LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
Boston Monday Lectures.
LABOR,
WITH PRELUDES ON CURRENT EVENTS.
By JOSEPH COOK.
I am perfectly convinced that the real way to elevate the character
of the working classes is to give them a command over the necessaries of
life. Sir Robert Peel.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
^^z Et^erfitiUe Press, CamirtH^e.
//p /
C6^
Copyright, 1880,
By JOSEPH COOK.
All rights reserved.
Withdrawn
Garrett BillLai Institute
Stereotyped by C. J. Peters 4* Son,
7J Federal Street, Boston.
INTRODUCTION.
The object of the Boston Monday Lectures is to present the
results of the freshest German, English, and American scholar-
sliip, on the more important and difficult topics concerning the
relations of Religion and Science.
They were begun in the Meionaon in 1875; and the audiences,
gathered at noon on Mondays, were of such size as to need to
be transferred to Park-street Church in October, 1876, and
thence to Tremont Temple, which was often more than full
during the winter of 1876-77, and in that of 1877-78. The very
capacious auditorium of Tremont Temple was destroyed by
fire in August, 1879 ; and in November, 1879, the lectures were
transferred to the Old South Meeting House, the most interest-
ing of the historic edifices of New England.
The audiences have always contained large numbers of min-
isters, teachers, and other educated men.
The thirty-five lectures given in 1876-77 were reported in the
Boston Daily Advertiser, by Mr. J. E. Bacon, stenographer;
and most of them were republished in full in New York and
London. They are contained in the first, second, and third
volumes of " Boston Monday Lectures," entitled " Biology,"
" Transcendentalism," and " Orthodoxy."
The thirty lectures given in 1877-78 were reported by Mr.
Bacon for the Advertiser, and I'epubli^hed in full in New York
and London. They are contained in the fourth, fifth, and sixth
iv INTRODUCTION.
volumes of " Boston Monday Lectures," entitled " Conscience,"
" Heredity," and " Marriage."
The twenty lectures given in 1878-79 were reported by Mr.
Bacon, for the Advertiser, and republished in full in New York
and London. They are contained in the seventh and eighth
volumes of " Boston Monday Lectures," entitled " Labor " and
" Socialism."
In the present volume some of the salient points are :
1. A definition of Socialism by ite theories, as the legal and
compensated or compulsory and uncompensated transmutation
of private, competing, family, or corjM^ration capital, into pub-
lic, collective, and uncompeting capital.
2. A definition of both Conlmunism and Socialism, by their
tendencies in practice, as involving the abolition of inheritance
and private property, and the expropriation of its present own-
ers (Lecture I.).
3. A definition of natural wages as consisting of at least
twice the cost of the unprepared food of the laborer and his
family (Lecture VI XL).
4. A definition of natural profits (Lectures VIIT. and IX.).
5. A defence of the theory that natural wages and natural
profits are not antagonistic to each other, or that profits do not
necessarily lessen as wages increase (Lecture IX.).
6. A free use of the facts collected by the original investiga-
tions of the Massachusetts Labor Bureau, as to the condition of
working-people, male and female, in factory-towns (Lectures
V.-VII).
7. A consideration of the moral perils of congregated labor
in manufacturing centres (Lectures III. and V.).
8. A discussion of woman's wages, and of the relations of
sex to industry (Lectures V. and VI.).
9. A consideration of the susceptibility of the United States
to communistic an<l socialistic disease, under universal suf-
frage, and of theocratic equality as a remedy for democratic
f(mality (Lectures I. and X.).
10. A defence of the rights of children in factories to the
protection of health and to education (Lecture IV.).
INTRODUCTION". V
The names of the gentlemen constituting the Committee
now in charge of the Boston Monday Lectureship are as fol-
lows :
Hon. A. H. Rice, Ex-Go vemor of Mas- Prof. Edwards A. Park, LL.D., An-
sachusetts. dover Theological Seminary.
Hon. William Claflin, Ex-Governor Rev. J. L. Withrow, D.D.
of Massachusetts. A. Bronson Alcott.
Rev. George Z.Grat, D.D. .Episcopal Russell Sturgis, Jr.
Theological School, Cambridge. Right Rev. Bishop Foster.
Right Rev. Bishop Paddock. Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D.
Prof. E. P. Gould, Newton Theologi- Samuel Johnson.
cal Institution. Prof. B. P. Bownb.
Rev. William M. Baker, D.D. Rev. M. R. Deming.
Rev. William F. Warren, D.D. , Bos- Prof. J. P. Gulliver, Andover Theo-
ton University. logical Seminary.
Prof. L. T. TowNSKND, Boston Univer- President M. B. Anderson, Rochester,
Bity. N.Y.
Rev. L. B. Bates, D.D. Rev. Prof. R. D. Hitchcock, D.D., New
Robert Gilchrist. York.
Prof. E. N. HoRSFORD. Rev. Otis Gibson, San Francisco.
Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., Brooklyn. Rev. A. L. Stone, D.D., San Francisco.
Rev. T. M. Post, D.D., St. Louis. Chancellor L. C. Garland, Vanderbilt
President G. F. Magoun, Iowa College. University, Tenn.
Prof. H. Mead, Oberlin, Ohio. Right Rev. Bishop Huntington, Syra-
Rev. R. G. Hutchins, D.D., Colum- cuse, N.Y.
bus, Ohio. President James McCosh, Princeton,
Prof. S. I. CuRTiss, Chicago Theologi- N.J.
cal Seminary. B. W. Williams, Secretary and Treaa-
HENRY F. DURANT, Chairman.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
Ik the careful reports of Mr. Cook's Lectures printed
in the Boston Daily Advertiser, were included by the
stenographer sundry expressions (applause, S:c.) indicat-
ing the immediate and varjing impressions with which the
Lectures were received. Though these reports have been
thoroughly revised by the author, the publishers have
thought it advisable to retain these expressions. Mr.
CJook's audiences included, in large numbers, representa-
tives of the broadest scholarship, the profoundest philoso-
ph}-, the acutcst scientific research, and generally of the
finest intellectual culture, of Boston and New P^ngland ;
and it has seemed admissible to allow the larger assembly
to which these Lectures are now addressed to know how
they were received b}- such audiences as tliose to which
the}' were originally delivered.
CONTENTS.
LECTUKES.
PASS
I. Infidei, Attack ok Propertt .... 10
II. Secret Socialistic Societies 39
III. EiCH AND Poor in Factory Towns ... 69
IV. Mrs. Browning's Cry of the Children . . 98
Y. Sex in Industry. '1 132
VI. Sex in Industry. II 157
VII. Wages and Children's Rights .... 198
VIII. Natural and Starvation Wages . . . 225
IX. Is Justice a Peril to Capitalists ? . . . 253
X. Are Trades-Unions a Nursery of Socialism ? . 286
PEELUDES.
PAGK
I. Socialistic Politics in Massachusetts . . 3
11. The Regeneration of Asia 31
m. Infidelity and the Mails 59
IV. Professorships on the Relations of Reugion
TO Science 91
V. The Future of Canada 123
VI. Fraud in National Elections .... 149
VII. Drunkenness as a Vice and as a Disease . 185
VIII. Polygamy in Utah 213
IX. National Solvency after Civil War . . 245
X. Roman and Modern International Unity . 275
I.
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PEOPERTY.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TBEMONT TEMPLE, NOV. 4.
The Alpha and Omega of socialism is the transmutation of pri-
vate competing capital into united collective capital. Sch^ffle:
Quintessence of Socialism.
Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In
communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level
with excellence. This damaging equation is repellent to the con-
science, and causes merit to complain. Pboudhox: First Memoir on
Property.
LABOR.
I..
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY.
PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS.
Massachusetts is to give her opinion, before
another sun goes down, concerning the hard-money
political party, and a cheap-jack and burglar, green-
back and greenhorn gang. [Applause.] The first
skirmish in the presidential contest of 1880 will be
fought in this not thoughtless Commonwealth to-mor-
row. An attempt is making to use the chair of Gov.
Andrew as a block to aid a political adventurer into
the saddle of the wild horse of inflation. Sitting
Bull, travelling in Massachusetts under the assumed
name of Denis Kearney, appears in Faneuil Hall in
his shirt-sleeves, and preaches a crusade of the poor
against the rich. Massachusetts weighs him, and
finds him first indecent, then blasphemous, then
shallow [applause], and last, and chief of all, blood-
thirsty.
3
4 LABOR.
The doctrines of the sand-lots of San Francisco
are heard on Boston Common. "Let Fall River
remember that Moscow was burned to ashes."
"Labor must be crowned king, even if it wades
knee-deep in blood." " We stand ready on election
day to take the life of any man, be he United States
supervisor or other officer, who attempts to debar
voters from exercising the right of suffrage." " We,
the working-men, are in the majority, and shall
install our candidate though the streets run with
blood." Language worse than this, I myself heard
uttered by the chief of the California working-men's
party, to a throng of puffing, smoking loafers on a
hill on the Common yonder ; and, turning to watch
the throng, I found in their faces a good deal of
foreign blood. Undoubtedly there were men there
who thought the whole affair a huge joke ; but the
question is, whetlier we can allow, in view of what is
to come in Massachusetts, sentiments of this kind to
be scattered broadcast tlirough the operative popula-
tion.
Eastern Massachusetts is a factory. It is a school
also, I know ; but the factory is not conscious tliat
the sunrise side of this Comntt)nwealth is a school,
nor is the school conscious of tlie fact that the same
side is also a factory. Draw a line north and south,
and anotlier east and west, each dividing the popula-
tion of Massaclmsetts in halves, and the two lines
cross each otlier not far from Mount Auburn. Fall
River, Lowell, Lawrence, this city, as manufacturing
centres, have grown so fast that in 8i)ite of the great
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PKOPEETY. O
increase of the population in the western part of the
State, the popuhition of Massachusetts balances about
a point not five miles west of the State House. This
growth of the manufacturing population has made
New England, not a New Ireland indeed, but the
commencement of one. In certain portions of the
operative population, a hearing can be had for
the devouring absurdities of sand-lot oratory, which
would have no importance were there not powder
near the sparks. The powder is so wet now, that
there will be no explosion, but I am not sure it
always will be. Only the impotence of these incen-
diary harangues prevents their author from being
arrested. While we notice that the speeches are
brainless and blasphemous and bloodthirsty, let us
remember that they are made in the interest and
under the general approval of an aspirant, not only
for the highest political position in this State, but
also for the highest in the nation. I am here as
the representative of no political i)arty, nor of any
church ; but I am by no means venturing too much
in saying that no man ought to vote to put into
public office a candidate who indirectly justifies in-
cendiary appeals of the sort I have described, to the
prejudice of the poor against the rich. [Applause.]
What if these appeals are but the tail of the kite ?
Their rustling is heard at the distance. Having
lately looked on Massachusetts from Washington,
from Toronto, and from the Mississippi Valley ; hav-
ing found only too much power in such ruffian vitu-
peration on the Mississippi ; and having heard, a little
6 LABOE^
more closely at hand than we can here, what sand-
lot oratory has done on the Pacific coast, I am not
willing that the fact should be overlooked that our
State is an operative quarter, and that these appeals,
if allowed to go unrebuked by the Church, and un-
reproved at the ballot-box, must ultimately work
mischief with the half-educated operative population,
largely of foreign origin. I am not speaking of the
skilled operatives, over whom, as a class, a political
quack has little power. It is our fault that any part
of the manufacturing population is half-educated ; it
is our fault that any portion of it have complaints
to make of employers ; it is our fault that occasionally
the faces of low-paid laborers have been ground by
capital ; it is our fault that there is not a good under-
standing between labor and capital, everywhere up
and down the Atlantic coast. But let us not add to
our faults by allowing these speeches, fit for a wild
commiuiist in Paris, to go utterly unrebuked. They
are not as unimportant as you think, in view of our
crowded and hazardous future.
While I would have the factory population of 1980
in our minds, I would liave the Presidential contest
of 1880 there also. Especially am I anxious that
working-men should remember the financial distress
ofC1873.
Were I a manual laborer, and about to vote to-
morrow, I should call my family together, and say:
" How mucli did the ])rice of our necessaries of life
rise between 1860 and 1872?" If the reply were a
correct one, it would be, "Sixty-one per cent."
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PEOPEETY. 7
" How much did our wages rise ? " " Thirty per
cent." Less than half as much ! Statistics gathered
by the Massachusetts Labor Bureau, and by the offi-
cers who took the last national census, show that the
war currency lifted prices sixty-one per cent, and
wages, on the average, thirty per cent. " Fiat-money,
greenback issues," I should remind my family, " made
currency plenty, and prices went up, and business
was lively ; but our wages did not go up as fast as
the prices. Will it help us much to go through that
experience again ? We want fiat-money once more ;
we want a greenback currency; we want to raise
prices! But, if the prices go up faster than our
wages, how are we to be helped by the change ?
How are we to avoid loss by it, and hardsliip ? It is
the notorious history of all inflation, that wages are
the last things to rise, and when they do start upward
they never reach so high a plane as the necessaries of
life. When the fall comes, wages go down quicker
than prices of food." Therefore I should say to
my family, "I purpose to vote for hard money."
Out of pity for the working-men let us stand by the
honest dollar. [Applause.]
The French communist has learned that inflation
is no friend of his interests. The French nation
contracted its currency sharply, and last January
resumed specie-payments. The heresies of those
who defend fiat-money in America would obtain
very little hearing on the Seine. It is a fact also,
however often you may have been assured of the
opposite, that the Bank of England has not sus-
8 LABOR.
pended once since the resumption of specie-payment
after the wars with Napoleon. It has suspended,
occasionally, the bank act, by wliich it was deter-
mined that a certain number of issues should go out
on the basis of a certain amount of reserves; but
never has there been a time since 1823, when the
Bank of England would not pay a pound in gold for
a pound in its promissory notes.
The American people are close upon the great
blessing of resumption. We are so unthoughtful, so
unmindful of what our commercial prosperity has
done for us, that some of us forget the firm land
which our feet almost touch ; on which, indeed, they
are planted, although the feet are slightly under
water : we forget all that prosperity which is just
before us, and wish to turn our faces again to the
bottomless sea.
What has caused hard times in this country ? It
is said to be very difficult to answer that question.
My reply to it is, that the present hard times were
caused by the destruction of property in the war, and
the abuse of credit. There were nine hundred mil-
lions of property struck out of existence by our civil
contest. Suppose that there are ten millionnaires
in the State of Massachusetts ; let them fail, and of
course distress would fall upon many working-men.
We liave thirty-eight States ; let ten millionnaires fail
in every State, we should then have only three hun-
dred and eighty millions swept out of existence, but
what a revulsion tliat would make in commerce !
Nevertheless we had more than twice that amount of
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 9
money sunk by our civil contest, and we borrowed
money to fill up the gap. The government went into
the business of war. This obliged it to go into the
business of borrowing. The government was, as it
were, a great factory, taking operatives from all
quarters of the nation ; and while the war continued,
and while our credit was good, of course times were
lively. Speculators rashly abused credit, and nearly
all men seemed to forget that a pay-day must come.
I will -not say that the government itself abused
credit, for we put a limit to it ; we positively promised
we would issue only a certain number of greenbacks.
Pay-day has come at last, and of course hard times
have appeared in our history. In spite of our burdens,
however, we have lifted ourselves so that resumption
is possible in the United States at the opening of
1879. A political party rises, and proposes to prevent
resumption. It proposes that we should curse our-
selves with a political currency. It proposes to make
prices high by allowing that currency to depreciate.
It proposes, in short, to repeat the disasters a fluctu-
ating currency has already brought upon us.
Let a fiat-currency be scattered over the land, and
let it depreciate, and millions of dollars in value will
be taken away from the value of deposits in the
savings-banks. The widows and orphans sleeping in
attics, families living in cellars, that have somewhat
laid away for a rainy day, and, worse than all that,
the relatives of those men whose graves I paced over
on the battle-field of Gettysburg last Sunday, the
maimed men who came from that field, and others
10 LABOR.
like it, the pensioners of the United States, who
receive now thirty millions annually of the public
money, will find this income depreciated in value
millions of dollars.
Our honor and political peace, and industrial pros-
perity, are more largely at stake than we think.
Vote with 1880 and with 1980 in mind. Remember
1873. So large is the unskilled operative popula-
tion in Massachusetts on the Atlantic slope, and so
has it been misled, that I shall not be surprised if
there is a large vote for monstrous absurdities in
politics. But if there is a victorious vote, if there
shall be saddled upon us the disgrace of appearing
to justify these incendiary speeches and these insane
doctrines of finance, the Massachusetts paper kite,
and its California appendage wound about our neck,
will be large enough to make a fool's-cap for a State
that is not accustomed to wear that style of a helmet.
[Applause.] We must take care of the poor, or they
wUl take care of us. We must take care of dema-
gogues, or they will take care of both the poor and
the rich. [Applause.]
THE LECTURE.
When a bishop of Paris, in 1871, was brought
before Raoul Rigault, one of the boldest of the Com-
munists, the venerable ecclesiastic, addressing his
accusers, said, " Children, what do you wish to do
with me?" "We are your betters," said Rigault,
who was hardly thirty years of age. " Speak as if
to your superiors. Who are you?" The bishop,
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PBOPEETY. 11
whose charities had been known in Paris for a gener-
ation, replied, "I am the servant of God." " Where
does he live ? " asked Rigault. " Everywhere," was
the answer. "Very well," said the Communist,
" send this bishop to prison, and issue an order for
the arrest of one God, who lives everywhere." That
order was never executed; but, until God can be
arrested, communism cannot succeed. [Applause.]
A few days later, Rigault lay on one of the streets
of Paris, half his skull shot away, one eye a clot
of blood, and the other, open, was glaring wildly into
space, as if he saw the Being who cannot be arrested.
It is of little moment whether Germany, France,
England, or America oppose communism or not.
The important question is, whether the Supreme
Powers are communists, and whether they can be
arrested.
We shall best ascertain what the reply to that
question is by asking for a definition of communism
and socialism.
1. Communism, as defined by the official language
of its most radical teachers and by the practical
results to which it tends, means the abolition of
inheritance, the abolition of the family, 'the abolition
of nationalities, ^he abolition of religion, and the
abolition of property.
2. Socialism, as understood by its practical tenden-
cies, means all these five things, except the last.
Communism is the state ownership of all property,
and its enjoyment in common by, the whole popula-
tion. Socialism is state ownership of all property
12 LABOR.
except that which the individual workman himself
must have to supply his personal wants.
The socialist would allow the existence of individ-
ual property. He does not proclaim with Proudhon,
and with all communism of the thorough-going type,
that " property is robbery." But he does not believe
in inheritance. He holds that a man should be
allowed to have only as much property as he can
personally use. The extreme socialist of the French,
German, and Russian type agrees with the com-
munist in clamoring for the abolition of inheritance,
nationality, family, and religion. The International
Society proclaims itself atheist. A procession of
twenty thousand socialists singing ribald songs passed
lately into a cemetery in Berlin through gates on
which were inscribed the words, " There is no here-
after."
At the bottom of socialism there is disbelief in
the family ; and, although tlie family is not in the
chronological order the first point of attack, it is in
the logical order; for, when once the family is
destroyed as a social institution, there will be less
reason for maintaining the laws of inheritance, or,
indeed, any of our present regulations concerning
property. I am not asserting that all socialists
understand by socialism these four things, or that all
communists would accept my definition ; but the
ringleaders, the positive men, in both socialistic and
communistic circles, hold these notions. I am not
accusing trades-unions of liolding them, altliough
the foremost of American newspapers has endeav-
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PEOPEKTY. 13
ored to prove that American trades-unions are in
far too close alliance with secret socialistic organiza-
tions.
Many well-meaning people are supporting positions
more or less socialistic, and abhor the extremes of
socialism, strictly so called. But the central force of
any great movement in public sentiment usually
draws into its current, first or last, the subsidiary rip-
ples. In practical conflict on the field of politics,
all great causes generalize themselves, and minor
details drop out of view. The question between
North and South in our civil war was that between
freedom and slavery, with details omitted. The
broad issue between communism and socialism on
the one hand, and the Christian commonwealth on
the other, is the contrast between atheism and
theism. It comes at last to be an irrepressible con-
flict between an atheistic and a theistic arrangement
of society. The modern socialistic question is,
whether God shall be, or shall not be, arrested ; or,
rather, whether the order shall be given for his arrest
or not. i\re the Supreme Powers in favor of the ab-
olition of the family ? Are they in favor of the aboli-
tion of the laws of inheritance ? Are they in favor
of such a re-organization of society as would require
the uprooting of several of the deepest instincts in
human nature ? Surely the love of home and the
love of property are two of the strongest passions in
man. The question is, whether the Supreme Powers
are levellers up or levellers down. I hope they are
the former, and that the progress of the ages- will
14 LABOK.
show that their plan in this respect must come to
fruition. But the plan of socialism, the plan of
communism, is levelling down. The distinction be-
tween white republicanism and red republicanism,
between American constitutional republicanism and
Parisian communistic democracy, is that the one
levels up, and the other levels down. If I am not
mistaken, the Supreme Powers are on the side of the
levellers up, and exceedingly against the levellers
down. [Applause.]
It is a common impression, that American society
is incapable of being infected to any large degree by
the wild socialistic notions produced chiefly by the
political evils of the Old World. We have a largely
unoccupied and a monumentally free country. We
have no law of primogeniture, no aristocracy, and no
privileged classes. There never can arise in Amer-
ica, some of us think, any great danger from either
communistic or socialistic notions. In view of this
position of public sentiment, I beg leave to raise for
serious discussion the question : How large is * the
susceptibility of America to communistic and social-
istic political disease ?
1. The United States are soon to be the wcaltlii-
est of all nations.
2. In proportion to the wealth of a nation on the
Avhole, has heretofore been the inequality of its citi-
zens as to wealth.
3. It appears to bo inevitable, therefore, that, as
tlie ridiost of all nations, the United States will
exhibit large inequalities of wealth among their
citizens.
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PEOPERTY. 15
4. In Christendom, as a whole, the inequality of
men as to wealth, although slavery has been abol-
ished, is greater now than it was four hundred or
one hundred years ago.
5. On account of the growth of all means of inter-
communication, modern civilization is marked by a
disproportionate increase of the size of city popula-
tions.
6. From this results the massing of both capital
and labor at the great centres of population.
7. The massing of capital strengthens it. The
massing of labor weakens it.
8. Universal suffrage in the United States is sure
to carry questions between capital and labor into
politics.
9. It is at present estimated that fifteen hundred
thousand voters belong to secret organizations in the
United States.
10. It is their avowed purpose to acquire political
power, and to govern the country in such a way as
to cripple capital and promote the interests of man-
ual laborers.
11. Demagogues, therefore, are likely to make use
of this issue to lift themselves into power, and have
already commenced their work on a large scale.
12. No hereditary aristocracy in America, and no
king is likely to appear here to keep order.
13. The United States are the only nation in
which questions between capital and labor cannot be
settled by force, and must be settled by reason.
14. The safety of republican institutions in the
16 LABOE.
United States depends on the prevention of the
formation of four classes here : an indigent class,
an unemployed class, an ignorant class, an unprinci-
pled class.
15. The only effectual means of preventing the for-
mation of the first three of these classes is to prevent
the formation of the fourth.
16. The keynote of safety for society is not demo-
cratic but theocratic equality. [Applause.]
The commercial greatness of England commonly
dazzles politicians and men of affairs. Her foremost
statesman has lately printed the opinion that in the
race of commercial prosperity the United States are
passing Great Britain by with swiftness and ease.
Mr. Gladstone thinks that the census of 1880 will
show that the United States and not England is the
wealthiest of all nations. The income of the United
Kingdom is now a thousand million pounds annually.
This enormous fortune has been accumulated so
rapidly, that if Great Britain had started from noth-
ing fifty years ago, and progressed at the rate of the
recent annual increment of her wealth, she would
have now not far from her present income. " While
we liave been advancing with this portentous rapid-
ity," says Mr. Gladstone, "America is passing us
by in a canter." (^North American Jleview, Septem-
ber and October, 1878, p. 181.) Mr. Gladstone ven-
tures to proclaim to England that America can and
probably will wrest from Great Britain the far-
stretclied, glittering, massive sceptre of her commer-
cial supremacy. "We have no title," says Mr.
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 17
Gladstone, " and I have no inclination to murmur at
the prospect. Jf America acquires commercial su-
pijemacy, she will make the acquisition by the right
of the strongest ; but in this instance the strongest
means the best. She will probably become what we
are now, the head servant in the great household of
the world, the employer of all employed, because her
service will be the most and ablest. We have no
more title against her than Venice, or Genoa, or Hol-
land has had against us. There can hardly be a
doubt, as between the America and England of the
future, that the daughter, at some no very distant
time, will, whether fairer or less fair, be unquestion-
ably yet stronger than the mother."
" matre forti fiUa fortiori " (Ibid., pp. 180, 181.)
Thus, weighing all his syllables, speaks the fore-
most statesman of a power of which our Webster
used to like to say that her morning drum-beat, fol-
lowing the sun and keeping company with the hours,
encircles the world with one continuous strain of the
martial airs of England.
Pardon me, gentlemen, if I ask you not to under-
rate America commercially. At your leisure in your
libraries, will you cover the United States on the
map [illustrating on Guyot's wall-atlas hung on the
platform], and then take up the screening object, and
place it on the Roman Empire. Caesar's dominion
will be more than hidden. Open your compasses
until you touch on the one side Boston and on the
other San Francisco, and you have separated them
so widely that they cannot be put down anywhere
18 LABOR.
within the bounds of Caesar's domain. The longest
line that can be drawn inside the old Roman Empire
will not reach from Boston to San Francisco. The
Roman eagles, when their wings were strongest,
never flew as far as from Plymouth Rock to the
Golden Gate. The Roman Empire lay on the shoul-
der of the planet in shape like a boy's fish-reel, its
four corners, London in England, Thebes in Egypt,
the Straits of Gibraltar, and the frosty Caucasus.
Open your compasses until you touch on the one
side London, and on the other Thebes, and you have
not separated them as far as you must to span the
green fields and steepled cities between the surf of
the Bay of Fundy and the waterfalls of the Yo-
semite. Open them again until they touch Gibraltar
on the one hand, and the Caucasian range on the
other, and you have not separated them widely
enough to touch on the one hand the Florida reefs
and on the other the
" Continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings."
Allow me to pluck up the territory of the Ameri-
can Union as Milton's angels did the liills of heaven ;
and employ the mass as a pattern, and endeavor to cut
from some other portion of the globe another piece
like it. I place one corner of it upon London, and
the other corner projects beyond Thebes in Egypt.
I place a corner on the Caucasian range, and another
corner juts into the Atlantic Ocean beyond Gibraltar.
This stretch of territory in the United States is all,
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 19
or nearly all, good land; while the interior of the
Roman Empire was composed of the sterile plain of
the Mediterranean. Where else can you cut out of
the globe a continuous empire equal to that which
the United States occupy? Bigness is not greatness.
Few Americans are of such a cheap mood as to think
that because we are to be the wealthiest, we are to
be the happiest of all nations. Physical size, how-
ever, is opportunity, and opportunity occupied is
greatness. A territory equal in size to ours [illus-
trating on the map] might be cut out of the tawny
shoulders of Africa, but it would be principally com-
posed of blistering sands. You might cut it out of
the mighty shoulders of Russia and Northern Asia,
but it would be nearly all a stretch of sluggish streams
locked in ice six months of the year, and fringed with
stunted willows and birches. You might cut it out of
Western and Central Asia, but a great portion of it
would consist of the rainless regions of Arabia and
Persia. Endeavor to cut it from Southern Asia, and
the Himalayas and the sterile stretches of Thibet are
in the way. Cut it from the Chinese side of Asia,
and the northern portion of it would reach into the
desolate Arctic plain. I thus show you by ocular
demonstration that there is no place on the earth
from which you could cut a continuous territory
equal to that of the United States, unless it be in
South America itself. There is a tract of fertile
land so large that when we add it to the tract in
North America we have no hesitation in agreeing
with scholars that the larger number of the arable
20 LABOR.
acres of the planet are on the American side of the
globe.
Mr. Gladstone says that " the distinction between
continuous empire, and empire severed and dispersed
over sea, is vital." (^Ihid., p. 180.) The American
Union has a territory fitted to be the base of the
largest continuous empire ever established by man.
For geographical reasons we cannot well avoid comr
mercial pre-eminence in the world. I am proud of
America because of her physical capacity ; I am afraid
of America for the same reason : and yet, for politi-
cal and geograpliical reasons taken together, I had
rather be an American to-day than a Roman under
Caesar, or a Briton under Victoria. [Applause.]
Compared with the Hayeses and Tildens of our
future, and the prizes at their disposal, Ca)sar,
Antony, and Lepidus were schoolboys, playing with
marbles. The most powerful inspirations to patriot-
ism arise from the great scale of America ; and from
the same source will arise also gigantic temptations
to greed and fraud. It is none too early for us to
fasten attention upon the fact that the wealthiest of
all nations will give enormous opportunity to capital.
American society will, no doubt, exhibit great in-
equalities, not so much between classes, as between
conditions in life. We have no classes. Democratic
society is so arranged that tho poor man can rise if
he have ability. The cripples and the roughs sink
to a low, but by no means to a politically ptnver-
Icss, position in American society. There will be an
unpruicipled class at the bottom of our great cities,
DTFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 21
because a man who has principle and energy can rise.
Instead of having a lower class filled with a certain
traditional pride in its own position, instead of having
a peasantry that may possess great virtues, we are
likely to have a lower class made up of roughs,
sneaks, and cripples. Culls go to the bottom in free
society. That is very unpopular doctrine, but it is
high time to proclaim it. In the future contests
between capital and labor in this country, I antici-
pate a fierceness and absurdity, at times, in the
demands of labor, that are rarely found, even in the
Old World. I anticipate also, a high, daring unscru-
pulousness, at times, on the part of the fifth-rate busi-
ness managers, such as is rarely met with in the Old
World ; for nowhere on the globe will the arms of capi-
tal reach around such enormous enterprises as here.
All this, you say, is the language of an alarmist.
Will you remember the Pittsburg riots, and what
might have happened if they had been a little more
extensive ? It has been my fortune to move across
the Mississippi Valley several times since I had the
honor to stand here last; and I am impressed with
great respect for those who say that the railway inter-
communications of this nation might be put at the
mercy of strikers, communists, and secret socialistic
organizations, were they only supported by political
sentiment enough to impede for any considerable time
the action of the repressing arm of the executive in
the state and nation.
America has a railway arm, and a water arm.
Stretching from the Pacific, as from a shoulder, the
22 LABOR.
railway arm ends in a hand which clasps the Atlantic
coast. One finger ends at Baltimore, and you call it
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ; another at Phila-
delphia, and you call it the Pennsylvania Central;
another at New York, and you call it the Erie ;
another at Boston, and you call it the New York
Central ; another plunges north of the Great Lakes,
and drops down to Portland, you call it the Grand
Trunk. These gigantic fingers unite in a palm, cov-
ering Ohio and Indiana, and behind the palm we
have the railway wristlet at Chicago. This is the
most important railway centre on the globe, and is
likely to be so for many years to come. The water
arm is the Mississippi, stretching northward from the
Gulf, as from a shoulder, and opening its palm upon
the upper part of its valley. St. Louis is the water
wristlet upon that arm. Folded across the breast of
our beloved America, these arms are yet full of
health ; but what if the absurdities of socialism, what
if strikes, what if the discontent of labor and of an
unemployed and indigent and ignorant population in
cities, were to settle as poison in the joints of these
wristlets, in a more thickly populated land? Who
does not see that a million five hundred thousand
voters in secret political organizations might paralyze
the executive arm of the State in which a strike or
riot should occur, and so might give us trouble for
more than three days and an hour ? This vast chain
of intercommunication between the West and the
East, if broken at one link, is broken everywhere for
the time. These railways stretch out to millions of
mFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 23
working-men who live in the joints. When one
little joint at Pittsburg was attacked with disease,
the whole arm felt the pain ; the shoulder felt it ;
the finger-tips felt it. You drove the disease out of
the finger-tips. But it seized on many a joint.
Several of the knuckles had poison in them. The
wrist was only kept free of disease by a pretty severe
application of the pressure of military force. It was
my fortune to be in Chicago at the time when soldiers
were expected from the Indian reservations ; and
when a general, the moment he reached the railway-
station in that Western city, was seized and put upon
the shoulders of the glad citizens, and carried away
to his post of duty in triumph. Mobs were put down
by musketry in several parts of Chicago. If that
city did not tremble during the days of the Pittsburg
riots, it was certainly ill at ease. Give me a million
or two of voters in secret organizations, and in sym-
pathy with strikes ; give me a few desperate dema-
gogues, calculating all the chances of politics, and
ruling a quarter of our press; give me an average
population of two hundred to the square mile In
the United States ; multiply the perishing and dan-
gerous classes in our large cities in proportion to
that increase of the size of the general population,
and I undertake to say that the wealthiest nation
of the globe may be neither the happiest nor the
strongest. [Applause.]
Universal suffrage is not likely to be narrowed
much in our time. Even if the reading-test were
applied, although it would do good, it would not
24 LABOR.
free us from the power of demagogues to lead the
discontent between labor and capital into such riot as
to bring at times perils upon trade. We certainly
have nothing to depend upon here but public senti-
ment and the national will. I read in " The Atlantic
Monthly " an article of high merit, on certain dan-
gerous tendencies in American life ; but in the next
number I find a criticism upon it^ to the effect that
the only way to keep the United States in order is to
reduce instruction for the masses, to reading, writing,
and arithmetic. Does any thing calling itself culture
dare to dream that we shall ever do that ?
" Preach the gospel to every creature ; " that is the
command [applause], obedience to which has brought
into the world most of our present political difficulties,
and obedience to which, if continued, will drive them
out. [Applause.] A continent of humanity is rising
from under the sea, and for a while it may be a pes-
tilential swamp ; but the remedy is not to stop its
rising, and crush it back into chaos. The remedy is
to keep lifting it, lifting it, until all its morasses are
firm, sweet land. [Applause.]
Let us fasten your attention upon the great out-
lines of our means of safety. They are the preven-
tion of the formation of an impecunious class, of an
imemployed class, and of an ignorant and an unprin-
cipled class.
If we are to attack the evils which lead to the
formation of these four classes, we shalldo well to
strike first at the tap-root the unprincipled class,
the morally uneducated class. There must ceaso to
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PROPERTY. 25
be an unprincipled class, or there will be an ignorant
class, and then an unemployed class, and then an im-
pecunious class, and then an explosive class, lying
under the sparks of the oratory of demagogues.
There is nothing attracting more attention through-
out the world to-day, than the methods of preventing
the formation of these four classes in Christendom ;
and there is nothing but Christian endeavor that ever
can prevent the formation of an unprincipled class.
[Applause.] We shall not call on writers of cipher
despatches to enter into that business. [Applause.]
Lord Beaconsfield stands now in the eye of the
world ; and, when he was younger by some thirty
years, he wrote a book called " Tancred," in which
many of the ideas he is now carrying out were ex-
pressed. You remember that he sends a young Eng-
lish lord from the Thames to the Jordan in search
of remedies for the social and political evils of
Europe. We have had a diffusion of liberty. Lord
Beaconsfield says, and to some extent of intelligence
and property ; but the people are not happy. Here
is the man whom Carlyle calls the Hebrew sorcerer,
leading English lords and British interests as by some
charm of superior blood. This aristocrat, this guide
of the privileged classes, makes his English lord
finally kneel down at the Holy Sepulchre and at
Bethany and in Bethlehem, to obtain from the Un-
seen Powers a response to his prayer for guidance as
to the healing of the nations. He passes through
the jaws of death at Petra. Finally, in the mid-
night of Sinai, Tancred, as you remember, goes alone
26 LABOB.
to the spot where the law was delivered, kneels down
there under the mysterious brightness of the Eastern
stars, offers prayer in agony, falls at last into a
trance, and, looking up, he beholds the genius of
Christianity with her hands spread over the conti-
nents. The response his petition received from her
was in these words. Lord Beaconsfield's own, the
summit of his wisdom as a man of affairs :
" The equality of men can only be accomplished
by the sovereignty of God. The longing for frater-
nity can never be satisfied but under the sway of a
common Father. Announce the sublime and solacing
doctrine of theocratic equality." (^Tancred,t Book
iv., chap, viii.)
What does this message mean ? It signifies that
in a just organization of politics men will encourage
what God encourages, and repress what God re-
presses. It means that in a perfect organization of
society the bad man is not the equal of the good
man, but that whoever is loyal to God, him God and
all good men will help. In short, the ideas of dem-
ocratic equality and of theocratic equality conflict
now in the world ; and America, going back to the
ideas of our fathers, would be going back only to
the ideas of Beaconsfield ; only to the ideas of De
Tocqueville and Burke, who tell us that men never
so much need to be theocratic as when they are the
most democratic; only to the ideas of Chi'istiauity
from its first age to the present hour. Let us lift
high above all clouds of class animosity, and polit-
ical intrigue, the great ensign, bearing for its motto.
INFIDEL ATTACK ON PEOPEKTY. 27
Theocratic Equality. Whenever the Church does
that in America, she will see in the heavens above
the banner, a Cross appearing, and above that the
words : By this sign conquer ! [Applause.]
n.
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, NOV. 11.
Was ist des freiesten Freiheit ? Becht zu thun I (Jokthb:
Egmont, Act IV.
Though we are willing to admit poverty and passion into the
franchise, we are not willing to give iwverty and passion the lion's
share of political power over capital and knowledge. Sib E. B.
Lytton.
n.
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES.
PEELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS.
The regeneration of Asia is a colossal event, yet
far off, but approaching us with an assured, and of
late accelerated step. Great Britain is now essen-
tially an Asiatic power. This, indeed, is the claim of
the leader of the present administration in the United
Kingdom ; and Lord Salisbury has said that the
boundaries of Turkey are in some sense the bounda-
ries of England. It is very interesting for Americans
to notice how several dazzling illusions concerning
the English occupation of Cyprus, and the reform of
the Turkish Empire under British political pressure,
have been dissipated by the progress of events ; and
how the present attitude of sober thought appears to
be represented by the cool proposition long ago
advocated by this statesman on my left [turning
towards the venerable Dr. Rufus Anderson, for many
years Secretary of the American Board of Foreign
Missions] that religious rather than political causes
must be relied upon to regenerate Asia Minor.
31
32 LABOR.
[Applause.] I am fortunate in speaking in pres-
ence of a leader of American effort not only in Asia
Minor, but in India, in China, and in Japan, and in
the islands of the sea. Yours has been the advocacy
of an imperialism before which all the glittering fan-
cies of a Beaconsfield pale. [Applause.] Sir, Lord
Beaconsfield is the left hand of reform in Turkey,
but the work you have been doing is the right hand.
[Applause.] The left hand needs the right, and the
right the left; but the left needs its brother more
than the right does. God grant that the two may
be clasped in sympathy British political influence
opening the way for American religious effort in
Turkey, and American religious effort preparing a
field for those reforms which Great Britain would
force upon the Sultan!
It appears to be ascertained at last by the news-
papers of the United Kingdom, that a majority of the
Mohammedans in Turkey are not Turks, but Arabs ;
that many of them are mountain tribes, almost
entirely beyond the control of the Sublime Porte;
and that concessions wrung from the Sultan may be
entirely refused by the Kurds, Yezidees, Copts and
Druses, Maronites and Turcomans, Osmanlis, Per-
sians, Gypsies, and Hindu-Fakirs, which make up the
motley mass of the population of Turkey in Asia.
Wlioever has lived long in the East will look with
delight upon the pressure England is bringing to
bear upon the Sultan, but not with perfect expecta-
tion of the swift success of this incitement to reform.
It is understood thorouglily well in the East, that the
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 33
Sultan is not omnipotent, and that it is as yet impos-
sible for him, even with the aid of England, to carry
through great political changes in the face of the
Koran, without inciting religious wars and setting
population to massacre population.
When I look toward that portion of Asia which
now draws the attention of the whole world, the
most hopeful signs of progress are not, in my judg-
ment, to be found in the British occupation of
Cyprus, nor in the project of a railway from the
Syrian coast to the head of the Persian Gulf, al-
though such a road must be built before many years.
The distance is only that from Boston to Chicago.
My hope for Asia Minor is in a series of facts illus-
trating the usefulness of American teachers, physi-
cians, and missionaries there. Indeed, Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe used to say that the future of the East
depended on these men, and Lord Beaconsfield him-
self has lately been di:awing his best information from
the reports of Americans in Asia. I undertake to
affirm that in the mission-houses of Boston and New
York, more complete and more authentic information
concerning the present condition and possible future
of Turkey can be found, than in the archives of the
Turkish Empire itself. [Applause.]
The Halys, the Araxes, the Cydnus, the Tigris,
the Euphrates, the Orontes, and the Meander yet
roll on to the sea, as they did when they were the
burden of classic Grecian song, and the scene of
imperial events in history. The pleasant lands
through which Xenophon led the retreat of the
34 LABOB.
Greeks, and Alexander and the Crusaders marched
to their victories in the East, are dear to American
sympathies. America gave to Syria the first scien-
tific traveller, the first translation of the Bible into
Arabic, the first printing-press, the first modern
church, the first college. In 1878, Americans print-
ed at Beirut 56,000 volumes and 11,264,027 pages in
Arabic.
When Cyrus Hamlin, who in many particulars
deserves to be called the father of education in
Turkey, went abroad, there was not a school-book
in any of the languages spoken by the people of
the Empire. Now we have a long list, not only of
text-books on grammar, rhetoric, logic, chemistry,
surveying, history, zoology, mental and moral phi-
losophy, political economy, chemistry, anatomy, phys-
iology, and medicine, but also of the best English
works on distinctively Christian truth; and these
in the Armenian, the Turkish, and the Arabic
tongues. There are fifteen thousand pupils in com-
mon schools which owe their origin to American
influence. In the high schools and colleges founded
by Americans for young men and women, fifteen
hundred are already gathered. But the facts which
strike publiij attention most at a distance are the
steady shining of Robert College at Constantinople,
since 1862 a beacon-light on that stormy coast
between Asia and Europe ; the steady flame of the
Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, since 1865, as
many pupils in it now as in Williams College, and
as able a corps of professors; the gleaming of tho
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 35
Central Turkey College at Aintab, behind the hills ;
and the effort to light up another torch God bless
the attempt! at Harpoot, on the flashing waters
of the upper Euphrates. [Applause.] These are
American lighthouses on a dark Mohammedan coast,
where a very hungry surf roars yet, and the
beaches have been strewn with wrecks for six hun-
dred years.
More than one American physician has laid down
his life to teach Asia Minor the healing art. When
Dr. West, a graduate of Yale College, after eighteen
years of faithful service as a physician in Turkey,
was on his death-bed, prayers were offered for his
recovery in the Armenian churches and Mohammedan
mosques. He had performed some fourteen hundred
operations on the eye alone, and the thousands of
people of all tribes and tongues who followed his
body to the grave regarded him as a national bene-
factor.
Newspapers little by little acquire popular power
under American guidance in Turkey. A slight sim-
mering caused by American fire may be heard around
the whole torpid "edge of the kettle of stagnant water
which we call the Turkish Empire.
Polygamy begins to be questioned. Two genera-
tions ago it was an insult to a Mohammedan to ask
after the health of his wife and daughters. The posi-
tion of woman in Asia Minor has been so changed in
the last fifty years that not infrequently now you may
hear a Mohammedan polygamist saying, "My wife
knows how to read." He is proud of the fact, and
86 LABOR.
this is an immense advance. With the introduction
of even a slight amount of intelligence there comes
an opening for religious truth. The predecessor of
commerce and of any large political reform in Tur-
key must be Christianity. You must diffuse consci-
entiousness and modern ideas in a measure through
the Turkish clans before you can mould them like
wax in the fingers of political power.
Do you say that Japan shows how a nation may
be reformed by means of political instrumentalities
alone? Native Japanese scholars tell us that the
exterior of life has changed there, but that the es-
sence of life remains yet largely unaltered. (North
American Review^ November and December, 1878,
p. 406.) An immense seething is going on in Japan.
That pot boils ; the scum is at the top, and will be
removed in due time ; but we have not yet lifted the
scum from the bottom of the Turkish kettle as a
whole. After all application of American and Brit-
ish iire, the simmering is hardly audible yet, if you
listen from this side of the Atlantic.
Into this population, sunk in polygamy ; into those
Mohammedan quarters where, as our Seward said
when he came back from his tour around the world,
there is no home and no social life, the leading
political party in England proposes to introduce the
hands of British imperialism, pushed by the Beacons-
field cabinet. Turkey is yet very cold wax to manip-
ulate. My feeling is that until religious efforts have
been carried much further in Asia Minor than they
have been heretofore, its manipulation by the strong
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 37
political grasp of Russia and England may break the
wax, indeed, but not mould it into the patterns de-
sired by those who apply the political pressure. I do
not expect from political sources the regeneration of
Asia; but I do expect from these strong arms the
breaking down of high walls of exclusiveness, and
the opening of Asia to better than political influ-
ences. Is the power that has done most to reform
Asia Minor religious effort ready to go forward
with its enterprises there? Beaconsfield opens the
Turkish gate : our opportunity is great and alluring.
