UTILIZATION OF LABOR. 63 



There will still be a vast field for commerce in transporting 

 from land to land and place those products which cannot pos- 

 sibly be supplied upon any one spot. Do what we will, New 

 England must depend upon commerce for some of the necessi- 

 ties and many of the luxuries of life. She must import her 

 coal, her teas and tropical fruits ; her mills must be supplied 

 with cotton from a more genial clime. The same may be said 

 of every civilized country in the world : it must seek beyond its 

 own limits for the products peculiar to other lands. But every 

 country is false to itself when it needlessly becomes dependent 

 upon foreign nations that may any day become hostile. And 

 above all other nations in the world, would it be folly for us to 

 pursue such a course as to leave us dependent upon any foreign 

 nation for a single substance, be it raw material or manufac- 

 ture, that is needful to us for the fullest and most vigorous 

 national life. 



Not only does utilization of labor demand intelligence to 

 direct, that every blow may be struck to the best advantage, but 

 it demands virtue in the individual and the greatest simplicity 

 and freedom in our government. Every jail, every prison and 

 almshouse, is a draft upon the honest labor of the community. 

 The criminals, and all who are needed for their keeping, are so 

 many transformed from producers to consumers. Every vaga- 

 bond must live. Every thief, and every lounger, every one who 

 lives by vice or by pandering to vice, makes more hours of labor 

 and harder toil a necessity for every man who lives by honest 

 labor. Honest laborers must not only produce enough for 

 themselves but they must support the vile. When virtue has 

 so far prevailed that all men work with hand or head, labor 

 will be lightened and the hours may well be shortened. 



The curse of war is another great consumer, destroying 

 everything in its pathway, — producing nothing, and yet when 

 invoked for a nation's salvation, we hail it as a blessing, though 

 flames and ruins are the success of its march. 



For us as a nation, the brightest future is opening — we have 

 freedom, the first great incentive to labor. With this, there 

 goes virtue and intelligence to render that labor most effective. 

 Wealth must accumulate from our mines of precious metals, 

 but more than all, from the products of our soil. In days of 

 ignorance and oppression and vice, labor must be long continued 



