HC 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 S7 
 
George Davidson 
 
SOME REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PRESENT DISCONTENT 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DRJ STEBBINS 
 
 I 
 
 San Francisco, February 29th, 188O. 
 
 The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that 
 ruleth among fools. ECCLESIA.STES ix, 17. 
 
 The preacher might have added also that the words of 
 the wise are sometimes spoken so quietly that they are not 
 heard at all beyond the ear in which they are spoken, and 
 yet they get abroad into the common air, and modify .the 
 thoughts and feelings of men. Wisdom is a sort of calm, 
 penetrating, round-about judgment of times, events, men, 
 and things. It is no conceit of knowledge, but such an 
 appreciation of things as discharges the mind of all conceit, 
 and brings in humility at the sense of how little it knows. 
 Then, too, as men grow wise they grow silent, and sparing 
 of their words. I do not remember of ever having seen a 
 garrulous man who was a wise man. I suppose that it was 
 in view of this fact that wisdom is inclined to be a little 
 reticent that Mr. Carlyle, in one of his pungent paragraphs, 
 so satirizes the passion for rhetoric, talking, speech-making; 
 
 o. 
 
and praises silence and work. Of all business, talking, 
 declaiming, popular address is most trying to integrity of 
 feeling, clear convictions and thorough inward honesty. It 
 was this profession of loquacity that Augustine so bitterly 
 repented of, in his years of wisdom, when the excellence of 
 truth and simplicity had dawned on him. History records 
 that a sure indication of the decline of the Roman Empire 
 was that the profession of public speaker had become so 
 popular, and the grave old taciturn Roman had got to driv- 
 elling words in weak loquacity. Webster, once, in his place 
 in the Senate, disgusted beyond endurance at the fulsome 
 flattery heaped on him by a feeble speaker, drew his head 
 down in chagrin, and cried "O get out!" He said, on 
 another occasion, that any man would have a large hearing 
 and a great popularity who would go through the country 
 abusing the government and telling the people that they 
 were abused, and that the government was the cause of all 
 their trouble. 
 
 The freedom of speech and of the press are equivalent to 
 popular liberty and free institutions, inasmuch as there can 
 be no free institutions without freedom of thought and ex- 
 pression. The abuse of so great a principle is not to be 
 wondered at. Even the abuse is a safety-valve to that which 
 might explode if confined, if only a large body of the people 
 are well grounded in intelligence and right. Popular appeals 
 to popular feeling are the best remedy for popular wrongs 
 or popular discontent. The very idea of it is that it reduces 
 vague feeling to terms of intelligence; and, on reflection, 
 men find that they can feel more strongly than they can 
 think. 
 
 For a considerable period there has been here in this city 
 a free swing given to a very broad style of popular talk, 
 ranging from indecent and vulgar phrase, and black-guard 
 lingo, and extravagant epithets, and reckless statements to 
 tirades against individuals, institutions and things in gene- 
 ral. The sitting of the Legislature, the inauguration of a 
 new Constitution and the pinch of labor, have for a few 
 weeks revived what seemed to be the expiring discontent; 
 and society, by contagious moral sympathy, has been some- 
 
57? 
 
 what depressed. I think, myself, that it has been exaggerat- 
 ed, and that too much attention has been given to it, and 
 that society has shown itself too much on a level with it. 
 
 So far as the labor question, as it is called, or labor and 
 capital, is concerned with the social discontent, there can be 
 no settlement on any present terms of labor and capital. It is 
 no local question, but of universal human interest, and per- 
 vades Christendom. The only reconciliation of that difficulty 
 is in moving forward on to a new ground, where the moral re- 
 lations of employer and workman are recognized as clearly as 
 the politico-economic relation. What men want is a respect- 
 ful consideration of their welfare. It does not consist in the 
 government taking them up, and finding work for all who 
 want it. A parental government is a monarchy or a despot- 
 ism where men cannot take care of themselves; but in a free 
 State men are supposed to be of age and able to take care of 
 themselves. Capital and labor will never be at peace, nor 
 will they ever reap their full rewards until they have a mate- 
 rial and moral interest in each other's welfare over and above 
 the wages paid on the one hand, or the service rendered on 
 the other. The final goal is not parental government, nor 
 socialism, nor communism, nor trades-unions, but co-opera- 
 tion. This will not be accomplished primarily by legislation, 
 but it will be begun here and there by enlightened men of 
 comprehensive and liberal views, who understand that good 
 workmen must be the allies of their employers. A writer from 
 that part of the country which' we call The West evidently a 
 proprietor and influential director of railroad management, 
 has recently sent a letter to a distinguished journal, setting 
 forth in a clear and forcible way that owners, directors and 
 managers of railroads should adopt some method of helping 
 their workmen, outside the duties for which they are paid, in 
 their private lives. He is a man of experience and ability. 
 His view I will not discuss; it is the spirit of it that I notice. 
 It is the appearance of the moral element in political econo- 
 my which, until recently, has been altogether ignored. 
 Such movements will get into form after a while. All intel- 
 ligent and thoughtful men should inform themselves on these 
 things, and know what is being done, and with what success. 
 