America has entered Asia on the west side by
schools and colleges ; what is she to do on the east-
ern? Politicians of California tell us the Chinese
cannot be made Christians. The governor of Cali-
fornia says that there are no signs that education
and religious efforts are to bring the Chinese into
connection with the churches in America. The
same mail that brings us that intelligence from the
governor brings intelligence from the men who work
in the Chinese quarters, that there are at this mo-
ment in California near four hundred Chinese mem-
bers of American churches. [Applause.] There is
nothing the Chinese on the Pacific coast desire more
than a knowledge of the English language ; and to
how much is this the key ? A stately Chinese del-
egation at Washington is honorably received, and
the Burlingame treaty is not yet annulled. When I
listen in the Far West to the subterranean voices of
public sentiment, I find that the politicians of the
fourth and fifth rank and the hoodlums are against
38 LABOR.
the Chinese, but that a very different sentiment pre-
vails with the educated public and with the best
business-men of the Pacific coast. [Applause.]
Great historical forces now give America an im-
mense opportunity to make California a door to
China on the east, while Beaconsfield opens the door
to America in Asia on the west. The certainty is
that we have an opportunity in California to 'give
Christianity and modern education a good reputation
with thousands of Chinamen who come into imme-
diate contact with American civilization. It is prob-
able, that, before many years pass, cheap factories
will be built in China, and our machines bought and
set up there. I do not know what business-men
are thinking of when they propose to drive the Chi-
nese out of California. There will be a demand for
cheap wares in China, and we can supply the Chi-
nese trade if we are commercially skilful ; otherwise
we shall be undersold by the Cliinese themselves.
The best of our inventions will be copied by one of
the most imitative nations on the globe. We can
have the carrying trade of the Pacific if we want it.
Let us secure the introduction into China of a good
opinion concerning Christianity and education. Let
us support the reform in Japan which now seems
to promise to make that island the England of the
Pacific. Let us deepen the moral and educational
influence of America in Asia at both its eastern and
western gates.
Providence, as I judge, does not intend to draw
the immense arras of the British Empire back into
SECEET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 39
their shell. I confess that I have more sympathy
with Beaconsfield imperialism than with a certain
narrow insular parochial policy on the part of some
of his English opponents, who would give up the
colonies of Great Britain, and would allow the east-
ern larger half of the United Kingdom to dissolve
if it pleases. Perhaps God means to keep in order
great portions of the world, through the arms of
England stretched toward the sunrise and t^iose of
America stretched toward sunset. [Applause.] I
am not too bold in hoping that the time may come
when English-speaking nations will keep treaties
with each other ; will have no war with each other
without first trying arbitration as a remedy; will
little by little codify their international regulations
so as to have common copyrights and patent laws,
and thus come slowly into a commercial alliance that
will strike a universal peace through half the conti-
nents and all the seas. [Applause.]
THE LECTURE.
Let us imagine ourselves assembled in the ruins
of the Tuileries, or within sound of the pistol-shots
lately fired at one of the most paternal of emperors,
or in sight of the flash of the weapon of Vera Sassu-
litch in St. Petersburg, and of seven similar subse-
quent attempts there to take the lives of Russian
officials. If these scenes are too distant to produce
any deep effect upon our sensibilities, will you be
good enough to assemble within view of the flames of
the railway-riots at Pittsburg in 1877, at a time when
40 LABOR.
at least ten American towns were kept in order by
musketry.
When the railway-riots in the United States were
suppressed in 1877, the work of the formation of
secret labor organizations was taken up with vigor.
It has progressed at such speed that within the
last six months very interesting facts have become
public concerning three or four important secret
labor organizations more or less socialistic in their
character. I am quite aware that I cannot speak
from personal study of these veiled socialistic socie-
ties. Outside of the membership of these organiza-
tions, there are not twenty men in the United States
who can describe them from actual observation ;
and yet, throwing a drag-net over all current publi-
cations, and some secret sources of information, I
have been enabled to bring together a number of
facts which appear to me to be very suggestive. In
order to give them the proper emphasis, I must go
back for a moment, to the European birth of certain
American communistic parties.
Here is the great philosopher Fichte, teaching in
Berlin, and he inculcates the doctrine that every man
has a right to life, and therefore to the opportunity
to earn a living. If a man has no opportunity to
earn a living, he must steal. Fichte taught this, and
that such theft is not theft, but just reprisal against
society. There are certain books by Fichte, rarely
read, called " The Foundation of Natural Right," and
" The Closed State," and " The Reason State," and
in them thoroughly revolutionary political doctrines
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 41
are taught. Fichte demanded from the state the
right of labor. If a man cannot live by his labor, he
is not left in the enjoyment of his absolute property,
that is, his life ; and is thenceforth not obligated to
acknowledge the property of any other man, since
the contract of the state to secure to every one his
own property has been violated. Such a man must
be aided, lest property become insecure. At the
same time, Fichte demands that the state shall tole-
rate no idlers. (See Hubek, Professor J., article on
Social Democracy in Germany, International Review^
November and December, 1878, p. 803.)
Ferdinand Lasalle, the first important name among
the agitators in the socialistic circles of Germany,
was a pupil of Fichte. He adhered throughout life
to his master's philosophical, 'as well as to his political
theories. He never became a materialist, but was an
idealist and pantheist to his death, in a duel, in 1864,
at the age of thirty-eight. The German socialists
now render to his memory almost divine honors. It
is Fichte that speaks in Lasalle.
Karl Marx, who gathered his knowledge of com-
munism largely from French sources, abandoned the
idealism and pantheism of Hegel and Fichte, adopted
a coarse materialism as his creed, adjusted to it
the doctrines of Hiickel, that the soul is only the
result of matter in motion, that there is no immor-
tality, and that conscience points out no authoritative
code of morality. " With me," says Marx, " the ideal
is simply matter transformed and translated in the
human head." Religion, he thinks, is opium for the
42 LABOE.
people. There is nothing divine in man ; there is no
celestial spark in him, according to Marx. Saturated
with this materialistic philosophy, he finds it very
easy to adopt false doctrines concerning the family ;
very easy, after having abolished the family in his
sclieme of thought, to draw his trenches aroimd in-
heritance, and so to abandon the ideas of the modern
world concerning transmission of property, and
plunge onward with his followers into the abyss of
communism.
In Lasalle you find the eloquence of a cultivated
Jew, and also in Karl ]\Iarx, for both these men are
of Jewish descent. Lasalle obtained a very extensive
education in jurisprudence, in liistory, and political
economy, and was an exceedingly brilliant pam-
phleteer. He had many interviews with Bismarck,
and once predicted publicly that the latter would
jjlay the part of Sir Robert Peel, and declare himself
in favor of universal suffrage.
Lasalle's central demand was for governmental aid
to labor. Here is the burgher class, lie used to say
to the peasants of Germany ; when rich men wish to
build railways, the State aids them. When you wish
to found co-operative enterprises, why should not the
State aid you ? Universal suffrage ought to be pro-
claimed, and the fourth class should come into power.
The laboring masses should found i)roducers' associ-
ations on the hirgest scale. The State should secure
to the creditors of such associations the payment of
the interest on their capital. Thus the government
should assist labor in its penury to obtain buildings,
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 43
machinery; tools, and raw material for manufactures.
The producers' associations should take into the
managing partnership all their hired laborers, and
gradually form themselves into a credit assurance.
Over-production should be prevented bj the State.
Lasalle thought these clumsy schemes would change
the face of the world in fifty years, so that it would
not be recognized as the same world. A few of his
ideas, no doubt, were sound, if taken out of their
combination with the rest ; but his political philoso-
phy, as a whole, was ludicrously shallow. He can
hardly be called a communist, however: he was a
political liberal of a dangerous type. (See Meh-
EING, Die Deutsche SocialdemoTcratie, Bremen, 1878.)
It is important to make a broad distinction be-
tween four styles of political sentiment concerning
the distribution of property : first, co-operation, a very
judicious scheme in many cases, though unsuccessful
thus far in most instances where it has been tried ;
next, political liberalism ; then, below that, socialism ;
and, at the bottom of all, communism.
Many who call themselves socialists are only politi-
cal liberalists ; for socialism, defined by its actual
effects in practice, is now atheistic, and so is com-
munism, and it is with these two lower ranges of
political sentiment that I have always to do. Possi-
bly you think that I am giving too stern accounts
of the ringleaders among communists and socialists,
but I undertake to say that extreme communism
is so black that you cannot easily do it injustice.
The Russian nihilist, the German extreme socialist,
44 LABOR.
believes in no hereafter, and in no God. One of
the most popular labor-songs in Germany has this
couplet :
" Der ist ein Lump, der eines Gottes Namen
In Wort und Schrift demiithig anerkennt."
" Only a vagabond will humbly own
There is a God with word and pen."
If a man is to have no future existence, and no
judge, he may do as he pleases, except in so far as
enlightened selfishness forbids. If our only chance
is here, we may as well take what we can get. Fif-
teen thousand socialists in a procession passed into a
cemetery in Berlin, not long ago, and twenty thousand
in another procession on another occasion, and buried
comrades with orations asserting that there is no
immortality. Berlm held her breath when that pro-
cession moved tlirough the streets, because she feared
a riot in all the slums, and did not know what attack
miglit be made on property. When the pistol-shots
at the Emperor were fired, it is not a wonder she was
alarmed.
What has happened in Germany? Why, on the
death of Lasalle, certain German working-men.
Frenchmen also, and Poles, and Bohemians, met at
St. Martin's Hall in London. The date was 18G4.
They founded the International Society, now dis-
banded, as we are told, but which is to-day supposed
to liave two and a half million men in close synipa-
tliy with it, on the Continent of Europe. Tlie head-
quarters of the International Society are now in New
SECKET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 45
York City. It is managed from the mouth of the
Hudson and the banks of the Thames. In fact, how-
ever, the headquarters in New York are only nomi-
nally supreme. Really, the cottage of Karl Marx, an
exile in London, is the throne of the International
Society. He manages both its left and its right
wings now. The right wing revolted from him at
the Congress in Geneva in 1866, but has come over
to him at last. His work on " Capital," one of the
most thorough-going defences of materialism in phi-
losoph}^, and socialism in political economy, is the
New Testament of the International Society. As
Marx proclaims himself atheist, so does this immense
organization.
The International Society has been accused of
bringing on the riots in Paris, when the Tuileries
were burned. It has been accused of having had a
plan to raise riot in the principal cities of Europe, at
the time Paris was attacked by the communistic mob.
I have tried to ascertain how much truth there is to
these charges. In a minute investigation of the
history of the International Society, perhaps the most
significant document on which I have been able to
put my hands is a letter from Karl Marx, written
to the communists of Paris just before their rising.
Marx said to the communists in April, 1871, " We
are as yet but three millions at most. In twenty
years we shall be fifty, an hundred millions, perhaps.
Then the world will belong to us ; for it will be not
only Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles which will rise
against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden,
46 LABOR.
Vienna, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St.
Petersburgh, New York, in short, the whole world.
And before this new insurrection, such as history has
not yet known, the past will disappear like a hideous
nightmare, for the popular conflagration kindled at
an hundred points at once, like an immense dawn,
will destroy even its memory."
Address language of that sort to the petroleum
communists who burned the Tuileries ; address it to
men made lawless by carelessness of their interests
on the part of despotic governments ; address it to
men who have been taught that there is no hereafter,
and that God is only a necessity, ruling through the
laws of matter; address that language to millions
banded in secret organizations all over the world,
and you find that it means as much mischief every-
where as occurred at Paris on a small area, if that
mischief is necessary to the success of the desired
revolution. I do not credit the International Society
with the shedding of all the blood that was poured
out at Paris; but the secret history of 1871 in
Europe proves that if this organization had been
strong enough to have raised riot in other large cit-
ies, as they did in Paris, they would have done so,
and tliat what was lacking was power, and not the
will. Karl Marx is credited witli saying now tliat in
the United States and in Great Britain, and perhaps
in France, a reform of labor will occur without
bloody revolution, but that blood must be shed in
Germany and in Russia, and in Italy and in Austria.
Whatever the real or purposed crimes of the Inter-
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 47
nationals, the certainty is that the Paris Commune
frightened Germany. She was alarmed yet more by
the power of the socialistic party at the polls. In
the German elections of 1871, the socialists as a po-
litical party polled 140,000 votes ; in 1874, 350,000 ;
in 1877, 550,000. In 1878 Bismarck took this jump-
ing-jack, which cannot be kept down, and crushed
him back into his box, shut the lid, and turned the
key.
The suppression of socialistic newspapers and
public meetings in Germany will be the commence-
ment of another crusade for the formation of secret
socialistic societies there. It will be the re-invigora-
tion of all the secret socialistic and communistic or-
ganizations in Europe. Nevertheless I am not here
to sa}'- that America, in Bismarck's place, might not
have done substantially what he did.
Once make capital thoroughly afraid of socialists,
tramps, and roughs, in the United States, and see how
swift and merciless it will be in self-defence. I un-
dertake to tell any lawless classes at the bottom of
our cities, that, if they thoroughly alarm capital in
this country, it will treat them with as much severity
as the necessity of preserving the public peace may
require. We shall keep order roughly here, if neces-
sary ; for all Americans are capitalists, or expect to
be. [Applause.] Alarm property ; let it be under-
stood that there is real danger in Chicago and New
York and St. Louis from socialistic secret organiza-
tions ; let strikers and communists and demagogues
grasp the throat of our great railway intercommuni-
48 LABOE.
cations, and, when capital is thoroughly aroused, it
will not be held back here as it has been sometimes
in Europe, by a feeling that, after all, the rioters
have been abused. Thiersch, in his great work on
the Christian Commonwealth, says that in 1830 and
in 1848 in Europe many a ruler was made ineflBcient
by a secret feeling that the working-classes had not
had their rights. Kings tremble on their thrones
when they feel that they have no right to be kings.
In America the people feel they have a right to be
kings, and they will exercise their right. [Ap-
plause.] There will be no handwriting on the wall
here for Belshazzar to look at, and therefore his
knees will never smite together. Of course a repub-
lic can be attacked for three days and an hour. A
republic in history is like a raft on the sea : you can-
not sink it, but you are apt to put your foot through
it into the waves. A monarchy is like a man-of-war :
bad shots between wind and water hurt it exceed-
ingly ; there is danger of capsizing. But democracy
is a raft. You cannot easily overturn it. It is a wet
place, but it is a pretty safe one ; and we are on it,
and we are to have order here ; and we will build up
the raft under our feet until there is dry standing-
room for us all. [Applause.]
If there should be an election in the United States
showing that there is serious danger from socialistic
secret political organizations, wliat would happen ?
Why, from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate we
should have a propagandism of sound ideas, such as
in the last six weeks glorified Massachusetts fi-om
the Cape to the Berksliire Hills. [Applause.]
SECKET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 49
There was a shamefully large vote in Massachu-
setts, however, for utterly absurd political ideas.
The cities of this State elected an inflationist gov-
ernor. This occurs in the green young days of
Massachusetts, when, as yet, her factory-populations
are comparatively content. There is no posture of
safety in politics in this country, except that which
looks forward to a third and fourth centennial, and
makes preparations in advance for perils of which,
as yet, we hardly see the outlines.
Germany, with the pistols of assassins at the breast
of her Emperor, concludes that the evils of suppress-
ing socialism are fewer than those of allowing it
freedom of speech. Russia, under an emperor who
has manumitted the serfs, is of a similar mind. A
deep growl comes up from the Nihilist atheistic party
in Russia; and the emperor is told over and over
that, if he does not want reforms from below, he
must institute them from above.
A remnant of the Parisian Commune exists in
America. If it were worth while to discuss the
small influence of these desperadoes, I might pause
to describe the pestilent organization in New York
now headed by Edmond Megy, a rufiian who assisted
prominently in the murder of Archbishop Darboy
and other hostages at La Roquette, in Paris, in 1871.
For the crime of another murder the villain had
been condemned to twenty years in the French gal-
leys. After burning the palace of the Legion of
Honor, he fled to London, and then to New York.
He may now be seen, not infrequently, presiding
50 LABOK.
over banquets where ribald songs are sung, all things
sacred blasphemed, and foul and ferocious speeches,
in support of communism and socialism, made by
drunken men to drunken audiences. Justus Schwab
of the socialistic labor party, and Megy, are excellent
friends ; and when lately the latter was arrested, the
former procured him bail, and conducted his defence.
Ollivier, Hauser, Robinet, members of the Paris Com-
mune, are fellow-workers with Megy in New York.
The most frequent inculcation of their newspaper,
" La Centralization," is, " Use lead if you would get
bread."
The socialistic labor party in the United States
was founded by German political refugees some five
years ago, and is now supposed to contain twenty-
five thousand members who can vote. Here, in the
language of its leaders, is a brief statement of its
aims :
"The entire overthrow of the present social sys-
tem ; the abolition of all personal property in land
and other means of production, and their cession to
the state ; the introduction of the co-operative plan
in labor, so that every laborer may be a partner in
every factory or workshop; the compulsory limita-
tion of the hours of labor to eight hours a day or
less, according to the requirements of the unem-
ployed workmen ; the regulation of the prices of
labor by arbitration between the employer and the
employed until the co-operative system is introduced ;
compulsory education, and the opening of all col-
leges and universities free to all classes; the aboli-
SECKET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 51
tion of savings banks; the abolition of direct taxa-
tion, and the institution of a scaled income-tax, and
the taxation of all church-property."
Dr. Donai, Dr. Stiebling, and R. Sorge assisted in
founding this party, and its most prominent New
York member is the notorious Justus Schwab. This
organization or party, as you please to call it, has
headquarters at Cincinnati. If you go to that city,
and stay three or four days under the smoke of its
industrious chimneys, and pick up the eccentric
socialistic newspapers which appear in the beer-
saloons, you will find a strange atmosphere about you,
in the moral as well as the physical world. The
soot in the physical air is quite noticeable, and here
is a specimen of the soot in the political air. It is
a labor-song, directed against a leading American
newspaper, and published with editorial approval :
-" Whitelaw Reid had best beware !
Hurrah !
Or the working-men will make him stare !
Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah
Let Whitelaw Reid and his pals but dare
The freeman's right to vote to impair,
And their Gatling guns and sabres bare
Will neither save their hides or hair.
For the voter's right our arms we'll bare,
And knives will flash in the angry air !
Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah 1 "
" What is the oppressed laborer to do now ? Let
him join with his fellows, and light the fires of a glo-
rious revolution, that will rid the world of so many
62 LABOE.
useless aristocrats, and make America really, as well
as in name, ' the land of the free.' Up with the red
flag, and down with aristocracy ! "
You find several obscure, but not wholly powerless
sheets iu Cincinnati, filled with these cheerful doc-
trines.
Probably the most important of the working-
men's secret societies in America is what is called
"The Knights of Labor." As to this organization
there is very little public information. The leading
newspapers of New York City claimed, last August,
that there were then eight hundred thousand men in
it. Certain police agencies which have been set at
work in Chicago have investigated this society ; and
when I came last summer upon their records, I was
greatly interested to notice how the information pub-
lished at New York was confirmed by that collected
at Chicago. Some of the sharpest detectives on the
continent have investigated this society within the
last six months. It appears that the Knights of
Labor are really a large and perhaps a formidable
secret organization. The names of its leading offi-
cers, its pass-words and oaths, have been published.
It is not socialistic, but, under the influence of dema-
gogues, might probably be led to organize wide-spread
strikes and riots with little cause.
When a great political party arises, making a finan-
cial issue of an insane sort, the multitudinous secret
lodges of all kinds are under strong temptation to
unite. Even Justus Schwab in New York has a
certain influence with the rougher class of voters. I
SECEET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 63
know that in New York City an investigation was
lately made as to the socialist labor party; and it
was found that only eight hundred men in that city,
and five hundred in Brooklyn, belonged to its organi-
zations. Of these, a thousand were Germans, and of
these three-quarters were saloon-keepers. Not more
than half a hundred Americans were enrolled.
There were only a few Irish. But the Knights of
Labor are largely under American control. Accord-
ing to their own statement, what they mean is to
protect labor against capital, and to do this, if neces-
sary, by inaugurating simultaneous strikes in differ-
ent parts of the country, especially at railway-centres ;
and by acquiring and using political power to cripple
capital; and support the interests of the working-
men.
You will probably hiss me on this platform for
several things that I mean to say in favor of labor,
and I shall be very glad to be hissed first for what
I intend to say in favor of capital. For one, I want
the question concerning capital and labor settled,
not according to the ideas of labor on the one hand,
nor according to those of capital on the other ; but
according to the ideas of the Christian common-
wealth, which are very different from those of either
party. [Applause.]
The Knights of Labor held a national convention
at Reading, adopted a constitution for the whole
country, disbanded, and nobody knew they had met.
The fact was ascertained by going back upon their
record, after detectives were set to work. One thing
54 LABOK.
that brought out the character of the Knights of
Labor was their initiation of Catholics, and the re-
fusal of the initiated Romanists to be perfectly frank
in the confessionals. In Western Pennsylvania, a
Romish priest found it difficult to obtain information
concerning the Knights of Labor. A man in the
confessional was under some obligation higher than
that binding a Romanist to his Church ; -and of course
the priest found occasion to investigate the whole
topic. By and by it was announced that the sacra-
ments would be denied to any Romanist bound by an
oath of higher obligation than the tie which unites a
Catholic to his mother Church. This, of course, pro-
duced commotion among Romanists ; and they, for a
time, were slow to join the Knights of Labor. A
chief in a central committee in that organization, Mr.
Stevens, issued a secret circular, announcing that
Bishop O'Hara, in Pennsylvania, had seen the ritual,
and approved the order. Bishop O'Hara had said
nothing of the sort ; and this unauthorized use of his
name caused him to announce that he could not and
would not recognize any body of men as worthy of
the sacraments who were connected with an oath-
bound society. The Knights then ordered that the
oath of secrecy should not be binding on a member
in the confessional. Many Romanists have taken
this oath, but the Catholic Church opposes secret
organizations, and has kept thousands out of them.
Here and now, in the presence of a Protestant audi-
ence, contiiining as much intelligence, perhaps, as any
otlier Protestant gathering that meets weekly, on tne
SECRET SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES. 55
continent, I for one, beg leave to thank the Romish
Church for its attitude concerning secret socialistic
societies. [Applause.]
The trades-unions of the United States are now
not many of them socialistic, but they desire politi-
cal power, and will accept aid from socialistic secret
organizations in obtaining it. The Nationals will do
the same, and have done so already. It is a fact of
high importance that the great secret effort of social-
istic agitators and politicians is to capture in their
net the trades-unions.
On June 1, 1878, according to the report of your
Bureau of the Statistics of Labor, you had 28,508
skilled and unskilled laborers, male and female,
seeking and in want of work, and out of employ-
ment, in Massachusetts. If you estimate the number
of the unemployed in the United States according
to the proportion in Massachusetts, they will not
reach three millions, as the socialists assert, but
they amount to nearly two. It is said that the
pestilent financial heresies now in the air have suc-
ceeded at the polls wherever secret organizations
have surrounded the ballot-box, and that one reason
why they were not more successful in New England
is that our territory is not undermined yet by these
societies.
A million and a half of voters in secret organiza-
tions, spreading steadily under the soil ; two million
unemployed people in the United States ; and dema-
gogues searching north, south, east, and west for ped-
estals ! I foresee, not ruin in the American national
66 LABOR.
future under universal suffrage, but painful political
and social crises, unless by public discussion, by
justice, by Christian philanthropy, by the central
ideas of the Christian commonwealth, we prevent the
formation of an unprincipled, an ignorant, and an
unemployed class ; bring the controlling power in
politics into loyalty to sound ideas; estimate men
neither by the bags of gold nor by the windy social-
istic philosophies on which they may happen to ride,
but by character ; and proclaim all classes friends
who are loyal to the Throne which has foundations,
and all enemies who are opposed as rebels and as
traitors to that supreme Government. [Applause.]
m.
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, NOV. 18.
Families of wealth are not snre whether they may not, in the
next or in the third generation, themselves sink to the proletarian
condition. Sch^ffle : Quintessence of Socialism.
O diese Zeit hat fiirchterliche Zeichen,
Das Niedre schwillt, das Hohe senkt sich nieder,
Als konnte Jeder nur am Platz des Andem
Befriedigung verworrner Wunscho finden,
Nur dann sich gliicklich filhlen, wenn nichts mohr
Zii unterscheiden ware, wenn wir alle,
Von einem Strom vermischt dahingerissen. Goethb.
m.
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS.
PRELUDE ON CUEEENT EVENTS.
As the agent of the New York Society for the Sup-
pression of Vice was engaged in the performance of
his duties at Newark not many years ago, he was
stabbed twice by a criminal who had been making
an infamous use of tlie mails under eighteen different
aliases and through fifteen post-offices. The second
blow of the dagger laid open a great flesh-wound in
the face, severed four arteries, and came very near
being fatal. {First Annual Report of the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice, p. 9.) It is
with men of the type of this assassin that the ma-
jority of the National Liberal League of infidels
have now publicly struck hands in demanding the
total repeal of the laws which repress in the United
States the most abominable traffic known to the lep-
rous outlawry of the ghouls and ogres of the city
slums.
Utterly incredible as the news may appear to excel-
lent people, who are slow to believe reports of ghastly
59
60 LABOR.
crime, and too busy to attend to the obscure per-
formances of infidel conventions, the following facts
are all matters of painful public notoriety in Boston,
and susceptible of the most explicit proof from the
pages of the rationalistic newspapers and official
publications which I hold in my hands :
1. An infidel lecturer has lately been arrested in
Boston, and sent to Dedham Jail, for making an
immoral use of the mails.
2. A meeting in sympathy with this public crimi-
nal was held by infidels and Free Religionists in
Boston in Faneuil Hall.
3. At the National Convention of infidel Liberal
Leagues at Syracuse in October, a large majority of
the one hundred and thirty-eight representatives of
cultured free thought present there elected a set
of officers known to be in favor of the total repeal
of the present United States laws against the immoral
use of the mails.
4. A minority at this convention seceded, and
formed a new National Liberal League, of which the
object is to make the postal laws loose, rather than
to repeal them, so far as they touch the topic of the
distribution of infamous matter.
6. Men under indictment for crimes against the
postal laws were prominent at the Syracuse Conven-
tion, and their sentiments are reflected in the action
of the majority.
6. The lawlessness of the majority is officially de-
nounced by the loose minority in terms too scatliing
to be publicly cited.
KICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 61
7. Official and' unofficial authorities agree that the
public language of the men and women representing
the majority of the Infidel Convention of Syracuse
was"^ unreportably odious, immoral, and vile.
8. According to the official confession of the mi-
nority, therefore, the principal branch of the National
League is now in alliance with criminals of the most
low and infamous type.
It is evident from the New York press and Syra-
cuse journals, and from the testimony of this infidel
paper which I hold in my hands, that the language
of the defenders of the successful majority of the
infidel leagues at Syracuse was so infamous, that it
could not be reported, published, and sent through
the mails, without subjecting the newspapers thus
disseminating it to prosecution.
At Syracuse the members of the National Infidel
League, so far as their principal organization is
concerned, transformed themselves into a national
lepers' league of moral-cancer planters. [Applause.]
There are several things that injure a man more
than to cut his throat. An honorable daughter dead
is mourned less than a daughter dishonored. I know
a school of superb culture, a temple of sanctity,
where three hundred young women are gathered
under the very best religious influences and the
loftiest educational incitements. I have wandered
up and down the halls of the palatial building in
which their instruction is given ; I have admired the
works of art there, and had occasion to study mi-
nutely the enthusiasms for art and social improve-
62 LABOR.
ment and religious usefulness which fill that school,
and vivify its lofty regard for intellectual culture.
But this institution publishes no catalogue. Why ?
Go to the New York Society for the Suppression of
Vice, to the Boston Society, or to the committees
which have been organized to suppress vice at Prov-
idence and New Haven and Cincinnati and St. Louis
and Chicago, and you will find that school-catalogues
are made the lattice-work through which moral lep-
ers and assassins secretly, at night, under the cover
of the mails, throw their poison into seminaries of all
grades. It is a terrific sign of the times when shrewd
men of affairs, conducting a great school, dare not pub-
lish a catalogue. The criminals whom the National
League of infidels encourages make this caution ne-
cessary. I show you the caution in actual exercise.
Within twenty miles of Boston the resplendent
school I have described stands in its stately park;
and within fifty rods of this platform is a hall, the
most lionored in this city, where a meeting was held
in sympathy with the poisoner of youth who is now
in Dedham Jail. The thoughts which these facts
suggest cannot be publicly expressed ; but, if they
did not incite to moral rage, our apathy would itself
deserve to be smitten with tliunderbolts.
Daniel Webster once found Faneuil Hall shut to
liimself and his political friends. A hundred signa-
tures opened it last summer to sympathizers with a
moral-cancer planter I All your reputable press was
against the meeting. Boston, so far as she noticed
any such gathering of apologists for a convicted crim-
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 63
inal of the most infamous type, shuddered at it.
This city believes in free speech and the right of
assembly, but not in moral assassins in masks. Is it
quite decent or safe to give the enemies of Boston
an opportunity to injure its good name? Is free-
dom of speech to be carried so far that speech
becomes so free that it could not be reported and
sent through the mails without being actionable at
law?
A small minority, less than a quarter, of the Syra-
cuse convention, seceded from it, and protested
against the action of the majority ; and this minority
tliinks itself very virtuous because it wishes to have
a little restriction put upon the immoral use of the
mails. But, after all, what does even the seceding
party want? The editor of the special organ of
that party drew up and submitted to the proper com-
mittee a series of resolutions, and he prints them in
columns now before me ; and one of their first re-
quirements is " that no indecencies of a merely inci-
dental or occasional character, however reprehensible
. and deserving of public censure on moral or literary
grounds, shall cause a forfeiture of the freedom of
the press, or constitute a just reason for legal prose-
cution or punishment." That is the style of law the
minority wants, a law with loop-holes in it large
enough to drive a coach-and-four through. This
same set of resolutions asks for "a new legislative
provision requiring that the entire publication, for
circulating which through the mails any person shall
be prosecuted in the United States courts, shall be
64 LABOR.
set forth in the indictment." Who does not see
what these provisions mean ?
There were two parties at Syracuse, this paper
alleges, one for repeal, and one for reform. A
more accurate statement would be, that there were
two parties there, one for lawlessness, and one for
looseness. [Applause.] There was a party there
in favor of no law, and there was a party there in
favor of a coach-and-four loop-hole law. I respect
the remnants of virtue in this little minority. The
editor of this paper says that when the minority
resolved to secede, their action was a great and to
him "unexpected" protest, and "filled him with
awe." The epic dignity with which the collisions
between the "petty factions of this small convention
are described in this official sheet reminds one of
Horace's description of the trip of the country
mouse and the city mouse to Rome.
" Jamque tenebat
Nox medium coeli spatium."
Satires, Book II., vi.
In language approvingly cited from the brave
" Syracuse Standard " into this official organ of free
thought (Nov. 7, 1878, p. 535), I read that "Rivers
of IJoston, now resting under indictment for the sale
of infamous literature, urged a square expression of
the. congress in favor of his views. lie wanted the
United States authorities rebuked for what they liad
done. Wakeman of New York, a supporter of Rivers,
was more politic, and hesitated about giving the mi-
EICH AND POOR EST FACTORY TOWNS. 65
nority such open cause for disruption. He, and
others who stood with him, feared the odium which
would fall upon them if the minority should secede,
on the ground that they could not live with those
who sustained and fostered the sale of infamous
literature, and sought to repeal the laws making the
sale a crime. Wakeman believed the majority had
better make concession, rather than be compelled to
stand alone before the public; and hence the com-
mittee on resolutions fixed up a compromise that the
postal-law question should not be touched by either
party."
The scheme was that nothing should be said on
the subject for another year ; which means, that on
this stupendous theme, this blazing matter of com-
mon morality and decency, a convention of the
representatives of cultured free thought was not to
know its own mind for a year ! A promising com-
promise was patched up on this precious basis ; and
then the majority, violating it, elected a board of
officers composed, according to the official statement,
of men " known or believed to be strongly in favor
of repeal, as opposed to reform, of the postal law of
1873." Thereupon, when a vote had been taken
electing a president by the majority of seventy-
eight votes, leaving only fifty-one to the man who
represented the minority, the latter seceded, and
thirty-four of them signed a protest. A few more
names were obtained afterwards; and the result
of all is, that there are now two liberal national
leagues.
66 LABOE.
The local leagues which furnished the majority at
Syracuse are scattered through many States, and
their lecturers can be relied upon to teach the abomi-
nable doctrines of the majority. The evil of such
inculcations is not a small one, and frankness con-
cerning it will be justified by all thoughtful friends
of moral order. At Toronto, not long since, and at
Chicago, I met representatives of infidelity dis-
tributing documents at the doors of my lecture-halls.
I have heard of them in St. Louis and in Cincinnati,
and in Rochester, Baltimore, Washington, and New
York.
In this same official organ (^Ibid., p. 536), I find
language cited from the faithful Syracuse press, that
I dare not read. You would drive me out of the
door yonder if I were to quote language that was
uttered at Syracuse by Free Religionist women.
" But one question arose for consideration, and that
related exclusively to infamous literature. By per-
sistent as well as quiet effort, a majority of the le.igue
was composed of free-lovers and infamous-literature
defenders ; and from first to last tliey were deter-
mined upon making a point in favor of its free cir-
culation. Their remarks sometimes almost polluted
the atmosi)here of the opera-house." The sense of
wliat remains of this official extract is, that if
Thomas Carlyle's advice concerning raw sceptics
had been followed, and the majority had been cov-
ered under a glass bell, the atmosphere there would
have caused them to perish in their own corruption.
[Applause.]
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 67
God be thanked that behind this scheme of infi-
delity for the immoral use of the mails, there is most
significantly little financial strength ! It is officially
stated (^IMd., p. 437) that the balance of money
which will remain in the treasury after paying all
bills, had been " carefully gathered and husbanded
for the cause of State secularization," and that it
will now "be turned over to the cause of repeal,"
that is, of lawlessness. The infidel Liberal Leagues
have had an organization more than six years. They
have swept the Pacific coast ; they have officers at
work in the Mississippi Valley ; they have used skil-
ful men as agents. Some of them have ability ; I
suppose some of them have wealth. But after more
than five years of effort, sweeping the whole broad
floor of this Union, there occurs this division, and
the amount of plunder to be carried off amounts to
" nearly two hundred dollars." Heaven be thanked
for this phenomenal impecuniosity !
Large sums are now required by the societies of
Boston and New York for the suppression of vice,
and are called for by such men as Howard Crosby,
Dr. William M. Taylor, Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., Wil-
liam E. Dodge, and Dr. John Hall. I might name in
a similar connection a dozen of the prominent leaders
of thought of the great metropolis and in Boston,
and of all the religious creeds.
God has said that whoever offends one of his lit-
tle ones, it were better for him that a millstone were
hanged about his neck, and he drowned in the depths
of the sea. Is there no granite left in Massachusetts
G8 LABOR.
of the old-fashioned sort, out of which millstones can
be made for the necks of cancer-planters ? [Ap-
plause.]
Both these schismatic organizations, the majority
and the minority, have presidents in Boston. I have
in my hand the list of oflScers of both bodies, and I
find that the chief of them are from this cultured
city. They are nearly all men unknown to me ; I
do not know even the pliilosophical schoolboy who
edits this paper. The finance committee, composed
of three members, is from Chelsea and Boston. This
is the party of looseness, as opposed to that of law-
lessness. This is the minority, which, turning State's-
evidence, now denounces the majority, and so gives
us at last official authority to proclaim as an indis-
putable historical fact that the word " Infamy " is
written across the forehead of the majority of the
Syracuse representatives of infidelity on this conti-
nent. [Applause.]
Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands ;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain.
SuAKEspEAUE, IIknuy V., Act Iv., Sceue 2.
[Applause.]
BICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 69
THE LECTTJEE.
God grant that the day may never come when
American society sliall be divided between the un-
employed rich and the unemployed poor, the former
a handful, the latter a host ! If in Europe large
parts of society are thus separated from each other
to-day, the fact is not solely the result of the exist-
ence there of kings and aristocrats. It is a conse-
quence, at least in part, of influences operating oh
this side of the Atlantic, as well as on the other, and
especially of the great laws of manufacturing popu-
lations, which produce under democracies as well as
in aristocracies, if allowed to operate untutored by
Christian philanthropy, a rich employing class, and
a poor operative class. I need only to invoke the
visible presence before this assembly, of the lofty
spirits of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Shaftesbury, to
suggest sufficiently the historic perils of congregated
labor under the factory system in large towns.
Would that in the air above every manufacturing
centre of New England, Robert Peel and Lord
Shaftesbury, colossal and admonitory in archangelic
stature, might each stand to teach, with one hand
pointing toward Old England, and the other stretched
as a shield over New England, the methods of avoid-
ing here the perils which have arisen there !
What are the causes which separate the rich and
poor in manufacturing populations ?
Two great principles rule modern manufactures.
They are :
70 LABOR.
1. That subdivision of labor increases the skill of
the workman ; and,
2. That, other things being equal, the larger a man-
ufacturing establishment, the greater the profits.
These are the organizing laws which explain most
of the phenomena of manufacturing populations, and
will continue to explain them for ages to come, al-
though it is only in the last age that the laws can be
said to have been discovered.
On the one hand, it is the principle of subdivision
of labor which confines the modern operative more
and more to some single detail, the work upon which,
after it becomes a habit, calls into activity only a few
of the mental powers, has in it no variety, and so
does not develop the mind by tasking it at different
points ; is in itself of only petty importance, and so
excites little enthusiasm in labor, and even little
pride of skill. De Tocqueville, in a celebrated pas-
sage, discussing the modern science of manufactures,
asks what can be expected of the human intelligence,
when, year after year, for twelve or ten hours a day,
it is occupied in the single detail of making heads for
pins. (^Democracy in America^ vol. ii., Book II., chap.
XX.) The principle of subdivision of labor has an
inherent tendency to dwarf the operative mind, un-
less tlio most powerful stimulants are applied outside
of factory-hours, to develop the faculties which the
manufacturing work never calls into activity. Out-
side of factory-hours! Those words are lightly ut-
tered only by the inexperienced in operative life.
Outside of'factory-hours there are, properly speaking,
EICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 71
for operative populations tasked ten or twelve hours
a day in close apartments, no hours at all. The
labor of the mill or of the mine, which goes on in all
weatliers with the invariability of the sun in its
courses, is not to be compared with agricultural
labor, interrupted by the changes of the seasons, and
even of the daily sky. Twelve hours or ten in a
factory, and then three hours or two enthusiastic
pursuit of mental culture ! No eyes yet born are
destined to see that wonder grow common. There
are a few mental and physical constitutions vigorous
enough to combine these two sets of hours, and so to
counteract the narrowing mental effect of labor for
years at one unvaried mechanical detail. But the
mass of operative populations can be expected to ex-
hibit no such physical, to say nothing of such mental
and moral, vigor. They are swept remorselessly
under the wheels of subdivision of labor, and long
hours. I put the question to persons here who have
had any experience of long walks, how much vigor
is left to a child tending a machine, and Avalking
fifteen or twenty miles a day, or a woman tending a
machine, and walking thirty a day ; and day after day,
six days in a week? In women and children, who
constitute nearly half of operative populations, how
much life is left for mental culture, after ten hours
severe labor in a mill? But subdivision of labor
increases skill ; increase of skill increases productive-
ness ; increase of productiveness increases profits ;
and long hours are the scythes that reap the gain.
This is the law of manufactures ; and it is only say-
72 LABOR.
ing what is evident in the nature of things, and no
less evident in the condition of all manufacturing
populations where factory occupation has been hered-
itary for three or four generations that the tendency
of the system is to make the operative class inferior,
and the inferior yet more inferior. Emerson stood
at the door of the factories of Great Britain, and
wrote that society is to be admonished of the mis-
chief of the division of labor, by the fact that, in
three generations, the robust rural Saxon had degen-
erated in the mills, to the Leicester stockinger, and
to the imbecile Manchester spinner, far on the way
to be spiders and needles. (Emerson, R. W., Eiig-
lish Traits^ chap, x.)
On the other hand, the operation of the principle
that, other things being equal, the larger a manufac-
turing establishment, the greater the profits, tends to
call out all the capabilities of the minds that lead
and organize in manufactures. The 'larger the man-
ufactory, the greater the profits, other things being
equal ; and so, in the great enterprises of manufac-
tures, you must have able men. The master is more
and more like a general, and must be capable of large
combinations and wide foresight. His business tasks
all his faculties, makes him abler, gives him social
rank. The occupation requires capacity in the
master class, attracts capacity, and tasks capacity.
Men of education are often drawn into manufactures
by the allurement of the size of the enterprises in-
volved. The tension of mind, and the variety of its
applications, in the conductor of a largo establish-
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 73
ment, are at all points a contrast with the condition
of the mind of the operative. By the necessary op-
eration of the two great laws of manufactures, the
master is elevated ; but the operative, little tasked in-
tellectually, and leading a monotonous life, becomes
socially lowered, and dependent more and more upon
the organizing mind above him. These are not
peculiarities of Old England. They belong to all
manufacturing populations, in New England or else-
where. There is nothing, I claim, in American insti-
tutions, that will prevent here the subtle operation
of these two great laws. Inevitably, therefore, as
the effect must follow the cause, the system of
modern manufactures in large populations tends to
produce a superior class and an inferior.
New England is explicable by these two laws.
Wherever you go into a large American factory-
town, you find these classes in formation. Old Eng-
land is explicable by these laws. I went through
Manchester, in England, carefully studying the poor.
Sometimes I walked by open doors, where the filth
inside the threshold was as deep as outside. I saw
poultry picking up their living not oftener outside
than inside these doors. One evening, on the top of
an omnibus, I went out into the suburbs of Manches-
ter, and came upon palaces ; immense private estab-
lishments, with grounds kept in the best English
styles. Whose houses are these? They are the
masters' houses ; manufacturers' homes. This is the
country-seat of Sir So-and-So, who owns such-and-
such acres of factories in Manchester, under the soot
74 LABOR.
yoDder. Where do his workmen live? They must
live close to their work, under the eaves of the
factories; and I found I had been studjdng the
homes of the operatives employed by these very
princes and masters. Skilled operatives' houses in
Manchester are often very comfortable, but I am
speaking of the condition of the lowest-paid labor-
ers. I saw children in mop-rag costume, and with
hardly enough of that to cover their nakedness.
There was before me in Manchester what does
not yet exist in New England, an hereditary class
of operatives. Little by little men had gone down
to the squalid condition in hovels where I saw chil-
dren fight over a piece of fish dropped from a ped-
dler's cart. I have stood there myself, and peeled an
orange, and the peel was picked up swiftly from the
sidewalk, and eaten by hungry children. I could
fire an arrow in the street over sixty or eighty chil-
dren that looked as if they had been unwashed from
birth. Within a cannon-shot stood these palaces of
the manufacturers. That contrast is seen all through
the Old World ; and it results from these great prin-
ciples, that subdivision of labor increases the skill of
the operative, and that the larger the establislnnent
the greater tlie profits. The man who manages the
great establishment may beoome rich, and can take
care of himself; the man who makes tlie pin-bead
loses capacity to do any thing else. If he loses the
opportunity to make that pin's-head, he knows no
other trade, and may suffer terribly before he caji
learn one, and find auotlier place to work.
KICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 75
What else did I see in Manchester? Near one of
the great factories was a long brick building ; and I
saw women pass it, and hand their infants in at the
gate. When six o'clock came in the afternoon, I saw
these same women coming back, and receiving out
of that gate their babes. What sort of housekeep-
ing is that ? In the great factory-towns in the Old
World you often find an establishment near the fac-
tory for the care of very young children while the
mothers are in the mills. The girl that must go to
the mills, and work ten hours a day, after she is six-
teen, is not likely to be a perfect housewife. The
certainty is, that an hereditary factory population is
not the best place in which to seek good housekeep-
ers. In the Old World it is very well known that
social rank is lost partly because the art of keeping
a home neat is lost. But how is it lost ? Because
children must work in the mills to eke out the earn-
ings of the parents. The mother must be bound to
the looms, although she ought to be at home taking
care of the children. Her babes she must pass into
an establishment at the door of the mill to be taken
care of while she is earning something to feed them
when she returns. We have seen little of this ar-
rangement yet in New England ; but who knows
that trade here will not follow these precedents?
The operation of the two great laws of manufactures
can be foreseen with certainty. We find these laws
spinning the two contrasted classes in our New-Eng-
land towns. As years go on, and the first effects
themselves become causes, these laws tend to make
76 LABOR.
the superior yet more superior, and the inferior yet
more inferior. I am not denying the advantages of
manufacturing eminence, but stating, as a motive for
public caution, what political economists have long
acknowledged as the disadvantages of such eminence.
Even 'John Stuart Mill, using England as a lens,
and putting behind that telescope the best eyes of
political economy, writes a deliberate chapter (^Politi-
cal Economy^ Book V., chap, vii.) on the Probable
Future of the Laboring Classes, and goes so far as to
say that he finds the prospect hopeful, only because
he expects the entire system of wages to be super-
seded by that of co-operation. But the system of
wages is interwoven with the whole structure of
modern life, and does not show a tendency to vanish
out of history like a morning cloud. The accumula-
tions of wealth fall chiefly to employers, and not to
operatives. The distance between the two classes is
a result of deep causes arising from tlie two great
laws of the manufacturing system. It is out of these
laws that there inevitably originates what has been
called in modern times a manufacturing aristocracy.
