STATE CON VENTION—REPUBLICAN-DEMOCRACY, 171 
to the demands of society with a diminishing rather than an in¬ 
creasing body of hired help.” 
Office-seeking, for a like reason, becomes almost as inveterate as 
the pursuit of wealth, and a desire for personal popularity, in 
consequence, detracts somewhat from personal independence and 
decision of character. Our most popular men float on the cur¬ 
rent of popular opinion, and do not properly avail themselves of 
the advantages given them by position to do the most service to 
the people. They simply drift. On the other hand, I find, and 
particularly among our farmers, an intolerance of differences of 
belief that tends to mark and proscribe those who have opinions 
of their own, and dare own them. In other words, there is too 
much tjranny of public opinion. Our wives are afraid of Mrs. 
Grundy beyond computation ; and our respect for party and cau¬ 
cus is not less intense. Again, as a better result, an increasing 
sense of justice and consistency, combined with the spirit of 
equality, is enlarging the sphere of woman’s employment and in¬ 
creasing her wages. An increasing desire for personal indepen¬ 
dence is seen in the unwillingness to perform domestic service, or 
engage in other employments looked upon as menial. This, again, 
produces a tendency in the cities towards hotel life, to co opera¬ 
tive housekeeping, and, in the country, a drift toward village and 
city life. The outcome of this we cannot yet foretell; but it is 
fraught with important social consequences. 
4. As to the organization of labor, which is the result of the in¬ 
stinct of self-defense on the part of the working men of the coun¬ 
try, it would have no place in a republican-democracy as a means 
of defense, provided we were entirely consistent with our political 
principles. The individual wealth of the country has, compara¬ 
tively little power, and is redistributed in one or two generations. 
But corporate or stock wealth is a perpetual charge upon the peo¬ 
ple, and upon none so much as upon the laboring class, by which 
I mean the men dependent upon their daily, manual labor for 
support. Our laboring men have not only an undue share of the 
national debt to support, as consumers, but of the corporate stock 
of banks, insurance companies, railways, and other forms of fixed 
capital that must have its interest, whoever holds it. Corporate 
wealth, moreover, is strong and unscrupulous, compared with the 
