New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 | Page 7

existence has insured and guaranteed that liberty of conscience and that freedom of action which does not interfere with the prerogatives or privileges of a man's neighbors. Capital and labor are the two great elements upon which the prosperity and happiness of our people rest, and when, therefore, aggregations of the one are met by combinations of the other, it should be the aim of all to prevent the clashing of these great interests. The products of toil are worthless unless there be some means by which they can be substituted or transferred for that which labor requires. The concrete form in which these transactions are conducted is the money power or the capital of the land. Without work all of these fertile fields, these teeming towns, would have been impossible, and without a desire to benefit and elevate humanity, its onward progress would have been useless. To work, to labor, is man's bounden duty, and in the performance of the tasks which have been placed upon him, he should be encouraged, and his greatest incentive should be the knowledge that he may transmit to his children and his children's children a higher civilization and greater advantages than he himself possessed. Trade conditions which would permit to the toiler but a bare sustenance, the bare means of a livelihood, would be a hindrance to human progress, a hindrance not to be removed by all of the maxims of the philosopher or the theories of the doctrinaire. Promise without fulfillment is barren, but when you can place before the mechanic the assured fact that the performance of his duty means success in life, and that his non-performance means failure; when you can show him that this law is immutable, you have made of him a useful citizen and have instilled into his mind a firm belief that the freedom and liberty of which we boast is not an inchoate substance to be dreamed of and not enjoyed. But this desired result cannot be secured if combinations of capital, which produce the necessaries of life cheaper and better, are assailed as the enemies of mankind. There is always a mean between those who seek only a fair recompense and return for that which they produce, and those who seek undue advantages for the few at the expense of the many. The laws which have been enacted, if properly executed, are sufficient in their force and effect to encourage the one and to punish the other, but in our condemnation let us not forget that with the expansion that has come to our country, an expansion of our business relations is also necessary. This growth has brought us into intimate contact with the markets of the world, and in the struggle that is always before us, the competition of trade, if we are to hold our own among the world's producers, we should encourage and not hinder those who by their energy, their capital and their labor have banded together for the purpose of meeting these new conditions--problems which our individual efforts alone cannot solve, but which require the concentrated force and genius of both capital and labor. Incentive for good citizenship would indeed be lacking if there were taken from us the opportunities for development, the opportunities for the young man to follow in the footsteps of those who have written their names in the history of our country as the great captains of industry. Success will always follow perseverance and genius. Every heresy, every doctrine which would teach the young man of this country differently, is an insult to the intelligence of our people, and is in the direction of building up a dangerous element in American society which in time would threaten not only the peace and prosperity we enjoy, but our very institutions themselves. When you have placed before the young man all of his possibilities, you have made it impossible to make of our Republic a plutocracy controlled by the few at the expense of the many. The individual should count for as much as the aggregation of individuals, because an injury to the one will lead to the destruction of the many. The question of adjusting and harmonizing the relations of capital and labor is the problem before us to-day and is one which will become more urgent in the future. Its solution must be along those lines of constitutional right which every citizen has been guaranteed. Every man is entitled in the prosecution of his work to the broadest possible liberty of action and the protection of law, of that law which is the outgrowth of necessity and which seeks to encourage and not to oppress. Such recognition can always be secured if there is a determination upon the part of those charged with the responsibility