De Tocijueville, using this phrase, compares the ter-
ritorial aristocracy of former ages with the manufac-
turing aristocracy of to-day, and finds the former
superior to the latter, because it was bound by law,
or thought itself bound by usage, as the latter is not,
to come to the relief of its serving-men, and to suc-
cor tlicm in tlicir distresses (Democracy in America^
vol. ii.. Book II., chap. xx. ; also vol. ii.. Book IV.,
chap, v.) I sec no charm in democracy that can alter
mCH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 77
the nature of things. The subtle laws of subdivision
of labor, and of size of establishment, apply to manu-
factures in New England as well as in Old England.
Under some restraints from the nature of our institu-
tions, they will, notwithstanding, produce here as
there an employing class and an operative class, and
perpetually tend to make the distance between rich
and poor in manufacturing populations wider and
wider. De Tocqueville thought that the friends of
democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed
upon the operation of these two laws ; and that, if
ever a permanent inequality of conditions again pene-
trated into the world, it might be predicted that this
is the gate by which it will enter.
In all this I am not blaming capital altogether,
nor am I defaming labor. I know how the most of
what I have said applies to Old England rather than
to New England. And yet British factory-laws are
certainly superior to ours. Skilled operatives have
good social position in New England. It is the glory
of society here, that ability is reverenced behind the
loom as well as in the pulpit and at the bar. The
dazzling outburst , of mechanical inventiveness in
America is largely a flame springing up from the
skilled operative population. More often than you
think, a startling invention comes from the opera-
tive, and the patent and profit of it go to the master.
[Applause.] "The London Times" saj^s that Greece
did not possess in statuary such skill as America
exhibits in machines to abridge labor. This Greek
element in our civilization lies chiefly in the un-
skilled operative class.
78 LABOR.
Nevertteless I ask persons here who are not under
the influence of local prejudice, to contrast the for-
eign operative as he arrives on our shores with the
American unskilled operative from some farm of New
England.
Contrast the present operative population of Low-
ell with the working-people who fifty years ago, in
that same city, published " The Lowell Offering." I
had shown to me the other day a complete copy of
that production, and was assured by a man who knew
many of the young women who wrote for it, that the
articles were really produced by the persons whose
names they bear. It is a classic in New England,
literature, this " Lowell Offering," wholly composed
of productions of operatives in the mills. Many of
them were daughters of New-England farmers. Some
of them came from the homes of professional men.
Daughters of clergymen were among the authors. It
is a matter of notoriety, that the operative popula-
tions of Lowell, Fall River, ancLLawrence, and other
similar towns, have become largely foreign.
When you contrast the general condition of the
foreign-born population with that of the American,
you should not attribute the difference wholly to
the evil effects of the political institutions in the
Old World. The two great laws of manufactures
have produced most of the traits of the operative
class in Great Britain. Even the Englishman has
been degraded in England by factory-life. You say
tliat tlie low-class operative here is usually a for-
eigner! We should be more moved if American
BICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 79
blood were thus degraded. But in England it is
English blood that deteriorates. In the poor whites
of the South we have proof that American blood can
deteriorate also. Our blood is as capable of deterio-
ration as that of the English by unfavorable condi-
tions of factory-life. I remember pacing hours and
hours up and down the banks of the canals at Man-
chester, and watching the mill-hands come and go at
noon and night. Once I fell into conversation with
a group of working-men, English to their finger-tips,
all their ways English, and yet they reminded me of
the poor whites of the South. Pallid, half-grown,
they had been brought up almost from infancy in the
factory-rooms, and gone to their labor without en-
thusiasm. They talked of the monotony of their
work. " It is the same thing day by day, sir ; it's
the same little thing," said one man to me. " One
little, little thing, over and over and over. We are
weary when we get home. We are so tired, we do
not feel like reading. We sometimes go to the beer-
shop, where there is light and cheer."
You say that the operative class, if allowed shorter
hours a day, would ultimately patronize the beer-
shops all the more ; but that is not the proper in-
ference to draw from the seven years of investiga-
tion of your Massachusetts Bureau. I hold in my
hand a summary of its magnificent work for the
last seven years, and I find your officers stating most
distinctly that the mass of the operative population
in New England do not spend large sums of money
upon vice. [Applause.]
80 LABOR.
3. It is proved by the careful statistical investiga-
tions of the Massachusetts Bureau, that the wages
of children are absolutely necessary to the support
of most families of working-men, and that the
trouble with the operative class in New England
begins now precisely where it did in Old England,
with the forcing of the children into the factory
too early. [Applause.] Among the causes which
separate rich and poor in manufacturing populations
is the circumstance that the child of the operative is
needed to support his father and mother, and so
is crowded into factory-work early, while the child
of the master can go to school until he is twenty-one
or older. After long delay, Massachusetts has passed
a law that no cliild under ten years of age shall be
employed in factories, and that no child under four-
teen shall be so employed unless during the year
next preceding such employment he shall have at-
tended some public or private day-school at least
twenty weeks. ( Chap. 52, Acts of 1876.)
How well is this most righteous law executed?
Why, turning over a Boston newspaper last Satur-
day in a railway-car, I came upon this typical in-
stance :
"Truant-Officer John M. Newhall was enjjaijed
yesterday in distributing among the shoe-manufac-
turers a copy of the statutes of the Commonwealth
concerning the employment of children. Tlie tru-
ant-ofTicer lias been instructed to see that the law
is strictly enforced. About thirty manufactories
were visited yesterday, and in nearly all were found
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 81
children which were employed contrary to the pro-
visions of the statute. The statute provides a pen-
alty of not less than twenty dollars nor more than
fifty dollars for each offence. In one manufactory
on Market Street, which the truant-officer visited,
the manufacturer expressed his contempt for the
statute, and threw it away, at the same time stating
that it did not amount to any thing, and that the
''employment scare ' came around periodically. The
shoe-manufacturer was advised to read the statute.
In this shop were found six children which were
employed contrary to the statute." (^Boston Journal,
Nov. 16.)
Who is to blame here, the parent or the manu-
facturer ? Look a little more closely into this vital
matter. Open the cool statistics of your Massa-
chusetts Bureau of Labor, and read the deductions
drawn from the complete returns of earnings and
expenditures received from four hundred families
in this State in 1875. Never before, in the history
of the world, were so many budgets of the poor
opened to public gaze. The incisive conclusions
officially reached in Massachusetts as to earnings are
these :
(1) That, in the majority of cases, working-men
in this Commonwealth do not support their families
by their individual earnings alone.
(2) That the amount of earnings contributed by
wives, generally speaking, is so small, that they
would save more by staying at home than they gain
by outside labor.
82 LABOR.
(3) That fathers rely, or are forced to depend,
upon their children for from one-quarter to one-third
of the entire family earnings.
(4) That children under fifteen years of age sup-
ply, by their labor, from one-eighth to one-sixth of
the total family earnings.
(5) That there has been found no evidence or
indication that working-men spend large sums of
money extravagantly or for bad habits.
(6) That without cliildren's assistance, other
things remaining equal, the majority of these fami-
lies would be in poverty or debt. (See the History
of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor of Massachusetts^
by Charles F. Pedgin : Boston, 1876, pp. 83, 84.)
You never will understand the manufacturing
population of New England or Old England until
you fasten your attention upon the manner in which
the necessity of child-labor chokes the early educa
tion of the operative. Children under fifteen years
of age supply by their labor from one-eighth to one-
sixth the total family earnings of average operative
families in Massachusetts! Does this make any
difference in the social standing of the operative and
employing classes? Does early education amount
to any thing as a start in life ? What spins tliese
two classes, one well-to-do, and the other I will
not say oppressed and down-trodden, but certainly
not quite well-to-do, and not rapidly improving in
intelligence or social position. Two gi'cat laws I
liavc discussed here ; but you cannot probe the mysr
tery of manufacturing populations to the bottom
RICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 83
unless you blame parents themselves for sending
their children into factories when they ought to be
at school, and the manufacturer for violating the law
which requires education for those children under
fourteen years of age.
I blame both parties, the parent and the manu-
facturer; but there is an excuse for the parent. I
look north, south, east, and west, and find no excuse
for the manufacturer. [Applause.] If you please,
I have no church, and in this lectureship neither
capital nor labor is king. [Applause.] I am deter-
mined that this platform shall be put on its knees
neither to capital nor to labor, but only to justice.
[Applause.]
4. The low wages of the parents are the excuse
commonly alleged by families for forcing their chil-
dren into labor, and keeping them out of school.
After all, however, working-men should see that
the competition of children's labor lowers wages.
Keep all the children in school who would be there
if the law of Massachusetts were executed, and the
working-men of Massachusetts would have more to
do. This competition between child-labor and ma-
ture labor is a most mischievous cause of the
reduction of wages. If parents are not governed
by the love of culture for their children, they ought
to be influenced by the love of good wages, to keep
them out of factories when the law requires them
to be at school. But here we have the fact that
wages are such that a man supporting a family must
depend, for a quarter or a third of the family earn-
84 LABOR.
ings, upon his children. Half of these, perhaps, will
be under fifteen. The temptation is enormous to
drive them into factories; and yet when a manu-
facturer has these children under his control, and
cares nothing for the law, and tramples it under
foot, I find that manufacturer far more to blame
than the poor parent. The latter may be a for-
eigner, illy acquainted with the value of education
in this country. I find that manufacturer grasping
and lawless, and worse than the laborer who may
be taking only the necessary steps to secure his
daily bread. [Applause.]
You think I am a partisan of a class ; you will
ascertain that I am a partisan for all the people. I
am a friend of the judge, and of the preacher, and
of the physician, and of the capitalist. I am also a
friend of John and James, and Hans, Patrick, and
Michael. [Applause.] The certainty is that we
cannot bless or ban any one class as a whole, and
that only when both capital and labor are brought
up to the height of Christian principle, shall we see
any solution of the vexed question between them.
[Applause.] There is nothing but the Golden Rule
that can lead New England out of painful social and
political crises on the questions of capital and labor.
[Applause.] Say, if you please, that you care noth-
ing for aged people ; say that you care nothing for
the drunken operative in his old age ; say that the
interests of advanced life are not to be regarded by
Christian civilization. Why, in New England, sure-
ly, the little children have a claim to your pity ; and
BICH AND POOR IN FACTORY TOWNS. 85
these laws for their protection, trampled under foot
in every factory-town in Massachusetts, have a right
to be executed by a vehement and authoritative
Christian public sentiment. [Applause.]
5. After the great laws of subdivision of labor
and size of establishment, and after the poor educa-
tion of children and the low wages of unskilled
operative labor, we must mention as a forceful cause
of the separation of rich and poor in factory-towns,
the existence in many places of a floating population
brought into existence by the unsteadiness of the
occupation offered by many styles of manufactures.
A floating is likely to be a homeless, and so a morally
policeless population.
I beg leave to make a distinction between the
fluctuating and the uninterrupted industries. More
than one problem is explained for the stadent of the
high themp of the moral and industrial economy of
cities, by this distinction.
Certain trades produce articles in the very nature
of which there are constant and wide changes of
fashion. Evidently these articles cannot be accumu-
lated in advance, for the fashions cannot be foreseen-
at any great distance. A stock of outgrown fashions
on the market might ruin these trades. As soon as
certain annual fashions are set for the articles, these
industries have a period of extraordinary activity.
When the demand is supplied, a period of compara-
tive inactivity follows, until the next set of fashions
is determined. If fashions fluctuate annually, these
trades fluctuate annually. If fashion fluctuate twice
86 LABOR.
annually, these trades fluctuate twice annually. On
the other hand, it is evident, that if a trade produces
an article, in the very nature of which there does
not exist this susceptibility to a change of fashion,
it may work from year's end to year's end, and
accumulate, if need be, a stock of its own products.
The latter is the condition of the coal, iron, wool-
len, and cotton trades. The former is the condition
of the shoe-trade.
All trades producing articles of clothing are sub-
ject, in large towns, to vast annual fluctuations of
activity. In Boston, for example, the length of the
working season for tailors and tailoresses is estimated
at ten months ; for shop-work, at ten ; for paper-
collar makers, at ten ; for hosiery and rubber and
elastic goods, at ten ; for hatters, at eight ; for corset-
makers and hoopskirt-makers, at seven and a half;
and for straw-workers, at seven. It seems a mystery
tliat so many workmen, worthy in every way, and
sure to find difficulty or distress because unable to
procure occupation elsewhere, are dropped merci-
lessly from these employments by the thousands, at
certain periods of the year. The explanation is
simply tliat these employments produce articles sub-
ject to wide, annual, and unforeseen changes of
fashion, and cannot accumulate stock in advance
that is likely to be outgrown. We are often com-
fortably told that the wages given in such employ-
ments are of fabulous rates by the day or week.
Tliis is not often the case ; but, even if it were, for
how many weeks in the year does the working season
liold ?
RICH AND POOR EN FACTORY TOWNS. 87
There is another class of fluctuating industries,
in which the variations of activity arise from the
changes of the seasons. Thus the length of the
year is estimated for quarry- workmen, at ten months ;
for farm-laborers, at eight ; for masons, painters, and
plasterers, at eight ; for brickmakers, at seven.
You will mend- these lulls, you say? Hundreds
of years the artisans in the fluctuating industries
which I have just named have tried to -mend the
lulls in large towns in their trades. They have not
succeeded. To do so would be to counteract a
natural law. Rapidity of production being one of
the causes of the lulls, it is found, that, as machinery
becomes more perfect, working seasons tend to be-
come shorter. Machinery grows more perfect every
day. It is introduced into large towns more promptly
and abundantly than into small.
In a city establishment containing, for example,
operatives enough to produce twenty sets, or twelve
hundred pairs, of shoes a day, the manager gives out
stock enough in the morning to make only twelve
or fifteen sets. As the brisk season of work arrives,
stock enough is given, out to make thirty or thirty-
five sets a day, and more help engaged if it can be
found. But, as the season of inactivity comes on,
the stock is diminished again. Perhaps, with a
working capacity of twenty sets a day, only enough
stock will be given out for twelve or ten sets. Of
course workmen drag on without half enough work
for a while, and finally are unoccupied by the
thousands.
88 LABOR.
Precisely here arise the chief industrial perils of
the operative class of this branch of manufactures.
Precisely here is the origin of large floating popula-
tions, with their attendant startling moral perils.
6. Floating populations are largely unchurched
populations. They come to manufacturing centres,
and stay a few months, and go back to their homes.
While they are in the mills they live in boarding-
houses. They are without churches ; they are usu-
ally without local property; they are in general
without the moral police of family life ; and so, little
by little, drop in the social scale.
"Where are the men who dare face the whole prob-
lem concerning capital and labor ? Some such men
are in this audience ; and I believe that their right
action in our brief day would do much to set fashions
for a hundred years to come. [Applause.]
IV.
MRS. BROWNING'S CEY OF THE CHILDREN.
THE ONE HUXDRED AND FOURTEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, NOV. 25.
I confess that my desire and ambition are to bring all the labor-
ing children of this empire within the reach and the opiwrtunities
of education, and within the sphere of happy and useful citizens.
The march of intellect, the restless activity, the railroads and steam-
boats, the stimulated energies of mind and body, the very congre-
gating of our people into masses and large towns, may be converted
into influences of mighty benefit. I^t the State but accomplish her
frequent boast, let her show herself a faithful and a pious parent.
LoBD Shaftesbuky : House of Commons.
Patient children think what pain
Makes a young child patient x^nderl
"Wronged too commonly to strain
After right, or wish, or wonder.
Healthy children, with those blue
English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
At the brown loaves of the baker.
Mrs. Beownino.
IV.
MRS. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHIL-
DREN.
PEELUDE ON" CURRENT EVENTS.
A LARGE, significant star has lately appeared above
the horizon of American religious thought, and de-
serves to be studied by any who watch the signs of
the times, although it is peculiarly invisible to the
wall-eyed radicalism of portions of Boston, and to
haughty rationalistic specialists generally. Presumed
to be mossy and media3val, bigoted, and even cow-
ardly, the oldest theological seminary in the United
States has recently devoted a gift of fifty thousand
dollars to the foundation of a professorship on the re-
lations of Christianity to science. I look upon this
event as one ray in a dawn standing tiptoe on the
mountain-tops, and as a cheerful promise of a day
which, even if it arise slowly, is yet likely to bless,
not the churches only, but literature and politics,
and science itself.
The religious scholarship of the United States is
resolved to know as much as its duties require. It
91
92 LABOR.
recognizfes as just the crescent emphasis of the mod-
ern demand for special training on the part of those
who are to discuss scientific facts in their religious
bearing. This claim of culture at large, theological
students have themselves been urging in their own
secret whispers for years. Possibly I may be per-
mitted to say that ten years ago, as a student, I was
dreaming of a day when such a professorship would
be founded; and it may not be improper for an
enterprise as humble as the Boston Monday Lec-
tureship on the relations of religion to the sciences
to make a reverent bow in its fourth year, and with
proper self-forge tfulness, to this new professorship
on the relations of Christianity to science. Young
men have been asking for such a chair of instruc-
tion, and not merely theological students, but col-
lege graduates in all the professions ; and not they
only, but studious men of affairs ; and not young
men only, but aged men also. The most famous of
the professors in our American theological schools
have elaborately and minutely arranged plans for
professorships on tlie relations of Christianity to
science, and the trustees of many of these institu-
tions have waited only for the necessary funds to
open these novel departments of instruction. The
royal generosity of a lady of Massachusetts lias
given the oldest tlieological seminary a chance to
establish an oflicial chair. I have no doubt that
similar generosity would start any other of the
larger seminaries in the land on a career of similar
work. On this topic, the difficulty during the last
MRS. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 93
twenty years has been a lack of funds, and not the
lack of a purpose to meet scientific men half way,
by extending theological training far out toward the
field of specialists in biological and psychological
science.
It is conspicuously evident that the education of
theological students in that circle of subjects which
most vitally concern the highest human interests will
be wider under this new encouragement than that of
any other class of professional students in modern
times. Men are not readily admitted to the regular
courses of study in theological schools unless they
have been through a college course of four years'
study, with its preparatory course of three or four
years, all devoted to rigorous mental discipline.
Not a few are seriously asking for a fourth year in
theological seminaries.
There is now to be given to professional students
of theology special training if not in observing, at
least in interpreting, all facts of strategic value on
the whole blazing line of contest, or of agreement,
as you please, between religion and science. Some
of the Andover phraseology is peculiarly happy.
The new professorship, which has been desired and
projected for years, is frequently and properly called
a chair founded to discuss the relations between
religious and other science, or between theology and
the other sciences. It is not admitted for a moment
that in the chair of theology proper, the scientific
method is applied to the discussion of religious
truth less strictly than it is to be in this new
94 LABOB.
department. It is the relation of science to science
that we discuss when we take up the topic of reli-
gion and science, and their connection in modern
times.
How surpassingly rich is the field which lies be-
fore any man who enters upon the investigation of
the relations of Christianity, or religion at large, to
science! All biological investigation opens to him
as a vast prairie filled with billowing flowers. He is
to seek not for every weed, but for the most signifi-
cant and precious growths. Thus his task is less
disproportioned to human strength than it would at
first appear. Indeed, it is not his business to know
the materia medica ; that is not important to his
specialty ; but he must know the consummate flower
of all philosophy relating to biological investigation.
Then there is the whole range of psychological study
now connecting itself closely with physiology. There
is no blazing question in physiology or in biology
that does not cast light into the theological do-
main. Political economy and social science are also
to be kept in view ; for how can we discuss mar-
riage and communism and democracy, or any of
the large modern themes connected with free insti-
tutions, without knowing the best political thought
of the world? Professor Hitchcock at New York
lately told his classes that, " of all collateral studies,
,'not one just now is of more immediate importance
! to theological students than political economy. The
old Hebrew prophets, leaders of public opinion in
their day and nation, were more than political econo-
MRS. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 95
mists : they were statesmen." QjSociaUsm, p. 52.) Were
they alive to-day, they would discuss socialism, and
know how to wield the newly forged thunderbolts
of biology and psychology, as well as of political
science.
Such being the field this professorship has the
superb courage to enter, its founding means that
mossy, mediaeval, cowardly Andover is not afraid of
investigation. [Applause.] Religious science pro-
poses to look north, south, east, and west, and never
to be wall-eyed. Do sceptics and rationalists propose
to do the same thing? American religious scholar-
ship is not afraid of investigation. It founds lec-
tureships and professorships to meet you half way.
But what do you found ? Where are your colleges ?
Where are your lectureships ? Where are your great
endowments? Where are your libraries? Where
are your books, I will not say one thousand, but
even one hundred years old ? I put that question
to the four winds, and obtain no answer. [Ap-
plause.] We meet you more than half way, and on
heights commanding your camps are planting stern
lines of artillery. I do not see the heights you are
likely to occupy fifty years hence. I do not see how
the present defences of materialistic infidelity can
survive in a circle of modern artillery-fire, that is in
an environment of public, clear discussion, which
prints itself, and enters the open fateful contests of
authorship. I do not see that you are likely to hold
your camps. I see rather that every intrenchment
of materialism is likely to be riddled through and
96 LABOR.
through with the heaviest artillery of intellectual
discussion within an hundred years.
Heaven forbid that I should under-rate the train-
ing of specialists! Every one respects the special-
ist ; but it is easy to forget how narrow a man's
sympathies may become by exclusive devotion to
any one branch of merely physical science. Even
the theologian, vast as his field is, may be guilty of
great narrowness of thought if he does not widen
himself through contact with spheres of investiga-
tion outside his own. Take Huxley and Tyndall,
neither of whom had a miiversity education. They
are great observers, probably no men greater ; but
from lack of a fit, large, roundabout university train-
ing, their sympathies with philosophical and ethical
themes, in spite of their German studies, are not
wide nor deep. If you measure them on the side of
some of the most important philosophical topics, it
will be found that their training is painfully incom-
plete. TyndalFs own account of his education
(^Nineteenth Century^ latest number) shows that from
the very first his mind has been in a trance on the
topics of physical science, concerning which he has
made discoveries, the molecular constitution of
gases, heat as molecular motion, sound as molecular
motion. IJut it is only natural that his views in
pliilos<)])hy should be unsatisfactory to experts in
tliat department, and that he should see almost noth-
ing except the materialistic side, which, as Lotze says,
is the Ijorse and not the rider.
We need men trained, like Lotze, in both philoso-
MRS. BEOWNING'S CEY OF THE CHILDREN. 97
phy and physical science, and taking a university
degree in each department, if we are to meet the
demands of modern discussion.
Andover has founded several new institutions ;
but no enterprise suggested in that town deserves
more praise than the professorship of the relations
of Christianity to science. Under the elms on the
hill in Andover is a study in which a prayer-meet-
ing was once held weekly to devise ways and means
of doing good. Among its attendants were Stuart
and Woods and Porter and Newman and Adams and
Edwards. There originated the first religious news-
paper. There began its existence an American Tract
Society, which sifts its printed counsels now like the
dew over a hemisphere. There, in imitation of a
Scottish custom, was instituted the American mis-
sionary monthly concert of prayer, in response to the
wants of an American Missionary Society, also origi-
nating in Andover, and whose operations now cover
a domain larger than the Roman Empire. There
had its birth the American Education Society, which
to-day rings its college-bells all the way from Niag-
ara to the Yosemite. There was commenced the.
American Temperance Society, which has before it,
in our crowded great cities, a work of which even
wakeful eyes do not yet see more than a glimpse of
the importance. {Half Century Andover Memorial^
The munificence of one woman has founded the
Andover professorship of Christianity and science.
Through its usefulness her days will be long in the
land. When serious men, looking into the future,
98 LABOE.
place thousands of dollars at stake in the founding
of a professorship like this new one, the pioneer
work of the discussion of the relations of religion
to science has passed beyond the stage at which it
can be injured by irresponsible, anonymous sneers.
[Applause.]
THE LECTUKE.
Mrs. Browning, Shakspeare's daughter, summa-
rized fifty years of discussion in Great Britain by
these most moving words:
** The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in their nest ;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west.
But the young, young children, O my brothers I
They are weeping bitterly ;
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city ;
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do. *
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty ;
Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through I
But they answer, Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine ?
Leave us quiet, in the dark of tlie coal shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine.'
' For oh ! ' say the children, * we are weaiy,
And we cannot run or leap ;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them, and sleep.
MES. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDEEN. 99
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall iipon our faces trying to go ;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For all day we bear our burden tiring
Through the coal-dai-k underground ;
Or all day we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.'"
If this is sentiment, surely it is good political
economy as well, and that for both Britons and
Americans.
Sir Robert Peel, himself a master-manufacturer,
said in 1816 to the British Parliament, that unless
the tendency of congregated labor under the factory
system in large towns, to give rise to perils and
abuses, could be corrected by decisive legislation, the
great mechanical inventions, which were the glory
of the age, would be a curse rather than a blessing
to society. (Hansard's Parliamentary Debates^ vols.
xxxi., xxxiii.. Sir Robert Peel's Speech on Motion
for a Committee, April 3, 1816.)
1. Congregated labor and a large floating popula-
tion are historically known as having always hereto-
fore given rise, in large towns, to grave moral and
industrial perils and abuses.
2. The new system of both textile and non-textile
manufactures necessitates congregated labor; and
the annual fluctuations of the activity of several
trades give rise, in many large towns, to large float-
ing populations.
It is of high interest to notice that almost pre-
100 LABOB.
cisely one hundred years ago, the cotton-factory sys-
tem, on account of new mechanical inventions, was
passing through a great transition exceedingly simi-
lar to that which the shoe-factory system has lately
passed through from the same cause. In 1771 Sir
Richard Arkwright perfected that marvellous com-
bination of mechanical adjustments known as the
spinning-frame. Hargreaves's great invention of the
spinning-jenny took place in 1765. Crompton's cele-
brated combination in the mule-jenny, of the two
preceding machines, followed in 1787. In strict
analogy with what is now passing before our eyes in
the history of a great sister industry, the invention
of new machinery in the cotton-manufacture revolu-
tionized its processes ; and the invention of one im-
portant machine necessitated the invention of others.
But the steam-engine had not yet appeared. A
factory system therefore sprung up in connection
with vast establishments located on streams. Of
necessity, the sites chosen were, in a majority of in-
stances, at a distance from pre-existing towns, and in
thinly-populated districts. In order to secure perma-
nent Labor, a system of apprenticeship was adopted,
by which oi)eratives were bound to work for a defi-
nite period. The consequences of congregated labor
under no regulation except the unrestrained com-
petition of manufacturers began to appear. Hardly
more frightful abuses have sprung up under the fac-
tory system in large towns than sprung up in this
first factory system outside of large towns. It is vast-
ly important that you should fix your eyes upon the
MES. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 101
historical fact that the evils I am discussing are not
exclusively incident to residence in cities. A whole
generation of boys and girls and youths and men and
women of all ages, says one of the most considerate
of historians, " were growing up under conditions of
physical degeneracy, of mental ignorance, and of
moral corruption." The very title of the bill by-
which Sir Robert Peel began, in 1802, the great!
series of the English Parliamentary Acts in promo-
tion of factory reform, was : " For the preservation \
of the health and morals of apprentices and others 1
employed in the cotton and other mills, and in cotton '
and other factories." The health and morals! Upon
these points all the vast mass of English factory
legislation turns to the present moment. It is sig-
nificant to notice that when congregated labor under
the factory system was tried for half a century in
England at a distance from large towns, it exhibited,
taken by itself* and aside from any now outgrown
evils of the plan of apprenticeship, a tendency to
perils and abuses such as to call for the most deci-
sive parliamentary interference.
The new star of the steam-engine blazed across
the mechaidcal sky ; took a fixed place in it ; and at
once there was a new grouping of constellations.
The vast manufacturing establishments which ex-
isted at a distance from towns were transferred to
crowded populations. Between 1802 and 1815, the
factory system was transformed into its present'
shape. It was the birth of the inventions of Har-
greaves and Arkwright and Crompton and Watt. It
102 LABOE.
was a system wholly new in the world. Immediate-
ly a tendency to perils, and abuses appeared, which
called for vigorous parliamentary repression. Eng-
lish Parliaments have not been remarkable for unneces-
sary interference with trade, nor for sentimental legis-
lation. The larger part of the manufacturing wealth
of the kingdom was thrown into the scale against
factory reform. But the cause of that reform has
steadily advanced, because Parliament has been
forced, by the terrible revelations of its own commis-
sions of factory inquiry, again and again to interfere.
The moral and industrial perils of congregated labor
under the factory system in large towns ! It was
thought that the tendency of the factory system to
these perils was corrected by the great Factory Act
of 1833. Eleven years passed. The Factory Reg-
ulation Act of 1844 was found necessary. Two
years ensued. Interference, always unwelcome to
Parliament, and ahvaj^s against sonfe of the deepest
traditions of English law, was found needful in spite
of previous interference. In 1847 the celebrated
Ten Hour Act was passed. Experience continues to
teach. In 1873 the Children's Labor Act is found
indispensable. Against every one of these great
measures, the larger part of the leading manufactu-
rers threw their heaviest influence. I recite before
this assembly the list of the great Acts of factory
reform wrung from Parliament, in Great Britain, to
prove the inherent tendencies of congregated labor
under the factory system, in large towns, to moral
and industrial perils and abuses. A board of factory
MRS. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 103
inspectors, with almost regal powers, sits to-day in
London ; and subordinate inspectors are located in
various districts, making reports to the central office
weekly. (Von Plener, English Factory Legisla-
tion^ with Introduction by Mr. Mundella : London,
1873.)
It is a matter of public notoriety, that within the
last ten years the methods of the shoe-manufactures
have been revolutionized by the invention of the
McKay sewing-machine. The invention of the spin-
ning-jenny and of the power-loom did no more to
revolutionize the cotton-manufacture, the invention
of the steam-engine no more to change the methods
of inland and maritime conveyance, than the appli-
cation of the sewing-machine to the shoe-trade has
done to revolutionize the processes of that branch of
industry. The change has been as remarkable for
rapidity as for extent. It was hastened by the great
exigencies of our civil war. The celebrated ma-
chine which is likely to be remembered in history
side by side with the spinning-jenny and the power-
loom, was invented and patented by Lyman R. Blake
of South Abington, in this Commonwealth, as late
as the year 1858. QShoe and Leather Record^ Boston,
Sept. 26, 1870.) When the civil struggle began, it
was seen that machinery must do the work of the
multitudes of mechanics of the North, who had left
their places, and were fighting the battles of the war.
The original patent was sold to Mr. Gordon McKay
and Mr. J. G. Bates of Boston, for ten thousand dol-
lars. It was somewhat improved by them. Not far
104 LABOE.
from the second year of the war, it began to be
applied to the shoe-manufactures in establishments
in this city. Invention has followed invention. The
supply of the wants of the new system of factories
has tasked the skill of the best experts in machine-
ry in New England. The McKay sewing-machine,
the skiving-machine, the pegging-machine, the sole-
moulding machine, the cable-wire machine, the self-
feeding eyelet-machine, are but a fraction of the
recent inventions not only patented, but in use.
Any list of machines correct for to-day is likely to
be incorrect, because outgrown, to-morrow. Rapid
as the supply of the new machinery has been, the
demand for it has exceeded, and yet exceeds, the
supply.
Three large results have followed this invention of
new machinery. First, the small shop system has
been abandoned, and the large factory system has
been adopted. Secondly, a great subdivision of labor
has taken place. Thirdly, the trade is much more
subject to lulls, or inactive seasons, than it was
before the invention of the new machinery. Occur-
ring in the largest trade of the United States, these
changes are events of a high order of public impor-
tance.
The transition from the old system to the new
is complete and final. All Eastern Massachusetts is
sprinkled thick with the small shoe-shops, buildings
twelve or twenty feet square, in each of whicli ten
or fifteen men were usually employed on the heavier
work of the trade ; the females, in their own rooms
MES. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDEEN. 105
at home, doing the lighter work. These rooms have
been vacated, never to be filled again. For a hun-
dred years they have been almost as characteristic of
a large part of the towns of Eastern Massachusetts
as the schoolhouses or the churches. The large
factories, which are rising to fill their places, are
destined to become larger and larger. There is no
longer any artisan in this trade who makes a whole
shoe. Subdivision of labor is sometimes carried so
far that a single article passes through the hands of
fifty workmen, each of whom is trained only to make
a part. As a rule, the old shoemakers were largely
independent in the management of their business,
each family attending to its own for itself. But the
large factories have introduced an operative class
and an employing class. In the old system, work
was commonly steady from year's end to year's end,
or affected only by the larger fluctuations of general
commerce. But now there are two periods in each
year in the trade, in any large city, when hundreds
of operatives are dropped from employment. So far
apart at so many points are the old system and the
new, that it is of little service to reason from the
experience of the trade under the former system, to
the experience it is to expect under the new. It
matters little if a man have passed a lifetime under
the old system. He must judge the new system by
the experiences developed under it, and not by the
old.
It is of very great importance, while these changes
are passing, to call attention in time to the high duty
106 LABOR.
of setting right precedents in the new system. Let
the first twenty years of the new order of things, or
the first ten, be managed carelessly, and the needle
will be threaded wrong for fifty years, and will not
be threaded wholly aright for a hundred. A respon-
sibility of an extent and weight not easily over-esti-
mated rests upon the manufacturing and operative
classes who are now organizing a completely new
factory system for the largest trade of the nation.
This voluminous docvunent which I hold in my
hand is an ofiicial copy of the bill now before Parlia-
ment summarizing or making laws relating to British
factories and workshops, and sure to pass. It has
already gone through both houses, and the provisions
of it are sterner than those of Massachusetts legisla-
tion to-day. They are in advance of the best laws
passed in America for the prevention of industrial
and moral j^erils in congregated laboring populations
in large towns. Its summary of fifty years of severe
industrial experience is precisely that given in Mrs.
lirowning's words, the child is the point on which
these perils and abuses fasten themselves first of all.
As Sir Robert Peel began with legislation to protect
children, young persons, and women, so this bill 'is
concerned, in more than two-thirds of its extent, with
the protection of the riglits of minors and females.
The cry of the children, tlierefore, is uttered by the
gruff voice of the English Parliament, as well as by
the searching tenderness of the tones of tliis greatest
of female poets. It is the combination of these two
contrasted yet interbleuding voices of British litera-
MRS. BEOWNING'S CEY OF THE CHILDREN". 107
ture and British legislation that ought to arrest
American attention.
If I must summarize swiftly the propositions on
which I dare put foot, face to face with the historical
experience I have now sketched, I shall not lead you
over English ground exclusively; for my feeling is
that English factory legislation cannot be transferred
as a mass to New England. We have a peculiar
political and social life here, and experience in Amer-
ica is needed to guide American legislation. Never-
theless we can well cast glances upon foreign legis-
lation, in Germany, in France, in Switzerland, in
Great Britain, and especially upon this last series of
summarized enactments, and examine what has taken
place abroad while we are shrewd enough to study
our own peculiar circumstances. Nail, therefore, to
the door, as Luther did his theses to a certain church,
these propositions. I purpose to defend them, but
I ask no one to accept my positions :
1. Much modern machinery can be managed by
women and children as remuneratively as by men.
2. When a child, or young person, or woman, can
be hired for fifty or eighty cents a day, and mature
labor costs twice or thrice that sum, the temptation
to manufacturers is great to hire the cheapest effec-
tive labor.
It is said by many that we ought not to interfere
with the law of supply and demand ; but why have
I summarized this English legislation ? In order to
show you that practically England has interfered for
half a century.
108 LABOR.
3. When, as in Massachuse|;ts, families of opera-
tives depend upon children's earnings for from one-
fifth to one-sixth of the family income, the tempta-
tion to parents is great to force their children into
early labor in the mills.
4. Between the greed of employers and the neces-
sities of parents, the factory-child is thus deprived of
a proper education.
5. The wages of mature labor are reduced by com-
petition with child-labor.
My purpose is to fasten your attention upon the
facts logically connected, as a chain running through
this whole vexed topic of capital and labor. This
chain, by the by, is welded by no human hand ; and,
according to the use we make of its links, it is either
the chain that is to choke America severely, or the
one that will bind back into impotence some of the
worst industrial and political evils that assaU her.
6. An ignorant operative class is inevitably pro-
duced by the neglect of early education of factory-
children, through the greed of employers and the
carelessness of parents.
7. An ignorant is likely to be a more or less help-
less and suffering class.
8. An ignorant, helpless, and suffering class natu-
rally becomes a politically and socially discontented,
explosive, and criminal cLoss.
9. The law of self-preservation therefore justifies
State interference with the relations of caj)ital and
labor so far as the regulation of the work and educa-
tion of children and young persons is concerned.
MES. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 109
10. Fifty years of factory legislation in Great
Britain, the United States, Germany, and most other
civilized states, have established the principle of gov-
ernmental interference in protection of the interests
of children, young persons, and women in the trades,
though not of men.
Here is the central proposition asserting the neces-
sity of governmental interference, not in the social-
istic sense, but in the republican, democratic sense ;
the principle of governmental interference in protec-
tion of the rights of children, young persons, and
women, though not of the rights of mature labor,
which is allowed to be boxed about under the law's
of supply and demand.
11. No child under ten years of age should be
employed in any factory. [Applause.]
The German Social Science Association insists
upon it that no married woman should be employed
in a factory. [Applause.]
12. No child under fifteen should be so employed
unless able to show a certificate of an adequate
amount of school instruction, to be required by law
and also a surgical certificate of physical fitness for
his labor. [Applause.]
13. Compulsory education in the common schools
is in America a better measure than the English half-
time schools for factory-children; for the half-time
schools foster a class distinction foreign to the spirit
of American institutions, and are not effective enough
to train American voters adequately.
15. But, if the State assumes the care of the edu-
110 LABOR.
cation of the child until the fifteenth or sixteenth
year, overseers of the poor should be instructed to
aid families who suffer from the lack of the earnings
of children whom the government requires to be in
school.
15. The system of apprenticeship has departed
from modern trades, and at present nothing exists in
its place.
16. If the State takes the child from the parent
until its fifteenth or sixteenth year, the government
should give the child back so instructed as to be able
to earn something. [Applause.]
17. Developing-schools and .school-shops might,
therefore, be well made to follow for a year or two
the common school instruction ; and such schools
should be assisted by the State, and would consti-
tute the crowning protection of children's rights in
the trades. [Applause.]
Such are the seventeen propositions which I would
emphasize, but of which I can give almost no expan-
sion ; and yet it is necessary to attempt a certain
amount of illustration of these positions, and there-
fore 1 ask you to let me teach by object-lessons. I
am not speaking to teachers or preachers or politi-
cians : I wish any communications representing this
platform as a teacher of teachers might be excluded
from the public press. I never made, and shall never
make, any such pretensions. I am far from attempt-
ing to instruct the leaders of the Massachusetts
Bureau, or any minister here from a factory town. I
am not an .igitator by profession. I am here simply
MRS. BEOWNIKG'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. Ill
and solely as a flying scout making a report, and I
have had a little experience in a manufacturing pop-
ulation. It may be known to some here that I once
had the honor or dishonor of raising a local breeze
by a defence of the rights of working-men's children.
[Applause.] I will not dwell on that point, however,
for I believe the enemy was whipped, horse, foot,
and dragoons. [Applause.] The working-men peti-
tioned, two or three hundred strong, for a continuance
of the discussion of the rights of their children ; and
although I am not a partisan for labor, or for capital,
I must say that you never can convince working-men
that he is their enemy who is a friend of their chil-
dren. [Applause.]
Here is a little child at Fall River. I am reciting
a fact out of the reports of your Massachusetts
Bureau. The young creature stands at the edge of
swiftly moving water to wash a broom, one of the
heavy sort, and the racing flood bears the instrument
away from her ; but she, frightened from fear of pun-
ishment, clings to the handle, and is drawn in and
drowned, for she is not large enough to pull out the
broom from the arrowy current.
You say this is exaggeration ; but I went this
morning to the best specialist in Boston on the con-
dition of labor, and I think the best in the United
States, and put the question, " How many children are
growing up in Massachusetts without any instruction
in schools, public or private ? " " Why," said he,
" three years ago I estimated that there were twenty-
five thousand (report of Massachusetts Labor Bureau
112 LABOB.
for 1875, p. 5), but to-day I think there are from
fifteen to twenty thousand growing up without any
instruction worth mentioning, in either public or pri-
vate schools." Where are they? They are in the
factories, where this little child was, and at work.
They are crowded out of the schools and into the
mills, and they are laboring there day by day ; and
where are the men whose duty it is to execute the
school-laws of 1876 ? Where are the men who are
charged in Massachusetts with carrying out our pres-
ent very excellent system of legislation against tru-
ancy? We have heard, for ten years, more or less
discussion of the dangers of allowing an ignorant
class to grow up in manufacturing cities; but public
sentiment has not reached such a state that you can
gather out of the Massachusetts sky any very hot
thunderbolts you can gather only thin ones, sheet-
lightning merely for these neglectful parents and
still more neglectful and criminal public officers of
the law. [Applause.]
What do I want? The legislation of England,
which I hold in my hand, provides an efficient board
of factory-inspectors; and you have nothing of the
sort in this Commonwealth. Several years your
Bureau of Statistics of Labor has been urging the
appointment of factory-inspectors in Massachusetts,
and again and again the topic has been laid aside in
the State House. If my feeble voice, assisted by your
support, can raise any agitation on this theme, God
grant that we may have some influence to secure the
execution of the righteous laws of Massachusetts in
MES. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 113
the matter of compulsory attendance of the schoals !
[Applause.]
If I were a socialist, I should be personally
ashamed to ask for more help than America, when
her laws are executed, now gives through the govern-
ment to the average citizen. Here I am, unable, let
us suppose, to pay more than a poll-tax, and my wife
becomes insane. The government watches over her,
puts her into an institution, and takes care of her.
Here is a child of mine that I cannot educate. The
government opens a school for him, pays his tuition-
bills, provides for him school-books, if necessary;
and warms the house for him. Here is a child of
mine that wishes to follow a certain trade requiring
a technical education. The government gives assist-
ance to schools peculiarly adapted to his wants. I
have a child that is deaf and dumb. Massachusetts
adopts him into her family, gives him a good room
yonder in South Boston, attends to him as I cannot.
I have a child that is blind. Massachusetts puts her
hand on his shoulder, puts her hand in blessing on
his head, guides him to her philanthropic institution
for those who are sightless, educates him, places her
best talent at his side, and improves his stunted men-
tal perceptions until, in the case of a Laura Bridg-
man, they touch the Unseen Holy itself, and commune
with the world beyond sight. [Applause.] You
have now done for you, discontented socialists and
complaining working-men, as much as you can bear to
have done, and retain the proper spirit of self-help.
[Applause.] All this is what capital regularly and
Tsdllipc-lv does for ld,bor.
114 LABOR.
In spite of the danger of undermining the spirit
of self-help, I would have the laws requiring the
attendance of all children at the common schools
rigorously executed, because without tliis precaution
experience shows that an ignorant class will be
formed even in Massachusetts. With very many of
our foreign-born operatives there is no proper con-
ception of the value of education in this country.
There are no proper conceptions, I think, in society
at large, of the value of educating the uncleanest
poor. Why, where have many of the greatest invent-
ors come from? Who was Robert Burns? Who
is the American Edison ? Who was Ferguson when
he lay on his back, and stretched a thread before him,
put beads upon it, and marked the positions of the
stars, and made a map of the constellations in the
peasant's hut? Who was that rail-splitter [ap-
plause] who was assassinated in Washington at the
end of a civil war, and over whose eloquence, as well
as over whose statesmanship, every zone of the planet
stood hushed in wonder ? The talent that lies in the
lowest population ! how are we ever to know hew
great it is unless we bring Burns out from under the
thatch, and Ferguson up from his peasant's hut, and
our Edison into proper employment, and our Lincoln
from his hovel up and up until he finds the place God
made for liim at the summit of political power in
the foremost republic of modern times ? [Applause.]
Where are the lax executors of law, and the fleecers
and tempters of the poor, who keep the veil of vice
or ignorance hung over the eyes of the lower popu-
MES. BEOWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 115
lations? A man very rarely finds out what great
things are in him until he drops all the weights that
impede his race. He does not know how swift he
can be until every bad habit is sloughed oE. Where
are the men who execute the laws against intemper-
ance ? Shut your grog-shops, open your schools, and
God knows what flashing jewels you may yet dig out
of the neglected ores at the very bottom of the un-
wrought mine of the poorest classes. [Applause.]
Am I venturing too much in saying that the
English half-time schools, effective as they have been,
are hardly adapted to our New England civilization ?
We have had recommendations of these schools from
the early officers of the Massachusetts bureau ; but,
in representing my own opinion concerning them, I
am representing also that of the present officers of
the same bureau. I understand these officers to
affirm that the half-time schools cultivate a class feel-
ing, and give the factory child a perception from the
first, that the order to which he belongs is divided
sharply from the upper orders. These schools do not
contain that inspiritment which comes from the
friendships always formed between boys of all grades
of society, when they are mingled in the common
school. My investigation of this topic of factory
Icfrislation leads me to reverence the ideas of our
fathers concerning common free schools. Any attack
on that system is sure to produce socialistic political
mischief, as well as great moral peril, in the United
States. We may easily secure the execution of com-
pulsory laws concerning the attendance of factory
116 LABOR.
children at school. Let us make no distinction
among citizens, on the ground of occupation, any
more than on that of color. In this particular we
can mould our legislation in America, on a pattern
better than the models of the Old World. [Ap-
plause.]