It is, according to my way of thinking and feeling, one of 
 the most interesting and important subjects that our 
 modern society presents. If intelligent and wise men 
 do not take it up, passionate and ignorant men will. 
 Men who can only feel a wrong need to be guided 
 by those who can see it. If there is anything in the 
 future that seems to me certain in the unfolding of 
 principles, it is that labor and capital can never settle 
 down on the old bare political - economy - proposition of 
 demand and supply. The matter can never rest, so it seems 
 to me, save on terms of mutual moral support. In the mean 
 time, the man who talks only to human passions, who talks 
 carelessly about the rights of property, and only disturbs 
 men where they are, before they can do better, is a moral 
 incendiary, and deserves condign punishment. 
 
 In respect to the new Constitution, and the uncertainty 
 that attends legislative and judicial proceedings under it, I 
 wish to make one remark only, and that is in regard to that 
 provision of the Constitution which forbids the employment 
 of Chinese laborers by corporations created by the laws of 
 the State. I have nothing to do with the law, but only with 
 the morale of the matter as it has appeared in the streets of 
 the city. A body of men marching through town and taking 
 it upon themselves to ask citizens what they proposed to do 
 in regard to the management of their business, is an act of 
 usurpation, which, if carried out to its legitimate conclusion, 
 would subvert the government of any municipality. The 
 good sense of our citizens in keeping their temper in the 
 presence of an offensive intrusion, is honorable, and pro- 
 bably is to be understood as an illustration of that kind of 
 patience that does not hold out forever. All that can be 
 said about it is that it was impudent and insulting. 
 
 On the other hand, I think citizens who were hiring Chi- 
 nese laborers at the time of the inauguration of the new Con- 
 stitution should have obeyed the law, if there was a law for- 
 bidding the hiring of that class, or they should have antici- 
 pated the new state of things and brought the whole matter 
 before the proper tribunals at the earliest moment to ascer- 
 tain whether or not this particular law is law. But I think 
 
citizens ought to obey the laws. The best way to get a bad 
 law repealed is to execute it rigidly. And so in regard to 
 the condemnation of any portion of the city on account of 
 the manners and customs and habits of the population there. 
 Let the law be executed, and let all good citizens say- that 
 the law shall be executed according to law, that is, left to 
 the decision of the Courts. The violent language we hear 
 in the street would make us shudder if we were not accus- 
 tomed to it ; but we have become so familiar with all this 
 style of popular language that many would miss it from the 
 substance of the daily news. 
 
 I suppose it is fair in all our judgments of the present 
 condition of things here, to make some allowance for the 
 motley class of people that may be found in the city. I am 
 accustomed to think that as regards the population of the 
 city, it is the most American city in the Union. There are 
 people here from every State, and there are people here at- 
 tracted by every motive that ever influenced human conduct. I 
 suppose there are more people here who belong to that class 
 commonly known as "living by their wits" than in any other 
 city of equal population in the Kepublic. I suppose there 
 are more people here "from every town but this," than in any 
 other town of equal dimensions. There is some reason to 
 believe that our fellow citizens of the workingmen are not 
 aware how large a class of this sort are hanging upon their 
 skirts. And it is just toward the workingmen to tell them 
 that they inadvertently and unwittingly get a good deal of 
 damaging reputation from that class. Industrious men are 
 not violent men, and they commonly have sense enough to 
 know that passion is not energy, and that the man who 
 'killed the goose that laid the golden egg has not had any 
 eggs since. Those honest, working, and hard-pressed men 
 who have nothing to do, and can get nothing to do by which 
 to earn their bread and their children's bread, should be af- 
 forded some relief. Good citizens ought to help them by 
 contriving some industry, which, if it will not pay, will do 
 something better than that keep a respectable class from 
 humiliating charity, and do something, however clumsily, to 
 show that there is some good-will toward men. But all 
 
