ADDRESS. 11 



was invention succeeded by invention, that it seemed as though 

 the world had been standing still for centuries. In one hundred 

 years of our American labor, civilization had been forwarded 

 more than during a thousand years preceding. It seemed a 

 triumphal march, as the genius and skill of man were turning 

 the crudest and most worthless productions of nature into sources 

 of wealth and luxury. 



The Puritans reasoned thus : " The more labor is dignified, 

 the more man is ennobled ; the more labor is respected, the more 

 elevated the character of the labor and the more elevated the 

 character of him who performed it." As a nation, we began 

 at the beginning ; — we began with man. We said, man had 

 rights as man, and that before the law the rights of all men 

 should be equal. We made the government for the man. To 

 protect, not to distress him ; 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 children. We still cling to the idea 

 that the government was created for the people, and not the peo- 

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

 ruts of the olden time. There is something fascinating about roy- 

 alty and knighthood and coats of arms and the power of wealth 

 which seeks to enthral 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. 