I am not underrating the half-time schools of Eng-
land. They have been tried in Massachusetts to
some extent; but practical experience in Grefit
Britain shows that they are a clumsy expedient, and
can easily be abused ; and, after all, do not give an
education sufficient to meet the demands of the
American voter in our modern political arrangement
in America. In the cotton districts of England,
where a half-tune school-law has been in operation
since 1833, it was found in 1866, that thirty-seven
per cent of the children were unable to read.
Massachusetts at this hour stands in a position to
be an example, if she executes her legislation con-
cerning the instruction of children. Technical educa-
tion in art lias struck root here at last. A committee
of your citizens, appointed by the American Social
Science Association, strongly recommend that a de-
veloping-school and school-shops sliould be estab-
lislied by the city or state, or an endowed corporation ;
and that the gap left by the desuetude of the system
of apprenticeship should thus be filled, the aptitudes
of pupils ascertained, and trades taught them in out-
line. The worth of the articles produced in such
schools would probably pay expenses after a short
time. (See a report by S. P. Rugoles, Wendell
MRS. BROWKTKG'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 117
Phellips, Edward E. Hale, and others, read at the
annual meeting of the American Social Science Asso-
ciation in Boston, Jan. 10, 1877.)
Very interesting is it to observe, that, as the older
America entered this continent at the Massachusetts
coast, so the manufacturing America enters at the
same quarter. Plymouth Rock was the foundation
of a church ; the problem of our industrial future is
how to make it, without any hewing of its savage
outlines of justice, the foundation of the factory.
[Applause.] Yes, I mean all this implies. Plymouth
Rock, or in other words, unhewn justice, is to be the
foundation of our factory legislation, Plymouth
Rock, the corner-stone of industrial as well as polit-
ical institutions ; Plymouth Rock, the corner-stone
not only of the Church which old New England was,
but of the factory which the new New England is,
and will be more and more. [Applause.]
In the famous English Bill which I hold in my
hands, a child is defined as a person under fourteen
years of age ; a young person, as one between four-
teen and eighteen ; and a woman, as a female over
eighteen. Now, no child in Great Britain, according
to these new laws, and no young person or woman,
can be employed in textile factories except as fol-
lows :
1. Young persons and women work from six A.m.
to six P.M., or seven A.M. to seven p.m., and on Sat-
urdays from six A.M. to one p.m. Two hours a day,
on five days of the week, and half an hour Saturday,
must be allowed for meals. Continuous employment,
118 LABOR.
without a meal-time of at least half an hour, is not
to exceed four hours and a half.
2. Children are employed for half-time only, in
morning and afternoon sets, on alternate days. The
work-day is the same as for women and young per-
sons. No child can be employed on two successive
days, nor on the same day in two successive weeks.
3. The employment of young persons at home,
where the work is the same as that done in the fac-
tory, but no machine-power used, is also regulated.
4. Employers must obtain a weekly certificate of
school attendance for every child in their employ-
ment.
5. Medical certificates of fitness for employment
are required in the case of children and young per-
sons under sixteen.
6. Dangerous machinery is to be fenced, and chil-'
dren and young persons are not to be employed in
cleaning machinery in motion.
7. Strict sanitary regulations preserve the cleanli-
ness of the factories.
8. The factory law of Great Britain is administered
by two sets of officers, appointed by the Secretary of
State, inspectors charged with the duty of examin-
ing factories and workshops at all seasonable times,
and certifying surgeons to grant certificates of fit-
ness under the act. (^Encyclopcedia Britannica, ninth
ed., vol. viii., p. 845. See also official copy of the
bill to consolidate and amend the law relating to fac-
tories and workshops, House of Commons, April 9,
1877.)
MRS. BROWNING'S CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 119
What I want for the protection of labor in factory
towns is as much as Great Britain has, except her
undemocratic half-time schools.
" Still all day the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down fi'om its mark;
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.
How long, how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand to move the world on a child's heart,
Stifle down with mailed heel its palpitation.
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper!
And your purple shows your path ;
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath."
Mrs. Browning : The Cry of The Children.
[Applause.]
V.
' SEX IN INDUSTRY.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, DEC. 2.
Hast thou heard, with sound ears, the awakening of a Man-
chester, on Monday morning, at half past^five by the clock; the
rushing off of its thousand mills, like the broom of an Atlantic
tide, ten thousand times ten thousand spools and spindles all set
humming there, it is perhaps, if thou knew it well, sublime as a
Niagara, or more so. Cotton-spinning is the clothing of the naked
in its result; the triumph of man over matter in its means. Soot
and despair are not the essence of it ; they are divisible from it,
at this hour, are they not crying fiercely to be divided ? The great
Goethe, looking at cotton Switzerland, declared it, I am told, to be
of all things that he had seen in this world the most poetical.
Whereat friend Kanzler von Miiller, in search of the palpable pfc-
turesque, could not but stare wide-eyed. Nevertheless our World-
Poet knew well what he was saying. Cajilyl^.
The vital matter is to increase the purchasing power of the i>eo-
ple. BoNAMY Price.
V.
SEX IN INDUSTRY.
PEELUDE ON CURKENT EVENTS.
There came yesterday from Windsor Castle a
message, sent by what Tennyson calls
" Thunderless lightnings smiting under seas,"
to the fourth daughter of Victoria at Montreal:
"Delighted at reception. Say so. The Queen."
Although Canada occupies so large a place in the
minds of Britons, that the Marquis of Lome publicly
affirms that Montreal is the best-known city on this
continent, Boston is here ! I undertake to affirm
that Americans in general have not heard of any
thing happening in Canada since 1867, when the
union of the provinces was formed. We are as ob-
livious of what occurs on the other side of the St.
Lawrence as Englishmen in general are as to what
happens on this side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless
Canada at this moment is the fifth maritime power
in the world.
The mouth of the St. Lawrence is shut fully five
months of the year by ice. Commercial reasons, it
123
124 LABOE.
was presumed by some, would lead Canada to seek
annexation to the United States after the repeal of
the reciprocity treaty. That agreement was nego-
tiated by Lord Elgin in 1854, and abrogated in 1866.
This city of Boston had a trade of more than twenty-
seven million dollars annually, affected by its provis-
ions. The union of the British-x\merican provinces
was an accomplished fact fifteen months after the
repeal of the treaty. Most urgent commercial forces
hurried on this coalescence. Canada before the con-
federation was an inland province. Its chief winter
gates to the ocean were New York, Boston, and
Portland. Now it has a seaboard. The country of
Evangeline's Acadie, which Longfellow annexed to
American hearthstones, is startled by the thunder of
railway-passage .
" This was the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and
the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the
twilight,
Stood like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic."
At a public expense of twenty million dollars, the
Intercolonial Railway has been undertaken, to secure
free communication on Canadian soil to and from the
inland cities and Halifax and St. John on the Atlan-
tic. Various other means of intercommimication
have been improved, so that the shutting of the
mouth of the St. Lawrence in the winter does not
prevent the access of Canada to the ocean. Tliat is
never frozen. To-day Canada is a competitor witli
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 125
the United States in the ports of the West Indies
and of South America; and, in case of certain ar-
ticles, in those of Great Britain herself. It is quite
worth while for merchants to cast an eye toward the
Dominion of Canada, even if politicians have no rea-
son to look that way. The repeal of the reciprocity
treaty has drawn the British Provinces closer to-
gether. The interchange of traffic, which from 1820
to 1866 was largely in favor of the United States,
underwent so great an alteration from 1866 to 1873,
as to show a balance against the United States, and
in favor of Canada, of $51,875,000.
Lord Derby said, a few years ago, that everybody
knew that Canada must soon become an independent
nation. He has changed his mind since, and is now
a representative of the rising tide of imperialism ;
but at this hour not a shilling of British public
money comes to Canada, although a vice-regal gov-
ernment is accepted there with acclamations.
As members of one political family, Upper and
Lower Canada have led an uneasy life together. A
proposition, first made in 1822, for the political union
of these two provinces, bore no fruit until 1841,
when the union of Upper and Lower Canada was
effected.
On the fertile banks of the lower St. Lawrence
there is a French population living in a state of pro-
longed childhood under Romanism ; a happy people,
ignorant, industrious, social, but not progressive, and
yet capable, when held together by the ties of race,
language, and religion, and exploited by Romish
126 LABOR.
ecclesiastical and civil politicians, of exerting impor-
tant influence in politics. Lord Elgin once said that
it would be easier to make the French Canadians
American than to make them English. Lower Cana-
da is a part of France unreformed by the Revolution
of 1792. The Romish Church of Louis XIV. yet
collects its tithes on the eastern St. Lawrence. The
Jesuit is active there.
Upper Canada, filled cliiefly by British emigrants,
was often divided between the political opinions of
Britons. There the English, the Scotch, and the
Irish were not infrequently separated by old party
lines. In nearly every case when a division occurred
among the English-speaking populations of Canada,
Lower Canada could have her way. The revenue
came principally from Upper, but the disposal of it
was often determined by Lower, Canada. Therefore,
in the former, a demand arose for union with the
other English-speaking provinces. Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick. During our American war, Upper
and Lower Canada both felt that they would be
stronger against attack if all the British provinces
were united. Thus domestic political reasons, as
well as commercial causes, originated the great act of
union of 1867. Imitating the United States, Ontario,
Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick became
one political power, with independent local institu-
tions. In 1870 young Manitoba, radiant with hope,
stood up in the sunset, and was married to the Do-
minion. In 1871 British Columbia, on the hoarse
Pacific, came into the union. Prince Edward Island
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 127
followed in 1872. Labrador is politically attaclied
to Newfoundland, and a provision exists by which
the latter can be admitted to the confederacy. The
rights of the Hudson Bay Company now belong to
Canada. The vast north-west territory waits for
admission to the Dominion. All British America, in
short, is practically a political unit, under a vice-regal
governor-general and privy council, a Senate and an
elective House of Commons. In Ontario and Que-
bec, every male subject who is the owner or occupier
or tenant of real 'property of the assessed value of
three hundred dollars, has a vote.
What are the divergencies of race in the different
populations represented in this Dominion? What
are the differences of religion? Fifty years ago
there were only a million people in British North
America. Now there are more than four millions.
Of these, 1,082,940 are of French descent; 850,000
Irish; 700,000 English; 550,000 Scotch; 230,000
German and Dutch. Looking at the disparities of
the religious creeds, you find 1,492,000 of the Romish
faith, 567,000 Wesleyans and Methodists, 544,000
Presbyterians, and 494,000 Anglicans. (^Census of
April 3, 1871. See Statesman's Year Book, 1878,
p. 511.) Next after the Romanists, the Wesleyans
and Methodists are the most powerful religious body
in the Dominion at this hour.
I am not discussing Canada with the purpose of
raising the question whether its annexation to the
United States is ever to take place. I believe aver-
age American sentiment is now as careless on that
128 LABOR.
topic as it is on most others that affect . Canada. We
have not of late sought the annexation of Cuba.
Since slavery was abolished we have not been mak-
ing aggressions on our south-western frontier. We
have borne with petty insult after petty insult from
Mexico, without any military reply, and, indeed,
without enough protest to protect our own inter-
ests. The United States did not purchase Alaska:
Mr. Seward bought that. We are the nation which
refused to annex San Domingo. In short, the Amer-
ican people understand perfectly well that despotic
power may annex territory, but that a republic can
only incorporate territory by its own free vote.
[Applause.]
K ever the day comes when Canada thinks that
she can do better than to remain substantially an
independent power, receiving nothing from Great
Britain but a vice-regal governor, and protection in
case she is attacked, Americans will undoubtedly
welcome her to the Union, but only on her own free
choice. I believe we are careless about the time
when she shall come. Professor Goldwin Smith is
very anxious to have the date occur early. The
great forces in history prevail ; and these, he thinks,
make for the political separation of the New World
from the Old. "Canadian nationality being a lost
cause, the ultimate union of Canada with the United
States," he afl&rms, " appears now to be morally cer-
tain." (SiUTH, Professor Goldwin, "The Polit-
ical Destiny of Canada," Fortnigldly Review^ 1877.)
His opinions on this topic are not popular in Canada.
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 129
Sir Francis Hincks is not the only writer who op-
poses them with vigor. I suppose that there is no
politician in the Dominion who would dare risk him-
self before the people with advocacy of annexation.
It has often been asserted that if Canada had been
a portion of the unsevered American Union, the
civil war would not have occurred, so heavily would
the votes and military power of the free States have
been re-enforced.
The United States rejoice to see the crescent
power of the principles of self-government in Can-
ada. They desire for the Dominion a long discipline
in self-rule, such as our colonies had here before we
separated wholly from the mother-country. There is
no peerage in Canada, and only a shadow of the
knighthood exists there. Canada has no State
Church, although the Romish, having yet the benefit
of many old arrangements existing before the treaty
of 1763, is substantially a State Church in Quebec to
this hour.
Let Canada occupy her spacious western prov-
inces ; let her open to the sunlight the black furrows
of the Saskatchewan valley ; let her carry the farm-
ing and forest populations far up the mild shores of
that river ; let her found in Manitoba manufactures
as well as agriculture ; let her bind together her
heterogeneous populations from the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the head of Lake Superior ; let her fill
her forests with the sound of axes, and send her
huntsmen along her streams toward the North Star,
until the gleam of the bay to which Hudson gave
130 LABOR.
his name comes in sight, and the last of the stunted
poplars and birches are in view ; let her pierce the
colossal spikes and bosses of the Rocky Mountains
with another Pacific Railway, if she thinks it will
bear the competition of two and perhaps three
American railways south of her. If, by and by,
when all or most of these results are accomplished,
Canada concludes that she would have a better
market with the United States open to her without
any duties on the border ; if she shall conclude that
parliamentary government in a dependency is likely
to be one of faction or corruption ; if she shall con-
clude that she would be less open to attack in case
of difficulties between England and the United
States, were she a part of the Union, there is a
political party in England that withdrew military
occupation from Canada, and would not risk a war to
hold the Dominion within the British Empire. John
Bright said in Parliament that Great Britain could
be attacked by the United States only in Canada, and
tliat Canada and the mother-country together could
not keep American armies south of the St. Lawrence,
were the United States disposed to move northward.
Let Canada mould her differing provinces into some-
thing like homogeneousness ; let her send common
schools and open Bibles into Lower Canada ; let her
break up the torpor of the lower St. Lawrence pop-
ulations ; let her make herself, in short, a free State
with a free church, and the probabilities of her
ultimate incorporation with the American Union
may not be increased, but certainly they will not
^" diminished.
SEX IN INDUSTEY. 131
You say that the rustle of regal robes yet throws
the Canadian people into acclamations. The French
are not very enthusiastic ; the Irish are not. Of
course politicians, coming to the front with the
English population, are full of noise ; and God bless
them in their blessings of the Queen's daughter !
[Applause.] I am ready to join their acclamations
[applause], and am not prevented by envy from
uniting in them, when I remember that these same
robes rustle on the other side of the globe, and
that an Empress of India has power in every zone.
The haughty days of England are passing by. In
twenty years the United States will have a larger
income than the United Kingdom. Who knows but
that the ultimate solution of this question of annex-
ation or incorporation may be neither annexation
nor incorporation, but the belonging of all English-
speaking peoples to one commercial league, self-
government the principle in each political division !
[Applause.] Let us look far on, and anticipate, with
acclamation of the deep, thoughtful sort, the time
when English-speaking nations shall keep treaties
with each other. Let us adhere to what is practical.
Let us pay the award arbitration has given Canada
in a certain fisheries dispute ; let us enlarge the
influence of arbitration between English-speaking
nations; and by that principle form a commercial
league sufficient to secure substantial peace for Eng-
lish-speaking populations around the globe. What I
desire is not the annexation of Canada, and not her
incorporation into the American Union, but rather
132 LABOB.
a day, such that, if England ever grows weak after
her coal-mines are exhausted, if ever Russia takes
possession of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and
makes English rule difficult or impossible in India,
if ever the inevitable approach of age comes to our
parents in the British Isles, the shoulders of Amer-
ica may be broad enough to provide, as the oldest
son in the family, for the younger children, and for
the parents also. [Applause.] Let it come, an
American-Anglican alliance I
THE LECTUBE.
Your daughter is not at the looms, but her grand-
daughter may be. Pace thoughtfully to and fro in
the city slums, for your descendants may live there.
In a republic, without the law of primogeniture or
any artificial rank, personal position depends on per-
sonal effort. In America the children of Lazarus
may rise to the position of Dives, and those of Dives
may sink to the level of Lazarus ; and therefore, in
America, neither Lazarus nor Dives can understand
himself until the two have changed eyes. Under
republican institutions, the interests of the rich man
are every man's interests, and the interests of the
poor man are every man's also. Such is the mobility
of American society, that the cause of the working-
girl is the cause of the parlor on Fifth Avenue ; tlie
cause of the paorest shop-boy is the cause of the mil-
lion naire ; the cause of the woman behind the whirring
wheels of trade, laboring under unspeakable circum-
stances, and bringing into the world offspring tired
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 133
from birth, is the cause of the most luxurious house-
hold that to-day kneels about any family altar on
Beacon Street, or lifts up thanksgiving in any happy
New-England home.
I did not see the battle of Gettysburg, but I have
seen the rank grass above the graves of those who
fell there. I keep on my table a couple of paper-
weights brought from what is called the wheat-field
at Gettysburg, where men were found killed with
the bayonet, a rare occurrence even in a great battle.
My most vivid impressions of the carnage at Gettys-
burg come from the helavy growths I have seen above
burial-trenches in the meadows, and from what I
read there on the tombstones. We have all heard
how a three-miles front of artillery cannonaded an-
other three-miles front, and how the rebel battle-line,
four miles long, charged on foot across the fruitful
plain, and sunk, great parts of it, into the earth
on the passage. Where the graves lie thickest, we
must take our position if we would understand what
Gettysburg was; and so, if in the carnage, for
there is no other word to describe what is taking
place, if in the carnage occurring among young
women, and middle-aged women, along an industrial
battle-line, extending from St. Petersburg to San
Francisco, to say nothing of barbaric lands where
woman is as yet only an animal, we would under-
stand what the danger is, we must take our position
above her graves. We must stand at the trenches,
where she is buried six deep sometimes. They tell
me that after Antietam, a great trench was opened
134 LABOR.
in the corn-field, and ruddy youth and stalwart man-
hood thrown in ten and fifteen deep, and covered
with earth four feet deep ; and that weeks afterward,
when spectators passed by, the earth was seen to rise
and fall every now and then in places, billowing up
and down with a bubbling motion under the action
of utterly unreportable circumstances beneath the
surface. Now, I am no agitator and no alarmist. I
cannot open all that festers in manufacturing centres
in the Old World, and begins to fester in the New,
for you would not bear a frank discussion of it ; but
I can bring you to these industrial burial-trenches.
What are some of the rank grasses above the
graves? what are some of the inscriptions on the
tombstones of female operative populations ?
Why, here is a report by Mr. Mundella, introdu-
cing Von Plener's history of English factory legisla-
tion (p. xvi.). Frenchmen are remarkable for exact
military statistics. Napoleon taught them how to
keep good tables on the origin and fate of soldiers.
France lately drew 10,000 conscripts from ten agri-
cultural departments. The number rejected was
4,000. She drew 10,000 conscripts fi-om ten indus-
trial and factory departments. The number rejected
was 9,900. There is an industrial battle-trench, and
whoever will put his car on the ground above what
is buried in it will find processes going on beneath
the surface that cannot be publicly described. In
the dei)artment of tlie Marnc and the lower Seine
and the Eure, essentially manufacturing districts,
against 10,500 adjudged to be fit for service, the
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 135
number rejected was 14,000. If this is what happens
to men, with their superior strength, what happens
to women and girls, who constitute more than half
of the modern operatives in textile factories?
Well, but this is France, you say. Facts like
these, you think, can be gathered only from Europe.
But I hold in my hand a report of your Massa-
chusetts Bureau of Health, and I find in it an able
document on the political economy of manufacturing
towns, written by Dr. Edward Jar vis of this Com-
monwealth. I shall trouble you to listen while I
read the inscription in this Massachusetts tombstone
or, rather, it is not a tombstone : it is only what I
saw at Gettysburg again and again, a rude, frail,
memorial tablet simply, and the word " unknown "
written across it. Who can tell the names of these
beneath this burial surface ? In another generation
they may be of your own blood. " In Massachusetts,
during the seven years from 1865 to 1871, 72,700,"
says Dr. Jarvis, " died in their working period. In
the fulness of life and the fulness of health, they
would have opportunity of laboring for themselves,
their families, and the public, in all 3,600,000 years.
But the total of their labors amounts only to
1,700,000 years, leaving a loss of 1,900,000 years
by their premature deaths."
A million nine hundred thousand years of labor
lost in Massachusetts between 1865 and 1871, by the
premature deaths of 72,000 in their working period !
" This was an average annual loss of 276,000 years
of service ! Thus it appears," continues this official
136 LABOR.
document, " that in Massachusetts, one of the most
favored States of this country and of the world,
those who died within seven years had contributed to
the public support less than half, or only 46 per cent,
of what is done in the best conditions of life."
QFifth Report of Massachusetts Board of Health.^
Does the earth rise and fall above this slaughter-
trench ?
Would you have me suggest what I would have
done ? There has lately been called into heaven a
brave physician from this city, who dared discuss Sex
in Education. (See Prof. E. H. Clarke's remarkable
monograph on that subject, Boston, 1875 ; also, T. A.
Gorton, M.D., Principles of Mental Hygiene ; Henry
Maudsley, M.D., Sex in Mind and Education.') His
robe has fallen on many a physician now turning
his attention to Sex in Industry. (See Dr. Ames's
suggestive work with this title, Boston, 1875.) If I
must uncover a little of what lies beneath this heav-
ing surface, I shall do so by suggesting swiftly the
change I demand ; and not I only, but the medical
profession at large, the best manufacturers them-
selves, and more than all the natural laws of the
Supreme Powers who are not elective, and whose
enactments are not likely to be repealed.
Dr. Clarke writes : " There is an establishment in
Boston, owned and carried on by a man, in wliich
ten or a dozen girls are constantly employed. Each
of them is given, and is required to take, a vacation
of three days every four weeks. [Applause.] It is
scarcely necessary to say that their sanitary condition
SEX IN INDUSTEY. 137
is exceptionally good, and that the aggregate total
amount of work which the owner obtains is greater
than that when persistent attendance and labor are
required." [Applause.]
This, in brief, is what I want, and what the medi-
cal experts want, what your board of health wants,
and what I believe the Supreme Powers want, and
ultimately will have ! [Applause.] Until they obtain
it, these slaughter-trenches are to be filled, not by
the agency of the Supreme Powers, but by your
legislation.
Standing yet at the side of these heaving sods on
the wide industrial battle-field, I beg you to follow
me along a line of propositions intended to emphasize
the seriousness which comes to us as we study the
rising and falling of this burial-surface.
1. The mortality among girls increases between
fourteen and eighteen, and among men between
twenty-one and twenty-six.
This is a law for the two sexes wholly aside from
any result of their occupations. How strong are
your daughters to be when they go into this indus-
trial contest? They are a part of a battle-front
extending all the way from the Ural mountains to
the Pacifk; seas. It appears that they must march
out upon the Gettysburg charge at about the time
when their strength is most uncertain. The mortal-
it}^ of young persons of the female sex increases be-
tween fourteen and eighteen, when boys are tough-
est. In the yet sparsely settled United States you
have two hundred thousand girls under fifteen in this
138 LABOR.
battle-front. You have two million females in your
industries ; and of these two hundred thousand are
girls. Most of this number ought to be called cliil-
dren. By a child I mean any one under fourteen ;
by a young person, any one between fourteen and
eighteen ; by a woman, a female over eighteen. Ex-
perts of the jBrst rank tell us that a great physiologi-
cal law is violated in the age at which we admit girls
who are children to work behind the looms. There
is no prospect that this violated natural law will be
repealed. In almost entire disregard of notorious
physiological facts, you are sending girls more fre-
quently than boys into many forms of manufactures.
You require almost the same amount of physical
strain from each, and often pay the girl not more
than half of what you pay the boy. [Applause.]
Is there any meanness in that? [Applause.] I
have an indignation that cannot be expressed when
I think of the physical limitations of woman, and of
the manner in which she is obliged, when standing
alone in the world, to strain all her strength to obtain
half a man gets for the same labor. [Applause.]
2. The strength of the female is to that of the
male as IG to 26.
That is Dr. Draper's opinion. (^Human Physiology^
p. 546.) There are various judgments on this point ;
that is about the average estimate. Woman's mus-
cles contract with less energy, and are more easily
wearied, than tliose of man. Peculiarity of construc-
tion in the bones of the pelvis and chest give rise
in woman to characteristic methods of walking, and
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 139
movement of the arm in attempting to throw a stone.
We understand perfectly that in the foreground of
this charging host the female operative has a strength
only as 16 compared with 26 on the part of the male,
and that the sickly period, from fourteen to eighteen,
is a weight on this small strength ; and yet we expect
that these weaker soldiers in the industrial army
will, in some sense, keep step with the strongest.
The natural law violated here is not likely to be
repealed.
3. The change of insects from the primary to the
perfect or imago state is not a greater one than
occurs in both sexes between the ages of twelve and
sixteen, but earlier in most cases with the female
than the male.
At the side of these burial-trenches you will allow
me to mention, although I may not discuss, certain
natural laws holy as the fire of Sinai.
4. By fixed natural law there exists on the jjart of
woman, as there does not on the part of man, a neces-
sity or need of a periodic rest.
5. On the part of the married woman, it is evident
that the laws -of health forbid, at certain definite
periods, severe mental or physical labor.
6. As those laws of health for the two sexes differ,
and are not likely to be repealed, it is the wisdom of
legislation to make its enactments coincide with those
of the Supreme Powers.
And, now, what would I have ?
7. As in France a council of salubrity, so public
discussion in this country, and commissions of in-
140 LABOR.
quiry, and advice of experts, and all the light we can
obtain from every quarter, and not merely mediaeval
custom, should determine what employments are
suited to women.
8. No woman should be engaged in employment
unsuited to her sex, and declared to be so by the
council of salubrity.
9. No girl under fifteen should be employed in
any of the occupations thus permitted to women.
10. Undoubtedly the human race would be the
gainer if we did not employ a girl under eighteen
in factory labor, unless by special permission from a
surgeon.
11. In all employments opened to woman, or con-
sidered advisable for her, she should be permitted a
periodic absence, without pecuniary loss. [Applause.]
Thank God that without my uncovering this
slaughter-trench, you understand what is beneath its
surface ! This proposition has been officially defend-
ed by your Massachusetts Labor Bureau, which has
made a series of investigations of unequalled value
as to the special effects of certain forms of employ-
ment on female health. (See report for 1875, Part
II., especially pp. 70, 71, 76, and 111.)
12. Additional vacations should be the right of
women employed in occupations requiring a high
degree of mental concentration and pliysical exertion.
13. Sanitary supervision of all large factories
should be furnished at the expense of the proprietors.
14. You must allow me to say, and to expand the
proposition in a subsequent lecture, that in crowded
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 141
rooms, where conversation is not interrupted by the
noise of machinery, there may be a foul or a clean
system of factory management ; and that the min-
gling of the sexes, under careless overseers, and the
filling of these rooms with profanity, and possibly
with obscene conversation, from morning to night, is
not calculated to improve the moral condition of fac-
tory operative populations, containing, it may be, in
time to come, your daughters and mine. [Applause.]
15. Married women should not be employed in
factories without surgical certificates of fitness for
the occupation. [Applause.]
There is a proverb in England to the effect that
whoever among the female operatives can manage
four looms at once, is likely to be wed. " Hoo's a
four-loomer, hoo's like to be wed," say the operatives
on the banks of those canals in Manchester. I sup-
pose that the concentration of attention required in
the women who operate some of our most skilful
machines is one source of the breaking-down of the
female constitution. The physicians tell us that
this close mental application at work is exceedingly
inimical to female health, especially when the labor
must be performed standing. The printer at the
case, if a male, stands easily, and becomes accus-
tomed to his position ; but go into your printing-
offices, and ask whether the sexes are physically
equal in the ability to face the compositor's toil.
Woman must be seated when she sets type. The
general experience is that a woman cannot bear to
stand at a machine as long as a man. Even in
142 LABOR.
the schoolroom, speaking to her pupils, the female
teacher does well to be seated most of the time.
There are deep reasons, not to be discussed here,
for giving a periodic rest to female operatives, who
must have brain in their finger-tips. She who sets
the types the most swiftly, or she who manages the
telegraph most sldlfully, may not need more mental
concentration than she who manages four looms and
is like to be wed. There must be no mistakes in
her physical manipulations. There is penalty at
once if a single thread breaks. I have seen, at Law-
rence and at Lowell, machines so perfect that if a
single thread is broken out of the multitudinous
threads they spin, they stop like sensitive things of
life until the thread is mended. She who is a four-
loomer must have her mind upon every thread, and
this ten or twelve hours a day, and day after day.
Perhaps the summer day is hot, and she is at work
under the roof. Perhaps the winter day is cold, and
she must live in a poisonously vitiated hot atmos-
phere. Some of our factories are models in their
sanitary arrangements, but some are not all. Our
first-class manufacturing establishments I believe to
be the best in the world. The third-rate ones are
as yet, however, the largest class. I am not assail-
ing capitalists and employers as a mass. The third-
rate men among tlie employers are careless, and
have necessitated the factory legislation of the Old
World and the New. I have on my side constantly,
in this discussion of socialism and labor reform, tho
best sentiment of the higher class of manufacturers.
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 143
It may easily happen that this poor woman works in
a third-rate establishment. It may be that she is
not allowed proper time for her meals. It may be
that this intense mental concentration has no peri-
odic rest. It may be that her own support and that
of her family depends upon her steady labor in
these unfavorable physical conditions. The result
is, in seven cases out of ten, that she goes into this
industrial slg^ughter-trench before she is fifty. The
certainty is, as I have shown you, that in a multi-
tude of cases, so numerous as to be absolutely ter-
rific, the operative populations pass out of the
world by premature deaths.
It is said that for every one that dies prematurely,
there are two sick most of the time. If you take
the records I have read to you on these tom])stones
of the dead ones who have gone under the sod, and
multiply their numbers by two, you will obtain the
record of the sick ones who lie on the couches of
languishing more or less often. I speak, I think,
wholly within bounds, when I say that the tossing
of this earth above the slaughter-trench is not the
whole horror. The tossing of the coverlets on beds
of pain is another portion of the evil ; but the lar-
gest horror of all is the coming into the world of
populations not capable of sustaining the burdens
likely to be put upon them from the very outset.
The rising and falling of the coverlets which are
spread over the already sick limbs of unborn gener-
ations are what sicken me most. I am horrified by
this heaving surface of earth above the trench. I
144 LABOR.
am horrified by these sick-beds; but when I think
that the citizen is taxed before he is born, and of
what Edmund Burke used to say about the object
of government being to make strong men and strong
women and good citizens, and to educate them, and
that nothing is worth any thing in government un-
less good men and good women are the result;
when I -think of the effect of these factory abuses
upon factory populations, once become ^hereditary,
I look up to Almighty God, and pray him, in the
name of his own most holy laws, to fasten our eyes
upon the slaughter of the innocents. The aged,
you say, are not to be pitied ; but even the mediae-
val baron had pity for his aged and infirm retainers.
Middle age, you think, can take care of itself. But
what of the unborn, and those that are to come in
a long procession into this serried front of the in-
dustrial battle-line in ages yet ahead of us ?
Where is the old spirit of New England, that
looked forward and founded institutions for genera-
tions not yet visible on the verge of coming time ?
Webster's eyes were always fastened on the respon-
sibility of the present to the future. Advance,
coming generations ! was his perpetual salutation
to the ages before him. Where are his successors ?
Where are the men, who, looking on the abuses in
industrial populations, dare so reform them as to be
able to gaze into the face of God, and say. Advance,
future generations I to better conditions than hea-
thendom gave you, and to better than the Old
World allowed you. Advance to circumstances in
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 145
which socialism can seem only a nightmare. Ad-
vance to such treatment that you shall yourselves
be convinced that Dives and Lazarus, God's hand
on the shoulder of the one, and his hand on the
shoulder of the other, have at last in the history of
industry been brought face to face, and to the profit
of both have changed eyes. [Applause.]
VI.
SEX IN INDUSTRY.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH LECTURE IN THK
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, DEC. 9.
Let U3 but shorten the term of daily labor, giving, thereby, to
those employed the means of enjojing their inalienable right of
time for self-improvement and domestic life, and I believe that, in
the present state of the country, the factory system might thus be
made the channel of comforts and blessings. "VThen I have contem-
plated a multitude of twelve or fourteen hundred people, congre-
gated under a single roof, governed by the revolutions of a single
engine, all within reach of daily intercourse, of watchful care, of
every happy influence, I have often said to myself: I wish to God
I were a factory-owner. Lohd SnAiiTESBUBr : Speech at Manchester.
Thou art a Man, I think; thou art not a mere building Beaver,
or two-legged Cotton-Spider; thou hast verily a Soul in thee, as-
phyxied or otherwise! Sooty Manchester, it too is built on the
infinite Abysses; overspanned by the skyey Firmaments; and there
is birth in it, and death in it ; and it is every whit as wonderful,
as fearful, im^imaginable, as the oldest Salem or Prophetic City.
Cabltle.
VI.
SEX IN INDUSTRY.
PEELUDE ON CUEEENT EVENTS.
Political prizes in the United States are now
greater than they ever were in the Roman Empire,
and are doubling in fatness and value every thirty
years. Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus were never
tempted by spoils as alluring as will dazzle and per-
haps derange the American political future. We are
as honest as most men can be expected to be under
our present immensely mischievous customs as to the
civil service. A hundred thousand men turned out
and put in every time we change our national execu-
tive ; and soon two hundred thousand to be turned
out and put in, if you follow the accursed spoils
system ! You expect men to be honest with this vast
patronage to be won by purchasing a canvassing
board in Louisiana or Florida, South Carolina or
Oregon ! Statesmen of the first rank will be honest ;
but to expect fourth-rate politicians to be so in the
presence of these temptations, is to fly in the face
of the teachings of all history.
149
150 LABOR.
What are a few of the facts illustrating recent
American ingenuity in frustrating the popular will
expressed at the polls? Ghastly election frauds
startle South and North, and achieve historical
prominence from the discussion of them in a Presi-
dential message. The ostrich hides her thin, wilful
head in the sand, and thinks her whole body cov-
ered. Great is the American eagle, greater the
American peacock, but greatest of all the Ameri-
can ostrich. Looking around the present national
horizon from the point of view of the political party
now in power, we see fraud, chiefly in the South
and among the fifth-rate managers of the Demo-
cratic party. But, if there were a Democratic Presi-
dent at the White House, I am not sure but that the
nation would have evidence before it of fraud among
fifth-rate Republican political managers. Both politi-
cal parties affirm that the deciding votes in a close
national election were bought and sold ; that is, that
the Presidency itself was on sale !
It is alleged that the cipher despatches which of
late have been unearthed by the superb enterprise
of the leading American newspaper, were exhibited
to prominent men in Congress before the electoral
commission was appointed. Both the Field and the
Morton committee demanded at that time the tele-
graphic despatches on both sides ; but Mr. Orton of
the telegraph-company refused to surrender them.
lie assured Senator Morton that the secret telegrams
would compromise conspicuous men of both parties,
and make a horrible scandal. He showed them to
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 151
representatives on both sides, who saw that they
would bring disgrace on prominent men, but who
insisted, nevertheless, on their publication. Obliged
to surrender the despatches to the congressional
committees, Orton at last gave them up to Senator
Morton, who used portions of them to overcome
Democratic opposition to -the count after the decision
of the electoral commission. The despatches, it is
affirmed, were found among his papers after his de-
cease, but some of them had been destroyed. This
account, to which papers as widely contrasted as " The
New York Herald" and "The New York Nation"
(see the latter, Oct. 17, pp. 231 and 234) have given
currency and substantial credence, agrees well with
the version which has been current in well-informed
circles in Washington since the two political parties,
just before the electoral commission met, agreed not
to examine each other's record any further. I know
how frankly I am speaking ; but tliis is a place in
which to speak frankly, for this platform is neither
political nor partisan. [Applause.]
The use which has been made of the cipher de-
spatches by " The New York Tribune " deserves great
praise, although the exposure has been a party-
weapon chiefly. What we want now is all the
despatches that can be obtained, and as full an
account as possible of any that are missing. If it
can be shown that only one political party has been
implicated in secret fraud, great advantage will, of
course, inure to the exonerated opposite party ; and
so that party should be willing to bring forward the
152 LABOR.
rest of the despatches, in case they are in existence.
Thus the investigation would assist to bring about
general purification, and would not be merely a
party-weapon.
What has been proved by the investigation thus
far ? In spite of the partisan character of the expos-
m*e nearly all good men are, as I judge, agreed :
1. That in Oregon five thousand dollars were
offered for an elector, and Democratic money sent to
pay for the fraud.
2. That in Florida fifty thousand dollars were thus
offered by a responsible agent at Gramercy Park in
New York.
3. That in South Carolina eighty thousand dollars
were offered, and the money sent to Baltimore to
pay for the fraud.
4. That in Louisiana the Republican record is not
clean, and the Democratic far from being so.
5. That the " Tribune " exposure has received no
adequate reply.
The public keeps in mind the grave public de-
nials by the principal character implicated, and the
high honor he has received from a large portion of
the American people. I think it fair to affirm that
his explanations, in view of the great circumstantial-
ity and coherence of the charges publicly brought
against his agents, have not been wholly satisfactory.
Perhaps they exonerate him in a slight degree ; but,
if he knew nothing of what his agents were doing,
liis indignation at their acts ought to be such as to
cause him now to drop them from his employment.
SEX IN rNDUSTRY. 153
which he has not done. The denials of the subsid-
iary men in the conspiracy are still more lame than
those of the principal. The chief of the subsidiary
agents affirms that he has nothing to say on the sub-
ject ; but whoever, in his position, has nothing to say
about these charges, has much to say. [Applause.]
But the most suggestive facts proved are these :
6. That the Presidency was for sale by a few cor-
rupt men.
7. That third and fourth rate politicians offered to
buy it, and came near doing so.
8. That our electoral machinery is now such that
at any time in a closely contested national election the
presidency may be for sale by a few politicians of the
tenth rank in some State where the count is to settle
the dispute.
If we escaped from the existence of a fraudulent
Presidency, it was not on account of any peculiar
excellence in our electoral machinery or in the fifth
and seventh rate politicians who managed it. It was
not a result of the virtue of several prominent men
in both parties. I believe that the leader of the
Republican party now in the executive chair at Wash-
ington is as clear from fraud as the undriven snow
from stain. [Applause.] While we pride ourselves
on this confidence, however, let us keep in mind the
large and startling final fact proved by our memor-
able experience in 1876.
How far does bribery go in our Northern city elec-
tions ? Here is Chicago, and she has just found out
that a vote and a count are two things. All nations
154 LABOR.
have heard of the existence in New York City of a
Tweed ring, accustomed to stufl&ng ballot-boxes, mis-
counting the votes, and various forms of intimidation
by roughs at the polls. Portions of the Southern
Democratic party have improved on Tweed's meas-
ures. He never knew how to use tissue paper as
adroitly as they do. He never employed the shot-
gun, as they have done; he never dared strike off
names from the registry-list, as has been done in the
Southern States. We are peculiarly indignant over
the gerrymandering of several Southern electoral
districts, or the opening of polling-places in such
locations as made them exceedingly inconvenient for
black citizens. But that word, gerrymandering, I
believe, originated in Massachusetts.
We must go farther back than to the cipher de-
spatches of 1876, if we are to reach the root of our
difficulty. I suppose it to be true that a great num-
ber of average voters in both political parties expect
to sell their votes in closely contested elections.
Riding down the Hudson the other day with a promi-
nent politician, he told me that with his own e^'es he
saw, in a city outside of New England, church-mem-
bers going about with their hands full of currency,
and paying two dollars, three, five, for votes on elcc-
tionnlay. An important measure was up, and these
church-members were determined to carry it through ;
and in the case to which I am making reference they
did carry an important reform in a city of fifty or
eighty thousand inhabitants. They carried it by
open bribery at the polls. Now, what are the churches
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 155
to say in such a case ? Are you ready to indorse
action of that sort in men who profess to look to the
Holy of Holies for leadership ? I was told by a promi-
nent politician the other day, not far from New York
City, that, when he put the question to a Democratic
manager, " How many of your day-laborers, minor
mechanics, and men of small means, refuse to be
bought?" the reply was, "Not over a third. In a
close election we can buy two-thirds of all the votes
cast by the unfortunate class. The wealthy do not
sell their votes ; but those who need to exert them-
selves a little severely to make the year's ends meet,
sometimes put down among their assets their votes.
Father and four sons in a family put down twenty-
five dollars for their votes, among their assets." I
have heard of that being done, and of a man being
elected to Congress who bought two hundred and
fifty votes, and was carried into office by them ; and
he kept a list of the men he bought, and used to
show it to his friends as a matter of pride. Political
clubs of the lower order sell themselves in bodies in
many city elections ; and this infamy we sleep over.
We are not awakened by the yet more humiliating
fact of the bribery of the pinched but usually honest
country-side.
We live in a kind of stupidity, a sort of jocose
indifference, concerning average bribery at elections ;
and even church-members who bribe escape any se-
vere condemnation, but deserve to be smitten by the
thunderbolts of church censure. [Applause.] I had
almost said that the answer I should be tempted to
make to the offer of a bribe would be a blow.
156 LABOB.
The Rev. Dr. Dale, from England, in a public ad-
dress at New Haven, defended the proposition that
under a free representative government, any church-
member who has a right to vote, and will not, deserves
to be censured by the church ; and, without repent-
ance, should be expelled from church communion.
Now, I do not go as far as that ; but, in the presence
of an audience which understands this subject in its
relations to manufactures, and in a State which has
been accused by the foremost orator of the Common-
wealth of intimidating working-men, I undertake to
say that when church-members are found with their
fingers full of filthy lucre, peddling it out in the way
of bribes around the polls on election-day, and their
attention is called in private to the scandal they are
bringing on God's house, and they do not repent,
they ouglit to be ejected from church communion.
[Applause.]
You think that the young men's movement in poli-
tics will purge the polls in cities, and that a good
registry-law will bring us out of frauds at the ballot-
box. Yes ; but our cities are growing faster than the
rest of the country. We have heard over and over,
from all kinds of public authorities, that a fifth part
of our population now lives in cities, and that cities
are the hotbeds of greed and fraud. The young men
of Boston may take care of this city : it is a small
place. Possil)ly the young men might take care of
New York : it is a small place yet. But liow are we
to take care of a couple of Londons in this country
when our population has doubled once or twice more?
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 157
Certainly, if we fail in a general appeal to the public,
there is no reason why we should fail in an appeal to
the ministry and church-members. The ministry are
not politicians. We are at times a kind of arbitrat-
ing board between extremes in politics. We are not
seeking office. Everybody knows that we are not
dependent on this or that political faction. It is
time that the ministry of the United States should
rise to its feet, and declare its right to be heard on
this terrific evil of election-frauds. Let us bring into
practice the principle that men guilty of receiving
or of offering bribes shall not be kept in the church ;
and, if out of it, shall be prevented from coming in.
[Applause.]
" Not lightly fall, -without recall,
The written scrolls a breath may float ;
The crowning fact, the kingliest act
Of freedom is a freeman's vote."
Whittier : Election Eve.
[Applause.]
THE LECTURE.
It is the fortune of Massachusetts to have legalized
more complete investigation concerning the condi-
tion of working-womien than any other political com-
munity known to history. The fact has been
officially ascertained that in this Commonwealth the
average pay for ten hours' labor by a woman is eighty-
two cents. The statement was lately published in
New York, that a dozen shirts can be made to-day
in that city for thirty-five cents, and the assertion
158 LABOK.
was verified, by a letter from a female operative.
(^Trihine^ Dec. 6.) My object is not to direct your
attention to the upper rank of female labor, but to
those lower grades which you know must exist, if
you take as authentic the official statistics. Aver-
ages could not be brought down so low, were not
the lower ranks extensive. It is out of the lowest
ranks of low-paid female labor that some of the
worst evils of cities arise. If you continue to
squeeze the heart of girlhood by low wages, you
must expect to find in the gutters of cities a good
deal of red, clotted slime ; and, if you like to roll
in it, remember that you have squeezed out the
blood. [Applause.] With eyes open to notorious
facts concerning low-paid female labor, I have at
times an indignation that would not appear sober if
it were fully expressed ; and yet these statistics
burn with a hotter fire than I have ever found in my
own heart ; and I believe that, if 3-ou fasten attention
on them but for a moment, they will, kindle their own
fire in yours.
1. Tliese propositions represent the condition of
working-women in iSIassachusetts :
(1) In 1875 the Massachusetts Labor Bureau re-
ceived statements of personal earnings and expenses
from 15,824 females depending for siipport upon
daily wages.
Many more than 15,000 returns were received, but
the Board struck out of the account all the state-
ments that were in any way imperfect. Over 15,000
good ones remained, complete in every essential par-
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 159
ticular. I undertake to say the world never saw as
many budgets of poor working-girls opened as were
examined officially in this Commonwealth in 1875.
(2) The average number of days these working-
women were employed in a year was 258.
(3) Their average earnings were 82 cents a day.
They worked on the average more than ten hours a
day, that is, more than sixty hours a week.
(4) Only one in a hundred owned a house.
(5) These females were paying on the average
$93 a year rent.
