AMERICAN LABOR AND ITS POSITION. 35 



should be equal. We made the government for the man ; to 

 protect, not to distress liim ; to lessen his care and anxiety, not 

 to increase it. And we made the rulers for the benefit of the 

 ruled ; not for their own aggrandizement, not to feed upon 

 the people, not to look down upon them, but to look up to 

 them and to serve them. 



Thus America had in its national existence a new element — 

 the element of manhood ; and the rulers were elected for the 

 people, and the laws were made for the people, and the wealth 

 of the people was turned to the good account of all men in the 

 nation. 



And the good work thus inaugurated by the fathers has not 

 been repudiated by the cliildren. We still cling to the idea that 

 the government was created for the people, and not the people 

 for the government. Yet there is a tendency to follow in the 

 ruts of the olden time. There is something fascinating about 

 royalty and knighthood, and coats of arms and the power of 

 wealth, which seeks to enthrall and enslave the weak and the 

 feeble. And in America we find the conflict still going on 

 between labor and capital, as though the fundamental law of 

 the land and the lives of the fathers had not fully settled the 

 question of priority of right. 



In our Southern States the conflict has been very severe, and 

 the question is not yet fully determined. 



The men who founded Jamestown believed in money and 

 family and blood. The men who established themselves at 

 Plymouth believed in the man more than in money ; in the 

 man more than in his ancestry ; in the man more than in his 

 blood. And the conflict has been waxing warmer and warmer 

 for more than seventy years, which of the descendants of the 

 two races should be recognized as American. The conflict 

 culminated in a resort to arms, in which the Puritan race 

 was triumphant and man was recognized above the fortunes 

 of birth or the influences of wealth. Thus the American gov- 

 ernment, in the breaking up of the institution of slavery and 

 in recognizing the equality of men, nationalized labor and gave 

 it the preference of capital. It said to the world, in a language 

 of no doubtful interpretation, " A man is a man." No matter 

 for birth, no matter for wealth, no matter for lands or titles, 

 manhood is the criterion by which man shall be tested ; and in 



