give a fund of $23,040, which would build a good flouring mill, or a woolen manufactory; or a plow and machine shop; or a grain elevator; or a pork-packing establishment. One hundred dollars tax on each eighty in a section of twelve miles square would build all these and (I would add) a narrow gauge railroad besides across the section.

It is by individuals and private corporations controlling these necessary interests that wealth concentrates in the hands of the few, and millionaires are evolved among us and swim in the midst of American society, as did the prehistoric monster reptiles among the smaller fishes, devouring them at pleasure. But if the State or people become the master and owner of all public establishments, railroads, etc., the wealth will remain with the laboring classes that produce it, and equality be preserved. All are created equal, and that equality should be enforced and maintained. All should work, and all should enjoy the fruits of their labor. Machinery will have become such a vast help in producing sufficient for all, that each man will need to labor but a small part of his time. Three hours will be a day's work. Books and study and mental culture, and "to do good" the cheif end and aim and religion and ambition of universal man. All nature will be subject to man, and man subject to the law of God. The community will enforce this law. The few that would seize upon and hold the surplus wealth of the world by force that is, by what is termed "legal right"-the same right by which the slave-lords held their four millions of blacks in bondage, these few will have to allow the commonwealth to hold what justly belongs to the commonwealththe surplus products of labor-will have to conform to the law of God, unjust "legal right" being taken away, as has been the right to hold slaves in our country.

Are not all private corporations more injurious than beneficial to the public? Are not all European nations to-day combatting the giant corporation known as the church? Has it not bound in fetters of iron and trodden down the weak for a thousand years? It was instituted for a benevolent purpose-to save men from sin-to do the highest and holiest work. If the church, as a political corporation, has proven the greatest enemy of men, why should not the people look with distrust upon all close corporations that they cannot directly control? Railroad, insurance, and banking corporations exercise vast influence for evil. The sole object of their management is the accumulation of wealth-not the public good-and the public suffers in proportion, as they are uncontrolled by legislation; and those corporations exert vast influence over legislation. For instance, we adopted England's money-order system. Why, have we not adopted her system of Postal Savings Banks? President Grant advised Congress to adopt this other excellent reform;; but the banking corporations of our country said "No." Money being the object of those corporations, they favor only that legislation that pours money into their coffers. They know nothing but venality; they look not beyond the boundary of their own circle, or "ring." The corporation becomes a petty state and claims all the patriotism of those whose moneyed interests are bound up in it-all outside interests are alien. All corporations are in their very nature anti-democratic. Monopolies flour ish best under arbitrary governments. There is, then, a constant tendency to autocracy in a country cursed as ours is by the existence of so many moneyed corporations. They are giant powers, and a constant menace to freedom, dangerous in proportion to their wealth.

The public interest demands that Banking Insurance, and Railroad corporations, land monopoly, and manufacturing monopolies be suppressed, and the government assume control of these interests, and that the kinds of property that money shall represent and be exchangeable for, be particularly defined, limited and circumscribed by

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legislative enactments. Then money becomes a harmless acquisition. Then might every man have and hold all the money he may. The public has reason to complain of the laws giving to the moneyed class dangerous monopolies, and especially the monopoly of furnishing exchange to the country. The fountain from which all exchange should flow and directly to the people, is the government. Then if interest be paid the State for the use of money, it becomes a government tax, lessening the tax on other property, and benefitting everybody-instead of building up a hateful, privileged class of respectful paupers, living without labor, through usury-a monopoly inherited from the parent Britain, along with slavery, and that must, like slavery, be got rid of and speedily-for it is fast hurrying the nation into bankruptcy.

