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 HC 105.A87 
 
 The elements of national prosperity ... 
 
 3 1924 013 941 095 
 
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 ihlSTRIBUmD Bt THE SOClkTrFOEFdllTlOAL EplJGMl 
 
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 STATIONAL PEOePBRITY; 
 
 '''\:A2f ADDRESS BY 
 
 EDWARD ATKIISfSOi^ 
 
 AT THE ,, 
 
 #peTthi|[ of tl)e Sfconlj i[nnuai JFatr of %z'^t\a itigtanU 
 
 '"■'; IX HOSTON, 
 
 Wednesday, SEri'EMSER 6, 1882. 
 
 UlSTBIBVTEp BY TBE SOCIETY FOR POLItlGAt EDUCATjtON TO ITS MEM 
 
 '-■:,: ' iBm.WITBBNDOBSEMEET/ANliiBEdOMMEND-ATim. /:, .,- , 
 
 FEAKKMN PRESS : RAND, AVERY, & CO. 
 
 ■■ ■- "''■ •:■'■■<:■"'' ■ -: '■ 1882,:/ ; ' '" ' "'■■'"■ 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013941095 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 EDWARD ATKINSON" 
 
 ©penmg of t\)e &zconti Annual JFair 
 
 New England Manufacturers' and Medianics' Institute, 
 
 IN BOSTON, 
 
 Wedjsesday, September 6, 1882. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 FRANKLIN PRESS : RAND, AVERY, & CO. 
 
 1882. 
 
(^' 
 
 A«7 
 
 (^ L/^l ^ 3 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Me. Peesident, Gentlemen op the New England Man- 
 
 TTEACTUEBBS' AND MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, LadIES AND GEN- 
 TLEMEN, — I have been asked tg open this Fair with an address 
 which shall indicate the purposes and methods of its work, as 
 they are defined in the minds of those who founded this Asso- 
 ciation : I will come directly to the subject without taking up 
 your time with any further introduction. I shall speak with- 
 out much regard to the danger of being dry or abstruse, but 
 will endeavor, as far as in me lies, to present thoughts which 
 will be, at least in some degree, commensurate with the impor- 
 tance of the occasion. I shall not hesitate to reiterate some 
 statements to which I have previously called attention, but 
 which can hardly be too often presented. I shall spare you 
 statistics as much as possible : they will be found in the notes 
 if this address is published. 
 
 The purpose of this Fair is instruction in the application of 
 science to the useful arts. In what manner and to what extent 
 this purpose may yet be developed, depends upon the way in 
 which it is sustained by exhibitors and by the public. Its 
 method is to bring annually into public notice . all the recent 
 improvements in machinery, tools, and appliances, to which the 
 inventors, promoters, or owners desire to call attention, with a 
 view to their general introduction. Its medal is a dollar, 
 earned in recompense for a service rendered. It is based upon 
 the simple and fundamental yet little-understood principle, that, 
 in all true commerce, men serve each other. 
 
 It also gives to sections, to states, to railway corporations, 
 and to individuals, the opportunity to bring here, and spread 
 
before the eye, examples of the undeveloped resources in which 
 they are severally interested ; to exhibit the potentiality of the 
 future ; and to show the way to the place where men may sup- 
 ply their wants, and attain welfare. 
 
 To this end, especial attention has this year been given to 
 the great middle section of our Southern land, — the land of 
 high and beautiful mountains, the highest east of the Missis- 
 sippi ; heavily timbered to their very tops ; divided into ranges 
 by upland valleys of unequalled beauty, salubrity, and fer- 
 tility; underlain by "all the minerals which animate the arts;" 
 and surrounded by broad upland plateaus where every crop of 
 the temperate and semi-tropical zones finds its true soil and 
 climate. 
 
