CHAPTER XV.

LIBERTY AND LABOR.

"The hope of the Republic is in a citizenship that is faithful to home and family and devotedly loyal to country."

"Mr. President, Members of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, of the Trade and Labor Assembly of Chicago, and My Fellow-Citizens: I am glad to join with you in observing this, our one hundred and nineteenth National anniversary, that we may gather fresh inspirations in the cause of human freedom and equality and dedicate ourselves anew, in common with our fellow-citizens everywhere, to the good work of maintaining the free Government which our fathers inaugurated more than a century ago. No city in America has a better right or a better reason to rejoice at its majesty and strength than Chicago, and no citizens of any city in any State should celebrate it with more zeal and joy than her working people, who have done so much to make Chicago the great inland metropolis of our country, whose marvelous progress is the admiration and wonder of the world.

"We are a Nation of working people; some one

has said that Americans are born busy, and that they never find time to be idle or indolent. We glory in the fact that in the dignity and elevation of labor we find our greatest distinction among the nations of the earth. The United States possesses practically as much energy or working power as Great Britain, Germany, and France combined, so that the ratio of working power falling to each American is more than that of to two people of any other nation. But with our improved and superior machinery each American laborer is enabled to accomplish, relatively, still more than his European competitor. The American laborer not only does more and better work, but there are more skilled, intelligent, and capable artisans here now in proportion to the total population than in any other country of the world. No other country can boast of so great a percentage of producers among her instructed population, and none other can point to so large a number of enlightened and educated citizens. The census statistics of 1890 place the number of our citizens over ten years of age engaged in gainful occupations at 22,735,000, while Sir Michael G. Mulhall, the noted English statistician, refers to the fact that no other civilized country could ever before boast of 41,000,000 instructed citizens. Indeed, we may find in the able review of the industrial activities of our country recently published by this distinguished authority many striking texts for patriotic contemplation. He states very frankly :

"If we were to take a survey of mankind in ancient or modern times as regards the physical, mechanical, and intellectual force of nations, we find nothing to compare with the United States in this present year of 1895. The physical and mechanical power which has enabled a community of woodcutters and farmers to become in less than one hundred years the greatest Nation in the world is the aggregate of the strong arms of men and women, aided by horse-power, machinery, and steam-power applied to the useful arts and sciences of every-day life. The power that traces a furrow in the prairie, sows the seed, reaps and threshes the ripe grain; the power that converts wheat into flour, that weaves wool or cotton into textile stuffs and garments; the power that lifts the mineral from the bowels of the earth, that forges iron and constructs railroads; the power that builds up towns and cities-in a word, whatever force is directed for the production, conveyance, or distribution of the necessaries, comforts, or luxuries of life, may be measured at each National census with almost the same precision as that with which the astronomer indicates the distances of the heavenly bodies.'

"We shall not enter upon such a computation or study, interesting as it might be, but you are to be congratulated upon the fact that in every field of progress and development Chicago has always been to the front and borne a most conspicuous part. Upon this proud record I feel that you are to be es

pecially congratulated, for I am sure that to no class of her citizens is this great city so much indebted for her marvelous growth as to her wage-earners, artisans, and working people. It can truthfully be said that no other city in the country has been so shining a light, so truly an example and model in enterprise and energy for so many people in so many States as Chicago. Her people have set the pace for the great Northwest, now chasing other parts of the country in the race of progress and supremacy. It is fitting that they should rejoice, and above all most appropriate that they should select this glad anniversary as the occasion for such jubilations.

"This day, forever the most illustrious in our history, is crowded with patriotic memories. It belongs to history, and celebrates that only which is grand and inspiring in history. Every memory, every tradition, every event about it must inspire every patriot with true homage to country and with hope, courage, and confidence for the future. It is the baptismal day of freedom; the day when the hearts of Young America are proud and glad and the hearts of the old are young again. It celebrates the grandest act in the history of the human race-the Declaration of American Independence, and a ringing protest against usurpation and tyranny in that age and every other. It has no rival; Lincoln's immortal Proclamation of Emancipation was but its fitting supplement and actual fulfillment. Yorktown pointed the way, but it was Appomattox that marked

the completed, unquestioned, glorious realization of both.

"The Fourth of July calls us back to the most heroic era of American annals, and I can conceive of nothing more profitable than a consideration of the origin and meaning of our National anniversary and a brief notice of some of the patriotic leaders who made its celebration possible. The day records the event which gave birth to the Nation, that glad event to humanity out of which has arisen the great National fabric that we now enjoy, and the preservation and advancement of which should be our highest and most sacred concern. We cannot study the early history of the country without marveling at the courage, the foresight, the sagacity, and the broadmindedness of the men who promulgated the Declaration of Independence and who subsequently launched a new government under a written Constitution. The men who framed the Declaration and Constitution seem now to have been inspired for their great work, to have been raised up by Jehovah, like His prophets of old, especially for the supreme duties and grave responsibilities He placed upon

them.

"Both instruments were in part the work of the same men, and never was the spirit and impulse of a preliminary document more apparent in the completed act. What illustrious men constituted the Continental Congress of 1776-and most of them were young men, whose subsequent careers were as