THE TRIUMPH OF LABOR. 419 slavery and every other barbarous institution or thing not in harmony with the now well-understood and universally approved principles of Christianity, and will institute co-operative industry, and other reforms, insuring to the workers all the fruits of their labor, until finally shall be realized the Cosmopolitan Community, or Universal Christian Commonwealth which Isaiah and the Roman Sibyl forsaw, and of which the pentecostal community was the epitome. "Behold all things shall become new." Society has outgrown its old garments. I see man coming up step by step from the cave period, when he wielded the rude club and stone implement, to the present age, in which time and space are annihilated, and production has been so increased by machinery that want and suffering need never again be known on earth. There is but one thing more required to complete the emancipation and happiness of mankind and the Christianization of the world, and that is the entire abrogation of autocracy and plutocracy and the institution of democratic governments universally,-guaranteeing the equality of men, as ordained by Jesus and exemplified by the Church of Jerusalem when "all that believed had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men are very man had need." And to this sublime height may all human governments speedily attain, is my prayer of undoubting faith! (A Centennial Lecture Written in 1876. 1876 finds our country overwhelmed with debt-impoverished by bad legislation-the government corrupt, and a dread apprehension on the minds of the people of further betrayal by officials in high places. But the people are true-the love of liberty is not dead-is not extinguished in the minds of the laborers of our country. The reaction towards aristocracy and despotism that has taken place, will be but temporary. "Freedom's battle once begun Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, The battle begun by our fathers for human equality will continue. Let me, then, recount the real glories of to-day and anticipate the good in store for us, and the world that the coming century will bring. I. The Progress of To-day. One hundred years ago who could anticipate the progress of to-day? The progress of the century has been mainly in the direction of mechanical inventions. Old times produced preater poets, greater orators, greater painters, greater sculptors, greater architects-but in the direction of labor-saving inventions, the century has leaped forward a thousand years-has eclipsed all the past. Thus man has grown to be a giant in physical strength-and the world must soon be subdued and the rough places made smooth-the hills brought low. Soon there will be no desert places-no barren regions. Nor is this imaginary. Saharah is an ancient sea-bottom and rich-wanting only water to be extremely fertile. By boring a few hundred feet in depth, it is said, we strike abundance of water below the sea level (filtered into and through porous rocks) and the average cost of an artesian well that raises four hundred gallons of water per minute is fifteen hundred dollars. In such a climate as that of Northern Africa, where two crops a year may be produced—a land of dates and figs and olives by turning the money expended in guns and munitions of war and feeding and clothing and paying the three millions of European soldiers in arms to-day, and their labor, also, in the direction of subduing the desert-how long before it would be reclaimed and grand cities be seen where all was once desolation and drifting sands-and Saharah smile and blossom as the rose and fields of bright grain cover the sandy plains from Morocco to Soudan? There is not a spot of earth but will one day afford a happy dwelling place for man, while the ocean itself will be crowded with floating palaces, the homes of myriad sons and daughters of the sea. Man will be master of the physical elements. He will not longer look up to the clouds for rain and sit trembling fearful of drouth and famine. Machinery will water the farms the moisture will be lifted from below. Man will be supreme on earth and may proclaim "I am monarch of all I survey.' I have tamed the lightning; the deep is obedient to me; earth serves me; Nature bows before me and pours out her treasures at my feet unfailingly." The physical world is an exact mirror of the world of mind. Observe the wilderness of nature-the barren deserts unreclaimed, and you see a true picture of the human mind that (as the world shall be redeemed to culture and beautiful gardens bloom where now thorns and briars only grow) shall also put on her garments of love and selfishness cease to prey upon the weak, as the lion upon the lamb— but we may hope for the fulfillment of the prophesy that the lion and lamb shall lie down together and a little child shall lead them. I want to believe that the coming century will see selfishness dethroned. I do not expect that greater inventions than steam navigation and the magnetic telegraph will ever be made, for there evidently is a limit in the direction of great inventions. During the next hundred years, what is already found out and is now rudely put in operation, will be so perfected that the resources of the earth will be brought forth for the use of men with far less physical labor than now-the unification of the world realized-no important city or place on earth remaining isolated-all being joined together by railroads and telegraphs—mankind one family of love-Africa redeemed-the whistle of the locomotive heard on the shores of Lake Nyanza-manners, customs and institutions of all nations conformed to the Christian law of love and the people have gained the mastery over all governments a general disarmament be brought about-all disputes between nations settled by a world's congress-a union of all effected-the proudest banner that shall wave from the dome of the centennial building at Philadelphia-the city of brotherly love-in the year 1976, will be, I trust, the flag of the UNITED STATES OF THE WORLD. II. The Equality of Men. It is the idea of the equality of men that is working in modern history for the emancipation of labor and the redemption of the world from the domination of kings, of wealth and of priestly power. May we not anticipate the overhtrow of all kingly governments in Europe ere the next centennial? There will then be a disbandment of her armies. The people, entirely free, will vote to maintain no standing armies. The word "reciprocity" will be emblazoned on the world's banner-"Do unto all as we would have them do unto us." Peace is to the interest of the people-the few reap advantages from wars. The few who reaped material advantage from the war of '61 are our There is no limit to the possibilities of invention. Hardly was the ink the above before the telephone and the electric motor were invented. dry of THE TRIUMPH OF LABOR. 