
ing and new ones were created, the
opportunities for money-getting were
vastly increased. Men now began to
amass immense fortunes in gold and
silver mining; by dealing in coal; in
grain, in cattle, in oil; by speculation
in stocks; in iron and steel making; in
railroading; millionaires and multi.
millionaires became numerous, and
were often called captains Of industry,
as an indication of the power they held
in the industrial world.
While these large corporations were
forming, and these men amassing great
wealth, the working men thought il
best that they should also unite. Con-
sequently, labor organizations were
formed. Trades unions existed in our
country before the Constitution; but il
was at the time Of the great industrial
development during and after the war
| that the era of unions opened. Al
first, that OF each trade had no connec-
ton with that of any other. But in 1865
they all united under one head known
as 1.-The Noble Order of Knights of La.
bor." This was secret order until 1878,
when a declaration of principles was
made. From this on the workman has
played a distinctive part in. the Amer
lean politics. AS matters of public con.
Germ had dealt with the reconstruction,
the public debt, the currency, and the
civil service, so since 1873 almost every
question in our politics has been ir
some way directly connected with Ia
Dor.
The rise of these new questions
caused the people to forget the old
ones. A quarter of a century of steam
and electricity aided by the telegraph
and telephone, has done more than any
previous century could have done to
transform the nation into new Union.
The South had been changed as if
by marvel, into likeness with the
rest of the country. Freed from the
incubus of slavery, Shit i).Iny in to
new life; already. she had promised
to become one of the chief industrial
regions of the Union. She had dis
covered resources of coal and iron be-
meath her rich soil of which she had
never before dreamed. Manufactures
sprang up on every hand. In the pres
ence of such changes the old alienation of
feeling between the sections could not
survive. Northern capital poured into
the South; northern interests became
identified with southern interests, and
the days of permanent difference came
to seem strangely remote. Each Sec
ton felt that it had played its part in
the creation of this. new industrial
fabric which was the wool of an en-
pire that knew no north or south. New
troubles came, hot conflicts between
capital and labor. But new troubles,
brought new thinkers. AS the equilib-
rum Of parties tempered political
action, so the presence of new problems
quickened sober thought, and disposed
the nation to careful debate Of its
future. At last the mystic chords Of
memory were swelling the chorus OF
union of which slave holder or free
soiler might indeed be proud.
Baraga-5th of July big celebration