VI. America Will Lead.

Think not that America is destined to follow in the footsteps of Europe. She will make a path for herself. This new world was prepared by Providence as the garden of the Lord in which new and better ideas are to germinate and grow, and be carried from this new land and transplanted in the old. What produced the French revolution in the days of Washington? American ideas. I do not say that our best ideas of government are native of this soil. I know whence our freedom has arisen. I know who is the author of our liberty. That one germ idea-equality of men-is traced rightfully back to the Friend of the Poor-the denouncer of the rich-but his thought could not work in the old world as in the new-the leaven of gentleness and love, being there neutralized by antagonistic institutions-arbitrary governments and corporations-kings, lords and designing priests. Old world customs and institutions take root here and grow for a time and then wither. The climate is not suited to them. The new world has never known anything but freedom. The old world customs belong to despotism. The new world will beget its own governments, customs, institutions; but top of all will be freedom. There is no doubt of this. Private and corporate wealth may array itself against liberty-then private and corporate wealth must go to the wall, until the comomnwealth only shall survive. Thus will equality be realized-the sub-ordination of riches to the general good-the suppression of class distinctions. I look for the time to come in America when no man will build a costlier house than his neighbor-the grand works of art and architecture will be public, like the Pantheon. There will then be uniformity of hours of labor and recreation-general comfort, but no private wealth--the same advantages being open to all-schools, free, theatrical entertainments free (as in ancient Athens), lectures free, libraries free. There will be no "legal" methods of getting suddenly rich, then; for all such methods, though tolerated now, as human slavery was a few years ago, are, like human slavery, wrong-yea, wicked. Do you not see that it is wrong for me to seize upon and appropriate to my own use the proceeds of others' laborgathering around me a mountain of the surplus products of industry— stripping to destitution the producers of those products-whether I do this by the use of the slave whip, or by any other means? My own weak arm can produce little. Why must others serve me-toil and sweat for me-pour out the fruits of their toil at my feet until I have become a millionaire? What magnetic power is there in my physical structure to attract to me all this surplus wealth, as the water flows to the sea? I am only a man-nor has God made me in any respect dissimilar to other men. It is the unjust laws that favor me. God gave me manhood. The laws of my country regard not God

given manhood; they favor only wealth. The laws cause wealth to attract to itself wealth by giving the wealthy certain monopolies. Wealth being the product of labor and mechanical skill, is of slow growth naturally. It comes not suddenly to the world. The ratio of annual increase of wealth in the United States is little more than three per cent; $7,000,000,000 the average annual product, divided by 45,000,000 inhabitants gives $155 per capita-or $1,000 for each adult male citizen. So, do you not see that there is no such thing as justly acquiring sudden wealth. The John Jacob Astors of the world have got their great wealth mainly by "robbing widows' houses."

This contest for the rights of man will continue until the cause of the people completely triumph. It is the same struggle as of 1776, between our fathers and the king and lords of Eng land, and as of 1640 in England between the Roundhead and the Cavalier the friction of advancing civilization-the idea of equality going forward to its realization. We may truly say the same to-day that Macaulay said in the British parliament years ago: "At this very moment," he said, "we everywhere see society outgrowing our institutions.,* * Here we see the barbarism of the 13th century coupled with the civilization of the 19th, and we see, too, that this barbarism belongs to the government, and the civilization to the people. Then, I say, that this incongruous state of things cannot continue, and if we do not terminate it with wisdom ere long, we shall find it ended with violence."

VIII. Capitalistic Barbarism.

The barbarism that environs us is the institutions brought over from England that are still encumbering the ground here-banking institutions, insurance institutions; individual capital employing labor extensively; land monopoly, and all sorts of private moneyed corporations, organized and conducted on selfish principles, and building up the power and wealth of the few at the expense of the many. Those who have power in their hands, as all history shows, never give it up voluntarily. It must be wrenched from them. And the monopolies which the ages have handed down through the centuries of the tyrannous, monarchial, aristocratic past, and that are now held by the few to the detriment of the many, must be put down by the same power that has lifted up the laboring classes here—the power of the popular will. Concentrated capital and monopolies will soon become so burdensome that they must be thrown down by universal consent. A few giant firms ere long will transact all the business, and tens of thousands of buildings heretofore occupied by small shop-keepers, grocers, merchants, etc., will stand vacant. The lands will soon be monopolized by a few here as in Europe-all manufacturing will be done by a few great capitalists, the pork-packing of the northwest by two or three gigantic firms in Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati. under the control of European capitalists, as the carrying trade of the whole nation is now principally under the control of three great, swollen barnacles-Gould, Scott and Vanderbilt. Thus will all business be controlled by a syndicate of money kings, with headquarters in London, and become such a monopoly that producers and consumers cannot endure it and they will find relief through co-operative stores, co-operative factories, etc., and the people of America will be forced, of necessity, to take governmental control of all transportation interests, as of the mails, and goods be forwarded, like letters stamped, so much per pound or cwt. The people acting individually, cannot compete with monopolies. Monopolies will conquer the masses in detail unless the masses concentrate their power and enforce their will through the laws. We have about come upon a period in

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the world's history when there is no alternative left us but the inauguration of an absolute control by the people, through legislation, of all interests a complete Chrystalization of the popular will in perfected institutions. "Associations" of all kints are combined now against the masses, and arbitrarily levy tax for support, more absolute in their tyranny than was Charles I. even. The masses must combine in a gigantic union with articles of association which shall be the fundamental constitutions of State and National governments, instituted for the common welfare alone.

