MECHANICS AND MANUFACTUKES. °^ 



are proud of our name. It means stout hearts and 

 arms, rendered strong and brawny by the '^greasy" 

 sweat of toil, ready always to strike for justice and right 

 We know our work here will soon be finished; we 

 know the great question soon to be raised over our 

 coffins, will be — what have we done ? and what is its 

 character and quality, and its benefits to society ? Is 

 not this the truly great and startling enquiry ? Will 

 it not continue to be, with more and more accumulative 

 force as civilization advances; till all other questions 

 are secondary and subordinate to it. It is true, a man 

 may subsist without producing. Nay^ live entirely upon 

 the industry and frugality of others, until by fiaud, or 

 by artifice, which is too often called shrewdness, he 

 becomes a pampered, and so far as his influence extends, 

 a gloated despot. Elated and bloated by his ill-gotten 

 wealth, pirated and wrung from the sweat and toil of 

 others, so that when death, whose keen and two-edged 

 sickle finds this empty bundle and bubble of humanity, 

 it breaks only upon his parasites or hired partizans, 

 and those who will pocket his dollars. Not one single 

 ripple will his transit to eternity produce upon life's 

 tidal current, and oblivion, deep, dark will throw over 

 his grave her impervious pall, for ever and ever, to be 

 thought of again only when the trump of the resurrec- 

 tion recalls him — for what did he do ? What has he done? 

 While such men, nay, such mechanics as Fulton and 

 Watt, Stephenson and Morse, Arkwright and Whitney, 

 Hoe and Bigelow, and names of such ilk, will live and 

 flourish in the blessings they have conferred, long^ 

 long, after their dust has become mother earth ; long, 

 long; after their resting places ^xq forgotten and unknown. 



