Year: 1860




the recipient. Yours truly,


CONRAD BAKER.
FeLIoac- Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen


Detailed as 1 have been for the present
service, by the mechanics and working men
of our community, appear before you,
claiming to be myself worker and ask
your kind indulgence, during brief con-
sideration of the subject selected as the basis
of my remarks. The theme is, . The Dig
nifty of Labor, and the Patriotism of In-
dustry.' In other words Labor is honor
able, and industry is one of the high duties
of patriotism.


In such presence as this, and surround
ed by these emblems, showing with what
pride and pleasure the mechanics aud work
ing men of Evansville contemplate the in
dustrial employments with which they are
respectively connected, it might be supposed
that the dignity of labor needs no vindIca-
tion. The fact, however; is, that we are all
constitutionally lazy, and are inclined, un
til urged by necessity, or stimulated by av-
arice or ambition to regard labor as a thing
TO be avoided, instead of the grand means
by which a wise Providence designed that
our natures should be developed, and the
objects of our earthly existence attained





through love for their wives and little ones,
and stimulated by desire to better their
condition, have trained and educated them
selves until they have become thorough
workers, and until it may be truly said of
them, that there is not Il lazy bone in their
bodies-may be disposed to accuse me of
doing inj ustice to our common humanity,
when | ascribe to it constitutional laZness.
All ask of such is that they should recall
to their recollection the years of their own
childhood, or observe the conduct and habits
of the children and youth now growing up
around them. Where is the child who de-
lights in useful labor? Where the child
if uncontrolled, who will not flee from la
Dor as an evil, to expend that vitality with
which he is teeming, in putting forth greater
exertions in the prosecution of his sports
and plays? And ye, working men, who
have schooled your faculties and powers un-
til industry has to you become a second ma
ture, tell me in all candor, which one of you
does not not cherish the hope that the day
will come when he can retire from labor,
and sitting under the shade of his own ar
bor, smoke the pipe of lazy peace, no man
having the right to say " what doest thou"
or "why sit you here all the day Idle2' 1t
is difficult for a man thoroughly educated in
any science or art to conceive how any other
man can be totally ignorant of that science
or art and still more difficult to treat such
ignorance, with a respectful federation. 1t
is equally difficult, for a real worker, to un-
derstaud, how any man can forego the pleas
ures of industry, and the very presence of
the idler, is to him offensive. Certain it is
however, that ignorance aud laziness do
both exist that we came by both of them
honestly, that is by inheritance, and that it
IL g
overcome both. If, then, it be true, that
we have natural aversion to labor, it is
sure to follow, unless that aversion is over
come by training, and the practice of labor,
that we will, more and more, hold labor
and the laborer in disrepute. Hence, it Is,
that SO many of our weak brethren, who
have inherited wealth, or a competency,
accumulated by their parents by honest toll,
are grievously insulted, by the remotest al
lusion, to the craft by which, their means of
subsistence was acquired. These considera-
tions sufficiently show that to vindicate the
dignity OF labor, and to inculcate the pa
triotisp of industry, is no work of super
errogation but with these, as with all our
duties, we need line upon line, and precept
upon precept


Labor is honorable, and idleness, is con-
temptible, because by the very laws of our
being labor is essential to the developement
of our manhood in all it's completeness.
The organism of these bodies of ours, as
well as the teachings of inspiration show,
that the creator designed. that we should
labor; and can it be dishonorable or disre-
putable, in the eyes of any, save fools, to
fulfil one of the great objects Of our crea-
ton?


The penalty of ideness is dwarfed man
hood, and the puny lounger, with little
gold in his pocket, and less brains in his
Uranium, who supposed that he must look
down to discover the whereabouts of the
hardy sons of toll, should speedily be in
formed, that he will never be able, to dis
cover the plain they inhabit, until his i'm
paired vision, is turned n an upward d-
! rection.


! An aristocracy of any kind is an undesi-
rable thing; an aristoeracy of wealth or of
blood may be tolerated, and an aristocracy
of brains may even be an object of admira-
ton, but an aristocracy of idleness, of kid
\ gloves ard perfumery, is insufferable. and
/ begets nausea. How any woman, with the
soul of a true woman within her, can toler-
! ate such specimens of the genus homo, is be-
yond my comprehension. Were | a woman,
4 would rather seek, the protection of the
brawniest arm of the brawniest laborer in