VIII. Labor Will Be Master.

Labor, indeed, is master of the situation. The toilers are the ninety and nine. They make and run all the machinery-build and operate all the railroads. They build all forts and man them; they manufacture all guns and implements of war, and who use them? Whose muscular arms load and fire the Cannons? Whose sinewy hands grasp the swords and muskets? Of what class of society was that grand army of Grant and Sherman composed that passed in review before President Johnson at Washington in 1865? and of Lee and Johnson that was disbanded and sent home? Toilers, and toilers alone! They are the all in all. They are the lords and the gods of this great world. Whenever the people are ready the great change will come. There will be no war; for there will be nobody to fight against combined labor. You cannot set even the laboring men of England to fight against the laboring men of the United States. The people will go to war no more. The only way possible for capital to conquer labor (and that is no longer possible) were to set the laborers fighting one another, as the whites have the Indians ever. Thus the toilers of the north and the toilers of the south were forced by the party leaders in 1861 into a war that the people would never have gone into of their own voice and choice. Wars will cease when the people rule. The people have never ruled yet; but they soon will. A solid south and a solid north can never be set shooting each other again. Labor will take care of itself. Capitalists would now shape the results of the war of '61, so that instead of having been as we supposed the triumph of free labor over slave labor, it would prove to have been the triumph of Wall street and Lombard street capitalists over the agriculturists, manufacturers and laborers of North America. Instead of emancipating labor and giving freedom to four millions slaves, it would prove to have enslaved forty millions of freemen, unless the present policy of gold resumption be given up. But this will end. The reaction will come-and in spite of a venal and corrupt press-and the gigantic power of monopolies and corporations the people will rule. Labor will soon be master. What is unbearable will not be borne-and the evils that are now upon us are unbearable. A national convention to revise the federal constitution will soon be demanded. It will assemble; and it will never adjourn until the government is brought into harmony with the changed condition of things, and the flag made the emblem of freedom and equality.

When this is accomplished instead of the laws being made in the interest of selfishness, they will enforce the golden rule; and when this is done the Kingdom of God is established on the earth. This is all that I pray for; this is all I contend for; this is what I would die for. It is the establishment of such a community of love that the angels foresaw when they proclaimed peace on earth good will towards men. This is the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem that was revealed to the banished saint on the isle of Patmos "descending from God out of heaven;" the "new earth" when the "first earth had

passed away" and "God should dwell with men and be their God and they should be His people." This glorious Kingdom of God is rapidly descending upon our earth. 1976 will behold it. The grand progress of mind during the last century is the harbinger of the coming day. Man has nearly ceased to be a savage. He is almost ripe-and beautiful will be the cluster upon the vine of love.

*

Emerson says: "The idea which now begins to agitate society, has a wider scope than our daily employments-our households and the institutions of property. We are to revise the whole of our social structure the state the school religion, marriage, trade, science, and explore the foundation of our nature. What is man born for but to be a reformer-a re-maker of what man has made a renouncer of lies a restorer of truth and good, imitating the great nature which embosoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past; but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, and with every pulsation a new life. Let him remove everything which is not true to him. * There will dawn ere long on our politics, on our modes of living, a nobler morning in the sentiment of love. Our age and history for these thousand years has not been the history of kindness; but of selfishness. Our distrust is very expensive. The money spent for courts and prisons is ill-laid out. We make by distrust the thief, the burglar, and incendiary, and by our court and jail we keep him so. An acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout Christendom for a season, would bring the felon and outcast to our side in tears, with the devotion of his faculties to our service. See this wide society of laboring men and women. We allow ourselves to be served by them; we live apart from them and meet them on the street without a salute. We do not greet their talents, nor rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopes, nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them. Thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king to the world's foundation. Let our affections flow out to our fellows; it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions. The State must consider the poor man and all voices must speak for him. Every child born must have a just chance (with work) for his bread.”

*

VIII. THE RIGHTS OF LABOR.

(Written in 1874.)

I. The Party of Labor.

What progress the grand principles of the new party, that as yet has won no conquests, but is one day to rule America and the world, have made among the thinking men of our age and country! That party is the Party of Labor-and the impending conflict is between labor and capital.

There is nothing more plainly discernable than the coming revolution in favor of the rights of the laboring man, or, I should say, the rights of man; for the rights of labor and the rights of man are identical. By and through labor come subsistence and all wealth or as President Grant expresses it in his message of December, 1874, "the working man must, after all, produce the wealth." No man is exempt from the natural obligation to earn his living by the sweat of his face. It is true many men do live by the sweat of other men's faces, but this is not as it should be. All able-bodied men should earn their own living by should be. All able-bodied men should earn their own living by their own labor; and every artificial advantage given to one man over another by the unjust laws, should be removed, and all men left