The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1924-02-14

terials, only to be kept safely in damp
places, rs far as possible from that
peculiar kind Of FIRE which ignites
them. A Yankee who would invent
strong-handed man without a head
would receive the everlasting graft
tude Of the 'mud-sil' advocates"
He would have none Of this, nor Of
that notion which his great antago-
mist, Douglas, fathered, that there
was. a climatic line below which la
Dor could only be done by slaves
black men.
He would not have this thing which
had had so big part in his own MAX
ing, this hard labor, so degraded. He
fought for it, its dignity, its WORTH
ness, its essential part in the making
of men under our scheme of things.
Labor, if free, was a Just, generous,
prosperous system, he declared again
and again, which opens the way for
all, gives hope tc all, energy and prog
1893 anu IN lIIOF NlilSII vi COiHlillOil W
all. 1t was this strong feeling about
the part that labor must play in a
democratic country-a feeling which
was born not of theory but of exper-
lence-that put an unusual and spe-
cial quality Of understanding and SYM
pathy into his fight against the ex-
tension Of slavery. Labor was so
good, so essential, so important that
it must not be degraded by making a
slave of the laborer. The very fact
that man laborer with his hands
gave him certain rights, whatever his
color, which other men should not be
allowed to take from him. This convic-
ton led to his great saying, that gin
the right to put into his mouth the
bread that his own bonds have earned,
he (the negro) is the equal of every
other man, white or black"
He not only fought for free labor
for the mans sake, but for enlarged
prosperity's sake. He claimed in those
days (what scientific management
has proved in recent days. that it is
only the free laborer-who sees The
possibility of acquiring surplus, of
becoming more thar hired laborer
who is the fruitful laborer. He has
a beautiful passage on this:
Gree labor has the inspiration of
hope: pure slavery has no hope The
power of hope upon human exertion
and happiness is wonderful. The slave
master himself has no conception of
it, and hence the system Of tasks
among slaves. The slave whom you
! cannot drive with the lash to break
seventy-tive pounds Of hemp in day,
| if you will take him to break hun
bred and promise him pay for all he
does over, he will break you d hun
bred ard fifty! You have substituted
hope for the rod
And he added, cannily: Perhaps
it does not occur to you that to the
extent of your gain in the case you
have given up the slave system and
adopted the free system of labor
From the ak Lincoln learned, too,
sound economy-the relation Of labor
to capital. Nobody was so convinced
as he that capital is the fruit of la
Dor" 1t was that ak that had turned
the wild and valueless tracts Of south
western Indiana and of Illinois, where
he had lived and struggled into fruit
full property; had made capital there
cabins, cleared fields, roads. All that
wealth which he saw increasing I'M
der his eye was born Of the labor of
his and his friends hands. "Not
only" he said often and with feeling,
capital never could have existed if
labor had not first existed" but he
threw out to the defenders Of the
'mud-silr theory of the necessity of
slavery, his conviction, born of eXper-
fence, that "labor can exist without
capital" And he added proudly again,
Labor is the superior-greatly the
superior-of capital
Of the particular exhibits of the
labor and capital struggles in cur
time-a time in which so largely the
machine has been substituted for the
simple labor instruments of his day
h esaw little. But what he did see
did not at all weaken his theory of
the relation Of capital and labor Early
in the sixties he found himself in New
England speechmaking. Indeed at
this tine Lincoln made rather ex-
tended trip through the New Eng
land towns, talking in as many as
twelve or fifteen of them 1t was a
bad time for the shoe-making bust
ness, and he ran into shoe strike of
considerable proportions-tke first
one, so far as | know, to get itself
pictured in the Illustrated newspa-
pers Of the day-but while he was
the last man in the world to sympa-
thize with violence in any form or
force on the part of labor or capital,
he was altogether FOR allowing a man
''to quit when he wanted to-"
~, ,,I,l h ~ 90