Have faith in Massachusetts Part 9

SEPTEMBER 1, 1919

The laws of our country have designated the first Monday of each September as Labor Day. It is truly an American day, for it was here that for the first time in history a government was founded on a recognition of the sovereignty of the citizen which has irresistibly led to a realization of the dignity of his occupation. It is with added propriety that this day is observed this year. For the first time in five years it comes at a time when the issue of world events makes it no longer doubtful whether the American conception of work as the crowning glory of men free and equal is to prevail over the age-old European conception that work is the badge of the menial and the inferior. The American ideal has prevailed on European battle-fields through the loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice of American labor.

The duty of citizenship in this hour is to strive to maintain and extend that ideal at home.

The past five years have been a time of rapid change and great progress for the American people. Not only have the hours and conditions of labor been greatly improved, but wages have increased about one hundred per cent. There has been a great economic change for the better among all wage-earners.

We have known that political power was with the people, because they have the votes. We have generally supposed that economic power was not with the people, because they did not own the property. This supposition, probably never true, is growing more and more to be contrary to the facts. The great outstanding fact in the economic life of America is that the wealth of the Nation is owned by the people of the Nation. The stockholders of the great corporations run into the hundreds of thousands, the small tradesmen, the thrifty householders, the tillers of the soil, the depositors in savings banks, and the now owners of government bonds, make a number that includes nearly our entire people. This would be ill.u.s.trated by a few Ma.s.sachusetts examples from figures which were reported in 1918:

_Number of Stockholders_

Railroads 40,485 Street railways 17,527 Telephone 49,688 Western Union Telegraph 9,360 ------- 117,060

_Number of Employees_

Railroads 20,604 Street railways 25,000 Telephone 11,471 Western Union Telegraph 2,065 ------ 59,140

Savings bank depositors 2,491,646

Railroad, street railway, and telephone bonds held by savings banks and savings departments of trust companies $267,795,636

Savings bank deposits $1,022,342,583

Money is pouring into savings banks at the rate of $275,000 each working day.

Comment on these figures is unnecessary. There is, of course, some reduplication, but in these four public service enterprises there are in Ma.s.sachusetts almost twice as many direct owners as there are employees.

Two persons out of three have money in the savings bank--men, women, and children. There is this additional fact: more than one quarter of the stupendous sum of over a billion dollars of the savings of nearly two and a half million savings depositors is invested in railroad, street railway, and telephone securities.

With these examples in mind it would appear that our problem of economic justice in Ma.s.sachusetts, where we live and for which alone we can legislate, is not quite so simple as a.s.suming that we can take from one cla.s.s and give to another cla.s.s. We are reaching and maintaining the position in this Commonwealth where the property cla.s.s and the employed cla.s.s are not separate, but identical. There is a relationship of interdependence which makes their interests the same in the long run.

Most of us earn our livelihood through some form of employment. More and more of our people are in possession of some part of the wages of yesterday, and so are investors. This is the ideal economic condition.

The great aim of our Government is to protect the weak--to aid them to become strong. Ma.s.sachusetts is an industrial State. If her people prosper, it must be by that means in some of its broad avenues. How can our people be made strong? Only as they draw their strength from our industries. How can they do that? Only by building up our industries and making them strong. This is fundamental. It is the place to begin. These are the instruments of all our achievement. When they fail, all fails.

When they prosper, all prosper. Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold, consolations, if there be no employment.

And employment can be had only if some one finds it profitable. The greater the profit, the greater the wages.

This is one of the economic lessons of the war. It should be remembered now when taxes are to be laid, and in the period of readjustment. Taxes must be measured by the ability to meet them out of surplus income.

Industry must expand or fail. It must show a surplus after all payments of wages, taxes, and returns to investors. Conscription can call once, then all is over. Just requirements can be met again and again with ever-increasing ability.

Justice and the general welfare go hand in hand. Government had to take over our transportation interests in order to do such justice to them that they could pay their employees and carry our merchandise. They have been so restricted lest they do harm that they became unable to do good.

Their surplus was gone, and we New Englanders had to go without coal.

Seeing now more clearly than before the true interests of wage-earner, investor, and the public, which is the consumer, we shall hereafter be willing to pay the price and secure the benefits of justice to all these coordinate interests.

We have met the economic problem of the returning service men. They have been a.s.similated into our industrial life with little delay and with no disturbance of existing conditions. The day of adversity has pa.s.sed. The American people met and overcame it. The day of prosperity has come. The great question now is whether the American people can endure their prosperity. I believe they can. The power to preserve America is in the same hands to-day that it was when the German army was almost at the gates of Paris. That power is with the people themselves; not one cla.s.s, but all cla.s.ses; not one occupation, but all occupations; not one citizen, but all citizens.

