PROSPERITY AND POWER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 89 



erous reward for their labor. The savings banks in all our 

 prosperous manufacturing towns, are receiving large deposits 

 from the operatives — these deposits increasing in one section, 

 from $34,934,271 in 1860, to $99,147,321 in 1867 ; and in 

 another from $18,182,820 in 1860, to $31,234,464 in 1866. 

 Mechanics and artisans, working singly or in groups, in many 

 occupations find a liberal compensation. Here and there em- 

 ployers are setting a noble example of cooperation, by sharing 

 with their employes a percentage of the net profits of the busi- 

 ness in which they are mutually engaged. And while in some 

 branches of business the uncertainty of continuous labor, and 

 inconstant and insufficient remuneration, are a cause of great 

 anxiety, the best mind of the country is striving earnestly and 

 incessantly for the amelioration of those trials which, coming 

 home to the family of the laborer give a sting to his toil to 

 which no industrious member of a free and prosperous commu- 

 nity should be exposed. Labor, in our country, should mean 

 the power of providing, by diligence and industry, a comfort- 

 able subsistence and an honorable position. It means all the 

 civil opportunity of which I have spoken. It means the posses- 

 sion of a home in which want casts no bitterness and no 

 distress. It means an opportunity for every man to get a liv- 

 ing, and to advance into an enlarged sphere. And when we 

 remember that there are those now in our country who are 

 earning with their hands the means of owning their homesteads, 

 educating their children, ornamenting their dwellings, clothing 

 themselves and their families so that a public assembly of our 

 laboring population in its best attire is a delight and an encour- 

 agement to every lover of humanity ; — when we remember all 

 this, we can understand what the opportunity and standard of 

 American labor are. And when we remember, also, how this 

 standard has advanced by the nature of onr institutions, and by 

 growing liberality of sentiment, within the last quarter of a 

 century, and how the most intelligent and humane employer 

 comprehends his responsibilities and relations, we cannot but 

 anticipate for this country a just and generous solution of that 

 question which has tried the profoundest thinkers of our day. 



It is to maintain this standard of labor in America that the 

 most anxious thought is now devoted. The influence of our 

 free institutions is already felt abroad ; and while our system of 



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