(6) The cost of living of the working-women was
reduced on the average to $182.86 a year.
You are not interested in these figures ? No ; but
they may be family statistics for your descendants !
2. These propositions represent the condition of
working-men in Massachusetts :
(1) In the year 1875 the same Bureau received
returns from 55,515 males engaged in the industries
of this Commonwealth, and depending for their sup-
port upon daily wages.
(2) The average number of the days they were
employed in the year was 241.
(3) Their average earnings were $2.01 a day,
against 82 cents for women.
(4) Only one in a hundred, however, owned a
house.
(5) These males were paying on an average $109
a year as rent.
(6) The cost of living of the working-men was
reduced on the average to $488.96 a year.
160 LABOR.
You assure me, however, that it is useless to try to
frighten an intelligent audience by mere averages ;
for of course there are a few poverty-stricken dis-
tricts even in Massachusetts. You tliink that by
putting in the Cape and Nantucket and all the rural
districts, and by allowing working men and women
to make their own reports, and by manipulating the
figures a little, these startling results can easily be
brought out. But here I hold in my hands the offi-
cial report of your Labor Bureau for 1876, and in it
these return's are arranged by counties (pp. 49-64).
Remember, also, that your Bureau was honored by
being appointed to the work of taking the decennial
census in this Commonwealth. In 1875 the labor of
the State census and that of the bureau of industry
were conjoined. There were returns obtained from
employers as well as from working-men and working-
women ; and here I have before me a table in which
the employed and the employers are quoted side by
side (p. X.). According to returns made by employ-
ers for more than 250,000 employes, the average of
yearly wages for the State is $413. According to
returns made by the employed, this average is 8418,
slightly above the estimate made by the employers
themselves. The coincidence of these two estimates
is one of the most striking things in this almost
mathematically exact work of the honored chief of
your Labor Bureau, Col. Wright. Each set of these
returns was made distinct from the other ; and both
refer to the same period, the year ending May 1,
1875.
SEX m INDUSTRY. 161
But I turn now to a few details to convince you
that the averages have not been manipulated. Here,
for instance, is grand old Middlesex County, and I
find that the average daily wages of woman in 1875,
in that favored tract of Massachusetts, were 82
cents ; that the number of days she was employed,
on the average, was 270 ; and that the annual cost of
her living was reduced to -$178.82. I turn to Hamp-
shire County, in the middle region of the Connecticut
Valley in Massachusetts, and find that the average
daily wages of woman was 78 cents. She was em-
ployed there 260 days in the year. The cost of liv-
ing was reduced to $169. I turn to Hampden County,
on the fat meadows of the lower Connecticut Valley
in this State, and find woman earning only 90 cents
on the average, and employed only 172 days in a
year, and the cost of her living reduced to $192. I
turn to Essex County, the north-east county of this
Commonwealth, and find the average daily earnings
of woman 89 cents onlj. She was employed 257
days of the year, and the cost of her living was
reduced to $203. I turn to Berkshire County, on the
hills that look into the Hudson Valley, and find
woman's average earnings 72 cents only. She was
employed 266 days, and the cost of her living was
reduced to $180.82. I turn to Barnstable County,
which you say, by being thrown in with the general
estimate reduces the average, and I find that there
the daily earnings of woman were 66 cents, that she
was employed 204 days, and that the cost of living
was $130. I turn to Suffolk County, and find the
162 LABOE.
average earnings 71 cents ; the number of days, 298 ;
and the cost of living, $184 only.
It is truly astounding to me to find public sen-
timent slumbering over facts like these, with the
additional certainty before it that New England is a
factory, and is likely to be so more and more.
The centre of territory in Massachusetts is within
the limits of Worcester, on the easterly side, near
Lake Quinsigamond. But where is the centre of
population ? Is it Framingham ? Is it Lake Cochit-
uate? The north and south line which cuts the
population of Massachusetts in halves passes easterly
of a point midway between Harvard University and
the West Boston Bridge. The east and west line
dividing the population into equal portions passes
through the South Boston end of the Federal-street
bridge. The two lines intersect at a point not two
miles west of the State House. This, according to
the State documents, was the centre of population in
1865. (^Abstract of the Cenms of 18G5, with Remarks
on the Same^ and Supplementary Tables, prepared
under the direction of Oliver Warner, Secretary of
the Commonwealth, p. 274.) The centralization of
wealth is even more remarkable than that of the
population. The census everywhere reveals the fact
that, through the aid of the wonderful increase of
all means of intercommunication, the change which is
constantly giving greater and greater power to cities,
tliis added weight of the Atlantic slope of the State,
is chiefly an effect of the extraordinary growth of the
manufacturing centres of Eastern Massachusetts. Of
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 163
these, Boston itself is one. I must be pardoned for
considering it a suggestive circumstance, that, in spite
of the remarkable advances of Central and Western
Massachusetts, the circumscribing line drawn from
the State House, and containing half the population
of the Commonwealth, has contracted its radius ten
miles in fifty years. All Eastern Massachusetts is a
factory. In 1865 more than one-half of the popula-
tion of Massachusetts, seven-tenths of the personal
property, and two-thirds of the real estate, were sit-
uated within twenty-five miles of the State House at
Boston ! (Ibid., p. 275.) In the five years since
these astonishing estimates were made, Lynn has in-
creased thirty-six per cent in population, . Lawrence
thirty-two, Lowell tliirty-one, Haverhill nineteen, and
Fall River forty.
Here is the incoming of an Atlantic tide. It is
the roar of the industrial conditions of Old England
coming into New England. I have lived for months
within hearing of the roar of the ocean, and have
looked daily upon the coming-in of the vast tides.
It is little to say that I profess to have ' lived also
within hearing of the roar of the human ocean which
beats on the Atlantic slope of New England, and to
have looked frequently upon the coming-in of these
vast tides. Imagine the magnificent coast-line from
Newfoundland to New York beaten in all its coves
and headlands by incoming Atlantic waves. A feeble
occupation this, compared with imagining the same
coast beaten as it is, in all its coves and headlands,
and likely to be beaten more and more furiously as
164 LABOE.
the years pass, by these incoming human tides, and
more and more complicated industrial conditions.
Not discuss those conditions ! Not secure the best
life that can be secured for the millions whose future
is now being largely determined by the precedents
which are to be set in the period of transition New
England is passing ! Not turn public discussion and
legislation early to the solution of problems more
vital than any others in the secular life of New Eng-
land, and sure to become more and more complicated
as the tides rise higher ! He who says this is likely
to be as little regarded as the rattling of rushes
before the coming-in of an Atlantic surge.
Discussing sex in industry, I have placed in con-
trast the condition of working-men and that of work-
ing-women in the most fortunate commonwealth of
the globe, to show you what happens in favorable con-
ditions. What if I were to go to Prussia ? What if
I were to go to England? My topic touches the
whole range of capital and labor from the Ural Moun-
tains to the Pacific seas ; and I am here speaking at a
great disadvantage by the use of Massachusetts sta-
tistics. I must employ them, if I am to speak defi-
nitely, for they are the only good statistics of this
kind in the world. So has European sentiment, so
has even English sentiment, slumbered over tliis topic,
that to-day you cannot find authority for making
statements as definite as these concerning the work-
ing men and women of Prussia and of England.
There is now in circulation a memorial to Congress
and the President, asking that statistics like these
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 165
be given us in the next national census, for all the
United States; and may God give success to that
petition ! [Applause.]
3. It is evident from these contrasted propositions,
that unsupported and unmarried women are often
so illy paid that with ten hours' labor a day they
barely escape starvation, and do not escape illness
and debt, and can lay up nothing for marriage, or
for seasons when employment is not obtainable.
4. In cases where female labor earns six dollars,
ten dollars, or sometimes fifteen dollars, a week, it is
from sixteen to thirty-four weeks of the year only
that these wages are earned.
It never will happen to you to forget the distinc-
tion between fluctuating and uninterrupted indus-
tries if you have had a little experience in seeking
employment. A good place obtained is not always
kept for a year. Indeed, the uncertainty of employ-
ment is one of the things most discouraging to female
labor. You know that woman is not man's equal,
quite, in pushing her own interests among rough
people. She must go about, often alone, and seek
occupation, and there is not everywhere a Young
"Women's Christian Association to help her into busi-
ness. Even if such an association exists, it cannot
always supply what is wanted. A woman, a young
woman, a girl, must get her own place often and
again ; and, when she has obtained it, she may be in
some fine industry where the fashions change, and
where, in less than half a year, a new set of fashions
come in, and the trade has to wait for orders. Many
166 LABOR.
of our great industries can accumulate stock, and
sell it without great risk. Iron-ore is always worth
something ; cotton cloth does not go out of fashion.
But your fine bonnets, your fine embroidery, your
ready-made clothing, your finest articles of female
apparel, change their fashions, and cannot be safely
accumulated in advance. They are produced in, and
they produce, the fluctuating industries. If it is your
business, as it is mine, to study the political economy
of cities, you will fasten attention upon the distinc-
tion between the fluctuating and the uninterrupted
industries as explaining a large amount of the distress
which comes upon female operatives in our great
towns. Their business is not steady. When manu-
facturers tell you that ten dollars and fifteen dollars
a week are paid to the best female operative, you
must ask how many weeks a year these wages are
received. Here I have statistics which show in detail
that very considerable sums must be earned in some
way outside of factory-work, if female operatives in
fluctuating trades are to make the year's ends meet.
That matter has been investigated in this State. It
is fully ascertained that in most cases, unless these
operatives wlio arc thrown out of employment by the
lulls in a fluctuating industry get something else to
do, they cannot support themselves, even at the low
average cost of living. If they do not obtain some
other employment, they suffer, or fall into debt, and
may approach starvation, because in these brisk
periods it is impossible to earn enough to keep body
and soul together through the whole year.
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 167
Let it be understood constantly that I do not
assail manufacturers as a class. I am utterly without
partisan feeling concerning capital and labor. But
there are establishments in this city where young
women are sometimes discharged in a body, and un-
skilled young women brought in because they can be
had cheaper. Skilled female operatives who have
supported themselves during the time when they
were learning a trade are apt to demand higher
wages ; but some machines can be run by compara-
tively unskilled persons ; light work can be done by
girls ; and it happens in third and fourth rate fac-
tories, even under the shadow of that State House,
that skilled girls are dropped because their wages
are too high, and unskilled brought in, so that these
short seasons are thus further shortened.
Every day there come to me, in my study of this
theme, illustrations of the physical limitations of
women. You know that in many manufacturing
establishments a girl must be on her feet from morn-
ing to night. Indeed, in some shops of retail busi-
ness, the female clerks must be on their feet most of
the time. It is against the rule to sit down in some
establishments. I read in this document lying in
that chair (^Report of Labor Bureau for 1871, p. 205),
printed under official authority, of a girl in this city
who was kept measuring cotton cloth from morning
till night, and at last dropped in a fainting-fit. " It
was three-quarters of an hour before the girl was
able to resume her work, and for this loss of time
her employer deducted a quarter of a day's wages."
168 LABOR.
6. During the acquisition of skill in any trade, the
working-girl must usually support herself.
6. She is required by public law to be at school
until she is fifteen, and is graduated without training
in any industrial employment.
7. Developing-schools and school-shops should be
open to girls as well as boys.
8. But the girl is always less incited by self-
interest than the boy to learn a trade ; for at mar-
riage she expects, as the boy does not, to make occu-
pation conform to that of the person married.
Flora McFlimsey, who has nothing to wear, is only
a little more foolish and criminal than Bridget, if
the latter is allowed by her own pride to cast herself
upon the world without knowing how to do any
thing. But it is not the pride of Flora McFlimsey
that is chiefly to blame, but our own omission of
the proper training of girls to industry.
We take the boy and the girl from the father and
mother up to the age of fifteen, and insist that the
child shall be at school ; and then we give back both
BO poorly educated that they find little or nothing to
do, and, if they were left alone, would not have
much to wear. You approved here, the other day,
my proposition, when it was asserted that school-
shops and the developing-school are a proper crown
for cliildren's riglits in the trades. Surely if they
are a proper crown for boys' rights, they are for
girls' ; and yet I recognize the fact constantly that
the girl cannot be helped as much as the boy.
She never will be as enthusiastic as a boy in learn-
SEX IN rNDUSTEY. 169
ing a trade, simply because she does not expect to be
independent in its practice. Nevertheless it is a
public shame for us to send out of common schools
young girls above all manual labor, and fit only for
the drawing-room, and utterly unskilled in any thing
that would bring them a dollar. [Applause.] I
would have the girl so brought up in school, that
when she leaves it she may not be above manual
occupation, and may not be so unskilled as to be
unworthy of employment. [Applause.]
9. Woman has in general more pride of appear-
ance than man, and, if in poor dress, is less easily
than man drawn into the evening-school, the lecture-
room, and the church.
Discussing the condition of thousands now in New
England, and keeping before you the future pros-
pects of far larger numbers yet to arrive here on the
shore of being, I am endeavoring to state in logical
order the circumstances which determine the condi-
tion of the working-girl and working-woman in
manufacturing populations.
10. In the working-room, the girl cannot always
choose her companions. In the fluctuating indus-
tries, the door through which operatives are admitted
to work-rooms is not a moral sieve.
11. The perils of work-rooms where unsifted,
fluctuating, and floating populations are crowded
together under careless overseers will often be great
for young men and boys, and especially great for
women, young women and girls, who constitute more
than half of average operative populations.
170 LABOR.
12. A floating is usually a more or less homeless
population, and so is less under the influence of
family police than a stationary population.
13. Neither boarding-houses nor churches can do
as much for a floating as for a resident population.
What do I want? Perhaps you will allow me to
assert that if I had a sister I should be very reluc-
tant to put her into a room, say twenty by thirty
feet square, filled with floating operatives in a fluctu-
ating trade. Why should I be thus reluctant ? Be-
cause I have seen repeatedly in this Commonwealth
three, four, or five young women in a room with fif-
teen or twenty men, and have had the best reason to
know that, as the machinery did not make noise
enough to prevent conversation, the effect of pro-
fanity and utterly vile talk was as demoralizing and
poisonous as might naturally be expected. If there
be an evil girl there, she may do immense harm. If
I had a son, I should not like to place him in that
room. I have talked with riiany manufacturers on
this theme, and never met a man of the first rank,
managing liLs business in the Christian way, who did
not say that this is an evil, and can easily be avoided.
It can be diminished by securing fair oversight of the
rooms. It is not always necessary to mingle the
sexes ; perhaps sometimes it must be done, but most
manufacturers tell me that there can be a clean S3's-
tem of managing these work-rooms. I know how
many exigencies arise in associated toil, and liow you
cannot make up what is called a team in certain pro-
cesses of industry, without mingling female and male
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 171
labor ; but in general there may be two sets of work-
rooms, and such oversight that this difficulty may be
immensely lessened.
When I go to physicians in manufacturing towns,
and ask what is the moral effect of careless factory-
arrangements, I obtain replies that cannot be made
public. Go to the best factory-physicians in New
England, where the floating populations are largest,
I am weighing all my words, and they will tell
you that some of the perils notorious in seaport
towns are likely to arise in every quarter where thou-
sands of people float in and float out without homes,
and are massed face to face in these work-rooms of
the factories of the fluctuating trades.
Ominous enough in itself, the historic reputation
of congregated labor is yet more ominous from
the most important circumstances that many vast
branches of manufactures belong to the fluctuating
rather than to the uninterrupted industries, and
must, on that account, give rise in large towns to
large fluctuating populations. The perils of congre-
gated labor in large towns are large enough ; but the
perils of congregated labor in large towns with large
floating populations have an established name that
makes it impossible to speak too strongly of the
worth of family life as a moral police in society.
He who comes home at night to a circle that know
him well, and watch his daily course, has a kind of
daily appearance to make before a moral tribunal.
The bliss of the home affections is a shield from vice,
not only because it is bliss, but because it makes any
172 LABOE.
conduct that needs concealment from the moral tri-
bunal of the most intimate circle as painful as the
bliss of ingenuousness and trust is great.
From side to side of the globe, every place where
a large floating population congregates is found to be
a stormy moral coast. In face of universal experi-
ence I need not pause to prove the moral perils of
homelessness. Those centres in New England where
large floating populations gather will always be found
to exhibit peculiar moral perils.
All the more to he honored and trusted for their
endurance of the breakers, is that percentage of most
worthy people to be found in evert/ floating population.
Not only am I aware of the existence of hundreds of
excellent people in floating populations, but also of the
duty of receiving these with especial cordiality to our
hearts and homes. But in a large town there is in a
floating population not only an intermixture of the
thoughtless and giddy and falling, but further down,
and most to be feared, a percentage of the thoroughly
bad. Men and women who have the worst reasons
for leading a floating life need not be many in any
floating population, to do immense mischief. New
England is not so saintly in her cities that she can
afford to forget that the exigencies of trade and the
wonderful growth of means of intercommunication
have brought into some of her inland large towns
evils thoroughly analogous to the old and traditional
evils of seaports. All kinds of people gather in fluc-
tuating industries. In a large city, in a floating pop-
ulation, it is not incautious to ask, not everv tenth
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 173
man, but every tenth man who pretends to a peculiar
interest in your affairs, " Have you ever been in
jail ? " Every great city is a collection of camps.
He who knows one stratum of the society only, does
not know the city. He who knows dissipated Paris
does not know Paris, but only a particular camp in
Paris. So of New York and London and Berlin, and
every lesser town in its proportion. The moral perils
of homelessness, added to the perils of this bad per-
centage from outside, put the solemn duty upon the
resident population of these stormy moral coasts, to
throw the moral light-houses of church, library, and
school, but especially the light-houses of right indus-
trial arrangements, far out upon the edges of the
reefs.
I have not suffered myself to take up a theme so
complicated and weighty without an extended and
most serious attention to it, not as exhibited in books
merely, but as seen in the swarming life of manufac-
turing-towns ; not as seen in the opinions of this
class of men or of that, but as seen by men who have
the most different interests involved concerning it,
and the most widely separated points of view. I
have been through more than a few of your factories.
I have conversed with a large number of your lead-
ing manufacturers. I have consulted carefully with
many working-men.
14. The proposition I defend is, that the working-
class of the manufacturing centres of New England
have a right to ask of the employing class that the
moral perils of the work-rooms under the factory sys-
174 LABOR.
tern shall be made for themselves and for their chil-
dren as few and small as possible.
There is a foul and there is a clean system of work-
room management in factories engaged in fluctuating
industries, and likely to have many changeable opera-
tives. To speak at once to the point, there are work-
rooms in which men and women, boys and girls,
gathered in large part at random out of a floating
population, are sandwiched together like herrings in
a box ; and, uninterrupted by the noise of machinery,
it is not infrequently tobacco-smoke, profanity, and
foul talk from morning to night ! I am not speaking
of cotton-factories, nor of establishments in which
the noise of machinery prevents free conversation
between operatives. But in factories of many other
kinds it is notoriously easy for a few foul mouths,
not hard to be found in a floating population, to cor-
rupt a whole room. The herring-box system I call a
foul system.
Foul mouths in factories are so well known that
the expression is almost a proverb. There are nu-
merous and most honorable exceptions, especially in
the factories managed on the clean system ; but you
would tliink me ill acquainted with tlie most essen-
tial parts of the subject I discuss, if I did not refer
to wliat the best class of working-men and working-
women speak of to me at every street-corner.
I have sometimes seen four or five young women
crowded into the same room with twenty-five or thir-
ty men ; or three working thus ; or two, or one. I do
not assert that a majority of mouths are foul in the
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 175
factories ; but I deliberately make myself responsible
for the public assertion that a father who wishes the
welfare of his daughter cannot be expected to put
her into factory-life in a large proportion of the
work-rooms in the fluctuating trades. There is no
saying more common among operatives than that a
father does not like to put his daughter or son into
many of the factories. The common and permanent
opinion as to what the answer would be to the ques-
tion, Would you put your own daughter into work-
rooms managed on such a system ? is a test of the
character of that system. A management in respect
to which the answer to this question is notoriously
and always " No," I call a foul system. Perhaps I
have put more than a hundred times this question, or
its equivalent, and have been answered invariably in
exactly these words, or their equivalent : " Before
putting my daughter into work-rooms managed on
that system, I would see her in some other place
work her fingers to the bone." This is a terrible
condemnation of a system wholly unnecessary in
itself, affecting here and elsewhere a vast operative
population, and likely to affect a population larger
and larger.
On the other hand, as the example of many of the
largest factories abundantly proves, there is a clean
system of work-room management in the fluctuating
industries. In one of the best factories within a
dozen miles of this platform, I have seen the sexes
in separate rooms everywhere from basement to roof.
Where this arrangement is made, and care is taken
176 LABOR.
to appoint men of irreproachable character to over-
see the work-rooms of the men, and women of irre-
proachable character to oversee the work-rooms of
the women, the answer to the test question is differ-
ent. I have information as to single rooms in which
there is every reason to believe tlie moral condition
is good, because care has been taken as to the moral
character of overseers ; and as to others, in which
there is every reason to believe the moral character
is bad, because there has been carelessness as to the
moral character of overseers.
When the character of a floating population, the
effect of the floating on the resident population, the
inflammability of human nature, the immense numbers
likely to be affected by the varied influences of the
work-room arrangements, are kept in view, all that
can be said in respect to the foul system is simply
that capitalists and manufacturers ought to have
sense enough not to adopt it. One hardly feels like
offering arguments in the case. It is, however, as a
temporary arrangement, though not as a permanent,
slightly cheaper to manage on the careless system
than on the careful. There is, too, now and then, a
man of theory, or some
" Lily-handed, snow-banded, dilettante "
critic, knowing nothing of manufactures, who, over-
looking the immense distinctions between the influ-
ences of the sexes on each other in the parlors of
good society, or in a high school, for example, and
their influences on each other in these rooms, filled
SEX IN INDUSTRY. 177
from a floating population without any careful sifting
of character at the doors, judges on general principles,
without having examined the case in actual life, that
the mingling of the sexes in these work-rooms from
morning to night may be an excellent thing. And
there are others, who, judging from some exceptional
instance or instances, where the character of those
engaged in particular rooms has been particularly
good, and the overseers men of irreproachable char-
acter, and the sexes mingled to apparent advantage,
think that this is the best general rule for the large
floating populations of the manufacturing centres of
fluctuating trades, present and future, in New Eng-
land and elsewhere.
It is found by experience that it is in the work-
rooms that a young woman coming into the fluctuat-
ing trades, and not resisting as, thank God, hun-
dreds and thousands do resist the morally unheal th-
ful influences, loses that natural shyness and modesty
which are her charm, and gradually acquires a repul-
sive boldness. Suppose that a young woman falls
into both an illy-regulated boarding-house and a room
of unhealthful moral conditions in a factory. Which
will do the more harm ? Which will begin the harm ?
Where will the first indentation of ill occur ? Evi-
dently she can choose her companions, to a great
extent, in the boarding-house ; and, if she is of high
principle, will choose the best she can. But she
cannot choose her company in the work-room. She
must there breathe the atmosphere of the company
eight or ten hours a day. She may, in a large meas-
178 LABOB.
ure, choose her own company in the former, except
for perhaps an hour a day. Further on in the his-
tory of deterioration, the illy-regulated boarding-
house and the street-school may strip the flesh from
the peach, but the down of the peach was brushed
away in the work-rooms. This is found to be the
history of the case in tracing almost any individual
example of deterioration.
The chances in any fluctuating trade in a large
town are extraordinarily great that bad men and bad
women will occasionally be found in the work-rooms ;
and these chances arise from the four circumstances,
(1) that the door of entrance to the work-rooms is
not, and, on account of the number of changeable
operatives, is not likely soon to be made, a moral sift-
ing-machine ; (2) that the industry is likely to have
each year two brisk and often painfully hurried
periods, and two of comparative inactivity ; (3) that
the percentage of operatives changeable within the
year is large on account of these fluctuations, and
is often estimated to be thirty-three per cent of the
whole number; (4) that, on account of the fluc-
tuations of the industry, the floating population is
large, and it is out of this population, itself not
sifted, that operatives, in the hurried periods of work,
are taken into the work-rooms through a door that is
not a sieve.
Already New England has many cities with a
population of five or seven or ten thousand swirling
in or out of each of them, according as business is
at its brisk period or at its lulls. How large will that
SEX IN INDUSTEY. 179
population be in fifty years ? How large in a hun-
dred ? I am in New England but for a moment ; but
I profess to care enough for it to keep fifty and a
hundred years of its future in view, and to put at
hazard any popularity I may or might have, by ask-
ing you to meet, as men, the complicated problems of
your vast industries. Who is the man, and where is
the man, who will say that you can have a tide of
ten or fifteen thousand people swirling in and out of
a city like this, and no moral perils arise, no sedi-
ment be stirred, no grave responsibilities laid upon
those whose business is the flood-gate through which
these tides must mingle with the other tides of the
population ?
At the best, the filter that you can provide for the
tides will be ineffective enough ; but to say that there
is need of no filter, that you may safely take the
chances of careless factory arrangements being con-
tinued, is to say what time will disprove. If the
present careless factory arrangements are continued
fifty years, your floating populations in many manu-
facturing centres will be full of moral ulcers. Laz-
arus will lie at the gate of Dives in New England,
and he will be full of sores. I throw my whole
weight into the scale against the continuance of these
careless arrangements. / know that the American
Lazarus may to-morrow or in the next generation
become a Dives, as the European may not ; hut, in spite
of American institutions, the day is coming, unless fac-
tory-life is studied and adjusted most carefully, when
here and throughout New England, of which the whole
180 LABOB.
Atlantic slope is a factory^ Lazarus will lie at the gate
of Dives.
Why discuss this subject publicly ? Because only
a powerful public sentiment will correct the evil. In
what method will public sentiment aid ? It is not
diflBcult to point out the steps. Let it be made so-
cially as unpopular for a man to manage a factory
on a careless system, and mutilate souls, as to manage
a railway on a careless system, and mutilate bodies.
Then the better class of men will be influenced. Let
a majority, thus gradually won, set right fashions,
and even the money-gripes, and men lower down,
will be reached. Business is a regiment. For indus-
trial reasons men must keep step with each other in
it. Let a majority of the board of trade of any city
set right business fashions, and the inferior men who
care only for money are usually brought sooner or
later to respect the step of the regiment.
If inks and silks must be packed together, they
ought to travel in separate cases. [Applause.]
15. Under this combination of industrial and moral
perils, the working-girl must bear also the perils to
health arising from the physical limitations of wom-
an's nature.
16. The statistics of infamy prove that most fallen
women have been tempted to their fall by their
poverty.
It is impossible to deny that one of the forces
which push women toward the pit of physical
deatli, and also toward that of moral death, is low
wages. [Applause.] I am not alono in that opinion.
SEX m INDUSTBY. 181
It is the opinion of your Labor Bureau. It is the
opinion of the best politicians in this State. It is
the opinion of the soundest parts of our industrial
populations. It is the opinion of many a pastor in a
manufacturing town. For evident reasons these sub-
jects cannot well be discussed in detail in the pulpit
without dividing churches. This fact does not pre-
vent preachers from studying them thoroughly, dis-
cussing them in private, and wielding all the appara-
tus of the church fitly to' save floating populations.
Nothing brings the operative class to church more
quickly than some discussion there of their interests.
If topics like these are not to be taken up often in
the pulpit, they can in many churches at least occa-
sionally be discussed there, or in public halls. It
ought to be shown by the ministry of New England
that the great wheel of the factory does not turn the
pulpit. [Applause.] The bondage of the pulpit, I
believe, is not very great now. We can defend
j ustice, and retain our parishes ; but the day may
come when, unless we defend justice early, we cannot
defend it, and retain our places, or retain united con-
gregations. The expediency of discussing these top-
ics results from the growth of manufacturing popula-
tions in New England, and the use demagogues are
already swift to make of the accumulating explosive
social materials. Both the trenches of death, the
moral and the physical, will be filled oftener and
oftener unless the topic of wages is discussed sharply,
publicly, resolutely, defiantly.
182 labobI
" With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags.
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch, stitch, stitch,
Seam and gusset and band,
Band and gusset and seam.
Till over the buttons I fall asleep^
And sew them on in a dream."
Eighty-two cents a day for female labor in Massa-
chusetts emphasize even these well-known lines of
Thomas Hood's :
" Work, work, work.
And my labor never flags;
And what are its wages ? a bed of straw,
A crust of bread and rags ;
That shattered roof, and this naked floor,
A table, a broken chair;
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there !
Stitch, stitch, stitch.
Would that these tones could reach the rich! "
Hood : Tlie Song of the Shirt.
vn.
WAGES AND CHILDEEN'S EIGHTS.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, DEC. 16.
""WTiat is to become of our Cotton-trade?" cried certain Spin-
ners, when the Factory-Bill was proposed; " What is to become of
our invaluable Cotton-trade?" The Humanity of England an-
swered steadfastly: "Deliver me these rickety perishing souls of
infants, and let your Cotton-trade take its chance. God Ilimself
commands the one thing; not God especially the other thing. "We
cannot have prosperous Cotton-trades at the expense of keeping
the Devil a partner in them! " Caklylk.
There is a mighty stir now made in behalf of education, and I
heartily thank God for it; but let me ask you to what purpose it is
to take a little child, a young female for instance, and teach her for
six hours a day the rules of decency and every virtue, and then
send her back to such alxnles of filth and profligacy, as to make her
unlearn by the practice of an hour the lessons of a year. When in
early life these persons have been treated as swine, they are after-
wards expected to walk with the dignity of Christians. Lobd
Suaftesbuby: House of Commons.
vn.
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS.
PRELUDE OK CURRENT EVENTS.
It is a cheerful sign of the times, that nearly all
large temperance efforts in America have of late
voluntarily put themselves into full sympathy with
aggressive Christianity. Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Mur-
phy, and especially the woman's movement, are in
substantial accord with the heart of the churches.
1. So far as drunkenness is a vice, it is to be
reformed, and the treatment of it belongs to the
Church.
2. So far as drunkenness is a disease, it is to be
cured, and the treatment of it belongs to physicians.
3. But the assertion that all or most of habitual
drunkenness is a disease is not supported by the
best physiological authorities, however loudly it may
have been indorsed by the proprietors of inebriate-
asylums.
The theory that drunkenness is oftener a disease
than a vice is going out of fashion among experts.
Dr. Bucknill, recently a foremost visitor of lunatics
185
186 LABOR.
in Great Britain, and a fellow of the Royal College
of Physicians, has lately made a vehement attack
on that theory. Eight or ten years ago inebriate-
asylums in the United States were held up as models
to Great Britain. Mr. Dalrymple of Parliament
took American testimony, which was supposed to
prove that thirty-four per cent of the patients treated
in our inebriate-asylums were cured. Dr. Bucknill
came to this country in 1875, when the wave of
popular excitement concerning inebriate-asylums had
subsided to a large extent; and his book is intended
to discredit the theory that habitual drunkenness is
usually a disease. The attack is from the highest
authority. This volume, from a great specialist in
nervous disease, is a vigorous proclamation of the
theory that habitual drunkenness in most cases is a
vice to be reformed by moral measures, rather than a
disease to be cured. Dr. Bucknill thinks practical
Christianity is the best remedy for habitual drunken-
ness. [Applause.] The Binghamton Inebriate Asy-
lum, at one time deservedly a prominent figure in the
public eye, was not long ago put on trial for a year,
and told to its face by the New York legislature,
that, unless it managed its affairs better, it would be
suspended at the end of that period of probation.
Pennsylvania found her inebriate-asylum at Media
80 badly manfiged that she abolished it. At Ward's
Island, near New York, there was lately abolished an
inebriate-asylum, at which a prominent physician
from the City Hospital, according to Dr. Bucknill's
testimony, once found five patients able to oflFer him
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 187
a choice of spirits in their own rooms. The asylum
was on an island, but the boatmen from New York
understood sig^nals from the windows. At Bingham-
ton liquor could be obtained by a half-hour's walk in
almost any direction.
Upper Canada, now called Ontario, built a great
establishment at Hamilton, with the intention of
making it an inebriate-asylum ; but she has of late
abandoned her intention entirely, and given, as a
reason for doing so, the failure of the inebriate-asy-
lums in the United States. She has turned now the
whole establishment she opened at Hamilton into an
asylum for the insane, and repealed her statute for
the control of inebriates. (Bucknill, Dr. John
Charles, Habitual Drunkenness and Insane Drunk-
ards^ London, 1878, pp. 72, 73.)
I am not assailing without qualification inebriate-
asylums, for I believe there is a percentage of cases
that should be treated in such establishments ; but it
is a smaller percentage than the self-interest and
avarice of some of the managers of private asylums,
both in the United States and Great Britain, have
often proclaimed it to be. A real case of insane
drunkenness or dipsomania is accompanied by signs
which expert physicians can usually read. Periodi-
city is usually one of them ; heredity is another ; and,
when both these mark a case, drunkenness is no
doubt fitly called a disease rather than a vice.
Seven cases out of ten of habitual drunkenness,
however, our best experts tell us, are vice and not
disease. If all vehement craving for drink is disease,
188 LABOR.
then a keg of fire-water may convert a group of sav-
ages into madmen before they have tasted it. The
power of the pledge shows that in most cases drunk-
enness is a vice, and not a disease. Dr. Bucknill tells
the story of an eccentric at Rugby, who promised
the school-physician that he would not touch drink
for a year, although he had been what is called a
confirmed drunkard. His case had been supposed to
be one of disease ; but he kept his pledge, and won
a wager from the physician. At twelve o'clock on
the ending of the year, he began to drink again, and
never ceased until he died.
Very surly is the deep tone of recent science con-
cerning what is called moderate drinking. Dr. Buck-
nill writes : " Of late years the upper class of English
has become sober, and its growing opinion stamps
drunkenness more and more as a disgrace ; and that
some small proportion of its members are left behind
in the shameful indulgence of the old vice, is certainly
not a matter of national concern. But they will
ruin themselves I No doubt ; and why should they
not? Their possessions will be better placed in sober
hands, and their undeserved social position will be
yielded to the advance of more worthy candidates.
But they will kill themselves I And this also is more
likely than lamentable, especially if they leave no
offspring to inherit the curse of their qualities. It
would be a national, nay, a world-wide blessing, if
alcoljol were really the active poison which it is so
often represented to be, that men who indulge in it
might die off quickly. The French have somewhat
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 189
improved upon pure spirit in this direction by the
invention of absinthe, which causes epilepsy ; and
the Americans, with their vile compounds of raw
whiskey taken into empty stomachs, are far ahead of
ourselves. An American drunkard who sticks to
his work has a much better prospect of finishing it
within a reasonably short time than the English-
man."
Sixty years ago Lyman Beecher attended an ordi-
nation at which forty dollars' worth of liquors were
drunk by New England ministers. To-day Mrs.
Hayes whom may God bless ! expels intoxicat-
ing beverages from the Presidential mansion.
4. So far as drunkenness as a vice leads to drunk-
enness as a disease, the Church, under the modern
training of theological students, is likely to know,
better than ever before, how to emphasize the truths
of science for the warning of the middle-aged and
the young.
In 1867 there was founded at Princeton College
a professorship for the discussion of the relations
between Christianity and science. In the Princeton
Theological Seminary there is a chair for a similar
purpose. There is a professorship, with ten thou-
sand dollars behind it, in Union Theological Semi-
nary, for the discussion of the relations of the Bible
and science. The Vedder lectureship in New Bruns-
wick is devoted to similar themes. Willard Parker
founded a professorship of hygiene in Union Theo-
logical Seminary. At Andover there has just been
established a professorship, with fifty thousand dol-
190 LABOR.
lars behind it, to discuss the relations of science and
Christianity. In view of these new endowments,
I undertake to say that unless we, whose duty it is
to teach religious truth publicly, inform ourselves on
the relations of religion and science, we shall be
behind the times fifteen years hence, or twenty,
when the men come forward who have been trained
in these improved courses of study. The relations
of the church to temperance are therefore not unim-
portant on the purely scientific side. Already the
demand is growing loud for the introduction into
common schools and sabbath schools of some instruc-
tion on the natural laws of health in their relations
to intemperance; and excellent text-books on this
topic have been prepared by experts. (See Dr.
Richardson's Cantor Lectures and his Text Book on
Alcohol.^
Forbes Winslow, the celebrated English physician
for the insane, once told a committee of Parliament
that he could dip out of the brain of any habitual
drunkard a fluid so full of alcohol that when put in
a spoon, and a lamp placed beneath it, the liquid
would burn with a blue flame. Perhaps the two
most important physical circumstances which can be
pointed out in relation to alcohol are that it hardens
all the colloid or glue-like substances in the body,
and that it lias a local affinity for the brain. Alcohol
hardens the white of an egg. The brain, and much
of tlie matter in the nervous system, is albuminous
in chemical comi)osition, as the white of an egg is ;
and as alcohol everywhere else hardens colloid sub-
"WAGES AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. 191
stances, so it does in the brain. The blue flame
which Forbes Winslow emphasizes shows the affinity
of alcohol for the brain, and should be kept burning
as a pillar of fire before tempted men. There is a
famous saying of Hyrtl, quoted lately in " The Sci-
entific American," that he could tell in the dark
whether he was dissecting a drunkard's brain or the
brain of a temperate man, for the former would be
hard under the scalpel. He used to explain to his
pupils that the only way to obtain good brains for
dissection was to harden them by alcohol, or to find
brains that had been hardened before death.
5. So far as drunkenness depends on open tempta-
tion to it, the interests of trade and politics require
the shutting by law of all public doors to vice ; and
in furtherance of this work the Church may well put
forth its best energies, and invoke the aid of woman's
vote.
There are eight miles of legalized grog-shops in
Boston. (^Report of the Advisory Committee of the
Massachusetts Temperance Alliance., Oct. 18, 1877.)
[Applause.] Take the licensed dram-shops of Bos-
ton,' allow each one twenty feet of front, put them
in a line, and you have eight miles of manufactories
of madmen and paupers. [Applause.] Has Massa-
chusetts, paying such taxes that her elections often
turn on schemes for a reduction of the burdens of
the people, nothing to say about the execution of
temperance laws? Eight solid miles engaged in a
business at war with every other traffic ! When the
shrewd black angels watch cities at midnight, it
192 LABOR.
must be that they laugh a little at the merchants
engaged in honorable trades, to see how the latter
are fleeced by the proprietors of whiskey-dens. The
indictment to be brought against the liquor-traffic,
in the name of trade, is that it can succeed only by
standing on the ruins of other trades. It is a pirate ;
it is a leech ; it is the enemy of all honest traffic.
That citizens in the honorable pursuits of mercantile
life are not to a man united against the unlicensed
dram-shops in Boston and New York and throughout
the world, is a puzzle, I think, to the acutest black
angels that move to and fro through the midnights
of the planet.
Our church property in the United States, all
massed together, is worth only three hundred and
fifty-four millions of dollars. The drink-bill of the
United States is seven hundred millions of dollars a
year. That is an estimate by the National Bureau of
Statistics. There is no accurate return even in the
revenue department.
It has been shown again and again that the finan-
cial loss sustained by the sale of drinks amounts,
every fifteen years, to a value equal to that of* the
property destroyed in the five years of the civil war.
Every one knows that statements of this kind are
facts, and not declamation. A civil war for five
years, every fifteen years, would destroy no more
property than the rum traffic I
It is said the church can do nothing with the
gigantic Apollyon of the liquor-trade, striding across
the whole breadth of the mercantile highway. The
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 193
ministry of the United States, without going out of
their own houses of worship, have opportunity to
reach with the living voice twenty-three millions
of people. That is the number of sittings in the
churches of the United States, and I suppose that on
an average for the year most ministers address as
riiany people as can be brought together in their
churches. Probably twenty-three millions, who are
old enough to go to church, are effectively reached
by the voice of the pulpit in this land.
What if the church should be as stern with rich
proprietors of property used for dram-shops as the
law of Massachusetts is at this hour? When the
proprietor of a block of buildings at the North End
lets a cellar there, if the tenant violates the temper-
ance laws, and is convicted, notice is served on the
proprietor, according to the Massachusetts law, as it
now stands ; and he is required, under the old law of
common nuisance, to eject that tenant under penalty.
That is what the State requires of the rich proprietor
of property. What does the church of the Heavenly
Rest require of that proprietor, if he is a church-
member? Why, that he should go on with his heav-
enly rest, and pay his bills in the church ! [Ap-
plause.] Do you believe that the world is likely to
be deeply impressed by our temperance addresses
when average church discipline on that point is laxer
than the Massachusetts secular law of to-day? I
have no church, you say, and can say these things
with impunity. If I had a church, and could not
say them with impunity, I should not have a church
194 LABOR.
long. I had rather be penniless than a pulpit
spaniel. [Applause.]
There stands a noble State House in the cornfields
near Springfield, 111., and Lincoln's grave lies under
its shadow. Above his grave, a legislature will be
petitioned this winter by ladies of Illinois to give
women of legal age the right to vote in cases of local
option under temperance-laws. The petitioners are
not female-suffragists. They protest against being
called by that name. The queen of lecturesses, Mrs.
Livermore, a lady whose eloquence has had a larger
public recognition than that of any other woman in
ancient or modern times, is president of the Massa-
chusetts Woman's Temperance Union, and informs
New England that the seaboard and the Mississippi
Valley are. to unite in asking a vote for woman in
regard to the temperance-laws. The language of the
West and that of the East are nearly the same. The
Chicago women say, " We petition that by suitable
legislation it may be provided that in the State of
Illinois the question of licensing at any time, in any
locality, the sale of any and all intoxicating drinks,
including wine and beer, be submitted to and deter-
mined by ballot, in which women of lawful age shall
be privileged to take part in the same manner and
under only such restrictions as obtain in reference to
voting by men on the question of license." The
Massachusetts Temperance Union passes this resolu-
tion: "That, while we disavow any connection with
the general movement for giving the ballot to women,
we yet believe that woman should have the right to
WAGES AND CHILDEEN'S EIGHTS. 195
vote on all questions relating to the legislation on
the liquor-traffic, and we hereby resolve that we will
petition the legislature for this right until it is
granted to us." [Applause.]
Let that thunder be heard in the General Court
[applause], and heard loudly, for politicians are not
likely to take the lead on this subject. After ten
years of experience of woman's suffrage, Wyoming
Territory, by the voice of three of her governors,
proclaims it a success. (^Cheyenne Daily Leader^
Nov. 22.) In New Hampshire, the line has already
been broken as to the exclusion of women from
participation in the settlement of questions closely
touching the home. Let it be noticed that New
Hampshire, a conservative New-England State, has
just given women the right to vote on all questions
concerning the school-laws. [Applause.] I am not
a woman-suffragist. Do not applaud this platform
under the mistaken idea that I am a defender of
extreme positions as to woman's rights. I am medi-
tating on that theme. [Applause.] But this I dare
say, that one of the fragments of self-protection for
women namely, a right to vote concerning temper-
ance-laws, when the question of local option is up
I am willing to defend, and intend to defend, to the
end of the chapter. [Applause.] Great natural
justice is on the side of such a demand. Woman's
interests are among the chief ones concerned; and
as to family divisions, why, they come largely from
temperance laxness. Woman has surely political
intelligence enough to understand the difference
196 LABOR.
between license and no license, especially when she
has suffered under a lax execution of temperance-
laws. The difference is so plain, between local free-
dom and no local freedom to sell liquor, that woman,
without any great participation in the turmoil of
politics, might be expected to have an intelligent
vote on this subject. I know that many cultivated
and refined women say they do not want women to
vote, because they do not want to increase the
amount of ignorant suffrage. We all respect the in-
telligence and the refinement of the ladies who make
such remarks ; and yet I believe that on most moral
questions, woman is likely to be more intelligent and
certainly more disinterested than man. [Applause.]
I am told by many of the best authorities, that
women, who are opposed to female suffrage at large,
are usually in favor of this modified measure. I am
assured that a majority of the thoughtful, cultivated
women of the United States, or certainly of the
Northern States, can be expected to favor this demand
for a vote to be given to woman in questions of local
option concerning temperance-laws. If a majority
of women want such a vote. Heaven grant their
desire ! [Applause.] Women would be united on
this topic. Woman's vote would be, to city vices
depending on intemperance, what the lightning is to
the oak. God send us that lightning I [Applause.]
On the table of the chief of police of Boston,
there lies a complete catalogue of all the mentionable
and unmentionable dens of iniquity in this city.
He does not close them, because you do not urge him
WAGES AND CHILDIIEN'S EIGHTS. 197
into the work of doing so. Who is responsible?
The hand, or the shoulder and the heart below the
shoulder ? On that same table of the chief of police,
there lies now a license-law, and how is it executed?
In the county of Suifolk, in the year ending October,
1877, 1,667 cases of violation of the temperance-law
were brought before the Superior Court ; 29 of them
were tried, 14 only were convicted ; more than 1,100
were laid on file ; and the officer through whose oily
fingers most of these cases slipped is renominated.
( Official Report of the Massachusetts Temperance Alli-
ance. See also a speech by Mr. W. F. Spalding, in
a hearing given by the Legislative Committee on the
Liquor Law, Jan. 30, 1878.)
That law, thus administered, lies on the table of
your chief of police ; and what lies above it ? A
proposal for a local-option law ; and that is weighted
down by a veto, although there were cast in favor of
such a law the votes of two-thirds of the members of
one political party in your General Court. Massa-
chusetts is Christian ; Massachusetts retires to her
closet to pray. Can she ask God's blessing on a
license-law ? Can she ask God's blessing on a cat-
alogue of legalized dens of iniquity ? Eight miles of
doors, and all the evil their traffic does in Massa-
chusetts, exists according to law !
