BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



There were other giants in ancient mythologies ; they seemed 

 to be prophecies of the future of man. These now referred to 

 were helpers of Vulcan in his workshop under Mount /Etna ; 

 they heat their metals by the eternal fires of the volcano. They 

 forged thunder-bolts for Jupiter and provided him with lightning ; 

 they made helmets for Hades (Death) and fashioned the trident 

 for the god of the sea ; the scholar calls them Cyclops. But I 

 call them workmen doing the great heavy works of the world ; 

 forging and moulding the vast machines which are now moving 

 you, lifting the world ; moulding with their great trip hammers the 

 iron clads with their armaments — the 300 pounder with its solid 

 shot, or the shell which they w T ing with flame on its pathway of 

 destruction. But all this I regard as a symbol of the power that 

 slumbers in the workman's arm and brain. His mind and hands 

 are taking hold of forces that must not be trifled with. What 

 will you do with this organized, consolidated strength, and then 

 completed by work on the farm, hardened in the blacksmith shop, 

 made massive in the forge, stiffened bv the long shoreman's toil, 

 rendered agile and fleet, quick and ready, on the railroad car ; 

 converted into brute force in the hundreds and thousands in our 

 mines and colleries, what will you do with this potential energy 

 sleeping in all their divisions of labor, when it is organized by 

 intelligence, concentrated by some mighty, designing will-power, 

 and crossed by a sense of injustice and wrong ? Let us reflect on 

 two things. First, that, when as twenty years ago it could hardly 

 be said that there was any literature pertaining to labor itself ; 

 now labor has a large literature in papers, lectures and books. 

 Newspapers exert a great influence on the labor question. There 

 are four hundred champions of labor in the printing press. This 

 is quite natural, for the vast majority of the kings of the press 

 were from the beginning poor, hard-working men, like Franklin 

 and Greeley. There are sixteen socialistic journals and four of 

 these are dailies. This would be very propitious and promising 

 was this literature connected with the spirit of true Christianity ; 

 for I hold there is no salvation for us only as love of Jesus pene- 

 trates the heart of the capitalist and the heart of the workman. 

 The other great fact to be reflected on is the growing unification 

 of the labor 'elements all over our vast domain ; from ocean to 

 ocean the work of consolidation goes on. Now what shall we do 

 with this Briarean power when it has a great Head center? 



There is power in the lightnings when they shiver the oak ; 

 there is power in the earthquake when it opens the solid rock ; 



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