6 
 
 such, who are in" the sharp pinch of necessity, and in the 
 prison of enforced idleness, must cut loose from every asso- 
 ciation with violence or the semblance of violence. Men 
 who live by their hands can never gain anything from those 
 who "live by their wits. Yet it is the very cunning, and 
 craft and vocation of those who live by their wits, to attach 
 themselves to, and mix themselves up with those who live 
 with their hands. Were it not for this fact, a fact manifest 
 to all, the spontaneous good feeling of men would relieve 
 the distress of enforced idleness until settled opinions and 
 reviving industry, that must come at no distant day, sent 
 their genial beams over the land. 
 
 There has, within a few days, been a marked change in 
 the tone of feeling and speech. Some wise man has uttered 
 a word in quiet that has been heard and felt. Nobody can 
 for a moment doubt the power of society here to maintain 
 order, and to inflict a terrible doom upon the breeders of 
 mischief. But wisdom is profitable to direct, and all may 
 be congratulated upon the changed temperature of the air. 
 Let us be firm, good-natured, intelligent and kind, without 
 prejudice or passion, but with wisdom and strength, holding 
 to the good of all. 
 
 It is very natural at a time like this, and in circumstances 
 so peculiar, that the Mayor of the city, the officer and con- 
 servator of the public welfare, should be the subject of 
 much criticism, while he is also looked to as the guardian of 
 the city. I am now only interested in him as a public man, 
 and I desire success and honor to attend him in his muni- 
 cipal administration. He is a man manifestly of many 
 abilities, much neutralized by indiscretion, and of great ad- 
 miration for popular applause. His faculty for speech is 
 dangerous alike to his usefulness and to his own fame. Add- 
 ing to that his fondness for place, and an unmistakeable 
 tendency to interpret place to mean the respect of mankind, 
 and to conclude that those who vote for him honor and ad- 
 mire him, the Mayor unites many elements of weakness as 
 a ruler. He should admonish himself in the moment of his 
 successes, of those things that check the pride of men, and 
 make them silent in the presence of much their own hands 
 
have not wrought. The Mayor*, above all, should remember 
 that his notoriety is much greater than his reputation. He 
 should, in gratitude to that Almighty Providence by which 
 his life was preserved from the hand of an assassin, humbly 
 remember that had he died by that cowardly hand, it would 
 have been no martyr's death, and no martyr's name that he 
 would have died or won. It was a tavern brawl, all but the 
 tavern. The Mayor should remember that it is not becom- 
 ing, nor fitted to increase or win the respect of his fellow- 
 men, for him in loose and voicy oratory to tell his fellow- 
 citizen's that 'twas for their cause he bled. The Mayor 
 should remember, in the brief moment of official station, 
 that so merciful are men, that the assassin's shot carried a 
 wave of sympathy to him, that was the prime moment of his 
 success, and which if he were a wise man he would never 
 waste in his great need. The Mayor should remember, that 
 notwithstanding his great fondness for speech, silence and 
 activity are his security and success, and that few words and 
 modest honor become him best. I can wish him no better 
 success and no truer honor, than that he may discharge the 
 duties of his office with an eye single to the public good, 
 and that the fierce experience of human passions, which he 
 has done so much to kindle, and whose deadly recoil has 
 struck him so heavily, may bring forth in him the fruits of 
 wisdom, humility and self-control. To the end of the wel- 
 fare of the city, to the end of every humane and Christian 
 sentiment towards the poor, to the end of wisdom, gratitude 
 and charity in the rich, to the end of private honor and pub- 
 lic duty well done, and to the end of a good name, which 
 may he attain, I give him my sincere public and private 
 wishes. 
 
GAYLAMOUNT 
 
 PAMPHLET BINDER 
 
 ^ 
 
 Manufactured Ay 
 
 6AYLORD BROS. Inc. 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 
 Y.C 7^ 
 
 JV.291254 
 
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