God paralyze my arm, if I ever lift it to cast a
ballot in favor of the license of leeches on legitimate
trade, or for the legalization of manufactories of pau-
pers arid madmen ! [Applause.] God paralyze my
arm, if ever I put into the ballot-box a vote in favor
198 LABOR.
of any form of temperance legislation clamorously
demanded by the liquor-traffic itself! [Applause.]
" Drink no wine or strong drink," was the message
to the wife of Manoah, from an angel whose name
was secret and divine, and of whom the record is
that he did wondrously. I undertake to predict, in
the words of Henry Wilson, that what the people of
Massachusetts, the great masses, cannot pray God
for, cannot go on the statute-book of this Common-
wealth, and stay there. [Applause.]
THE LECTURE.
American laborers are not expected to live like
Chinamen ; and Chinamen, when they become Ameri-
cans, will not live like citizens of the Celestial Em-
pire. The way to lift the Chinese question out of
being a puzzle to our politicians and philanthropists,
is to change the habits of the Chinese, little by little,
into those of American laborers. The progress of
democracy has made inapplicable the standards of
expense to which low-paid labor was accustomed in
barbaric times. I do not discuss skilled labor, but
the poorest of the poor. The cost of maintaining a
hundred thousand paupers in the city of London, in
1875, was officially ascertained to be five times as
great as that of maintaining a similar number in
1815. The difference arises almost entirely from the
fact that the average popular estimate of what is
humanly necessary to maintain even the poorest of
the poor has risen. In fifty years Great Britain has
lifted her estimate on this point so rapidly that she
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 199
spends five times as much for a given number of
paupers now as she did fifteen years after the open-
ing of the century. (Prof. Bonamy Peice, Prac-
tical Political Economy, 1878, p. 237.) Using the
scale of London expenses for paupers to show what
necessary expenses must be, you will find that the
modern world often exposes children as pitilessly to
be crushed under the wheels of trade as the Spartans
of old exposed infants on Mount Taygetus.
1. The expenses and earnings of 397 families
depending on wages were oflBcially ascertained in
Massachusetts in 1874. (Lahor Bureau Report for
1875, Part IV.)
2. . So far as can be judged by this large induction,
the largest ever made in the world, only thirty-five
per cent of the heads of working-men's families in
Massachusetts were able by their individual earnings
to supply their families' needs.
3. Sixty-four per cent rely on the assistance of
wives and children.
4. Under low-paid labor one of the earliest in-
fringements of the rights of children is that they are
left at home under poor care while the mothers are in
the mills.
5. Another infringement is the lack of household
training for girls.
What does this mean? To bring the matter at
once to a point, let me cite a letter I received lately
from one of the ladies leading in the management of
our ind ustrial reformatory schools : " In every report
of young woman and Christian associations and
200 LABOR.
unions, as in every report of a young girls' home
or industrial school, and every intelligence-office,
thoughtfully conducted, and every other place in
which girls seek employment, the lack of trained
skill is the one ceaseless hinderance." How does
this lack arise?
Mr. Mundella, when he moved in Parliament, a
few years ago, for a reduction of the hours of labor
of married women, said that one hundred and eighty
thousand mothers are in the factories of England,
and that their children have little opportunity to
learn how to conduct household work. The slat-
ternly housekeeping of the daughters of the mothers
who must be early and late at the looms, is a proverb.
Although you say New England has very few of the
difficulties Mr. Mundella struck at in his famous bill
against the employment of married women in fac-
tories, we are likely to have such difficulties in due
time. The present transition state of New England
is setting fashions for many years to come, and this
audience is an outlook-committee for the centuries
next before us. Already we have thrust in our faces
the lack of trained skill as the ceaseless hinderance
to employment even in domestic work of the young
women who seek places through our intelligence-
offices and young women's Christian associations
and young girls' homes. My correspondent says:
" The city public schools can, at their best, do but
a partial work. The children of the very poor have
no homes in which this partial school training is sup-
plemented by training in good personal habits. The
WAGES AJ^TD CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 201
girl if, indeed, any chance to learn by imitation
were possible to her in the usual evil neighborhood
of the poorest homes has not the out-door chance
of the boy to learn better things. Many of these
little girls who come into our industrial schools can-
not set a stitch. How, then, shall they have the
economy and neatness in attire essential to the first
success in getting work of any sort? These poor
little girls are not unknown as patients in hospitals
for evil diseases before fifteen years of age."
Silenus and other wild beasts wander yet over
Mount Taygetus, on which the children are exposed
to death ! What is the trouble here ? The answer
is that sixty-four per cent of the wages class in Mas-
sachusetts rely for the support of their families on
the assistance of wives and children ! Dull statis-
tics, you say ? As part of the family record of your
descendants, they will not be dull !
6. Of skilled workmen, fifty-six per cent get along
alone ; of salaried overseers, seventy-five per cent ;
of unskilled workmen, only nine per cent.
7. The skilled workman obtains five per cent of
the money needed to support his family, and the
unskilled nineteen, from the labor of children under
fifteen years of age.
This is not Prussia, nor France, nor Austria, nor
England. This is New England, in its early manu-
facturing career.
8. Children constitute forty-four per cent of the
number of work-people, and produce but twenty-four
per cent of the income.
202 V LABOB.
9. In families which the father is unable to support
alone, sixteen and one-third per cent of the income is
the result of labor of wives and of children under
fifteen years of age.
10. In order that these wives may remain at home,
and these children attend school, this sixteen and
one-third per cent must be added to the wages of
the father.
11. The unnaturally low remuneration of labor is
a direct temptation to the violation of the rights of
children, by the forcing of them into work when they
should be at school, and thus fosters the growth of
an ignorant class, which is likely to be also an unem-
ployed, explosive, and perhaps criminal class.
12. The yearly average expenditure for the food of
a working-man's family is four hundred and twenty-
two dollars and sixteen cents.
What are the necessary expenses, not of a Mexican
in the tropics, but of a family in the climate of our
Northern States; not of a coolie, but of an American
citizen educating sons to become a part of our popular
sovereignty under universal suffrage ?
13. If we are not to have an ignorant popular
sovereignty, among the necessary expenses of Ameri-
can working-men, besides food, we must reckon these
dozen articles : rent, fuel, boots and shoes, clothing,
dry goods, taxes, school-books, furniture, tools, news-
papers, religion, and sundries, including sickness.
It has been found, by official investigation in Mas-
sachusetts, that the yearly average expenditure for
the food of a family of the laboring class is four
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S EIGHTS. 203
hundred and twenty-two dollars and sixteen cents.
Food includes gi'oceries, meat and fish and milk.
Kerosene-oil and lights are reckoned under the
head of groceries.
14. These twelve other necessary articles will cost,
on the average, nearly as much as the food.
This deduction is not found in your State reports,
for your overworked bureau cannot always press out
from the rich grapes of its own statistics all the wine
of truth they may contain. I have personally gone
through the record given here in detail of the ex-
penses of about three hundred families, and I am
forced to this conclusion.
15. It follows that unless the head of a family,
with children who cannot labor remuneratively, is
paid about twice as: much as the cost of his un-
cooked food, he is likely to fall into debt.
16. The purchasing power of a day's labor ought
to be at least equal to twice the cost of the unpre-
pared food of the laborer. Of course the price of
food may vary, and so may wages. When food costs
four hundred and twenty-two dollars a year for a
family that cannot earn any thing except by the
work of the head of the household, that family
ought to have somewhere about eight liandred and
fifty dollars coming to it, otherwise it will inevitably
graduate members unfit to become part of our popu-
lar sovereignty. Sound popular sovereignty will not
be the result if you shorten in any considerable
degree the list of necessities I have mentioned. Get
along without school-books? Get along without
204 LABOR.
newspapers ? Get along without attendance at
church? You say these are not necessaries of life
for Chinamen? They are for Americans. [Ap-
plause.]
17. The relation of earnings to the cost of living
in Massachusetts is now such that the fact stands
out plainly that the head of a family who is " the
recipient of a wage of less than six hundred dollars
must get in debt." That is the language of your
bureau (^Report for 1875, p. 380) in summarizing its
investigation of the average condition of three hun-
dred and ninety-seven families. Some of these con-
tained only a few children, some had more ; but that
was the average.
18. Without children's assistance, the majority of
working-men's families would be in poverty or debt.
19. Children under fifteen years of age supply by
their labor from one-eighth to one-sixth of the total
family earnings.
20. Although the average saving is about three per
cent of the earnings, only in a few cases is there
evidence of the possibility of acquiring a competence,
and in those cases it would be the result of assisted
or family labor.
These twenty propositions are the heart of my
theme, and need much illustration ; but I have
stated them in tolerably close serial order, so that
their interdependence may be seen at a glance.
There is in my hands a letter from a man of affairs
in this city, and its topic is low-paid female labor.
There is no red-hot gridiron here, otherwise I should
"WAGES AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. 205
like to grill upon it in a public presence the man who
suggested infamy to a girl as a means of increasing
her wages behind a counter. You would like to broil
thus any man doing that. I suppose the case was a
great exception ; but I have excellent evidence that
there is no exaggeration in what I am about to read
to you. This is not an anonymous letter ; but the
writer, who signs it with his own full name, is re-
corded in the directory of the city to which he be-
longs, and his occupation is mentioned. " A young
lady, whose family became reduced in worldly cir-
cumstances, felt that she must try to do something
for herself, and therefore she applied at a large
retail dry-goods house for a situation. 'Yes,' said
the proprietor, ' we will take you ; your salary will
be ' (naming the price). ' Oh, sir,' said she, 'I
can't live upon that.' ' I understand you, miss,' was
the reply. 'Several of these girls don't live upon
what we pay them. Do you see that young lady
there ? We pay her just what I offer you : a young
man pays her the rest.' " I wish the gridiron were
here for the broiling. [Applause.] " I know whereof
I affirm," continues this writer, whose letter aroused
an indignation I dare not express here ; " and I think
that when it comes to this, the matter goes a step
beyond low wages." This is simply an illustration
of one effect of low wages. "Please remember
that this young woman was not only a person of
high character and good family, but also a perfect
stranger to this merchant."
If you could see letters that come to me from
206 LABOE.
many quarters, signed and bearing responsible names,
you would not think that I am pressing the topic of
low-paid labor to extremes. I have taken great
pains to avoid being caught in any traps. That
letter, before I read it, was shown to three or four
experts ; and the signature I know to be authentic,
and the character of the man who wrote it is vouched
for in a great variety of ways to me. Let it be
granted that this is an exception; but when an
exception like this occurs, when there is a possibility
of a class of low-paid girls coming into conditions of
this sort, where is Massachusetts? Where is the
spirit of the fathers, that we do not arouse ourselves
to execute legislation like that of the old law of
1670?
Our fathers had not been on this shore fifty years
before they passed a law intended to rescue the coun-
try from the barbarism of an uneducated working
population. The earliest Massachusetts statutes are
full of reverence for learning ; but here is a passage
from an enactment of 1050 that has in it a trumpet-
like prophetic tone for our day :
" Forasmuch as the good education of children is
of singular behoof and benefit to any common-
wealth, a^Ld whereas many parents and masters are
too indulgent and negligent of their duty in that
kind, it is therefore ordered by this court and the
authority thereof, that the selectmen of every town,
in the several precincts and quarters where they
dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren
and neighbors, to see, first, that none of them shall
WAGES AND CHELDEEN'S EIGHTS. 207
suffer so much barbarism in any of their families, as
not to endeavor to teach by themselves or others
their children and apprentices so much learning as
may enable them perfectly to read the English
tongue and knowledge of the capital laws, upon pen-
alty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein."
Contemporaneous with the incorporation of com-
panies for manufacturing purposes, the General
Assembly of Connecticut, in its May session for
1813, passed laws to secure the elementary instruc-
tion of children employed in factories and manufac-
turing establishments. These early provisions were
absorbed into the Connecticut statutes of 1838, and
are claimed to be the first American legislation on
behalf of factory-children.
The deputy State constable of Massachusetts
reported in 1875, that there were then " in this Com-
monwealth upwards of sixty thousand children, of
school ages, who are growing up in ignorance, con-
trary to the ancient policy of the State, and in open
violation of the letter and spirit of existing laws."
(^Report on the ScJiooling and Hours of Labor of
CJdldren, by Geoege E. McNeill, Jan. 11, 1875.)
These numbers others think are too large for the
facts, but look forward, and you will soon double
the figures, at the rate at which manufacturing cen
tres are increasing in population. These children
grow up ignorant because of the low wages which
require fathers to send the children into the mills.
They grow up without knowing, if they are girls,
how to set a stitch, because their mothers must be
208 LABOR.
behind looms, and because a home left in the care of
very young or aged persons is no place in which to
teach housekeeping in detail. They grow up slat-
ternly, and so find it difficult to obtain situations.
They grow up open at various points to moral temp-
tations which would not assail them if a higher spirit
of self-respect had been fostered by giving the head
of the family power to maintain his household.
Advocating no socialistic proposition, and defend-
ing no communistic dream, I yet believe the day will
come when the cost of, its production will determine
the pay of labor. The cost of production includes
the support of a family. We cannot give the State
the strength of its citizens on any* rule that starves
men. We cannot produce a skilled class unless we
bring our children up well. Unless we have a cer-
tain regard for skill as well as for the mill, the mill
itself will be without skilled operatives. In time
there cannot be a fit laboring class provided, unless
you give such wages as will enable an average head
of a family to put among his expenses school-books,
newspapers, and religion. There must be somewhere
a lifting of the income of the lowest-paid class of
laborers: otherwise we shall have monstrosity after
monstrosity, and the heart of girlhood wrung until
the gutters are full of the ruddy slime. My theme is
not socialism so much as labor-reform as an antidote
to socialism. My theme is, in short, justice as an
antidote to the dreams of political heretics. Until
justice is held up as a broad shield against the darts
of all insane communists and infuriated socialists, we
WAGES AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. 209
shall be pierced again and again with arrows like
this poisoned one which I hold in my hand [holding
up the letter cited above], and lift aloft for your
execration. [Applause.]
VIII.
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.
THE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, DEC. 23.
Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn.
"We should always be with the former, against the latter. Tai/-
l^YKAJS^D.
"We have profoundly forgotten everywhere that Cash-payment
is not the sole relation of human beings ; we think, nothing doubt-
ing, that it absolves and liquidates all engagements of man. " My
starving workers ? " answers the rich Mill-owner: "Did not I hire
them fairly in the market? Did I not pay them, to the last six-
pence, the sum covenanted for? What have I to do with them
more ?" . . . "When Cain, for his own behoof, had killed Abel, and
was questioned, "Where is thy brother?" he too made answer,
" Am I my brother's keeper ? " Did I not pay my brother his wages,
the thing he had merited from me ? O sumptuous Merchant-Prince,
Illustrious game-preserving Duke, is there no way of ' killing ' thy
brother but Cain's rude way! Caaltlb.
VIII.
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.
PEELTJDE OX CURRENT EVENTS.
Place before Mormonism the broad shield of
State rights, and very possibly that defence will be
vulnerable only by the bayonet. Utah once admitted
to the Union will govern herself, and her peculiar
institutions will be out of the reach of Congress.
Polygamy imitates slavery in seeking to intrench
itself behind the fateful bulwarks of State rights.
Of course the clamor is becoming very loud for the
admission of Utah, since she now has one hundred
and thirty thousand people, and Nevada was admitted
with forty thousand. That historic political party
which denounced slavery and polygamy as twin relics
of barbarism, and cut the former of these cancers off
the breast of America by the long, deep plunges of
the sword through live years of civil war, is no longer
in power in Congress. In the exigencies of political
strife a time may easily arrive when the prize of two
senators and several representatives will induce the
dominant party at Washington to admit Utah with
polygamy. The agent of that territory is authorized
213
214 LABOR.
to give the vote of Utah to the party which admits
her with her peculiar institutions. Mormonism pos-
sessed of State rights, and defying American law, is
the blackest threat in the low, lurid vapor which lies
behind Pike's Peak in the sunset. Beyond the Mor-
mon cloud the Chinese question spreads itself across
the deepest western sky, as a dull, thunderous,
copper haze. So distant, however, are the lightnings
which peer fitfully at the East from over the steru
shoulders of the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains,
that we hear little of the local thunders, and dream
that both the black and the copper cloud will dissolve
soon, and without storms. In precisely this indif-
ference of ours to these distant threats lie their chief
dangers.
UntU the stains of slavery and of Mexico and of
Mormonism are erased from the American map, the
Northern States, with their mismanaged large cities,
are not safe. Wendell Phillips says that no thought-
ful man can feel sure that one flag will rule this belt
of the continent fifty years hence. (^Nbrth American
Review^ August, 187C, p. 101.) The education of the
South and of the South-west is the remaining measure
which the North must execute for the preservation of
the peace of the land. Every year it becomes more
evident that America is to stand or fall according as
she does or does not educate the South and Soutli-west.
Until the dark mass of illiteracy is greatly whitened on
tlie Gulf and along the Mexican border and in Utah,
serious trouble may arise at any time in the United
States from the collision of the uneducated portions
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 215
with tlie educated. The deepest shadows on that
part of our territory which was once Mexican come
from Romanism and a despotic government. The
whole region of the lower basin between the Rocky-
Mountains and the Sierras has been plonighed and
sown by Romanism for hundreds of years. Into this
territory Mormonism is spreading.
What is Utah worth to the United States ? Bend
a bow along the Pacific coast, its middle at San
Francisco, one of the ends at Yellowstone Park and
the other on the southern hills of New Mexico. This
colossal arc represents a volcanic rift along which are
found the best gold and silver mines of America.
The Central Pacific Railway is the arrow, and the
Rocky Mountain range is the drawn strand of this
bow. San Francisco is the barb of the arrow, and
Salt Lake City is the chief feather on the shaft.
The string of the bow has twisted among its strands
many threads of silver and gold. Utah, in short, has
a central position in the most important mining
region on the planet. A railroad is to connect Ore-
gon with Mexico through the Basin States. One
railway already crosses Utah from sunrise to sunset,
and so she is at the intersection of two great ways.
Men in Utah, whose judgment is to be respected,
affirm that the Southern Pacific Railroad will be
drawn into Southern Utah by the value of her coal
and lead mines. My impression is that the silver and
gold mines in New Mexico will carry that new rail-
way south of Santa F^. But the Basin States, of
which Utah is the heart, will ultimately have three in-
216 LABOR.
tersections of the Oregon and Mexico Railway with
three Pacific roads. President Tenney, in his breezy,
keen volume on the New West, makes that title cover
both the Basin and the Mountain States, or Ari-
zona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado,
Wyoming, and Montana. Utah is central in a group
of undeveloped commonwealths containing nearly a
third of the territory of the United States. The New
West is a region apparently set apart by geological
circumstances for self-rule. It is certainly destined
to exliibit anomalous political and social traits, unless
it is pierced with lines of intercommunication from
both sunrise and sunset.
What has happened between the Sierras and the
Rocky Mountains in territory thus strategic in posi-
tion?
1. In 1828 an ignorant, indolent, and not reputable
young man, named Joseph Smith, born in 1805, at
Sharon, Vt., began to claim that he was a prophet.
2. In 1830 he announced that he had dug out of a
hill in Manchester, in New York State, tlie Book of
Mormon. Although his fellow-conspirators, desert-
ing him, denounced this claim as a fraud, he pub-
lished the book, and began to collect followers among
the ignorant. Certain experiences like those familiar
now in Spiritualism, which was not tlien known, were
among tlie misleading supports of Smith's pretensions.
(See Sten HOUSE, Rocky Mountain Saints, p. 33.)
3. lie and liis associates were driven in 1838 from
Kirtland, O., where he failed as president of a bank.
4. Ilia debaucheries were denounced by some of
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 217
his followers; and in 1843 he pretended to receive a
revelation in favor of polygamy.
5. Razing to the ground the office of a newspaper
which exposed his immoralities, he was shot dead by
a mob at Carthage, 111., in 1844.
6. Expelled from Nauvoo, 111., in 1844, the Mor-
mons, under Brigham Young, reached Salt Lake in
July, 1847. The territory then belonged to Mexico,
but it became a part of the United States in March,
1848.
7. Originally denounced by the Book of Mormon,
polygamy was introduced by Young as an institution
in 1852.
8. Notwithstanding the death of Brigham Young
in 1877, the despotic hierarchy which he founded, and
which is supported by a severe tithing system, a mer-
ciless secret police, and the powei of life and death, is
successful in carrying forward his work, both in its
political and its social aspect.
There have been more Mormon marriages in Utah
in the last two years than ever before in the same
length of time. Polygamous marriages are contracted
in temples called endowment-houses. These are
being erected throughout the territory in large num-
bers and at great expense. No Gentile is permitted
to enter them. Even apostates will not reveal the
oaths taken in the Mormon endowment-houses ; and,
to maintain contracts made there, witnesses and juries
perjure themselves.
9. Three or four hundred missionaries are con-
stantly at work abroad ; and they induced some two
218 LABOR.
thousand Mormon emigrants to come to this country
between April and October in 1878.
10. The Mormons have the balance of power in
Idaho, and are acquiring influence rapidly in Arizona
and Colorado.
11. It is estimated that there are now two hundred
thousand Mormons in Utah and its vicinity, and fifty
thousand in other countries.
12. Thus it happens that between the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierras there is a district larger
than New England, in which a majority of the popu-
lation teaches its children that,
(1) God has a bodily form.
(2) He is the celestial patron of polygamy.
(3) Jesus was a pattern to his disciples in this
respect.
(4) Polygamy on earth gives rank in heaven.
(5) Mothers should be responsible for the support
of their children.
(6) Mother and daughter may be wives of one
husband. (See the Mormon Catechism, passim^ and
also President Tenney, Circulars of Colorado College^
December, 1878.)
This is the Mormon ulcer, fattening itself on the
iiitermurjil basin between the Rocky Mountains and
tlie Sierras. Utah is the American Syria. Let the
soil have due irrigation, and it needs only to be
tickled with the hoe, as the proverb says, in order to
langh into harvests. You say the sage-bush is a mark
of desolation ; but irrigate the pastures covered with
it, and you have bountiful harvests. As in Syria,
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 219
when you irrigate the Jericho plain, you have most
vigorous growths, and as on the plain of Gennesaret
there were originally growths reminding one of the
vegetation on the borders of the Nile, so to-day irri-
gation gives extraordinary fruitfulness to the culti-
vated lands of Utah.
What is the strength of Mormonism ? I find that
this cancer has five roots, and the first is the hierarch-
al organization of the Mormon ecclesiastical power.
One in five of the Mormons is a church officer. The
highest officer is not only a governor possessed of
nearly absolute power, but also a prophet ; and he at
any time may receive a revelation reversing all past
revelations. If you could smite away the hierarchal
organization of Mormonism in its lower ranges, it
would still have power as long as the belief of the
average Mormon in his prophet should continue.
But pulverize that keystone, and you cause the
whole arch to tumble. Let the average Mormon be
convinced that his prophet is no more in communion
with the Unseen Power than any man may be, let
the pretension of the JNIormon hierarchy to enlight-
enment by revelations from on high be once discred-
ited, and Mormonism, so far as it is a system of
thought, becomes a heap of nonsense. In smiting at
this keystone, we need to use educational weapons.
A second root of Mormonism is its connection
with land-speculations. Go to Europe, enter the
peasant homes of Norway and Sweden, and you will
find jMormon agents whispering in the ears of credu-
lous ignorance that Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, who
220 LABOR.
were once neighbors of the peasants addressed, now
have lands in Utah, and that the Mormon Church
gave it to them. Pinched men and women are told
that if they will go to America, and unite with the
Mormon Church, they shall have land. The emigrant,
harassed by poverty, finds that he does acquire
property in land in Utah, and that he is indebted for
his protection in his home and for his political privi-
leges to the Mormon Church. In his ignorance, it
may be years before he ascertains that the homestead
law of the United States has been behind this Mor-
mon trick. It is understood perfectly well that the
Mormon agents abroad promise in their own name
what the government promises to emigrants in the
way of land.
A third root of Mormonisra is its political self-rule.
This root has been fed more tlian once with blood.
Mormonism has lived in the wilderness, and has been
able to do as it pleased because it was out of sight
of civilization. Official investigations preceding the
execution in 1877 of John D. Lee for the Mountain
Meadows massacre of 1857, sliowed that the larger
part of tlie stories which have been told us in books,
of cruelties to the Gentile emigrants into Utah, are
substantially true. I credit the assertion that the
avenging angels among tlie Mormons meant to keep
Gentile emigrants out of the territory, and that they
not infretjuently employed murder of unoffending set-
tlers as a political weapon. I believe that if Brigham
Young had had his deserts according to law, he would
have passed into the next world earlier than he did.
NATURAL AND STAEVATION WAGES. 221
[Applause.] So far away on the border behind the
Rocky Mountains, and close under the Sierras, the
power of the United States was so weak that Brig-
ham Young once drove out every United States
officer from his territory, and then said, " I am and
shall be governor until God Almighty says, 'Brig-
ham, you need be governor no longer.' " God Al-
mighty has said that, but the American Church and
American politics never said it.
A fourth deep root of the Mormon power is igno-
rance. Go into that tabernacle in Salt Lake City,
and look into the faces of the people, and you will
be reminded of what you see in Castle Garden. Go
to the end of New York City, and look at the emi-
grants in the great building there, and you will be
reminded of what you see in the Salt Lake City
Tabernacle. Mormonism recruits itself from an often
illiterate emigrant population, and it forbids any but
the most inefficient parochial schools. Mormon
leaders have usually been Americans. I do not
accuse all the ringleaders of being dishonest. I
suppose that some of them are thoroughly sincere;
but it would be a miracle, if, in a republic as large as
ours, there were not eccentrics and fools enough to
officer Utah, women, some of them. Thomas Car-
lyle said there were thirty millions of people in
Great Britain, mostly fools. In the United States,
such is the condition of education, that it is no mira-
cle at all, that women of the class which sees visions
here should see visions in Utah, and that under
religious excitement and the power of custom, some
222 LABOR.
of them should at last crush out the deepest instincts
of the feminine nature, and appear to be content in
a life fit only for beasts. I am speaking very cau-
tiously, I am weighing all ray syllables, when I say
that there is at present in Utah no statute law against
seduction or adultery. In Southern Utah mothers
and daughters are often wives of one husband. This
is the ghastly barbarism to which the Gentile ladies
of Utah, in a petition to Congress, have lately called
national attention, and I am speaking in support of
their petition. Brigham Young once told an audience
in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle that men are not to
be required to take care of their children. The most
odious and abominable form of the leper's philosophy
is that which puts upon the mother the sole care of
her offspring. Even our most loathsome cancer-
planters commonly clamor for State aid in the sup-
port of illegitimate children ; but Brigham Young
and Mormonism generally stand on the proposition
that it is the mother's duty to provide for her family !
A fifth root of Mormonism is its isolation; and,
thank God, the progress of civilization westward is
now cutting that root.
Isolation, however, as we have now seen, is not the
only root of Mormonism. If we are to remove this
cancer from the great intermural basin, we must
strike at the other roots, ignorance the chief one,
and political self-rule. Congress is conspicuously
riglit in keeping out of the Union the twin relic
of barbarism. [Applause.] The American people,
while in its senses, will never be ready to take into
NATURAL AND STAllVATION WAGES. 223
the Senate of the United States, as successors to men
who have glorified that place, Mormon representa-
tives with six or twenty wives apiece. We have
been sufficiently scandalized by the territorial agent
now in Washington, and by his four wives.
More than at any other root, however, we need to
strike at the ignorance of the Mormon population.
We must treat this territory with a style of Chris-
tian charity like that with which we have treated
other portions of the West, and with an even more
sternly massed Christian front. You cannot carry
Christian institutions into Utah without a much
more compact massing of your soldiers than you had
when you carried schools and churches into Illinois
and Ohio. In Utah there is a linked and audacious
hierarchy to meet you at every step. In New Mexico
you are in the presence of the Jesuits and of a popu-
lation long steeped in Catholicism. There and in
Utah you must have schools as well as churches ; you
must have the teacher as well as the minister, and you
must support both more generously than you did in
Iowa or even in Kansas. The conditions are very
peculiar in Utah, and we need a peculiar sharpen-
ing of our attack ; and unless we sharpen the attack,
and push it boldly, Utah will be in the Union with
her peculiar institutions, and then God knows wheth-
er there may not be need of a civil contest to set
the State in order.
What are we to do for the educational institutions
how springing up in our Western intermural basin ?
What have we there already? Colorado College,
224 LABOR.
an institution of which I cannot mention the name
without petitions to Almighty Providence for its
success ! It is not fully on its feet, but is slowly
rising to a commanding position, and begins to lift
up its hand in blessing over Mormon and Gentile
populations. Mexico sees this rising angel as he
stands on the Rocky Mountain ranges. Idaho, Ari-
zona, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, see him. Mor-
monism sees him and trembles in Utah, and so does
Jesuitism in New Mexico. This angel, although not
yet on its feet, has reached out his hand to Salt
Lake City, and planted there an academy, and at
Sante Fe has planted another ; and from Lowell, in
this Commonwealth, a professor has gone to Salt
Lake Academy. It* already has eighty pupils, al-
though that school is not eight months old, and half
of these students are Mormons. Presbyterians and
Methodists have made an excellent beginning in pro-
viding education for tlie Territory. There is an
Episcopalian school in Salt Lake City, with nine
teachers in it who were Mormons. Give the Mormon
youth education enough to awaken their human in-
stincts, and they will resent the destruction of the
home. Pol3'gamy is becoming unpopular with the
younger chiss of Mormon believers. Indeed, if I had
liad a mother who was onl}' an eighth part of a wife,
and had seen her abused under the tyrannies of the
Mormon hierarchy, my impression is that I should
have ceased to be a Mormon, liad I been brouglit up
one. The subtle operation of the evil of Mormonism
is to di.sgust the younger population with that insti-
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.' 225
tution. If you educate the young Mormon genera-
tions, it is not impossible that soon you may have a
new revelation from the head of the Mormon hier-
archy, and that it will be against polygamy. [Ap-
plause.]
Let us so support schools in the New West, that
they will take no craven or apologetic attitude before
either Romanism or Mormonism. Let us pour funds
into the treasury of Colorado College, and Salt Lake
Academy, and Santa F^ Academy, and other similar
institutions in Utah and New Mexico.
The Mormon problem, I, for one, do not expect to
see settled, unless by the school or by the sword.
The choice is between the keen edge of the sword
and the keen edge of the Oliristian school. God give
us such wisdom that he may not need at last to send
the sword to cut the Mormon cancer out of our sun-
set shoulder ! [Applause.]
THE LECTUEE.
One of the earls of Warwick Castle, a king-maker,
was killed in a civil broil ; and the fierce old feudal
spirit caused his body to be exposed naked for three
days on the floor of St. Paul's in London. Rough as
his age was, an earl of Kenilworth Castle founded on
his great estate an establishment for the aged soldiers
who had been with him in his wars. Feudalism once
was so cruel that the baron had the right to kill two
peasants in order to warm his feet in their blood ; but
this cannibalism grew so soft at last, even in the dark
middle ages, that it became social degradation to
226 LABOR.
neglect the aged, to snatch out of life the strength
of youth and manhood, and then leave advanced
years to shift for themselves. The hereditary, ter-
ritorial, feudal aristocracy thought itself bound by
interest, or certainly by custom, to take care of age ;
and it fixed the mark of social infamy upon any
leader who did not protect those who had followed him
in their manhood. Feudalism has vanished out of
Europe. It has never planted its hoofs on American
soU ; or, at least, if it hovered for a while over this
continent, the impact of its split feet was so light
that the tracery of the imprint is now almost
removed. De Tocqueville ventures to affirm that
the modern manufacturing aristocracy, which to a
large extent has taken the place of the hereditary
and territorial, differs from the old feudal aristocracy
in that it feels no responsibility for the age of its de-
pendants. Give us the best service of youth ; crush
out the right of children to a fair education in pri-
mary branches ; give us the strength of the girl be-
fore her powers have been fully confirmed ; give us
the strength of mothers when their lives draw near to
dangerous physical crises; give us the strength of
manhood up to the last hour in which it can labor
remuneratively ; and then let the ruined girl, let the
mother in her weakness, let old age in its dependence,
shift for themselves. This is a terrific indictment
against the modern system of wages, which I do not
attiick, but which many do. If I put before you in
outline some of the reasons why that system is
attacked, you will have patience with me, perhaps,
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 227
while I go on to claim that natural wages must, at
the least, be twice the cost of the unprepared food
of the laborer. I have age in mind ; I have children's
rights in mind; I have mothers' rights in mind.
I have American standards of living and universal
suffrage in mind. I arrive at the conclusion that
justice is not dangerous to capital. As, in the old
feudal aristocracy, justice was the glory of the order,
so in the new aristocracy, justice is the glory of
wealth and power. As, in the old aristocracy, infamy
was inflicted on any leader who neglected the inter-
ests of age, when the strength of manhood had served
him ; so in the new aristocracy, more cruel than the
old, social infamy ought to be imprinted on any
legislation, and on any leader of politics or of manu-
factures, that neglects the interests of age, when
manhood has given its best strength to that leader.
[Applause.]
1. The cost of producing labor should determine
the price of labor.
2. The cost of producing labor includes that of
rearing a family.
3. The cost of rearing a family depends on the
standard of comfort and decency, below which labor-
ers will not go, or ought not to go.
Of course I recognize the -distinction between these
two standards. What ought to be, however, is what
in America must be, if our instikitions are to endure
under universal suffrage. [Applause.]
4. In a republic under universal suffrage, the cost
of living ought to include the expense of educating
228 LABOB.
children in the common schools up to fifteen years of
age.
5. It ought to include the expense of keeping
"mves at home to take charge of little children.
6. It ought to include a fair support for old age,
in case temperance, industry, and economy have
marked the habits of the laborer.
The slovenly spendthrift, the drunkard, ought to
suffer. I make no plea for dissipation. Shiftless-
ness deserves the workhouse in nine cases out of
ten.
7. It will be found that wages less than twice the
cost of the unprepared food of the laborer will not
meet the demands of the American standard of living.
8. When wages are by any considerable degree
lower than this standard requires, it is found that
American populations of native birth do not increase
fast enough to make up for the inevitable and inces-
sant loss of labor from death and disability.
9. As a means of preventing such a multiplication
of population as shall make the. supply of labor
greater than the demand, it is politically and indus-
trially prudent to build up in popular estimation a
high and advancing standard of living.
10. There should be no interference by law with
the rate of wages for adult males; but public dis-
cussion and working-men's organizations are to be
encouraged in the demand for natural wages.
11. Natural wages would prevent the formation of
an ignorant class.
12. They would diminish the ; izo of the unem-
ployed, discontented, and explosive class.
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 229
13. They would destroy the power of demagogues.
14. They would increase the expenses of the work-
ing classes.
15. They would increase the gains of capitalists.
16. By removing the chief perils of universal suf-
frage, and giving justice free course in the relations
of capital and labor, natural wages would make
America an organizing and redemptive political
example to the world; and nothing else will.
[Applause.]
It will be noticed that in these propositions I am
defining natural wages under the American standard
of living, and not necessary wages under the Japan-
ese or the Chinese scale of expenses. The definition
given in these propositions accords, however, with
the best authorities. In his superb work on " The
Wages Question" (p. 112), you will find Professor
Walker of Yale College maintaining that " the whole
significance of the term ' necessary wages ' is, that,
in order to the supply of labor being maintained,
wages must be paid which will not only enable the
laboring class to subsist according to the standard of
comfort and decency, or of discomfort and indecency,
it may be, which they set up for themselves as that
below which they will not go, but will also dispose
them to propagate sufficiently to make up the inevita-
ble, incessant loss from death or disability."
Your Labor Bureau affirms (^Report for 1875, p.
445) that "it seems natural and just that a man's
labor should be worth, and that his wages should be,
as much as, with economy and prudence, will com-
230 LABOR.
fortably maintain himself and family, enable him to
educate his children, and also to lay by enough for
his decent support when his laboring powers have
failed." (See also Professor Bonamy Price, Prac-
tical Political Economy^ p. 225.)
Dr. Engel of Berlin has shown that in Prussia a
person with an income of seven hundred and fifty dol-
lars a year spends fifty per cent of this sum for food
alone. (See Walker, The Wages Question^ p. 117.)
It was my fortune to maintain on this platform
more than a year ago (^Boston Monday Lectures on
Consciences Preludes I. and II.), that food unprepared
costs nearly half as much as the other necessary
expenses of a family living according to the Ameri-
can -standard. I suppose I do not carry the assent
of this audience when I take my stand on that prop-
osition; and therefore I shall this morning occupy
a few of your precious minutes in a dry analytical
discussion in proof of that one assertion. You
accuse this platform of using rhetoric ; but if, when
delivering a statistical lecture, I am exceedingly dry
and cool, you say the discussion is low and ordinary.
Now, I wish it to be lower and more ordinary than
ever for a quarter of an hour.
Here is the official report of your Bureau of Labor
for 1875, and it contains a list of the replies made
by three hundred and ninety-seven families in this
Commonwealth in 1874 to questions concerning their
earnings and expenses. The replies were not re-
ceived merely in answer to circulars ; but your
agents went into manufacturing towns in this State,
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 231
buttonholed working-men, went home with them
after tlieir hours of labor were over, gave the re-
spondents opportunity to consult their note-books, and
so obtained answers to questions on a great variety
of points concerning the earnings and expenses of
the class depending on wages. No commonwealth
in history has gathered social statistics as carefully as
has Massachusetts. I know that prices were higher
in 1874 than they now are, and so possibly four hun-
dred and twenty-two dollars is too large a figure for
the unprepared food of a family to-day; but the
relation between the price of food and the price of
other articles, and that between the cost of living
and the purchasing power of a day's labor, have
not very greatly changed. It is the proportion to
which I call attention, rather than to the figures
on any one point. My topic is the lowest-paid
labor ; but I accept a disadvantage in the argument
by occasionally quoting examples from the ranks
of skilled labor. I put before you the expenses and
earnings of families out of several different trades
in this Commonwealth; and, if you doubt the rec-
ord in any case, you can go to the Labor Bureau,
take the number of the record here, and find the
signature of the head of the family. Every rec-
ord here is paralleled with written records in the
bureau at 33 Pemberton Square in this city, and can
be verified legally, if you please, by sufficient trouble
being expended upon the case. I regard the recent
reports of the bureau as utterly unpartisan. They
are as cool as the multiplication-table, and as un-
t answerable.
232
LABOR.
No. 1. BEICKLAYER. German.
Earnings of father $810 00
Condition. Family numbers five : parents, and three chil-
dren from eight months to seven years of age ; one goes to
school. Occupy a tenement of four rooms, well located, and
with good surroundings. The house is well furnished, and the
parlor carpeted. Own a piano. Family dresses well.
Food. Breakfast : bread, butter, meat, and coffee. Din-
ner : meat or fish, potatoes, bread, pie. Supper : bread, butter,
gingerbread, tea.
Cost of Uving .
. 8810 00
Rent .
.8204 00
Boots and shoes
. 3050
Fuel .
. 49 GO
Clothing .
. 42 00
Groceries .
. 330 49
Dry goods .
. 24 00
Meat .
. 81 22
Papers
8 00
Fish . . .
960
Societies .
. 10 00
Milk .
. 18 00
Sundries .
. 12 59
Here groceries, meat, fish, and milk, as you uotiee,
cost ^28, or slightly more than half of $810, the
total cost of living.
No. 3. CARPENTER. American.
Earninga of father 8686 00
Condition. Family numbers four : parents, and two chil-
dren from one to five years of age ; one goes to school. Live
in a tenement of five rooms, pleasantly located and surrounded.
The apartments are well furnished and carpeted. Have a sew-
ing-machine. Family dresses well, and attends church.
Food. Breakfast : bread, butter, meat, eggs, cake, and
coffee. Dinner: bread, butter, meat, potatoes, vegetables in
season, pie, and tea. Supper: bread, butter, cake, sauce, and
tea.
Cost of living JGSG O*
Root 8100 00 1 Groceries . . . . 208 19
Fuel 43 80 1 Meat 101 14
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.
233
Fish $8 00
Milk 28 40
Boots and shoes . . 27 00
Clothing . . . . 84 00
Dry goods
Papers
Religion
Sundries
$24 00
9 00
12 00
40 00
In this case the food of the family costs $345, or
almost precisely half the whole cost of living.
No. 58. BOOTMAKER. American.
Earnings of father $660 00
Condition. Family numbers five : parents, and three chil-
dren from two to nine years of age ; two go to school. Occu-
py a tenement of five rooms in a healthy locality, with good
surroundings. House is well furnished, with the parlor car-
peted. Have a sewing-machine. Family dresses well. Had
sickness in the family last year, which was the cause of their
running in debt.
Food. Breakfast: bread and butter, meat or eggs, cake,
coffee. Dinner: brown bread and butter, meat and potatoes,
vegetables, pickles, pie, and tea. Supper: bread and butter,
sauce, cake, tea.
Cost of living $712 50
Rent $120 00
Fuel 42 75
Groceries . . . . 319 29
Meat 82 00
Milk 15 46
Boots and shoes . . 10 00
Clothing . . . . 47 00
Dry goods . . . . 20 00
Sundries, including doctor's
bill . . . . 55 50
Notice that the food here costs $416, or more than
half the total earnings of the father, and that the
family in consequence has fallen into debt on account
of a little sickness.
No. 77. SHOEMAKER. American.
Earnings of father $480 00
son, aged sixteen ....... 230 00
son, aged fourteen 180 00
$890 00
234
LABOB.
Condition. Family numbers five : parents and three chil-
dren. One goes to school all the time, and the other when
business is dull. Father intends to let them have three
months' schooling every year. Have a nice tenement of six
rooms, about ten minutes' walk from the shop, in a good neigh-
borhood and healthy locality. The house is well furnished,
and parlor carpeted. Have a sewing and other labor-saving
machines. Family dresses well. The father worked eight
months last year, and earned from twelve to seventeen dollars
per week. He hoped that the bureau would correct a false
statement that had been published in several papers, that shoe-
makers averaged eighteen dollars per week, as such a correction
was needed.
Food. Breakfast : hot biscuit, bread, butter, fried ham or
eggs or cheese, cake, and coffee. Dinner: bread, butter, beef,
mutton, or fresh pork, potatoes, vegetables, pudding or pie, and
tea. Supper: bread, butter, cheese, cake, meat (if any left from
dinner), and tea. Baked beans on Sunday, and fish one day in
the week.
Cost of living
Rent .
Fuel .
Groceries .
Meat and fish
Milk .
8200 00
48 50
364 90
70 75
15 00
Clothing .
Dry goods .
Boots and shoes
Sundries .
S822 15
G8 00
18 00
17 00
20 00
Here is a son, fourteen yeai's old, earning $180.
There is great temptation in that family to keep
this son out of school. It is said that in Switzerland
it costs ten pounds a year to keep out of school a
child between twelve and fourteen years of age.
The Swiss law requires that children should be in
school, and poor families lose a considerable sum by
obeying the law. In Massachusetts the law requires
children to be in school up to a certain age ; and this
family, for instance, would lose islSO by keeping that
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES. 235
son under fifteen at school all the while. But if
you take out the earnings of that son, this family-
will fall into debt. Which shall it do, send the son
to school, or incur debt ?
When we think how demagogues obtain votes out
of an explosive and ignorant population to-day, we
need look forward no further than 1880, and the
possible Presidential issues, to prove that there is
timeliness in every topic of this kind. President
Woolsey has just begun in " The New York Inde-
pendent " a discussion of socialism. There are signs
all around the horizon that this topic must come up.
Professor Hitchcock of New York has lately pub-
lished on socialism a book fit to take the rank of
a classic in the literature on tliis subject. The other
night in Brooklyn Dr. Storrs's church was packed
to the roof to hear discussions by Professor Hitch-
cock and Dr. Storrs on this theme. " The Atlantic
Monthly " opens its pages to the topic. Congress ap-
points investigating committees concerning it. Hav-
ing in mind the possible issues in the Presidential
conflicts not only of 1880, but of the crowded
twentieth century, you will pardon me if I try to
dampen the powder which demagogues are sure to
attempt to explode. [Applause.]
No. 80. SHOEMAKER. American.
Earnings of father $552 00
Condition. Family numbers six: parents, and four chil-
dren from two to sixteen years of age ; the two elder go to
school. Have a tenement of six rooms situated in a pleasant
neighborhood. The rooms are well furnished and carpeted,
236 LABOR.
and the house kept clean and orderly. Family dresses respect-
ably and well, and attends church. On account of the shoe-
business being very dull for the past two years, the family has
had a hard struggle to pay bills ; and during the last year has
run behind some seventy dollars, as there was work only eight
months and a half. Had a little money in the savings bank,
but was obliged to use it. The oldest child will begin work at
the close of the present school term. This family is very eco-
nomical. Had no sickness ; bought a few clothes.
Food. Breakfast: bread, butter, hash or potatoes warmed
from the day before, doughnuts or cake, coffee. Dinner: meat,
potatoes, pie or pudding, and tea. Supper: bread, butter,
sauce or cheese, cake, and tea. Buckwheat or griddle cakes
occasionally for breakfast. Baked beans on Saturd&y night
and Sunday morning.
