ADDRESS. 13 



and tlio honored Executive of the nation have found embodi- 

 ment in the same person. 



American labor, then, is educated labor ; is free, independent 

 labor ; is cultivated labor. Thinks for itself; reasons for itself; 

 makes its own terms and fixes the value for its production. It 

 is well fed ; well housed ; well clothed. It is a necessity to 

 the development of the moral, intellectual and physical man ; it 

 is a growth of civilization and Christianity. 



Compare for a single mojnent the condition of an English la- 

 borer with that of an American laborer. Until very recently the 

 rate of wages paid an English laborer was two dollars a week ; it is 

 now about two dollars and a half. Out of this, the laborer must 

 pay from one to two shillings for house rent, and live in a hovel 

 at that ; provide food, clothing and fuel for himself and his fam- 

 ily. Not allowed to keep even a pig or a fowl for fear that he 

 may steal food for them from his employer. He works twelve 

 hours a day, and frequently sixteen and seventeen, and is never 

 paid for extra hours of work except by some present or gift 

 which is comparatively of trifling value. Says a paper, recently 

 read before the British Association for the advancement of sci- 

 ence, " The women earn seven or eight pence a day for out-door 

 work, and boys, small sums in proportion; the men breakfast be- 

 fore they leave home on tea-kettle-broth, which consists of an 

 infusion of bread and water, with a httle milk if they can get it. 

 For luncheon and dinner, which they can take with them, they 

 have coarse bread and a little hard, dry skim-milk cheese. For 

 supper, on their return home, they have potatoes and cabbage 

 with a small slice of bacon cooked with it, to give it seasoning. 

 Butcher's meat they seldom if ever see. They never lay by 

 anything. They are not long lived ; but often in their prime 

 are feeble, and at the age of fifty are generally past labor ; 

 the result of poor living, sour cider, a damp chmate, hard work 

 and anxiety combined. There remains for them nothing but 

 parish pay and the workhouse." This is a statement made be- 

 fore one of the leading Associations of Great Britain and is en- 

 dorsed by the Association as in accordance with the facts. This is 



