Year: 1869

the means at One-nal1 the price that Il


ever did before. Fourthly, labor, wei


paid if not justly paid, that furnishe,
the means of intoxication by the la
Dor of a day for the drink for a week
Here are the four great attendant fea,


lures that clutch at the very heart ol


possible self-government. How will


you manage them? Two hundred
millions of dollars massed up i'm this


very city. devoted directly or indirect
ly to the manufacture and dispersion


of intoxicating materials. You can.


not sneer at this, or be Indifferent to


the danger which lies there. 1t has


made the government of your metrop-


oils farce, as it has all other great


cities. Take my city BOSTON,. 1t is


most familiar to me. We have three


thousand places where SO, ,OO0, 900 of


massed up-capital makes its open


portfolios out of which it fires the cam


ons on the public. There never was


an election in Boston that 5000 votes


taken from one side to the other would


not reverse the victory. The conse-


quence is that any man that has eyes


keen enough to recognize q drinking


saloon is a candidate for a Boston


Mayor. When we get a stranger in


the town the only places we have to


show him are our schools. We have


not any streets; they are only alleys.


Now, why is all this? Because of this


great race temptation because of this


poison in the blood which we inherit.


We have tried license, and the result


is-here we areI You can't dig up a


hidden history, Christian or Pagan.


in Asia or Europe, that does not con-


tain a license law; and yet despite


our struggles, the same great evil is


dragging US down to-day Is Yankee


ingenuity exhausted? Do we give UP


the struggle? Are we ready to saw,


"Rule the country by republicanism


and the cities by despOtism ?n No,


our ingenuity is not exhausted, for


you Know that Yankee baby of ten


months looks over the side of his era


die, plans a new one, and gets up and


patents it before he is twelve months


old. Laughter. Now, how shall


we grapple with this theme and save


self-government? You cannot rest a


universal ballot box on q drunken


people, for it surely gives them into


the hands of demagogues, and in the


great struggle that looms over the fu-


ture your selfgovernment has the


grOg shop for its greatest foe. We


think we have discovered a remedy,


and we call it prohibition. Some


men don't like it. Well, like the pat


ent medicine peddler on the. cars, we
only ask a trial. ] don't say prohibit


ton is right Though think it isl, but


| say that two centuries of the niedi-
cine called license is failure; and, If
you have not got anything else, you


must own up, take refuge at the feet
of Napoleon or the Car, and set up a


physical force that does not share the
influence of the mob. One hundred
and fifty men own England to-day,
and do not care for the masses, and


they can keep the nineteenth century
at bay. Bring back that state nf things
in New York, unless you can find
some remedy for this underlying stra-
tum that gives you over to the rule of
demagogues. One Of the most elo-
quent of our young temperance lectur-
ers tells story of the richest man in
certain county who offered the half
of his estate to any one who would
give him pOwer to pass ''that doorm
One thing tEat you, or /, or the law
can not do is to put soul into the
wrecked being we call = drunkard !;
but we can slut that door Gapplause], I,
and make the streets safe for a weak
soul to tread, and that is prohibition.
The great struggle of craftsmanship is
to find panacea for this accumulat-
ing evil, and we believe that in prohi-
bition is the underlying safety of the
ballot box Yet we may be wrong
and you may be right, and prohibition
may be something that bears within
itself the seeds of its own failure. But
don't despair. AS long as / live, as
long as a voice is given me and thought
remains, shall contend that the first
great duty of the true statesman in
this country is to find the means of
saving the ballot box from the drunk
enness of the streets, and unless our
statesmen can do this we must own
that the Declaration of Independ-
ence is of limited scope, and that
man, at least of the Saxon race,
can not rule himself. Passing
from this question, we find a second,
vital to the cause of repubIi-
and that is labor. Some
laugh at the workingman, and say
you can not lift labor, and there is no
use in sentimental sympathy with the
inevitable ills of toiling humanity.
| don't believe that. I believe the
time will come when We shall almost
realize the wisdom of Franklin, and
shall put it down as an admitted and
truth that a human being
needs eight hours to sleep, and eight
hours for his soul applause1 ], and that
not his interests merely, but the in
terests of the State, require that the
eight hours for the soul should be
guaranteed to him by all the forces of
civilization. Selfgovernment can not
allow capital t. demoralize labor. No
sheet of profit can be present.
ed large enough to compensate repub-
icanism for this decentralization. The
the laboring class becomes
that moment republican,
sm is dead. Still, we must have the |
We can not do without |
he money kings, and We can not do !
Without individual independence, and !
he craftsmanship of to-day is to mar I
V and reconcile these two indispens-
Ible elements of the future. This
ask is as fearful as that future q mo- (
When Wall street aud /
State street look down into the poor (
mans cradle, they remember that /
hose tiny hands will in due time |
Weld the ballot, and unless wealth 1
lastens to put Intelligence on one side /
md morality on the other side of
hose baby footsteps, its own child


en- must soon stand face to face with |
and ruin. There is one other
question which is of equal signifi-


anee, and that is the woman cues
ion-the right of woman. to labor. I
some look at this from the humani-
arian point of view, and there is |
.bundant reason for so doing. No |
nan can analyze the condition of one
lalf of the human race without his
leart melting at the picture. know
remarkably generous Yankee who
eft the fortune derived from his wife
'ack to her as long as she remained a
widow, but if she married then it
vent TO his sisteri don't think that
would have happened if sixty women
lad set with sixty men in the Massa-


husetts Legislature. Applause ] And


know a still sadder case of a wife
hut up in a madhouse for thirteen
litter months, while her husband re-
used the signature that would have
eleased her, and that was Massachu-
etts lawl And when at last she was
eleased by the intervention of others,
Ter husband was cruelty able to re-
use her last visit to the bedside Of
lpr duino ianUbfpr. and that was I