During the past five years we have heard many false prophets. Some were honest, but unwise; some plain slackers; a very few were simply public enemies. Had their counsels prevailed, America would have been destroyed. In general they appealed to the lower impulses of the people, for in their ignorance they believed the most powerful motive of this Nation was a sodden selfishness. They said the war would never affect us; we should confine ourselves to making money. They argued for peace at any price. They opposed selective service. They sought to prevent sending soldiers to Europe. They advocated peace by negotiation. They were answered from beginning to end by the loyalty of the American workingmen and the wisdom of their leaders. That loyalty and that wisdom will not desert us now. The voices that would have lured us to destruction were unheeded. All counsels of selfishness were unheeded, and America responded with a spirit which united our people as never before to the call of duty.

Having accomplished this great task, having emerged from the war the strongest, the least burdened nation on earth, are we now to fail before our lesser task? Are we to turn aside from the path that has led us to success? Who now will set selfishness above duty? The counsel that Samuel Gompers gave is still sound, when he said in effect, "America may not be perfect. It has the imperfections of all things human. But it is the best country on earth, and the man who will not work for it, who will not fight for it, and if need be die for it, is unworthy to live in it."

Happily, the day when the call to fight or die is now past. But the day when it is the duty of all Americans to work will remain forever. Our great need now is for more of everything for everybody. It is not money that the nation or the world needs to-day, but the products of labor.

These products are to be secured only by the united efforts of an entire people. The trained business man and the humblest workman must each contribute. All of us must work, and in that work there should be no interruption. There must be more food, more clothing, more shelter. The directors of industry must direct it more efficiently, the workers in industry must work in it more efficiently. Such a course saved us in war; only such a course can preserve us in peace. The power to preserve America, with all that it now means to the world, all the great hope that it holds for humanity, lies in the hands of the people. Talents and opportunity exist. Application only is uncertain. May Labor Day of 1919 declare with an increased emphasis the resolution of all Americans to work for America.

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WESTFIELD

SEPTEMBER 3, 1919

We come here on this occasion to honor the past, and in that honor render more secure the present. It was by such men as settled Westfield, and two hundred and fifty years ago established by law a chartered and ordered government, that the foundations of Ma.s.sachusetts were laid. And it was on the foundations of Ma.s.sachusetts that there began that training of the people for the great days that were to come, when they were prepared to endorse and support the principles set out in the Declaration of Independence, the Const.i.tution of the United States of America, and the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. Here were planted the same seeds of righteousness victorious which later flourished with such abundance at Saratoga, at Gettysburg, and at the second battle of the Marne. Stupendous results, the product of a people working with an everlasting purpose.

While celebrating the history of Westfield, this day has been set apart to the memory of one of her most ill.u.s.trious sons, General William Shepard. To others are a.s.signed the history of your town and the biography of your soldier. Into those particulars I shall not enter. But the principles of government and of citizenship which they so well represent, and n.o.bly ill.u.s.trate, will never be untimely or unworthy of reiteration.

The political history of Westfield has seen the success of a great forward movement, to which it contributed its part, in establishing the principle, that the individual in his rights is supreme, and that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

It is the establishment of liberty, under an ordered form of government, in this ancient town, by the people themselves, that to-day draws us here in admiration of her achievements. When we turn to the life of her patriot son we see that he no less grandly ill.u.s.trated the principle, that to such government, so established, the people owe an allegiance which has the binding power of the most solemn obligation.

There is such a disposition in these days to deny that our Government was formed by, or is now in control of, the people, that a glance at the history of the days of General Shepard is peculiarly pertinent and instructive.

The Const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts, with its n.o.ble Declaration of Rights, was adopted in 1780. Under it we still live with scarce any changes that affect the rights of the people. The end of the Revolutionary War was 1783. Shays's Rebellion was in 1787. The American Const.i.tution was ratified and adopted in 1788. These dates tell us what the form of government was in this period.

If there are any who doubt that our inst.i.tutions, formed in those days, did not establish a peoples' government, let them study the action of the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention which ratified the Federal Const.i.tution in 1788. Presiding over it was the popular patriot Governor John Hanc.o.c.k.

On the floor sat Samuel Adams, who had been the father of the Revolution, preeminent champion of the liberty of the people. Such an influence had he, that his a.s.sertion of satisfaction, was enough to carry the delegates. Like a majority of the members he came opposed to ratification. Having totally thrown off the authority of foreign power, they came suspicious of all outside authority. Besides there were eighteen members who had taken part in Shays's Rebellion, so hostile were they to the execution of all law. Mr. Adams was finally convinced by a gathering of the workingmen among his const.i.tuents, who exercised their const.i.tutional right of instructing their representatives. Their opinion was presented to him by Paul Revere. "How many mechanics were at the Green Dragon when these resolutions were pa.s.sed?" asked Mr. Adams.

"More, sir, than the Green Dragon could hold." "And where were the rest?" "In the streets, sir." "And how many were in the streets?" "More than there are stars in the sky." This is supposed to have convinced the great Ma.s.sachusetts tribune that it was his duty to support ratification.

