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ADDRESS BY REV. H. EDDY, D. D. 



After that date it took from $800 to $1000 in Confederate money 

 to buy one dollar in greenbacks. Thus you see that while our 

 soldiers were fighting in the field our country was not only saved 

 from bankruptcy, but was increasing in wealth beyond all prece- 

 dent. Although the men, who once composed the army and 

 fought down the rebellion, have but few government bonds, yet 

 they sunk canfederate notes to minus nothing and lifted gov- 

 ernment bonds to a premium. How much money, how many 

 millions, were made by those weary and foot blistering marches, by 

 those mighty raids, by those gallant charges; by those supreme 

 fidelities to the Union and the cause of humanity! But the Union 

 and the cause of humanity are not the thoughts here, as great and 

 glorious as they are; but the thought here and now is the aston- 

 ishing amount of wealth which has been the result of that work. 

 It must be counted by the billions, now almost equal to half the 

 wealth of all Europe; and yet there are in some quarters those 

 that complain of the pensions granted to those survivors of the 

 mighty army that performed this magnificent service to the coun- 

 try, and to the world. It is another case of the monkey using the 

 cat's paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, and giving poor puss 

 none of them for her own use, but blistering her pedal extremity 

 to the bone. ' 



Thus looking at labor in whatsoever aspect you please, and at 

 whatever period of the world's history, we find it the great pillar 

 bearing up the civilizations of the past. Going up Broadway, 

 New York, you will see a colossal statue of a man with a world- 

 globe on his shoulders. The classical man calls him Atlas or 

 atlasites, one of the ancient gods bearing the world forth on his 

 shoulders, but I call him labor, bearing on his shoulders the whole 

 financial world and all the material works that make society and 

 the world what they are. Who built London ? Who built Paris ? 

 Berlin ? Who built New York ? Who built the vessels that plow 

 every sea ? Who ornament the world, etc. ? There is mind here, 

 'tis true, but there is living muscle too. Both must be respected 

 and adaquately rewarded. 



There was also a fabled giant with a hundred hands and fifty 

 heads. They scholar him Briareus ; but I call him Labor, who 

 with his hundred hands and five hundred cunning fingers, with the 

 brain-power of fifty heads behind, has worked out all the wonder- 

 ful things of comfort, use and beauty that we see. Million handed 

 labor is thus knocking at the gates of day every morning the 

 world around. On the empire of labor the sun not sets. 



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