421 millionaires of to-day, who send agents to congress to control legislation by bribery and corruption. The people enlightened will never go to war. The republics of Greese and Rome were warlike; the free bands of Indians inhabiting America were engaged in continual wars; yet I maintain that no enlightened Christian people will engage in aggressive war. As soon as the fundamental Christian law "Love thy fellow-man as thyself" has been crystalized in the customs, laws and institutions and governments of all Christian nations, wars must cease. The idea of supremacy of the law of love was not fully accepted among even the most highly cultured of the nations of old; but all European nations now believe it to be the bounden duty of man in his relations to his fellow-man, to entertain the same affection for him as himself. Though this is universally admitted by Christian peoples, yet the idea has not been crystalized in institutions, laws, and governments very generally; but, on the contrary, the corner stone of all seems to be selfishness. It is true, corporations have been instituted for benevolent purposes and for mutual aid. Hospitals for foundlings and for orphans have been established by these corporations and by individuals-sisters of charity sent to nurse the sick-and there are Free Mason and Odd Fellow fraternities. Now we are beginning to have state asylums for the blind, the deaf, the insane, etc., we have Soldiers' Orphans' Homes, supported by the state. But the great advance of the coming century will be in this direction. All destitute and orphan children will be gathered into the arms of the loving commonwealth. The youth must be cared for and properly educated before crime can be put an end to. As long as the cities are full of little ragged street Arabs sleeping in goods boxes by night and running uncontrolled by day, under no guardianship of fatherly hands-with no wholesome food to eat; no good books to read; no schoolmasters to instruct them-just so long will the prisons be crowded with criminals. May we not hope that before the next centennial pleasant homes will be provided for all destitute and orphan children? Go with me to a beautiful village in Iowa in the year 1976. This town belongs to men who have been convicted of crime, and are put under guardianship as if they were but children-and are given work to do and wages for doing it. They work a part of the day and another part they devote to mental culture. The state aims only to build up those men into good citizens, worthy of freedom, and resorts to kindly means for the accomplishment of this purpose. This penitentiary is a reform school, nor are the convicts subjected to any harsh usage. They are, it is true, deprived of liberty, dear to every man-are declared "minors in law" and are kept under restraint; but they are surrounded by elevating and reformatory influences. It is the aim of the state to teach them self-respect. They are, therefore, shown the utmost kindness. Society is thus protected and the vicious class given honorable employment and are compelled to earn their living by honest labor. There is no discomfort here. The inmates of this reform institution converse with each other and are as free as hired laborers to-day. Indeed this village is an asylum for the morally weak, where they resort to be strengthened—a retreat -a home. Punishments have been abolished. The state I claim has no right to punish men for crime; but only the right to bring them under guardianship and restraint--the right to settle them in one spot, depriving them of the liberty of emigration and there giving them remunerative employment and teachers and books and hope and courage and ambition and public spirit. III. Land Monopoly. The "signs of times" point, also, to the speedy overthrow, even in Great Britain, of that accursed institution, land monopoly-the most unjust and oppressive monopoly that has descended to us from the barbarous age. It is the essential evil. Remove this and all other forms of oppression die. Conceive of a State in which no man is allowed, by the laws or customs or institutions of society, to own more land than a convenient homestead-more than will yield him subsistence by being carefully tilled by his own hand-more than, say forty, eighty or one hundred and sixty acres of productive land-and you at once have before your mind a society of equals a society in which poverty is unknown-in which luxury is unknown and its consequent immorality and enervation of mind and body-a hardy race of freedom-loving men and women as in Switzerland. What obstacles are in the way of the removal of this monopoly today? None whatever. It is altogether in the hands of the State. It is a monopoly sustained only by law, and that, too unjust law. It is sustained through no principle of right-but only by unrighteousness and barbarity. These beautiful plains are the common inheritance of all. Through untold ages the soil has been accumulating its productiveness for the benefit of man. This inheritance belongs to all alike, as the water and the air. Embrace, O Commonwealth, in thy protecting arms these lands as homesteads for