260 The Labor Question 



sion upon the real and dangerous evils which have 

 excited such just popular resentment. 



I thank you for listening to me. I have come 

 here to-day not to preach to you, but partly to tell 

 you how these matters look and. seem to me, and 

 partly to set forth certain facts which seem to me 

 to show the essential community that there is among 

 all of us who strive in good faith to do our duty as 

 American citizens. No man can do his duty who 

 does not work, and the work may take many dif 

 ferent shapes, mental and physical; but of this you 

 can rest assured, that this work can be done well for 

 the nation only when each of us approaches his 

 separate task, not only with the determination to do 

 it, but with the knowledge that his f ellc v, when he 

 in his turn does his task, has fundamentally the same 

 rights and the same duties, and that while each must 

 work for himself, yet each must also work for the 

 common welfare of all. 



On the whole, we shall all go up or go down to 

 gether. Some may go up or go down further than 

 others, but, disregarding special exceptions, the rule 

 is that we must all share in common something of 

 whatever adversity or whatever prosperity is in store 

 for the nation as a whole. In the long run each 

 section of the community will rise or fall as the 

 community rises or falls. If hard times come to the 

 nation, whether as the result of natural causes or 