There were those, however, who distrusted the Const.i.tution and distrusted its proponents. They viewed lawyers and men of means with great jealousy. Amos Singletary expressed their sentiments in the form of an argument that has not ceased to be repeated in the discussion of all public affairs. "These lawyers," said he, "and men of learning and moneyed men that talk so finely and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterates swallow the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves. They mean to be managers of the Const.i.tution. They mean to get all the money into their hands and then they will swallow up us little folk, like the great Leviathan, Mr. President: yes, just like the whale swallowed up Jonah." In the convention sat Jonathan Smith, a farmer from Lanesboro. He had seen Shays's Rebellion in Berkshire. There had been no better example of a man of the people desiring the common good.

"I am a plain man," said Mr. Smith, "and am not used to speak in public, but I am going to show the effects of anarchy, that you may see why I wish for good government. Last winter people took up arms, and then, if you went to speak to them, you had the musket of death presented to your breast. They would rob you of your property, threaten to burn your houses, oblige you to be on your guard night and day. Alarms spread from town to town, families were broken up; the tender mother would cry, 'Oh, my son is among them! What shall I do for my child?' Some were taken captive; children taken out of their schools and carried away....

How dreadful was this! Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to s.n.a.t.c.h at anything that looked like a government.... Now, Mr. President, when I saw this Const.i.tution, I found that it was a cure for these disorders. I got a copy of it, and read it over and over.... I did not go to any lawyer, to ask his opinion; we have no lawyer in our town, and we do well enough without. My honourable old daddy there (pointing to Mr. Singletary) won't think that I expect to be a Congressman, and swallow up the liberties of the people. I never had any post, nor do I want one. But I don't think the worse of the Const.i.tution because lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men are fond of it. I am not of such a jealous make. They that are honest men themselves are not apt to suspect other people.... Brother farmers, let us suppose a case, now. Suppose you had a farm of 50 acres, and your t.i.tle was disputed, and there was a farm of 5000 acres joined to you that belonged to a man of learning, and his t.i.tle was involved in the same difficulty; would you not be glad to have him for your friend, rather than to stand alone in the dispute? Well, the case is the same. These lawyers, these moneyed men, these men of learning, are all embarked in the same cause with us, and we must all sink or swim together. Shall we throw the Const.i.tution overboard because it does not please us all alike? Suppose two or three of you had been at the pains to break up a piece of rough land and sow it with wheat: would you let it lie waste because you could not agree what sort of a fence to make? Would it not be better to put up a fence that did not please every one's fancy, rather than keep disputing about it until the wild beasts came in and devoured the crop?

Some gentlemen say, Don't be in a hurry; take time to consider. I say, There is a time to sow and a time to reap. We sowed our seed when we sent men to the Federal Convention, now is the time to reap the fruit of our labour; and if we do not do it now, I am afraid we shall never have another opportunity."

There spoke the common sense of the common man of the Commonwealth. The counsel of the farmer from the country, joined with the resolutions of the workingmen from the city, carried the convention and the Const.i.tution was ratified. In the light of succeeding history, who shall say, that it was not the voice of the people, speaking with the voice of Infinite Authority?

The att.i.tude of Samuel Adams, William Shepard, Jonathan Smith and the workingmen of Boston toward government, is worthy of our constant emulation. They had not hesitated to take up arms against tyranny in the Revolution, but having established a government of the people they were equally determined to defend and support it. They hated the usurper whether king, or Parliament, or mob, but they bowed before the duly const.i.tuted authority of the people.

When the question of pardoning the convicted leaders of the rebellion came up, Adams opposed it. "In monarchies," he said, "the crime of treason and rebellion may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished; but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death." We are all glad mercy prevailed and pardon was granted.

But the calm judgment of Samuel Adams, the lover of liberty, "the man of the town meeting" whose clear vision, taught by bitter experience, saw that all usurpation is tyranny, must not go unheeded now. The authority of a just government derived from the consent of the governed, has back of it a Power that does not fail.

All wars bring in their trail great hardships. They existed in the day of General Shepard. They exist now. Having set up a sound government in Ma.s.sachusetts, having secured their independence, as the result of a victorious war, the people expected a season of easy prosperity. In that they were temporarily disappointed. Some rebelling, were overthrown. The adoption of the Federal Const.i.tution brought relief and prosperity.

Success has attended the establishment here of a government of the people. We of this day have just finished a victorious war that has added new glory to American arms. We are facing some hardships, but they are not serious. Private obligations are not so large as to be burdensome. Taxes can be paid. Prosperity abounds. But the great promise of the future lies in the loyalty and devotion of the people to their own Government. They are firm in the conviction of the fathers, that liberty is increased only by increasing the determination to support a government of the people, as established in this ancient town, and defended by its patriotic sons.

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