Cost of living 8622 00
Milk 18 00
Boots and shoes . . 16 00
Clothing and dry goods . 28 50
Sundries, taxes, &c. . 11 00
Here is a debt ; and how shall it be paid ? The
expense for food is, as usual, about half the cost of
living.
No. 86. SHOEMAKER. Amsbican.
Earnings of father $546 00
son, aged fourteen 102 00
^ 8738 00
Condition. The family mi mbors four: parents, and two
children from ten to fourteen years of age ; one goes to school.
Live in a tenement of five rooms, in a good locality, with
pkTasant surroundings. The apartments are well furnished,
carpeted, and kept very clean. Family dresses well. With
the assistance of the son, can make enough to suj^port the fam-
ily. Work about nine montlis in the year. Impossible to save
money.
Rent 8200 00
Fuel 36 50
Groceries . . . . 260 00
Meat 62 00
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.
237
Food. Brealcfast : bread, butter, meat or eggs, cake,
coffee. Dinner: bread, butter, meat, potatoes, vegetables, pie,
and tea. Supper : bread, butter, sauce or fruit, cheese, cake, tea.
Cost of living .
.
. $738 00
Rent .
. 120 00
Boots and shoes
. 12 00
Fuel .
. 49 50
Clothing .
. 91 00
Groceries .
. 21G 33
Dry goods .
. 27 50
Meat .
. 99 02
Books and papers .
. 12 00
Fish .
. 10 40
Societies
8 00
Milk .
. 17 60
Sundries .
. 74 05
Mr. Senior (^Political Economy^ pp. 36, 37) says
that " when a Scotchman rises from the lowest to the
middling classes of society, shoes become to him
necessaries. He wears them to preserve, not his feet,
but his station in life." All Americans wear shoes
to preserve not their feet, but their social position.
No. 97.
Earnings of father
SHOEMAKER.
French.
. $39G 00
Condition. Family numbers six : parents, and four chil-
dren from one to nine years of age ; two go to school. Live in
a crowded tenement, of three rooms, situated in a very un-
healthy locality, in the midst of filth and pollution. On out-
side of building is a sink-conductor, badly out of repair ; and
the sink-water, almost black, runs down the clapboards, causing
an offensive stench, which can be smelled at a great distance.
The inside of house is on a par with the surroundings ; it is
poorly furnished, and seems the abode of poverty. Children
pale-looking, sickly, and wretchedly kept. Father earns from
twelve to fifteen dollars per week when he has work ; but on
account of sickness, and dulness of trade, finds it impossible to
keep out of debt, and live ; sees no hope of betterment of con-
dition until children are old enough to work. Family dresses
miserably.
Food. Breakfast: bread, butter, sometimes salt fisher
238 LABOR.
pork, coffee. Dinner: bread, meat three days per week, salt
fish or pork the remainder, potatoes, sometimes pie, water.
Supper: bread, sometimes brown bread or oatmeal bread, but-
ter, tea, occasionally gingerbread. Cannot afford luxuries.
Coat of living S483 40
Rent $96 00
Fuel 30 50
Groceries . . . . 244 90
Meat 23 00
Fish 18 00
Milk 12 00
Clothing, shoes, and dry
goods . . . . 28 50
Sickness . . . . 19 00
Sundries . . . . 11 50
It is not always safe to visit the fever-dens and
death-traps in this little city of Boston in the sum-
mer. You had better go when the snow is on the
ground. I had occasion to advise a most delicate
lady the other day in respect to her visits among the
degraded, and told her that ministers usually take
a hearty meal before they go into desolate quarters.
A Boston preacher informed me that at funerals in
the slums he always took the precaution to stand
between the door, and the bed on which the corpse
lay. Circumstances of this kind are of course out of
sight of the Board of Health.
No. 215. LABORER IN MILL. English.
Earnings of father $370 00
daughter, aged fifteen 249 00
$019 00
Condition. Family numbers five : parents, and three
children from eight to fifteen years of age ; two go to school.
Occupy a tenement of four rooms, with good and pleasant sur-
roundings. House is moderately well furnished. Family
dresses well.
Food. Breakfast: bread, butter, sometimes eggs, or what
was left from dinner, coffee. Dinner: meat, potatoes, vegeta-
NATURAL AND STARVATION WAGES.
239
bles in season, bread, pie.
cheese, cake, tea.
Supper: bread, butter, sometimes
Cost of living .
. . .
.$619 00
Rent .
. $66 00
Boots and shoes
. 14 00
Fuel .
. 39 50
Clothing .
. 37 50
Groceries .
. 308 50
Dry goods .
. 17 00
Meat .
. 86 90
Papers
8 00
Milk .
. 11 26
Sundries .
. 30 34
Even with the help of the daughter, nothing can
be laid up here for sickness or age.
No. 346.
Earnings of father
LABORER ON STREETS.
Ibish.
. $436 00
wife 200 00
$636 00
Condition. Family numbers six : parents, and four chil-
dren from two to thirteen years of age ; two go to school.
Have a tenement of three rooms in a poor locality. The house
is meanly furnished, and dirty. The mother goes out cleaning
and washing, and therefore has no time to keep her own house
clean. Family dresses poorly.
Food. Breakfast: bread, butter, and coffee. Dinner:
meat or fish, potatoes, and bread. Supper: bread, butter, and
tea.
Cost of living
Rent .
Fuel .
Groceries
Meat .
Fish .
$126 00
30 25
376 25
50 40
4 29
Milk . . .
Boots and shoes
Clothing .
Dry goods .
Sundries .
$661 49
17 20
12 00
21 80
14 00
9 30
LABORER, OUT-DOOR.
Irish.
.$351 00
No. 306.
Earnings of father
CoNDiTiox. Family numbers five : parents, and three chil-
dren from two to seven years of age. Have a tenement of
three rooms in a large tenement-block, in which is an average
240 LABOR.
of two and a half persons to each room: it is situated in a
very unhealthy neighborhood. The father works only about
nine months in the year, and the mother goes out washing. A
part of the fuel is picked from the streets by the children, who
do not attend school. This family is a little over fifty dollars
in debt. It took more than the mother could earn to buy the
clothes ; and, as there was some sickness, it ran them in debt a
little for physician and medicine. Family dresses poorly.
Food. As to how they live, they could not tell, as it
varied according to their means. They have meat only two
days per week.
Cost of living $362 00
Rent $66 00
Fuel 23 00
Groceries . . . . 201 80
Meat 24 25
Milk 13 60
Fish 18 00
Boots and shoes . . 14 25
PoU-tax . . . . 2 00
This- case is too sad for comment; but it is a most
just type of low-paid labor.
1. When wages go below a certain point, the in-
crease of population is so diminished in many cases
that you cannot fill up the gaps caused by death and
disability ; that is, you cannot reproduce the labor.
2. Natural wages are such as will reproduce labor.
3. The true definition of value is not the cost of
production, but the cost of reproduction.
4. As in regard to any other piece of property, so
with regard to that piece of property wliich we call
labor, there must be enough paid for it to cover the
cost not only of producing it, but of reproducing it.
What is Tremont Temple worth to-day? Any
good salesman will tell you that its value is not
measured by what it cost, but by what it would cost
to reproduce it. Timber and other building-material
NATURAL AND STAKVATION WAGES. 241
may have been cheaper when this temple was erected
than they are now. Its value is the cost of its repro-
duction. Labor is property, and its value is to be
determined by the same rule. This is a natural law
not likely to be soon reversed.
Only the Golden Rule can bring the golden age.
As long as an explosive class is in process of growth
at the bottom of society, we shall have demagogues
who will abuse universal suffrage. My conviction
is, that American institutions cannot safely permit
the formation of an hereditary poor class. Crip-
ples and drones may sink into pinched places in the
industrial world, and be kept in order there under
free institutions ; but if men who are economical and
industrious, and not intemperate, nor of poor physical
capabilities, find that a little sickness throws them
into debt, and that they cannot lay up any thing for
advanced years, we shall have a sour mass of work-
ing-men whom demagogues will make dangerous.
There will be an unemployed and a discontented
class ; and politicians of the fifth rank will ride on
the just exasperations of that portion of society, into
power. If we had the rule adopted, not by legisla-
tion, but by general custom, that, when a man is
willing to work, he shall be paid enough to make the
purchasing power of a day's labor equal to twice the
cost of his unprepared food,, or to twice the cost of
the unprepared food for a family which cannot labor
remuneratively, how could this powder explode?
How could the powder itself ever be produced ? I
hold that natural wages would increase the gains of
242 LABOB.
capitalists by increasing the expenditures of the
laboring class. I have in mind a time when America,
by justice to labor, will give renewed strength to
capital, and make the industrial arrangements of the
United States a model for the other free, experiment-
ing populations of the world.
" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant
nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep,
and shaking her invincible* locks ; methinks I see her
as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling
her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; pur-
ging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the
fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole
noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also
that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what
she means." (Milton, Areopagitiea.') [Applause.]
IX.
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ?
THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, DEC. 30. <
" A fair day's-wages for a fair day's-work : " it is as just a
demand as governed men ever made of Governing. It is the
everlasting right of man. Indisputable as Gaspels, as arithmetical
multiplication-tables: it must and will have itself fulfilled; and
yet, in these times of ours, with what enormous difficulty, next-
door to impossibility! Cablvle.
Sooner or later I too may passively take the print
Of the golden age why not ? I have neither hope nor trust;
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint,
Cheat and be cheated and die: who knows? We are ashes and dust.
Tbmnyson: Maud.
IX.
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS?
PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS.
The American Union has reduced its national
debt eightfold more rapidly than Great Britain did
hers. Resumption of specie payments by the United
States begins with the new year [applause] ; and
what, according to many popular prophets, ought not
to be, and could not be, already is. You take up
your newspaper, and read that gold stands steady at
par. That is news you have not seen for seventeen
years. It is great news. [Applause.] America
kneels on the frosty sods above the tombs of the
martyrs in the civil war; and, only thirteen years
after the close of a conflict five years in duration,
she lifts up her hands to heaven, and receives as a
New Year's present a clean financial record. This
gift comes from God, and not from seventh-rate poli-
ticians. [Applause.]
Surely a republic in which universal suffrage is
sometimes said to be a failure has a right to point
with abundant gratitude to Providence, and some
245
246 LABOR.
honest pride, to a financial record unexampled in
ancient or modern times. In 1860 the public debt
of the United States was $64,000,000. In 1866 it
was 82,773,000,000. In 1877 it was $2,060,000,000.
The public debt of Great Britain and Ireland is
$3,625,000,000. Before our civil war we knew little
or nothing of internal taxation for federal purposes.
During that conflict, such taxation was raised above
every present and every past example. The interest
on our debt was the highest in the world. After the
close of the Napoleonic wars, the propertied classes
in Great Britain refused to bear an income-tax for a
single year. Americans have long borne voluntarily,
under universal suffrage, the burdens of war taxation.
In 1877 we exported so much more merchandise than
we imported, that the balance of trade in our fav^r
was $152,000,000.
"In each twelve months," says Mr. Gladstone,
" America has done what we did in eight years ; her
self-command, self-denial, and wise forethought for
the future, have been, to say the least, eightfold ours.
An enfranchised nation tolerated burdens wliich in
Great Britain a selected class, possessed of the repre-
sentation, did not dare to face. The most unmiti-
gated democracy known to the annals of the world
resolutely reduced at its own cost prospective liabili-
ties of the State, which the aristocratic and pluto-
cratic and monarcliical government of the United
Kingdom has been contented ignobly to hand over to
posterity." (" Kin beyond Sea," North American
Review^ September, 1878, pp. 188, 189.)
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 247
Most instructive have been the popular movements
by which this resplendent financial result has been
achieved, and almost equally instructive are those by
which it has beien opposed. How has financial wick-
edness in politics been prevented? How was good
financial sense under universal suffrage secured ?
The whole world has an interest in the answer to
these questions.
Eye-witnesses of our history for the last five years
are frequently whispering that the newspapers and
ministers, and not politicians and financiers, saved the
nation from repudiation. This contemporary opin-
ion will be of interest to the future historian. " The
New York Nation," which has a peculiar fondness for
the ministry, affirms that the ministers and the news-
papers together have saved the nation from repudiat-
ing its debts and swindling its creditors. It asserts
roundly that if the ministers had not attacked the
financial heresies of the last two years as sin, or a
disguised attempt to cheat, and if the leading news-
papers had not taught honesty unflinchingly, politi-
cians would have been unable to resist the current of
popular error on great questions of finance. With-
out the combined influence of the pulpit and press
on public opinion, probably some politicians would
have led off in a great financial experiment that
would have ended in wreck and repudiation.
The act providing for the resumption of specie
payments became a law Jan. 14, 1875.
What winds burst forth out of Ohio and Indiana,
and the Mississippi Valley generally, the moment it
248 LABOR.
was determined to resume specie payments on the
fii*st day of 1879 ! Strange storms, never known be-
fore in American politics, were let loose. It ought
not to be, and yet it will be, soon forgotten, how Con-
gress was importuned to repeal the resumption act,
and how the House of Representatives was widely
supposed to have power to make ninety cents equal
to an hundred.
If a newly organized national party had achieved
success, there would have been fastened upon us the
searching curse of fiat money and a political cur-
rency.
A silver bill, which the President vetoed as incon-
sistent with the national promise to pay its debts in
coin, passed the House Nov. 5, 1877, by a vote of
one hundred and sixty -four to thirty-four.
A bill to repeal the resumption act, or so much of
it as provided for the redemption in coin of the
United States legal-tender notes, passed the House
Nov. 23, 1877, by a vote of one hundred and thirty-
three to one hundred and twenty.
Mr. Gladstone says the facts to Our credit should
be told out ; and so should these other facts to our
shame.
The Senate, however, operated as the saucer does
upon the teacup. You remember that Washington
saitl to Lafayette once at a dinner-table : " We need
two bodies in our legislative branch. We want this
hot teacup to represent the popular feeling. The
House of Representatives should be close to the
people's firesides. But we need the Senate as the
IS JTJSTICE A PEKIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 249
saucer to cool the teacup somewhat." Neither the
saucer nor the teacup would do well alone. We need
the hotness, and we need the assuaged hotness also,
and so must have both parts of this furniture of the
table. This wisdom of Washington has again and
again been justified by the discussions of the last two
years. The Senate, at least twice, has crushed
repudiation schemes of the lower House.
Without indorsing the assertion that the news-
papers and ministers together have saved us, I may
be allowed to affirm that it appears to me capable of
superabundant proof that the ministers and the news-
papers, and the Senate and an honest Executive, have
saved us.
I am not discussing this matter from a point of
view of partisan politics, but from that of American
institutions, out of wliich we do see that good sense
has some chance to come, even under universal suf-
frage. We were told lately by a Southern senator
that the time may not be far distant when the large
representation of New England in the Senate will be
attacked, on the ground of its injustice to other por-
tions of the Union. Texas, which is larger than
France, has two senators only. California, although
larger than Italy, has only two. But Rhode Island,
hardly large enough for a county, has as much
power in the Senate as Texas or California. The
group of six small New England States weighs as
much in the Senate as the vast Commonwealths of
New York', Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and Iowa put together. Our government is one of
250 LABOE.
checks and balances. It is not a pure democracy.
New England has always defended the checks and
balances ; and, in the last two years, Providence has
emphasized them, and justified their existence and
activity ! [Applause.] If we had not had the two
Houses, or if the basis of representation in the up-
per House had been what it is in the lower, who
knows but that financial heresy would have swept
the good sense of the nation from its moorings ?
The colleges in the Mississippi Valley were against
the silver bill. In the centre of Iowa, I was told by
President Magoun, one of the superb leaders of
sound policies in the West, that, when the Bland
silver bill was before the House, twelve or fifteen
Western colleges sent a petition to Washington
against it, and that the paper was signed by nearly
every professor in those institutions. We know
what excellent work the hard-money league of
Chicago has been doing. I am not assailing the
West for her position as to the silver bill. There
were two parties in the Mississippi Valley ; and, if
the schools and ministers there were sometimes
misled, the best of them were not. The best parts of
the newspaper press in the West were not misled,
although the best in newspapers is a small percent-
age there and here. The West reads Western daily
newspapers, and not Eastern. It is easy to over-
estimate the extent of the influence of our seaboard
daily newspapers. Your daily is not a daily three
hundred miles from the place where it is published,
but a paper of the second day. We are not to at-
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 251
tribute all the turns of political sentiment in the
United States to the peculiar inclinations the pens
of the New York editors may have. A few New
York monthlies, and one or two weeklies, reach the
whole nation; but the average citizen of Chicago
rarely sees the New York dailies. Our nation is not
like England, where one newspaper can easily reach
every coast of an island so small that when an Ameri-
can walks in his sleep there he is in danger of step-
ping off the land. Englishmen are proud of the fact
that the very best discussions of the London dailies
go to the remotest quarters of England and Scotland,
and. they well may value this one excellent effect
of the smallness of the British Islands. It is not the
fact that the best American daily newspapers go to
all quarters of our immense territory. Therefore we
must give praise to several vigorous newspapers
which in the West stood right on the financial ques-
tion ; and to the newspapers in the South, and the
half-dozen or dozen statesmen there, who stood right
on that subject. It is not true that the seaboard led
the whole nation.
The West is very haughty on financial topics, if
asked to accept without change the position of the
seaboard from which she has borrowed so much.
There is nothing subtler, I suppose, in the reasons
which induced a part of the West to oppose a financial
policy almost unanimously favored by the seaboard,
than the fact that so much has been borrowed by the
West from the East that it is often supposed capi-
talists here have interested motives in all discussions
252 LABOR.
of financial questions. Therefore let us give the
more praise to the Western press, so far as it was
right, and to the Western pulpit, and to any West-
ern statesmen who were not misled by the popular
clamor.
There has been more than one occasion in the
history of the United States when the ministry has
given hope to the national executive. Commissioner
Eaton told me in the educational bureau at Washing-
ton, that one of the most impressive things Presi-
dent Lincoln ever said to him was, that the sheet-
anchor of the cause of the Union in the darkest days
of the war clung to the pulpits of the Northern a.ud
Western States. [Applause.] If the ministry had
not taken a right position on financial issues in the
last two years, we should have had trouble in the
next Presidential campaign with these same issues.
If the recent discussion has not saved the nation
from the ultimate recurrence of such heresies in
our politics, it has saved the next Presidential cam-
paign from being carried by any apologist for social-
istic opinions in finance. [Applause.]
While, therefore, we take some credit to ourselves
for diminishing rapidly our national debt, and exe-
cuting a buffeted resumption act ; while we accept,
with proper humility, the praise Mr. Gladstone has
given us in his contrast of the American democracy
with the British aristocracy ; while we look on the
unexampled financial vigor of our nation at a date
so near the time when some of us desj)aired of her
life; wliilo we anticipate the not-distant day when
IS JUSTICE A PEEIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 253
she will be the wealthiest of nations; while we
remember how France has paid her crushing in-
debtedness swiftly, and is a republic, let us not en-
tirely give up hope as to popular suffrage ; and even
here in Boston, where, as Mr. Phillips says, we do
not believe in republican institutions, let us not quite
despair, when a republic, with all its faults, honestly
pays its debts, here and in Paris. [Applause.]
THE LECTTJEE.
It is a suggestive circumstance, that the first dis-
course ever uttered in the world had a lie for its text,
and converted half its hearers. The dismal science
of political economy, when it discusses the question
whether justice is a peril to capitalists, often takes \
for its text the lie that the relations between capi- !
tal and labor are a see-saw ; or that, as the laborer
goes up, the capitalist will go down, and that, as the
laborer goes down, the capitalist must go up. This
is Ricardo's doctrine. This is to-day the theory of
several universities, but not of the best ones ; and,
thank God, it is a doctrine oftener and oftener as-
sailed of late in the name of political economy itself, >
as represented by Professors Cairnes and Jevons and
Bonamy Price, and our own Professors Bowen and i
Walker. Gov. Winthrop of Massachusetts tells a '
story which illustrates the average opinion of the
political economists of the older school concerning
the relations of. labor to capital. " I may, upon this
occasion," he writes, "repeat a passage between one
of Rowley, and his servant. The master, being forced
254 LABOB.
to sell a pair of oxen to pay his servant his wages,
told the servant he could keep him no longer; not
knowing how to pay him the next year. The servant
answered him that he would serve him for more of
his cattle. ' But how shall I do,' saith the master,
'when all my cattle are gone?' The servant re-
plied, 'You shall then serve me, and so you may
have your cattle again.' " (^History of New Eng-
land, p. 219.)
This is the see-saw theory of wages and profits :
1. The amount of capital which in any country
can be devoted at a given time to the payment of
wages is a dividend.
2. The number of laborers who in that country,
at the given time, ask for wages, is a divisor.
3. The rate of wages which can be paid in that
country, at the given time, is the quotient obtained
by dividing the amount of capital by the number of
laborers.
4. There is no fighting against the rules of arith-
metic ; and therefore there is no way to increase this
quotient without enlarging the dividend, or diminish-
ing the divisor.
5. The foregoing dividend, which is called the
wages-fund, is a part of the aggregate capital of a
country ; and tlie ratio between that capital and the
amount devoted to the payment of wages may vary
with the conditions of industry and the habits of the
people ; but at any given time the dividend is a defi-
nite part of the aggregate capital, and cannot be in-
creased by law, or public opinion, or compassion on
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 255
the part of employers, or the efforts of the working
classes.
6. The wages-fund is distributed by competition.
7. More than the amount of the wages-fund, the
wages-receiving class cannot possibly divide among
them.
8. That amount, and no less, they cannot but ob-
tain.
9. The working-man who wants higher wages is to
be told, that, as the wages-fund is fixed in amount, if
he receives more, some other laborer must for that
reason receive less, or be kept out of employment
altogether.
10. Competition is so perfect that the laborer
always realizes the highest wages the employer can
afford to pay, or else, as consumer, is rewarded by
the lower price of commodities.
11. Wages and profits are drawn from the same
fund.
12. Profits depend on wages.
13. Profits and wages increase and diminish, there-
fore, at each other's expense, and what is gained on
the one side is lost on the other.
14. The industrial world is, therefore, a ghastly
battle-field, on which capital and labor are of neces-
sity ever at war, and where victory and its spoils
must go to the stronger.
Statements of the theory here summarized may
be found scattered in detached form through many
treatises of the older school in political economy.
(See the doctrine of the wage-fund defended by Pro-
256 LABOR.
fessor Fawcett, Economic Position of the British
Laborer, p. 120; by John Stuart Mill, Fort-
nightly Review, May, 1869 ; and Professor Perry of
Williams College, Political Economy, pp. 122, 123.)
In these accursed principles you have the veins
and arteries through which circulates most of the
black blood of the feud between capital and labor,
and of socialistic and communistic discontent in
modern times. Carlyle calls political economy the
dismal science, because, up to a late date, it has taught
propositions such as these. But it is the glory of the
best recent discussions in political economy, to have
ripped open these poisoned veins, and to have let out
much of this black blood. It may be that on this
theme I shall have great difficulty in obtaining a hear-
ing with older men who have been taught in a school
of political economy now obsolete or obsolescent,
while we younger men have been brought up in a new
school. If I seem to speak disrespectfully of Ricardo
and of the theory of the wages-fund, remember that
Bonamy Price and Cairnes and Walker do the same.
Professor Bowcn, representing Harvard * University,
explicitly rejects that theory. (See North American
Review, cxx., pp. 93, 94, note.) I take up here Pro-
fessor Walker's work on wages, as perhaps the best
treatise America has given us on the subject, and
certainly a book representing Yale College ; and you
will find the whole volume employed in combating
those very assumptions which may prejudice many
here against my proposition that the see-saw theory
as to wages and profits is as unsound in social science
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 257
as it is cruel in social practice. For instance, Pro-
fessor Walker says :
" I regret that this treatise should be so strongly-
controversial in form; but the fact is, certain doc-
trines which I deem to be wholly unfounded have
become so widely spread, that one can make no prog-
ress, by so much as a step, towards a philosophy of
wages, without encountering them. These doctrines
are,
" That tliere is a wage-fund irrespective of the
numbers and industrial quality of the laboring popu-
lation, constituting the sole source from which wages
can at any time be drawn.
" That competition is so far perfect that the labor-
er, as a producer, always realizes the highest wages
which the employer can afford to pay, or else, as con-
sumer, is recompensed in the lower price of commodi-
ties for any injury he may chance to suffer as pro-
ducer.
" That, in the organization of modern industrial
society, the laborer and the capitalist are together
sufficient unto production, the actual employer of
labor being regarded as the capitalist, or else as the
mere stipendiary agent and creature of the capitalist,
receiving a remuneration which can properly be
treated like the wages of ordinary labor.
" These doctrines I have found it necessary to con-
trovert ; and in so doing have not cared to mince
matters or pick phrases."
These are, in substance, the doctrines of Ricardo.
They were very nearly the doctrines of John Stuart
258 LABOR.
Mill. Bonamy Price accuses Mill himself of intro-
ducing utter confusion into the topic of profits.
(^Practical Political Economy^ London, 1878, p. 135.)
Mill, however, is said to have abandoned the see-saw
theory in his latest and yet unpublished essays.
A man is a man, even if his father was rich. I
have defended the interests of working-men; and,
if now I defend those of capitalists and manufac-
turers, you will remember that many of the latter
were working-men once, and that in America any
man with the proper spirit of self-help may become
a capitalist.
Do fair wages drive employers into bankruptcy?
Is justice a peril to capitalists ? Is it impossible to
pay natural wages, and make reasonable profits ?
A startlingly large proportion of the employing
class does not escape financial distress. Here is a
very suggestive pamphlet on " Common-sense Views
in Political Economy," by J. H. Walker, Esq., of
Worcester, Mass., who testified at their request
before the Hewitt Congressional Committee. Mr.
Walker discusses the fate of business-men (p. 10).
He tells us that in 1840 there were four firms in
Worcester engaged in the chief industry of the
State, tlie manufacture of boots and shoes. They
comprised seven individuals, and only one of these
manufacturers died in comfortable circumstances in
advanced age. Two of them were at work for Mr.
Walker as journeymen when prostrated by their
final sickness. In 1850 there were twenty-one firms
manufacturing boots and shoes in Worcester, com-
IS JUSTICE A PEEIL TO CAPITALISTS? 259
prising twenty-four members. All but four of these
failed in business, and only two have retired with
any capital.- In 1860 there were twenty-three firms
engaged in the same business in Worcester, com-
prising thirty individuals. Of these twenty-three
firms, twelve have failed ; and, of the individuals who
comprised the firms, only eight are now manufac-
turing, and only two have gone out of the business
with any capital.
When I stand here, and assert that the labor of an
able-bodied slave is computed to be Avorth twice his
maintenance, and that the service of the meanest
laborer cannot be worth less than that of an able-
bodied slave, you remember the number of business
failures, and the frequent financial straits of employ-
ers, and you think I am teaching heresy ; that I am
trenching upon the great rights of capital ; and that I
am dropping out of the region of science in politi-
cal economy. But these propositions were those of
Adam Smith (see Wealth of Nations^ Book I. chap,
viii.) ; these propositions are those of John Stuart Mill
himself. Why, here is Mill, cool as an iceberg on
this topic, but straightforward as a sunbeam : " Where
the wife of a laboring-man does not by general cus-
tom contribute to his earnings, the man's wages must
be at least sufficient to support himself, a wife, and
a number of children adequate to keep up the popu-
lation, since^ if it were less, the population would not be
kept upT (^Political Economy, Book XI. chap, xiv.)
If this be indeed a natural law, who knows but
these business failures come into collision with nature
260 LABOR.
itself? Who knows but that Ricardo, after all, was
right, and that the natural relations of labor to capi-
tal are those of war? Occasionally manufacturers
retain their operatives in employment at a loss. I
know there are princes in our manufacturing estab-
lishments, who sometimes suffer financially in order
to be generous to their operatives in hard times.
But nobody expects these exceptions to become the
general rule. I am speaking not of the princes, but
of the average condition of trade under the stern
law of supply and demand ; and I wish to ascertain,
whether, under that law, it is indeed true that the
condition of capital and labor must be that of war.
In England, at the town of MerthjT, a great min-
ing-district, a strike occurred in which a desperate
attempt was made to keep wages up to the standard
of working-men. The laborers refused to believe
that their employers could not pay them what they
demanded. The employers said, " We will prove to
you that we are sincere. We will put out our fur-
naces, and inflict on ourselves a great loss, if you
continue this strike. This loss will be less than that
of paying the wages you ask." The workmen would
not be convinced. They demanded the " minimum
wjige," as it was called ; did not obtain opportunity
to look into the books of their employers ; could not
credit the assertion that the employers were unable
to pay more without dropping into bankrui)tcy ; kept
up the strike; and the masters put their furnaces
out of blast, extinguished their fires, made work im-
I)ossible for a long period, and so brought calamity
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 261
on the trade of a whole district. This was their
proof that the wages asked could not be paid. The
industrial world abounds with similar evidence that
employers are often sincere when they say they can-
not pay higher wages, and live. Of course, if they
do not live, the working-men cannot be employed.
What if we could give a majority of working-men
employment at what I call fair wages? Can we
bring all working-men into employment ? Must such
as cannot find employment at fair wages go to the
workhouse ? Is it not better to accept half a loaf as
wages than nothing? If there is only a fixed amount
of bread to be divided, and mouths are too many,
must not some live on half-rations? Must not some
die? Would it not be better if some were never
born ? John Stuart Mill says society might possibly
take care of all the laborers now on the planet, but
that we cannot be called upon to take care of as
many more human beings as they who are already
here choose to bring into existence. Unless there
be some check on population, there will be no safety
for society, even if capital should undertake to pro-
vide work for all. Philanthropy itself cannot promise
to do that ; and therefore. Mill thinks, it looks as if
Ricardo were right, and as if we must adhere to his
dismal doctrines.
I see no way out of the wilderness into which
"our discussion of labor and socialism has led us,
but through adherence to our fundamental maxim,
definitions first, and then, following definitions, clear
ideas in logical order as stepping-stones across every
262 LABOR.
marsh. On my study table there is a collection of treas-
ure or rubbish I hardly know which to call it on
political economy: ten or twelve feet of volumes
representing the best discussions in social science for
the last two hundred years. Gather and examine in
chronological order any such collection of books, and
you will find that down to about 1840 or 1850, they
are full of the see-saw theory of wages and profits,
and teach a godless science ; a series of propositions
utterly without piety, and having in mind no Chris-
tian principles. About 1840 and 1850, after the re-
form-laws in Great Britain had come into force, you
find this series of books changing position ; and God
be praised that to:day political economy does not
deserve to be called the dismal science !
Here is a series of propositions which I have not
extracted from any book, but upon which I am will-
ing to put my feet in the tangle of this morass, out
of which, perhaps, some of you have thought that
we should never escape.
Natural wages have been defined here, and I
must now attempt a definition of natural profits.
Face to face with the see-saw theory in political
economy, our question is whether natural wages and
natural profits are consistent with each other.
1. Natural profits consist of three parts, interest
on capital, insurance against risk, and remuneration
for superintendence.
This is a difficult and yet a standard definition,
and in its support both the authorities of the older
and those of the newer school of political economists
are agreed. (See Fawcett's Manual, p. 160.)
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 263
Whoever puts money into business of course ex-
pects to get back as much as he would receive in
interest if he were to lend his funds. In England,
where the rate of interest is low, this portion of profit
may reasonably enough be low; but in Australia,
where the rate of interest is ten per cent, the profit
ought to be higher, because money is worth more at
interest. All these matters are parts of arithmetic.
I am not here to appeal to you in the name of philan-
thropy against the multiplication-table. Fair profits
should include interest on capital ; but this portion
of profits should not amount, as it often does, to
twenty, thirty, and fifty per cent, in a country where
capital can be borrowed for ten or six or perhaps four
per cent interest.
Fair profits also include insurance against risk, and
this will be high or low according to circumstances
in different cases. Remuneration for risk, capitalists
estimate high enough if they have their own way.
An author, publishing a book, is told he must not
have any large percentage of the profit, because he
does not take any risk. The publisher takes all the
risk ; and so even a Longfellow, I suppose, obtains
only about ten per cent on his copyright, although
one would think there is no risk in many cases of
publication. The rule is that the publisher taking
the risk must be compensated. How shall we deter-
mine how much this portion of profit should be ?
This is, or ought to be, a matter of arithmetic, too.
You go to the insurance companies, and ask for how
much they will insure certain trades or certain kinds
264 LABOB.
of property, and you will find that there can be a
very exact calculation made here.
2. As the legal rate of interest shows what the
first part of natural profits should be, so the average
rate of insurance shows what the second part of nat-
ural profits should be.
You are not here to take the capitalist's word that
his risks ought to have such and such remuneration.
You will do better to go to the insurance companies ;
you will do best to study competitions of capitalists
with each other, and so ascertain what the second
part of profits naturally should be. There should,
of course, be remuneration for superintendence ; and
8ome political economists say that the way to find
out how much should be allowed for this third ele-
ment in natural profits, is to take the gross excess of
earnings over expenditures, and subtract the first two
parts of natural profits. What is left ought to go as
pay for superintendence. That is a partisan plea.
There is a way of ascertaining what is the just remu-
neration for superintendence. What can you hire
superintendence for? You are yourself, let us sup-
pose, not able to manage your own business, and
must have an agent. What must you pay liim ? He
puzzles his head with your great enterprises. You
are sick, you are withdrawn entirely, you are a sleep-
ing partner in the concern, and somebody takes your
place. What do you pay him ?
3. Wliat would be paid as wages of superintend-
ence, is the just measure of the amount of the third
element in natural profits.
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 265
Taking the legal rate of interest for the first part
of natural profits, and asking the insurance compa-
nies, and learning of the competitions between capi-
talists, what the second part should be, and count-
ing in for the third part what you would pay to an
agent who should occupy your place, I say that add-
ing these three things together you have what ought
to be the profits of industry on the average. Some
kinds of business have a high risk ; and, if that be
surmounted, the profit will be very large, because the
insurance against risk must be very large. Some
have to pay large interest on capital, if they borrow
from banks, and so the bank-rates will lift the size of
natural profits. I will make allowance for all these
circumstances; concede to the capitalist all just
claims; and yet must affirm that it is fair to define
natural profits as consisting of these three things, and
of these only, interest on capital, insurance against
risk, and remuneration for superintendence. Every
thing in my argument depends on that definition.
4. The rate of profit in any business depends on
the excess of earnings over expenses.
This is a truism ; but, as Bonamy Price remarks,
" Truisms have great place in political economy," and
he might have said, in every other science. They
are the self-evident propositions which are the sup-
porting framework of all reasoning.
As I could afford on no occasion, in the presence
of scholars here, to put before you careless state-
ments, so now, in the presence of men of affairs
whom this subject has attracted to this hall, I dare
266 LABOR.
not talk sentimentally. I must face the stem facts
of trade ; I must recognize the power of the law of
supply and demand; but do I not carry your assent
to my next proposition ?
5. The excess of earnings over expenses depends
on the rate of interest charged by banks for bor-
rowed capital, the rate of insurance against risk, the
cost of machinery, the state of the market, the rate
of wages, and a multitude of other circumstances,
chief among which is the efficiency of labor.
6. The rate of profit, therefore, depends on a
variety of circumstances, of which the rate of wages
is only one.
7. Ricardo's doctrine that the rate of profit de-
pends on wages only, is therefore an inaccurate,
because an inexhaustive, statement of the case.
8. }V7ien the efficiency of labor is increased by the
improvement of machinery^ or any other cause, profits
may be increased, although wages may remain the same.
9. It may happen from the same causes that both the
rate of wages and the rate of profit may be increased at
the same time.
There is no see-saw in the relations between labor
and capital, if these propositions are true ; and now
let us test them. Here is a factory. It is supplied
with machinery for making cotton cloth. Every ten
men in the factory can make a hundred yards of
cotton cloth a day. Now, some Edison invents new
machinery, and by the use of this ten men can make
a thousand yards of cloth a day. Let us suppose
that the inventor of the machinery has been so skil-
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 267
ful as to make it cheaply. Let the machinery of the
new sort cost no more than that of the old sort. If
a hundred hours of labor with imperfect machinery
produce a hundred yards of cloth, and a hundred
hours of labor, with new. and no more costly ma-
chinery, will produce a thousand yards, and you pay
your laborers the same wages for running the new
machinery as for running the old, is it not perfectly
evident, that, by the use of the new machinery and
the increased efficiency of the labor, you have
doubled, trebled, or it may be increased tenfold, your
profits, while yet wages remain the same ? But
Ricardo says that as wages go up, profits go down,
and as profits go up, wages go down. That is not
the case, as this example shows. By the use of the
improved machinery here, the factory produces ten
times what it did before, with the same labor. The
machinery costs no more, the wages of the ten opera-
tives are no higher, but the efficiency of their labor
is increased tenfold, and profits are increased many
times in consequence. The price of cotton cloth
may fall if you produce too much of it, but as it falls
in price it will find more buyers. It is very evident
that profits may be increased although wages remain
the same.
It is, moreover, perfectly conceivable, that the new
machinery might be so much better than the old, that
the wages might be lifted somewhat, and yet profits
be increased at the same time. You paid these labor-
ers a dollar and a half a day with the old machinery ;
suppose you pay them two dollars a day with the
268 LABOR.
new: your profits might yet be increased, for that
rise of wages would not use up the margin created
by the improved efficiency of labor. Where is the
business-man who does not see that Ricardo's posi-
tion fails in this case ? But this one example tests
the problem. This case is typical of every steady
employment.
10. It is a most mischievous falsehood to teach
that wages and profits are a see-saw, that they are
drawn from the same fund, and that they necessarily
increase or diminish at the expense of each other.
11. It is this falsehood which misleads both capital-
ists and laborers into the notion that under fixed
natural law capital and labor must be at war, and
that the industrial world is a battlefield.
12. Large profits do not come from low wages so
much as from large establishments well managed.
Improved machinery is only one of many means
of increasing the efficiency of labor. De Tocque-
ville tells us, and so do the political economists, that,
other tilings being equal, the profits of an establish-
ment are in proportion to its size. I add to my fac-
tory floors square rod after square rod, until I luive
acres filled with whizzing Jooms. In various ways I
can now cheapen the cost of superintendence. I may
have a railway opened to the market, instead of send-
ing my goods by the broad-wheeled wagon. All tliis
time, while my profits are increasing, wages may re-
main the same. How is it we have lived under this
lip so long, and have believed that all the capitalist
gets, the laborer must lose, and that all the laborer
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 269
gets, the capitalist must lose ? It is that theory which
makes the bitter blood between capital and labor
oftener than you think ; and it is a lie, every syllable
of it ! [Applause.]
Here is a merchant on India Wharf in Boston ; and
he sends his goods to India, and brings back cargoes
from there. He may have a fair voyage, or he may
have a storm, just as the agriculturist may have a
wet season or a dry. Now, what have the wet sea-
son or the dry, what have the storms or the calms,
to do with the rate of wages? Undoubtedly wages
are one element in the expenses of every business,
but they are not the only element. They are only
one finger on the palm. It may be they are the fore-
finger ; but these other expenses accident, rate of
interest for the capital you must borrow, access to the
market, efficiency of labor, insurance against risk, a
score of circumstances are the other fingers on the
palm. And, after all, your own personal superintend-
ence, your wise combination of details, is the thumb
on that palm. Wages, even if they are the fore-
finger, are evidently not as important a part of the
problem as these other circumstances taken together.
It is utterly false to go upon the supposition that the
hand of industry is only a hook, and that wages are
its only finger. Let us open our minds to the whole
problem. Let us take into view, as laboring-men find
it difl&cult to do at times, all the expenses of the em-
ployer ; and let the employer take into view all his
sources of profit ; and it will be seen that there has
rarely been taught authoritatively a more mischiev-
270 LABOR.
ous falsehood in political economy than the assertion
that wages and capital are of necessity an eternal see-
saw, putting the laborer and the employer into a state
of constant war.
13. The prosperity of laborers increases their pur-
chasing power, and so adds to the profit of capital.
Where is the business-man who wants all the
working-men of the United States reduced to the
condition of the Japanese and Chinese laborers?
Do you think it would add to your prosperity to
grind down the working class to the condition of
squalor and barbarism ? Everj^body knows that the
way to get money is to increase the purchasing power
of the people. You want to sell your goods, there-
fore you want customers. You must therefore see
that there is high commercial sagacity in keeping up
the standard of living of the average working-man.
Let him be able to buy, and you will make profit in
selling. Let him not be able to buy, and very soon
you must take care of him in the workhouse, or shut
down your factories in part, and so reduce profits.
14. In the steady trades, it is historically true
that wages and profits in the last half-century have
usually risen together.
Bread is cheaper now in England than it was fifty
years ago ; sugar and tea are cheaper ; average prices
for clothing are lower; but in most of the steady
trades the wages of the laborers have risen in the
last fifty years in Great Britain, and not merely their
nominal wages, but their real wages, or the pur-
chasing power of their days of labor. At the same
IS JUSTICE A PERIL TO CAPITALISTS ? 271
time who does not see the prosperity of the manu-
facturing class in Great Britain, if you take it on the
average ? Great Britain is wealthy because she is a
factory, and prosperous as such. Everybody will
grant me the proposition, that, taken on the average,
the manufacturing business of Great Britain is pros-
perous, and that its profits have risen altliough the
wages of operatives have risen.
"- The vast increase of the wealth of rich men in
England during the last sixty years," says Professor
Bonamy Price, "is a fact perceived by every eye.
How has it fared with the laboring classes? Do
they receive, would they for an instant accept, the
same wages now as they did then? The laborers
have reached a far higher standard of existence.
A much more elevated minimum of wages has
been secured. This is the result of efficient labor,
heartily applied with the aid of machinery, pro-
ducing much work, cheapening commodities, enlar-
ging the powers of consumers to buy, and diffusing
enlarged property in every class. These results do
not breathe a syllable about antagonism between
masters and workmen." (^Practical Political Econ-
omy, pp. 237, 238.)
Before I close, let me draw a distinction which may
clear up the remaining vapor of this theme.
15. In the fluctuating employments . the just rela-
tions of capital and labor are difficult to ascertain,
and have to be found out by the stern application of
the law of supply and demand ; but the principles
applying to other trades govern the fluctuating also.
272 LABOE.
The trouble, I suppose, between capitalists and
laborers, often is that the difficulties which arise in
the fluctuating trades are supposed to belong to the
very root of the relations of labor and capital. It is
true that in the fluctuating trades there is a great
chance for rascals to make money when they ought
not ; there is a great chance to grind the faces of the
shop-girl and the poor clerk and the average opera-
tive. My discussion here in previous lectures has
been concerning the fluctuating trades rather than
the steady trades. When we prove, as we have
done, that, in the steady trades, wages and profits
are not a see-saw, we ought to believe that in the
fluctuating trades they are not a see-saw, if we ascer-
tain what justice is. Here is my hand ; I show you
three fingers which shut toward the pahn. These
are the steady trades, and they are the majority of
the trades ; but the fluctuating trades belong to the
same palm, and the other finger will be found to
shut as the three fingers do. If I prove that in steady
trades the interests of capital and labor are identical,
I undertake to affirm, by the argument of analogy,
that, if we could find out what true justice would be
to the capitalist and to the laborer in the fluctuating
employments, we should find the same principles
governing those portions of our industries.
16. It is, therefore, evident both from history and
from correct economical principles, that justice is no
I)eril to capitalists, nor fair wages a diminution of
fair profits. [Applause.]
X.
AEE TRADES-UNIONS A NUESERY OF SOCIALISM ?
THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH LECTURE IN THE
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN
TREMONT TEMPLE, JAN. 6.
The nineteenth is the centmy of the workingmen. Gladstonk.
L'aristocratie manufacturi^re de nos jours, apr^ avoir appauvri
et abruti lea hommes dont elle se sert, les livre en temjis de criae
k la charity publique, poor les nourrir. De Tocqdbvuajl
X.
ARE TRADES-UNIONS A NURSERY OP
SOCIALISM ?
PRELUDE ON CUEEENT EVENTS.
C^SAE could not drive his chariot around the Ro-
man Empire in less than an hundred days. We can
now send a letter around the world in ninety-six.
There was a time when a traveller could start
at Alexandria, in Egypt, and following the basaltic
pavements of the Roman highways, broken only by
brief trips on the sea, reach Carthage and the Straits
of Gibraltar, roll across the plains and hills of Spain
and France, sail over the surly English Channel, go
northward to the barbaric borders of Scotland, then
return through Leyden and Cologne to Milan, and
thence drive his unmolested chariot under the shad-
ows of the Alps and Balkans to Constantinople,
and through turbulent Asia Minor to Antioch, and
thence over the Lebanon range and along the Syrian
plain and the green valley of the Nile to Alexandria
again, a distance of more than seven thousand miles.
Tlie circuit of these outmost roads of the Roman
275
276- LABOR.
world could not be made in less than one hundred
days ; but in less than that time the steamship and
the locomotive, however unpoetic they may seem in
contrast with the wheels on which Caesar rode, can
now be driven around the globe.
Throughout the empire, the majesty of Rome, as
Pliny proudly declares, was the shield of the way-
farer in every place. Epictetus and the Alexandrian
Philo dwell with rapture on the security of the trav-
eller and the facility of intercourse in the Roman
world. " Cffisar," writes the Stoic philosopher, " has
procured us a profound peace : there are neither wars,
nor battles, nor great robberies, nor piracies; but
we may travel at all hours, and sail from east, to
west." Modern scholars are never weary of extol-
ling the magnificence of the Roman Empire, and the
unity it gave to the law and trade and political
principles of the nations under its sway. Greek
scholars kept school in Spain. The women of a
Roman colony in Switzerland employed a goldsmith
from Asia Minor. In the cities of Gaul were Greek
painters and sculptors. Gauls and Germans served
as a body-guard of a Jewish king at Jerusalem.
(Fbiedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms.') In the reign
of Claudius an embassy came to Rome from a prince
of the island of Ceylon.
Such was the ancient unity of mankind ; but what
is tlie modern ? From Rome to the cataracts of tlie
Nile there stretched a distance so vast that the an-
cient imagination used to faint over it. This distance
is only equal to that from St. Louis to San Francisco
TEADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 277
Rome and Athens are not as far apart as New York
and Chicago. Rome and London are not as far from
each other as Boston and St. Louis. Plymouth Rock
and Pike's Peak are farther apart than the Colise-
um and the Pyramids. The surf of the Bay of Fundy
and the waterfalls of the Yosemite are more distant
from each other than London and Thebes, or than
the Straits of Gibraltar and the frosty Caucasus.
What was the effect of the ancient unity of na-
tions? Assimilation in law, language, trade, and
social customs. A vague feeling of human brother-
hood. Terence, before a turbulent Roman audience,
once happened to pronounce the line : " I am a man,
and I regard nothing that concerns man as foreign to
me ; " and the populace, accustomed to savage fights
in the Coliseum, a populace degraded by a mythology
in which the gods were represented as lepers, a pop-
ulace sunk in the luxurious forms of barbarism char-
acteristic of old Rome, applauded the strange senti-
ment. Celsus, however, one of the early opponents
of Christianity, when the question came before him
whether any one religion could ever be adopted for the
world, answered his own inquiry by a sneer : " Who-
ever believes that such a religion is possible is insane."
What is to be the effect of the modern unity of
nations? What are the opportunities of Christian-
ity now as compared with those it had in Caesar's
vaunted day ? How shall the question of Celsus be
answered face to face with a world girdled with
achievements of which Rome never dreamed ? When
Paul died, the Roman rim of land around the
278 LABOB.
Mediterranean was the world. Scholars have been
taught, and I think they have allowed the public
to vest too long in, an enthusiasm concerning that
ancient opportunity utterly out of proportion to its
size. No one knows how many people were in the
Roman Empire at its best, but the estimates vary from
eighty to one hundred and twenty millions. Take
the average, and Paul had an opportunity of reach-
ing, under the shield of the Roman power, fewer
people than will be in the United States alone at the
second American centennial. We fall into acclama-
tions over the achievements of the Roman Empire,
and our scholars dwell with fervor on the influence
of the unity of Rome upon the spread of Christian-
ity in the first century ; but we are very inadequately
moved when asked to contemplate the growing lines
of intercommunication between modern continents
on which there is now not a single foreign shore.
Whoever will glance at a map of the routes of
ocean traffic will see that the world is fast becoming
commercially a unit. The vast interests of ocean
transit, and the yet vaster of land transit, are every
year more closely interwoven. The United States
and Great Britain, if they unite against piracy ou
the oceans, will be united against all war on the
land. Pompey and Cajsar, it was once said at Rome,
had cleared the Mediterranean of pirates. Great Brit-
ain and the commercial interests of the United States,
it may now almost be said, have cleared all oceans of
pirates. Whoever looks at the lines of ocean transit
shooting out in thick warp and woof from coast to
TRADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 279
coast, will see the shuttles of Almighty Providence
weaving the whole world into a commercial unity
far closer than ever existed under Caesar in the
Roman Empire. By a preconcerted arrangement, the
shores of nearly every sea, and multitudes in the chief
cities of the planet, were united yesterday in prayer
for the evangelization of the world. Christian union
was the theme of the hour. It appears to be also
the theme of the Supreme Powers who govern the
ages.
Two points are incontrovertible, that prophecy
has been fulfilled, and that we have reason, there-
fore, to believe that it will be again. I open a book
three thousand years old, and I read that the stone
cut out of the mountain shall fill the whole earth.
That prophecy has come to pass. I read that there
will be a day when a kingdom shall be given to a
religion founded in a specified centre of the world.
That day has come. Here is a book, whether you
call it inspired or not, which predicted the coming
of this kingdom long before the first upstretch-
ing aurora of its light was seen above the east.
That book has kept its promise with the nations.
It has other promises yet unfulfilled. It will keep
those also. When I look at the map of the world,
and see the shuttles of intercommunication among
nations thrown out North, South, East, and West,
I hear the unfolding of the leaves of prophecy.
The time has come when knowledge is increased,
and many run to and fro. It is within the power
of the Christians now on the globe to cause the
280 LABOR.
gospel to be preached to every living human creature
before the end of this century. [Applause.]
What has Providence meant in carrying forward
all the years of human history according to a given
plan? I believe that what God does, he from the
first intended to do. When I sat under Abraham's
oak at Hebron, I opened the Scriptures, and read that
from a chosen man should spring a chosen family;
and that from a chosen family should spring a chosen
race ; and that from a chosen race should spring a
founder of a new religious empire ; and that out of
a chosen race should thus come a chosen religion ;
and that this religion should embrace the earth.
There stood the prophecies on the pages which I
opened under the Syrian skies. No one doubts that
these predictions were written ages before the date at
which they began to be fulfilled. They are numerous,
and full of details. Prophecies concerning the dis-
persion of the Jews, rationalism drops like hot iron
every time it dares to discuss them. As I sat three
hours alone under Abraham's oak, and tead these
statements concerning chosen man, family, nation,
and religion, I could not but be impressed, I will
not say with the feelings of superstition, but certainly
with those of awe and terror and faith and hope. I
revered straightforward thinking, and looked at the
page of history. I could not but say that these
mysterious prophecies have come to pass. There was
a chosen man. There was a chosen family. There
was a chosen nation. There has come from that
nation a chosen religion. It is spreading over the
TEADES-TTNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 281
world. When I looked upward toward the sky,
through the boughs of the oak, and remembered
how, under one of the progenitors of that tree,
Abraham entertained angels unawares, I could not
but feel that human history, casting out its boughs
in every direction, in Asia, in Europe, in America,
and in the isles of the sea, is under the control of
a mysterious Providence ; and that God, who has for
three thousand and four thousand years so conducted
human affairs as to bring into power a certain set of
religious opinions, will go on doing that in time to
come. [Applause.] I shall not, for one, drop into
anxiety at any little re-actionary eddy, when I find
that an irresistible gulf-current, bursting out of the
tropics of human history, is moving in one direction,
and has been so moving for thousajids of years.
[Applause.]
Fasten attention upon the day when Abraham sat
under the oaks at Hebron, and the day when Paul
went out of the Ostian gate to die, and upon our
present day. Three points determine the circumfer-
ence of any curve. Draw a circle through these
three points, Abraham's oak, the Ostian gate when
Paul went through it, and the present hour, and I
undertake to say that any man who loves clear ideas,
and will stand at the centre of that historical circle,
will be thrown into awe before the fulfilment of
prophecy. I set no dates. Prophecy is, perhaps,
never adequately explained except by its fulfilment.
I will not attack the devout scholars who have lately,
in a prophetic conference, discussed these topics with
282 LABOK.
great learning and earnestness. Much mischief, no
doubt, may come from mysticism on the topic of
prophecy; but more mischief may come from our
coldness, from our indifference on this theme, and
from our unwillingness to look upon the absolutely
overawing facts that prophecy has been fulfilled;
that, as the past has been, so the future will be ; and
that as God has kept, so he will continue to keep, his
word with us. [Applause.] The same mysterious
predictions which have been fulfilled to the letter
for four thousand years foretell also the enswathing
of the globe with a kingdom which now very nearly
touches arms around it.
Nay, I may affirm that the arms already touch.
Suppose that Lord Beaconsfield obtains what he says
he is seeking, a scientific boundary for India, or
the Himalayas, as a barrier against attack from the
north. England is now led by a political party
greatly blind to what is just. When the pride of
the average Briton is offended, his conscience easily
goes to sleep. England fears attack from Russia, or
it is the scheme of her present rulers to cause her to
do so. The anticipation tliat some day a troublesome
attack may be made on Britisli power in the East, by
Russia, is causing not a few good men on the other
side of the Atlantic to hold their peace, while what
I call you may have your own opinion ; I do not
ask you to adopt mine an unjust attack is made
on Afghanistan. [Applause.] If, however, in time
past, the evil that men have done has sometimes been
overruled; if the mischief Crosar and Pompey did
TEADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 283
was of indirect use in the production of peace around
the Mediterranean ; if that peace was used as a plat-
form on wliich early Christianity took its place, if
in every age the purposes of the Supreme Powers
have been approaching accomplishment, no matter
how men have acted, we must regard it, I think,
as probable, that out of the turmoil in the East will
come in some way an advance of the divine plan to
give the globe to Christianity.
If there should be a scientific frontier obtained for
Northern India, any attack on British power in the
East will be rendered well-nigh impossible. It is
not from little Cyprus that Great Britain is to resist
Hussia ; it is not even from the Bosphorus that she
can successfully protect herself against the great
power of the North. Military men are Axry well
agreed with Lord Beaconsfield in the opinion that it
is from Afghanistan that British power in the East
must obtain its security.
Give England a firm frontier in the Himalayas ;
let that gigantic mountain barrier prevent a land
attack on her Eastern Empire, and then, since there
can be no naval attack on her with any success, the
future of Asia Minor, of Persia, of India, and of all
the torrid seaboard of Asia, will be determined under
British, and, I may say, under American, influences.
We have a deep foothold of our own in Asia Minor.
British and American fashions in politics, education,
and religion, will be carried steadily on toward China,
so surely as the scientific barrier is established in
Afghanistan. Thus, as Homer said, the plan of the
284 LABOR.
gods is advancing. Who dares stand in the way of
that plan ? The unity of mankind is asserting itself
more and more ; and who shall resist it ?
A cabinet at Washington, it is said, talks haughtily
to China, and desires to have the Burlingame treaty
modified, or perhaps abrogated. Cliina may easily
consent to its modification. If we choose to abrogate
it, she cannot resist. Possibly there is danger that
the Burlingame treaty will be abrogated, out and out,
and that America, under the lead of a bloodthirsty mob
on the Pacific coast, and fifth-rate politicians there,
will shut our doors on the Pacific to emigrants willing
to earn their own living. America has in California a
door to China ; America, in Asia Minor, has already
opened a door to the sunset side of Asia. If Provi-
dence is proposing the regeneration of Asia by the
increase of American and British influence along the
Asiatic seaboard; if all the signs in the world, in
short, show that there must be relations of justice
between China and the United States, and our cabinet
at Washington, wishing to save the vote of California
in a national election, does differ from the Supreme
Powers, and is ready to do an act of injustice, the
ultimate result will be, that not the hoodlums of San
Francisco, and not even the cabinet, will triumph
over the plan of history. [Applause.]
The unity of mankind will assert itself more and
more. The day will come when there will be just
relations l)etwoen the wliole Asiatic seaboard and
America and England. When that time arrives, who
does not know that the American school and the
TRADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 285
British and American missionary societies will be
welcome to the Asiatic coast? Who does not see
that lines of steamships will bring labor there into
new demand ? Who does not see a commercial re-
generation slowly preparing for Asia? Who does
not find in the gulf-current bursting out of the time
of Abraham, through that of Paul and Ccesar, and
down to our day, an indication of our duty, not
merely to missions, and not merely toward Great
Britain when she carries her power into Asia Minor,
but also toward the hoodlums of California, and
toward all who would lead us into a policy of in-
justice, of narrowness, and of barbarity ? Let us not
set ourselves against the Supreme Powers. When
the gulf-current of history gathers its strength against
any impediment, as in the case of slavery, and builds
itself up behind the bulwark, we know how at last
obstacles give way, and devastation follows.
Let Americans place no obstacles in the way of
the unity of mankind. If the plan of the Supreme
Powers for the regeneration of Asia must dam itself
up behind the barrier of American political exclusive-
ness, or behind the bulwark of American penurious-
ness in supporting schools at home and abroad, the
overturn of these impediments will give us trouble.
Let us make no attempt to place obstacles before the
gulf-current of history. Let it have free course ; let
it move out of the tropics in time to come, as it
has in time past; let it flow to every coast of the
globe ! Let us launch our fleets upon it, and float
with it. The Christian world has now knelt down to
286 LABOR.
pray seven days for the free course of a gulf-current
proceeding from Abraham's time, through Caesar's, to
our own ; and a sufficient reason for believing that
the petitions will be granted is that there is prophecy
that they shall be, and that prophecy in all the past
has been fulfilled to the letter. [Applause.]
THE LECTURE.
"When once we are convinced that natural wages
and natural profits may exist together, we have
passed through what I call the see-saw swamp in
political economy ; and on the firm land beyond the
marsh, most of the questions concerning hours of
labor, co-operation, and industrial partnership, adjust
themselves without State interference.
It is hardly more than fifty years since the first
fully endowed professorships in political economy
were founded in England. The history of the sci-
ence dates in Great Britain, as every one knows,
from the publication of Adam Smith's " Wealth of
Nations" in 1776. You remember that in Oxford
in 1825, Mr. Henry Drummond, a member of Parlia-
ment, endowed the first professorship on this subject.
A similar chair was founded at Cambridge in 1828,
but was not regularly established by the university
until 18G3, when Henry Fawcett Avas elected the first
professor. It should surprise no one, that political
economy has exhibited something of crudeness in its
youth. As a branch of university instruction, it can
hardly be said to have attained maturity as yet, in
spite of the labors of McCuUoch and Mill. Arch-
TRADES-msriONS AND SOCIALISM. 287
bishop Whately, as ministers will remember, expressed
his opinion of the interest the science onght to have
for the clergy, by himself founding a professorship of
political economy at the University of Dublin. In
1871 a school of political science was founded at
Paris by Boutmy ; and its graduates are commonly at
the head of the lists of successful aspirants in the
competitive examinations for places in the civil ser-
vice of France.
Young as it is, the philosophy of political science,
as treated in the universities, has seen two or three
revolutions. There are three or four schools of polit-
ical economy ; and it happens that the best American
and German schools are agreed in denouncing what
1 have here called the see-saw theory, and that only
the older school in Great Britain supports it. The
younger British school, represented now by Bonamy
Price, Professor Cairnes, and Professor Jevons, do
not adopt the dismal theory that the relations of
capital and labor are a see-saw, and that what one
gains the other must lose, and that the two must
therefore live in an internecine war. These teachers
reject the theory of a wages-fund.
It is very important to notice that Lasalle, the
father of modern German socialism, obtained his im-
pressions of political economy largely from Malthus
and Ricardo, the leaders of the dismallest sort of
discussion in the dismal science. Lasalle used to say
that if the English school of political economists,
who had all the knowledge of modern times, was
right, there was nothing for the working classes but
288 LABOE.
slavery, or a revolt against capital as the natural
enemy of labor. In Germany, the school represented
by Sehulze-Delitzsch founded itself on the improved
positions of the new political economy, and they were
American rather than English. He founded him-
self largely on the American Carey and on the Ger-
man List. Sehulze-Delitzsch proclaims no attack on
property. He escapes the see-saw marsh in which
Lasalle was choked. He did much to cause work-
ing-men's savings banks aud co-operative societies to
be founded throughout the German Empire. At this
hour Sehulze-Delitzsch divides with Lasalle the hearts
of German working-men. Lasalle represents the early
mistakes, Sehulze-Delitzsch the growing maturity, of
political economy.
I congratulate this audience that it has passed
through the ooze of early crudities in political sci-
ence, and has found firm land on the other side. As
we look back, however, we see trades-unions up to
their knees in the fateful see-saw marsh. Trades-
unions are most of them built on the fallacious theory
that capital and labor must of necessity be at eternal
war, because they draw their reward from the same
fund.
1. This is the creed of most trade-unionists:
(1) Capital and labor are in direct antagonism,
because they divide the wages-fund between them,
and what one gains the other loses.
(2) Capitalists can combine, and enforce lower
wages than the state of the labor-market warrants,
and they often do so.
TEADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 289
(3) Laborers therefore must combine, and resist
coercion by coercion.
(4) Trade-unions througbout a nation should as-
sist each other by organizing contemporaneous strikes,
or by assisting strikers to maintain themselves when
not at work.
(5) Trade-unions should act as benefit-societies.
(6) Trade-unions must lay down and abide by
certain economic principles, the chief of which are :
Limitation of the length of the day's work.
Abolition of working by the piece.
Limitation of apprentices.
A uniform wage to be given to all laborers.
Refusal, to work with non-unionists.
(See Professor Bon amy Price, Practical Political
Economy^ chap, viii.)
2. It thus appears that average trades-unions are
founded on the mistaken principles of an outgrown
school in political economy ; that is, on the theory
that the relations of capital and labor are a see-saw.
3. This lie needs eradication from the minds of
trades-unionists as well as capitalists.
4. Trades-unions are mischievous so far as they
tyrannize over employers and non-unionist working-
men.
5. They are useful so far as they inspirit laborers
to self-help, and take the shape of benefit-societies.
6. Trades-unions are now nearly omnipresent in
England and the United States in all the great
branches of industry.
7. They tend to become national.
290 LABOR.
8. They tend to become international.
9. They tend, under universal suffrage, to become
political.
10. Many of the objects of trades-unions are iden-
tical with the objects ought by socialistic political
parties.
11. When the members of trades-unions and the
members of socialistic political parties have the same
political objects, their political alliance is natural.
12. Under universal sufirage, it is likely to be for-
midable.
Among the trades-unions in England and Wales
there are 32,000 friendly societies, with 4,000,000
members, and more than $55,000,000 accumulated
funds. These societies save to the poor-fund $10,-
000,000 a year. (^Fourth Report of Parliamentary
Commission of Inquiry on Trades- Unions, 1874.)
Nobody, in America at least, pretends to complain
when' working-men combine for the fair and just
protection of their own interests. Capitalists may
combine to protect their own interests, and so, of
course, may working-men.
The notorious evil in trades-unions, however, is
the tyranny frequently exercised by their members
over non-unionist working-men. Open the regula-
tions of some of the trades-unions in Great Britain,
and you will find them prohibiting the employment
of one's own brother or son, unless he is in a trades
society. The mason who is called to do a job, and
finds he needs a carpenter, must not so much as saw
off one plank, but must wait for the carpenter to be
TEADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 291
summoned to do the work. If the carpenter finds a
brick in the way of his saw, he must wait until the
mason changes the place of the impediment. You
must never act as your own assistant. I do not say
that a majority of British trades-unions enforce these
rules ; but some of them do, and they are character-
istic of the system. In Leeds the rule is that you
must not carry more than eight bricks in a hod.
You may carry ten in London, and twelve in Liver-
pool. If trades-unions wish to bring themselves into
universal contempt, let them go on legislating against
their fellow-workingmen who are non-unionists.
Some years ago a cartoon in Punch represented a
British working-man in his hovel, without work dur-
ing a strike, and his wife cowering over an empty
grate, while a well-dressed officer of a working-men's
trades-union was berating the husband for his inten-
tion to go to work : " You mean to work, do you ?
You mean to give in, do you? Not if I know it.''
There is no form of tyranny worse than unionists
have sometimes exercised over non-unionist working-
men. Mr. Gladstone, discussing this topic once, and
defending the right of four men who had been per-
secuted because they were non-unionist laborers, said,
"If Great Britain has become a place where the
majority can oppress the minority in this way, it
has come to be a place of which I should say that
the sooner we get out of it, the better," In re-
gard to the United States, under a suffrage wider
than that of Great Britain, we may say with more
emphasis than Gladstone's, that if trades-unions ob-
292 LABOR.
tain the political power they are seeking, and act as
they usually have done when able to have their own
way, the United States will soon be such a place that
the sooner we get out of it the better. [Applause.]
A New York citizen, who wanted papering done in
his house, ordered it of a society-man, as he was
called ; and the bill brought in was ten dollars a day.
" Well, but your work is not worth this," said the
employer. " Yes, but you cannot get anybody to do
it for less. I belong to a trades-union, and we have
all agreed to ask a certain price. You will find on
investigation that I am asking you what any one else
will." This case of shameless extortion is t}'pical of
whole ranges of facts that I might put before you.
While I denounce these evils of trade-unions, how-
ever, I must not be understood as denying the right
of working-men to combine.
May working-men combine in a strike? That is a
very rude measure, and usually does more harm than
good, but it is the chief weapon of trades-unions.
You say that strikes do not generally succeed ; but
make a distinction. On a rising market strikes often
succeed ; on a falling they usually fail. Half the time
working-men do not know when to strike. If the
prices of goods are rising, and working-men strike,
manufacturers, of course, cannot afford to shut their
mills. But if men strike on a falling market, capital
can I'old its arms, and say, " We can make more
money by shutting our mills than by keeping them
open," and sometimes profitably answer the strike by
a lockout. Capital does not starve by waiting, but
TRADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 293
labor ma3\ Capital does not diminish by waiting.
Time unsold cannot be brought to market a second
time. It perishes in postponement. ]\Ir. Thornton,
in his elaborate book on "Labor," defends the
opinion that in Great Britain the majority of strikes,
both on a rising and on a falling market, have suc-
ceeded. Certain it is, that the average of wages in
trades where strikes are frequent has been raised in
the last fifty years, if not by strikes, then by the fear
of them. Very often when manufacturers do not
yield at the time of a strike they raise wages after-
wards. Strikes have probably succeeded in the
majority of cases on a rising market, and yet they
are the most barbaric of all the weapons that labor
employs.
Are trades-unions a nursery of socialism ?
Go to Chicago, go to the door of Tremont Tem-
ple, and you may purchase socialistic newspapers of
a type of which this is a specimen [holding up a
newspaper]. In this official socialistic sheet, nearly
half a page is taken up with a trades-union directory :
"Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners," "Brother-
hood of Loeomotive Engineers," "Miners' National
Association," " Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire-
men," these are a few out of scores of titles re-
printed every week in this publication.
I turn to the official announcement of the object
of the paper, and find that : " ' The Socialist ' will re-
cord the proceedings of all trades-unions, especially
of amalgamated and centralized unions, whenever
sent us. We shall discuss all the various phases of
294 LABOR.
the labor movement. We expect all unions and
sections, as well as individual members, throughout
the country, to promptly send us reports and items
upon all matters of importance to the labor cause."
What is the socialistic platform ? In this country
it is somewhat altered in shape from the form it has
in the Old World, but here is the platform which this
paper prints in connection with these lists of trades-
unions: "We demand that the resources of life
the means of production, public transportation and
communication (land, machinery, railroads, telegraph-
lines, canals, &c.,) become, as fast as practicable,
the common property of the whole people through
the government ; thus to abolish the wages-system,
and substitute in its stead co-operative production,
with a just distribution of its rewards." [Applause.]
Why have I demanded education for working-
men ? Why have I insisted, as if on a question of
life or death, on the rights of factory-children ? Why
have I been taking your time by giving reasons for
the execution of the school-laws which provide for
compulsory education ? Because, if trades-unions are
filled with an ignorant set of workuig-men, social-
istic doctrines will take root in that soil. The results
of socialism in the United States, were it to spread
here, would be more disastrous than in Germany,
simply because popular suffrage on the Hudson and
the Mississippi has more power than on the Elbe
and the Oder. The truth is that trades-unions, all
over the United States, are seeking political power,
and are tlierefore likely to be frequently under temp-
TRADES-UNIONS AND SOCIALISM. 295
tation to form alliance with socialistic labor parties.
American trades-unions are now not socialistic ; but
let an ignorant, hereditary operative class come into
existence here, and they may easily fall a prey to
socialistic demagogues. Once give socialists in the
United States a majority of votes, and you will
speedily learn the distinction between voluntary and
compulsory socialism. An unforced agreement of
men to go into a socialistic community is one thing :
compulsory socialism is another. Under universal
suifrage, with political primacy once grasped by the
hands of working-men, who are seventy or eighty out
of every hundred of voters, there may come a time
when socialism, instead of being voluntary, will be
compulsor}^, and nationalization of the lands, the
railroads, the canals, the telegraphs, be forced upon
you by the suffrage of an ignorant population. Com-
pulsory socialism is the chief danger in the future of
universal suffrage ; and from that peril, which means
nothing less than spoliation and anarchy, may God
and discussion in the Church and State save us!
[Applause.]
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
By JOSEPH COOK.
The Boston Monday Lectures are now included in the following
eight works :
Vol. 1. Biology, with Preludes on Current Events. (IGth edition.)
Vol. 2. Transcendentalism, with Preludes on Current EVents.
(13th edition.)
Vol. 3. Orthodoxy, with Preludes on Current Events. (7th edi-
tion.)
Vol. 4. Conscience, with Preludes on Current Events.
Vol. 5. Heredity, with Preludes on Current Events.
Vol. 6. Marriage, with Preludes on Current Events.
Vol. 7. Labor, with Preludes on Current Events.
Vol. 8. Socialism, with Preludes on Current Events.
K^~ Price of each volume, $1.50. For sale by all Booksellers. Sent,
post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers,
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO., Boston.
/. AMERICAN OPINIONS.
The Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1880.
The Boston Monday Lectureship is now in its fifth year. One
liundred and thirty-five lectures on abstruse and difficult topics
have been delivered to noon audiences of extraordinary size, and
containing sometimes two hundred ministers, with large numbers
of teachers and other educated men. Each lecture has been pre-
ceded by a short address, called a Prelude on Current Events, and
discussing some topic of urgent political or religious importance,
like civil service reform, temperance, fraud in elections, Mormonism,
the Chinese question, the Bible in schools, the Indian question, or
the negro exodus. In revising the stenographic reports, both the
lecture and the prelixle are usually somewhat expanded by their
author, so that a prelude in print is often more than thirty minutes
in length. The lecturer has thus treated two important topics on
each occasion ; and the contrast of the practical matter of the prel-
ude with the more speculative and scientific substance of the lec-
ture, has assisted in fixing public attention upon both. Mr. Cook
has been the first speaker to employ preludes in this contrast with
theological and metaphysical lectures.
Great pains have been taken to secure the fullest information for
the preludes from official sources at Washington and elsewhere.
The committee in charge of the Boston ;Monday Lectureship em-
braces thirty-six members, of whom twelve are an Executive Board,
representing different evangelical denominations in Boston, and
twenty-four are scattered through the country all the way to Call-
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
fomia. "Written permission to add their names to the committee
has been given by such men as President McCosh of Princeton Col-
lege, Professor Hitchcock of New York, Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn,
Bishop Huntington of Syracuse, Professor Mead of Oberlin College,
Professor Curtiss of Chicago Theological Seminary, Dr. Post of St.
Louis, and Drs. Gibson and Stone of San Francisco. It will readily
be seen that consultation from time to time by letter with so large
and distinguishetl a committee, and with other public men with
whom the lecturer forms acquaintance in his extensive travel,
together with the opportunity of wide personal observation, makes
the pjeludes an important source of suggestions as to current reform,
and a most useful means of discussing popular evils as they arise.
The independence of the platform adds to the effect of its treatment
of living issues. It is noticeable, that, in both the Scotch and Eng-
lish repul)lications of Mr. Cook's volumes, tlie preludes are included
in full. It is believed that no leading articles in any newspaper in
England or America are so extensively copied by the jircss as the
preludes of the Boston Monday Lectureship. Each one is intended
to be a compact prose sonnet, discussing current events from the
religious point of view.
The thirty lectures delivered in the second year of the lectureship,
which was founded in 1875, are comprised in the three volumes
entitled " Biology-," " Transcendentalism," and " Orthodoxy." The
results of the third year of the lectureship are embraced iii the vol-
umes entitled " Conscience," " Heredity," and " Marriage." Those
of the fourth year are summarized in the books called " Labor " and
" Socialism," now in press. It is understood that the present series
of lectures will make two more volumes, to be entitled " Culture "
and " Miracles."
During the third year of the lectureship, Mr. Cook gave six lec-
tures in New York City, besides sjieaking in most of the prominent
cities of the North-eastern States. In the sea.son of 1878 and 1879,
he conducted a Boston Monday-noon Lectureship and a New York
Thursdaj'-evening I/ccturesliip at the same time. In his course of
the preceding year in New Y'ork City, he had been introduce<l by
presiding ofhcers like Professor Hitchcock, Dr. William Adams,
Professor Schaflf, and William Cullen Bryant, and the audiences
were extraordinarily large. On the closing evening of his second
course in New York, some two hundred p<iople were turned away,
unable to tiiid staiiding-room, and the money for their ti<;ket;i was
refunded. In the spring and summer succeeding the last full course
of the lectureship, he visite<l California, an<l performed a service at
the dedication of a chapel in the Yo.semite Valley. He studied and
discussed Mormonism in Salt Lake City, and the Chinese <]uestion
in California.
In the year ending July 4, 1878, Mr. Cook delivered one hundred
and fifty lectures; sixty in thEast, t<!n of them in New York t^ity,
and sixty in tlm West; bejMdes tliirfy new lectures in Boston, whirh
were pulilislieil In that city. New York, and Ixuidon; i.Hsued tlirre
volumes, one of wliich is now in it.s sixteenth and another in its
thirteenth edition; and travelled, on his lecturo-trips, ten thousand
five hnnlre<l mil(!S.
In the year ending July 4, 1879, he delivere<l one hundred and
sixty ltK;ture8; seventy-two in the East, twenty of thorn in Boston
and U'W in New York, seventy in tlie West, five in Canada, two in
Utah, and cluvuu in Culiiuruia, uf which flve were in San Francisco.
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
He twice crossed the continent in the last four months of the season,
and in the last nine months has travelled, on his lecture-trijjs,
twelve thousand five hundred miles. In the former of these seasons
he addressed large audiences in sixteen, and in the latter in seven-
teen, college towns.
It is worth noting that Mr. Cook has no church nor parish work
on his hands, although he not infrequently speaks in a church on
Sundays. Living opposite the Boston Athenseum Library, and
using it as much as though it were his own, the lecturer has found
time, outside of all his other work, to carry through the press, in
three years, the eight volumes of Monday Lectures, issued by
Houghton, Osgood, & Co.
Mr. Cook had a previous preparation of at least ten years' study,
at home and abroad, for the discussion of the relations of Chris-
tianity to the sciences.
" The New York Independent " owns the copyright of the present
series of lectures, and sells the right of rcDublication to other papers.
There are now published, and have been for the last two years, over
one hundred thousand newspaper copies of the Boston Monday
Lectures and preludes in full, and over three hundred thousand
cojiies of the preludes and parts of the lectures. The Committee of
the Boston ^londay Lectureship reported in March last, that, at a
moderate estimate, more than a million readers in the United States
and Great Britain are reached weekly.
In September, 1880, Mr. Cook intends to suspend his American
lectures for a year, at least, and to seek opportunity for rest and
study in England and Germany.
President James McCosh, Princeton College, in the Catholic Presbyte-
rian for September, 187C.
What influence I may have had on Mr. Cook, I do not know; but
I am pleased to notice that on intuition and several other subjects,
he is promulgating to thousands the same views I had been thinking
out in my study, and i:)ropounding to my students, in Belfast and
in Princeton. From scattered notices, I gather that he was born (in
I808) and reared, and still lives in his leisure days, in that region in
which the loveliest of American lakes, Lake Champlain and Lake
George, lie embosomed among magnificent mountains. He was
trained for college at Phillips Academy, under the great classical
teacher, Dr. Taylor ; was two years at Yale College, and two years
at Harvard, graduating at the latter in 18(>5, first in philosophy and
rhetoric of his class. He then joined Andover Theological Semi-
nary, went through the regular three-years' course there, and lin-
gered a year longer at that place, pondering deeply the relations of
science and religion, which continued to be the theme of his thoughts
and his study for the next ten years. At this stage he received
much impulse from Professor Park, who requires every student to
reason out and to defend his opinions; and many sound philosophic
princijiles from Sir William Hamilton and other less eminent men
of thi Scottish school. He spoke from time to time at religious
meetings, and was for one year the pastor of a Congregational
church, but never sought a settlement. In September, 1871, ho went
abroad, and studied for two years, vinder special directions from
Tholuck, at Halle, Berlin, and Heidelberg ; and received a mighty
influence from Julitis Muller of Halle, Dorner of Berlin, Kuno
Fischer of Heidelberg, and Hermann Lotze of Gottingen. He then
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
travelled for a time in Italy, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Switzer-
land, France, England, and Scotland. Returning to the United
States in 1873, he took up his residence in Boston, and became a
lecturer in New England on the subject to which his studies had
been so long directed, the relations of religion and science. For a
time he lectured at Amherst College; and, while doing so, Jie was
invited to conduct noon meetings in Boston.
Mr. Cook did not take up the work he has accomplished, as a
trade, or by accident, or from impulse ; but for years he had been
preparing for it, and prepared for it by an overruling guidance. I
regard Joseph Cook as a Heaven-ordained man. Ho comes at the
lit time; that is, at the time he is needed. He comes forth in Bos-
ton, which is undoubtedly the most literary city in America, and
one of the great literary cities of the world. I am not sure that
even Edinburgh can match it, now that London is drawing towards
it and gathering up the intellectual youth of Scotland. It has a
character of its own in several respects. I have here to speak only
of its religious character. Half a century ago its Orthoiioxy had sunk
into Unitarianism a re-action against a formal Puritanism led by
Channing, who adorned his bald sj-stera by his high personal char-
acter and the eloquence of his style. People could not long l)e satis-
fied by a negation, and Parkerism followed ; and a convulsive life
was thrown into the skeleton of natural religion by an a priori
speculation, derived from the pretentious philosophies of Germany,
in which the Absolute took the place of God, and untested intuition
the place of the Bible. The movement culminated in Ralph Waldo
Emerson, a feebler but a more lovable Thomas Carlyle, the one
coming out of a decaying Puritanism, the other out of a decaying
Covenanterism. But those who would mount to heaven in a balloon
have sooner or later to come down to earth. Tlie young men of
Uar\'ard College, led by their able president, have more taste for
the new physical science, with its developments, than for a visionary
metaphysics. As I remarked some time ago in a literary organ,
Unitarianism has died, and is laid out for decent burial. Mean-
while there is a marked revival of Evangelism, and the Congrega-
tional and Episcopal churches have as much thoughtfulness and
culture as the Unitarians. Harvard now cares an little for Unita-
rianism as it does for Evangelism simply taking care that Ortho-
doxy does not rule over its teaching. But the question arises. What
are our young men to believe in these days when Darwinism and
Spencerism and Evolutionism are taught in our journals, in our
schools, and in our colleges? To my knowledge, this question is as
anxiously put l)y Unitarian parents of the old school, who cling
firmly to the great truths of natural religion, and to the Bible aa a
tea<;her of morality, as it is by the Orthodox.
Such was the state of thought and feeling, of Iwlief and unl>olief,
of apprehension and of desire, when Jasepli Cook came to Boston
witliout any flourish of trumi>eta preceding him. Numljcrs were
prepared to welcome him as soon as they knew what the man was,
ami what he was aiming at. Ortholox ministers, not very well able
themselves to wn^stle with the new fonns of inrtdelity, rejoiced in
tlie appearance of one who ha<l as much ixiwer of olofpience as
Parker, and vastly more acquaintance witn philosojihy than the
mystic Emerson, and who seemed to know what truth and what
error there are in these doctrines of development and heredity. Tho
best of the Unitarians, not knowing whither their sous were drifting,
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
were pleased to find one who conld keep them from open infidelity.
Young men, tired of old rationalism, which they saw to be very irra^
tional, delighted to listen to one who evidently spoke boldly and
sincerely, and could talk to them of these theories about evolution
and the origin of species and the nature of man. The consequence
Avas, his audiences increased from year to year. He first lectured in
the JNIeionaon in 1875. The attendance at noon on Mondays was so
large that his meetings had to be transferred to Park-street Church
in October, 187G ; and finally, in 1870-77, in 1877-78 and 1879, to the
enormous Tremont Temple, which is often crowded to excess. In
the audience there were at times two hundred ministers, many
teachers, and other educated persons. His lectures, in whole or in
abstract, appeared in leading newspapers, and his fame spread over
all America ; and, continuing his Monday addresses in Boston, he
was invited, on the other days of the week, to lecture all over the
country. He now lectures in the principal cities from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, always drawing a large and approving audience.
Some scientific sciolists have thrown out doubts as to the accuracy
of his knowledge, but have not been able to detect him in any mis-
statement of fact. He lightens and thunders, throwing a vivid light
on a topic by an expression or comparison, or striking a presumptu-
ous error as by a bolt from heaven. He is not afraid to discuss the
most abstract, scientific, or philosophic themes before a popular au-
dience; he arrests his hearers first by his earnestness, then by the
clearness of his exposition, and fixes the whole in the mind by the
earnestness of his moral purpose.
Rev. Professor A. P. Peahody, of Harvard University, in the
Independent.
Joseph Cook is a phenomenon to be accounted for. No other
American orator has done what he has done, or any thing like it;
and, prior to the experiment, no voice would have been bold enough
to predict its success.
We reviewed Mr. Cook's "Lectures on Biology" with unquali-
fied praise. In the present A'olume we find tokens of the same
genius, the same intensity of feeling, the same lightning Hashes of
impassioned eloquence, the same vise-like hold on the rapt attention
and absorbing interest of his hearers and readers. We are sure that
we are unbiased by the change of subject; for, though we dissent
from some of the dogmas which the author recognizes in passing,
there is hardly one of his consecutive trains of thought in which we
are not in harmony with hi^i, or one of his skirmishes in which our
sympathies are not wholly on his side.
Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, Ex-President of Harvard University, in the
Christian Register.
These lectures are crowded so full of knowledge, of thought, of
argument, illumined with such passages of eloquence and power.
Sluiced so frequently with deep-cutting though good-natured irony,
that I could make no abstract from them without utterly mutilat-
ing them.
Professor Francis Bowen, Harvard Univer.^ity.
I do not know of any work on conscience in which the true
theory of ethics is so clearly and forcibly presented, together with
the logical inferences from it in support of the great truths of re-
ligion.
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
The Princeton Review.
Mr. Cook has already become famous; and these lectures are
among the chief works that have, and we may say justly, made him
so. Their celebrity is due partly to the place and circumstances of
their delivery, but still more to their inherent power, without which
no adventitious aids could have lifted them into the (lescrved jiroiiii-
nence they have attained. . . . Mr. Cook is a great master of analy-
sis. . . . The lecture on the Atonement is generally just, able, aiid
unanswerable. . . . We think, on the whole, that Mr. Cook shows
singular justness of ^^ew in his manner of treating the most diffi-
cult and perplexing themes; for example, God in natural law, and
the Trinity.
Boston Daily Advertiser.
At high noon on Monday, Tremont Temple was packed to suffo-
cation and overflowing, although five thousand i>eople were in the
Tal)ernacle at the same hour. The Temple audience consisted
chiefly of men, and was of distinguished quality, containing hun-
dreds of persons well known in the learned professions. Wendell
Phillips, Edward Everett Hale, Bronson Alcott, and many other
citizens of eminence, sat on the platform. No Injtter proof than the
character of the audience could have l)een desired to show that Mr.
Cook's popularity as a lecturer is not confined to the evangelical
denominations. (Feb. 7.)
It is not often that Boston people honor a public lecturer so much
as to crowd to hear him at the noon-tide of a week-day; and, when
it does this month after month, the fact is proof positive tliat his
subject is one of engrossing interest. Mr. Cook, perhaps more than
any gentleman in the lecture-field the past few years, has been so
honored. (Feb. 14.)
The Independent.
We know of no man that is doing more to-day to sliow tlio rea-
sonableness of Christianity, and the unreasonableness of unboliof ;
nor do we know of any one who is doing it with such admirable
tolerance yet dramatic intensity.
Professor Borden P. Bowne, of Boston University, in the Sunday
Afternoon.
In the chapters on the theories of life, these discussions are, in
many respects, models of argument; and the descriptions of tlio
farts under discussion are often unrivalled for both scientific exact-
ness and rlietorical adequacy of lanpiage. In the present state of
the debate there is no better nianualof tlie argument than the work
in hand. The emptiness of the mechanical explanation of life was
never more clearly shown.
T/ie Bibliotheca Sacra.
Then* is no other work on biology, there is no other work on the-
'^'"Ky. with which this volume of lectures can well be comi)nre<l: it
is u i>o<)k that no biolopist, whether an originator or a mere luiddle-
triiin in Kciencc, would ever have written. Traversing a very wide
field, cutting right acro.ss the territories of rival six-cialists, it <'on-
t.iins not one imiHirtant scientific misstatement, either of tact or
theory. Nf)t only tlie pro|>ositions, but the datejt, the references, the
names, and the histories of scientific discoveries and speculations,
are pn-seiited as they are found in the soun-cs whence they are
taken, or, at least, with only verlml and minor changes.
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
The Eclectic Magazine.
It may be said unqualifiedly that the pulpit has never brought
such comprehensiveness and precision of knowledge, combined with
such loj^ical and literary skill, to the discussion of the questions
raised by the supposed tendency of biological discovery.
The Advance, Chicago.
This Boston Lectureship is altogether unique in the recent history
of poiiular exposition of abstruse themes. One has to go back to the
time of Peter Abelard, of the University of Paris, for a parallel to it.
II. FOREIGN OPINIONS.
Rev. R. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury.
The lectures are remarkably eloquent, vigorous, and powerful,
and no one could read them without great benefit. They deal with
very important questions, and are a valuable contribution towards
solving many of the difficulties which at this time trouble many
minds.
Rev. Dr. Angus, the College, Regent's Park.
These lectures discuss some of the most vital questions of the-
ology, and examine the views or writings of Emerson, Theodore
Parker, and others. They are creating a great sensation in Boston,
where they have been delivered, and are wonderful specimens of
shrewd, clear, and vigorous thinking. They are moreover, largely
illustrative, and have a fine vein of poetry running through them.
The lectures on the Trinity* are capitally written; and, though we
are not prepared to accept all Mr. Cook's statements, the lectures,
as a whole, are admirable. A dozen such lectures have not been
published for many a day.
Rev. Alexander Raleigh, D.D., of London.
The lectures are in every way of a high order. They are pro-
found and yet clear, extremely forcible in some of their parts, yet,
I think, always fair, and as full of sympathy with what is properly
and purely human as of reverence for what is undoubtedly divine.
Rev. John Ker, D.D., of Glasgow.
My conviction is, that they are specially fitted for the time, and
likely above all to be useful to thoughtful minds engaged in seeking
a footing amid the quicksands of doubt. There is a freshness, a
jiower, and a felt sincerity, in the way in which they deal with the
engrossing questions of our time, and, indeed, of all time, which
should commend them to earnest spirits which feel that there nuist
be a God and a soul, and some way of bringing them together, and
which yet have got confused amid the negations of the dogmatic
scepticism of our day. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cook four
years ago, when he was visiting Europe to make himself acquainted
with different forms of thought; and I could see in him a power and
resolution which foretold the mark he is now making on publio
opinion.
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES.
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon.
These are very wonderful lectures. We bless God for raising up
such a champion for his truth as Jaseph Cook. Few could hunt
down Theodore Parker, and all that race of misbelievers, a.s Mr.
Cook has done. He has strong convictions, the courage of his con-
victions, and force to support his courage. In reasoning, tlie infidel
party have here met their match. We know of no other man one-
iialf so well qualified for the peculiar service of exploding the pre-
tensions of motlern science as this great preacher in whom Boston is
rejoicing. Some men shrink from this spiritual wild-boar hunting;
but Mr. Cook is as happy in it as he is expert. May his arm be
strengthened by the Lord of hosts!
London Quarterly Review.
For searching philosophical anaJysis, for keen and merciless logic,
for dogmatic assertion of eternal truth in the august name of science
nuch as fills the soul to its foundations, for widely diversified and
most apt illustrations drawn from a wide field of reatling and ol)ser-
vation, for true poetic feeling, for a pathos without any mixture of
sentimentality, for candor, for moral elevation, and for noble loyalty
to those great Christian verities which the author aftinns and vindi-
cates, wonderful lectures stand forth alone amidst the contemporary
literature of the class to which they belong.
The British Quarterly Review.
Mr. Cook is a man of wide reading, tenacious memory, acute dis-
crimination, and great jxiwer of popular exposition. Notliing detr8
him. He plunges in media.'* res, however aljstruse the sjx-culation,
and his vigor and fire carry all before them. He has intuitive genius
lor pricking wind-bags, and for reducing over-sanguine and exag-
gerated hyi>otheses to their exact value. He has called a halt in
many an impetuous march of science, and exjKJsed a fundamental
fallacy in many a triumphant argument.
The London Spectator.
Vigorous and suggestive; interesting from the glimpses they give
of tli(^ present jjIiu-scs of speculation in wliat is emphatically the
most thoughtful community in the United States.
Professor Ulrici, University of Halle, Germany.
His object is the foundation o< a new and trne metaphysics, rest-
ing on a biological bjisis; that is, the pr<M)f of the trutli of phihv
soplii<aI theism, and of the fundamental idca-s of Christianity.
Tles<' intentions he carries out with n full, and o<-casionally with a
too full, ajiplication of his eminent oratorical tjihait, and with great
Kaga<'ify, and with thorough knowledge of the leading works in
lihysioiogy for the last thirty years.
/ /r
iL^f
V / w
h '
. ( ^ t (
A" "' 1 .' <* i. ' /
/o}
^(f. n'i-'A
J
^
DATE DUE
CAYLORD
FPIINTID IN U S.
i
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A A 000 084 878
^>
.^^