thy children! Save them from being seized upon by robbers-as in Europe. ,John Stuart Mill says: "When the sacredness of property is talked of it should always be remembered that this sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land; it is the original inheritance of the whole species. * If the State is at liberty to treat the possessors of the land as public functionaries, it is only going one step further to say it is at liberty to discard them. The claim of the land owners is altogether subordinate to the general policy of the State. The principle of property gives them no right to the land; but only right to compensation for whatever portion of their interest in the land it may be the policy of the State to deprive them of." * * ,He further says: "War among nations and discord among individuals, grow with the growth of monopoly in land. The more perfect its consolidation the greater must be the inequalities of society, and the more must those who labor be made to suffer in the distribution between the people and the State." The time will come and that speedily, I sincerely hope and trust, when the laws will not be partial-will not confer upon men the license to seize upon and hold what is not theirs by natural right. "Land," as Mill says, "is the original inheritance of the whole species." By what right may a few seize upon this inheritance of all? By the ancient law of barbarity-the law of force. This law must be done away. Right must rule. The natural rights of man must be enforced by the laws. Let the few hold their millions of gold and silver, and countless diamonds and rubies and pearls. We want none of these. They are baubles-play-things for children. But let these rich people own no more land than other men. Take nothing from them; but pay them for their surplus lands in money-as the people before the Rebellion would have been willing to pay the slave-lords for their slaves. Yet it is a serious question whether it is just to pay a man for that which he has no right to. And what right had the slavemaster to his slave?-and what right has any man to a monopoly of the land? THE TRIUMPH OF LABOR. 423 IV. Common Benefits and Co-operation. Can human law give one a right to what is not his by divine law? The vast mine of wealth opened to the world by machinery belongs to all mankind. The advantages and benefits of all inventions should be made general-should shorten the hours of labor for every man, woman and child, until the amount of exertion necessary for subsistence would be but slight. The strife among men then will be not for wealth, but for intellectual grandeur, for building up the Angelic in man; for calling out the immortal beauties of mind and skill. The reward fame-renown. The grandest man will be he who has developed the grandest soul; the loftiest mind; the noblest heart-who has devised the greatest good for his neighbors-instituted the best schools -the most comfortable homes for orphans and widows, and the aged and the hepless-has been the greatest benefactor of his race. This, then, is the problem for legislation to solve. How may the surplus wealth of the earth, produced in such abundance by human skill and inventions, be prevented from being taken possession of by the fewhow may it be distributed through the arteries of society for the benefit of all? This problem will, I trust, be solved before the centennial of 1976. Millions will not then be calling for employment and bread. All men will belong to the laboring class then. The class that now lives above manual labor will be abolished. Every man will be compelled to earn his living who is physically able. That there is a fixed purpose in the minds of the producers to bring about this reform is manifest from the following article of the platform adopted by the farmers and working men in convention at Indianapolis, Indiana, June 10, 1874. They say: "We hold that all able-bodied, intelligent persons should contribute to the common stock, by useful industry, a sum or quantity equal to their own support, and legislation should tend, as far as possible, to the equitable distribution of surplus products." Manufactories are public servants; but under the present system of monopolies the servant is the master. A mill is built with private capital. The miller, for sixty pounds of wheat, gives thirty pounds of flour, keeping half the weight of the grain. Would any one contend that it were good policy to allow horses and oxen, sheep and hogs to pasture on the grain-fields? How much would be trampled under foot and wasted if the farmer did not reap and thresh his grain and give to each of his dumb servants a due portion; but let them range at will through the fields? The mills, factories, railroads, etc., are public servants, just as horses and cattle are for the service of men. But the people do not as yet say what the mills, factories, railroads, etc., shall be fed; but literally turn them out loose into their fields to destroy, waste and trample down the grain, having gorged themselves until their sides are swollen out to an undue bigness. Co-operation is the remedy-each individual contributing a small portion to a general fund, and this general fund be the feeder, or moving force of all manufacturing, mining, banking, commercial, transportation, and all other interests now controlled by private capital. How will this fund be raised? In just the same manner as the school fund is raised. A tax is levied upon the property of a neighborhood to build a school house. In like manner let a tax be levied to build mills, factories, etc. (Already railroads are built in this way; but the people who build them do not own or control them, but give them a bonus to private corporations for private profit.) Take (for example) four townships embracing a section of country twelve miles square and containing 144 square miles. Each square mile (if there was no waste land) might include eight farms of 80 acres each or 1,152 farms in all. Each farm paying twenty dollars tax would |