 To this grand tangible prophecy of future national welfare 
 I call your attention ; and I may repeat to you what I have 
 said to the people of the South, in the hall of their great Expo- 
 sition at Atlanta, knowing that you will respond as heartily as 
 they responded. With them let us all be thankful that the 
 principle of liberty established by our common ancestors — by 
 Washington and Adams, by Patrick Henry and John Han- 
 cock, by Laurens and Hamilton — - could not be subdued, but 
 has dominated both them and ourselves. Let us thank God 
 that the Potomac has not become the Rhine dividing two hos- 
 tile nations, and rendering the oppression of great standing 
 armies necessary for each ; but that this " Union stands, now 
 and forever, one and inseparable," bound by the iron bands 
 over which peaceful commerce finds its unobstructed way, and 
 by the common interests of mutual service which only freemen 
 can render to each other. 
 
 We welcome our Southern brethren to this Fair, and invite 
 their co-operation in carrying out its purpose and in sustaining 
 its methods. No broader, more national, or more beneficent 
 purpose could be presented; and it being a most righteous 
 purpose its methods will develop themselves as time goes on. 
 It cannot fail. Why is it necessary? The answer is plain. 
 Prosperity consists mainly in ample production, sustained by 
 quick and ready distribution ; not much in what is commonly 
 known as accumulated wealth. It is given to very few mem- 
 
bers, even of this community, and to a j^et smaller portion 
 of the human, race, to possess wealth and leisure under such 
 conditions that they may devote themselves to science, art, or 
 knowledge, for their own sakes only and without regard to 
 their application to industry. 
 
 It is a matter of necessity, and always will be, that by far 
 the larger part of the community — at least nine out of ten, 
 probably more — shall earn their daily bread by their daily 
 work. The true end to be sought, therefore, is to make that 
 daily work less arduous. 
 
 It is. not of much consequence that dollars shall be more 
 plenty if' each dollar will buy more in this year than it did in 
 the last. 
 
 I shall presently prove to you that the measure of comfort 
 which each man, woman, and child can yet enjoy on the aver- 
 age, even in this prosperous land, must come within what half a 
 dollar a day — possibly, not even probably, sixty cents — will 
 buy at present prices. 
 
 The computations of the value of annual product ■will be given 
 farther on. Difierent economists have varied in this computation 
 in such measure, that their estimates, applied to our present popu- 
 lation, would range from seventy-five hundred to ten thousand mil- 
 lion dollars. I have adopted the latter, which gives half a dollar a 
 day to each man, woman, and child. 
 
 We now number about fifty-four million, or we shall reach that 
 number veiy soon. The following table will show how rapidly an 
 addition of products to the value of five cents a day, per capita, 
 increases the gross annual product: — 
 
 At 35 cents per day 
 
 our annual product is 
 
 
 
 $6,898,500,000 
 
 40 " 
 
 
 
 
 7,884,000,000 
 
 45 " 
 
 
 
 
 8,869,500,000 
 
 60 " 
 
 
 
 
 9,855,000,000 
 
 65 " 
 
 
 
 
 10,840,500,000 
 
 60 " 
 
 
 
 
 11,826,000,000 
 
 65 " " 
 
 
 
 
 12,811,500,000 
 
 70 " 
 
 
 
 
 13,797,000,000 
 
 Even the whole waste and cost of war must come from each year's 
 product during the war itself, except such munitions as may be 
 borrowed from other countries. Debt incurred for war merely defers 
 payment. 
 
 The first question of wages is a question of quantity, — how much 
 is there produced ? 
 
6 
 
 The second question is the question of price, — what is the product 
 worth? 
 
 The third question, the question of distribution, — what share of 
 the product at its price does the workman receive? 
 
 The wages fund is not the quantity of things previously produced, 
 but it is substantially the quantity produced at the time or in the year 
 in which the work is done. 
 
 Fifty cents a day is very surely the average measure of the 
 subsistence, savings, and taxes of each person. One dollar a 
 day for each adult, two dollars a day for each family group 
 of two adults and two children, is the limit, because there is 
 probably no more to buy. By so much as some of you enjoy 
 more, others must have less, if such is the measure of all there 
 is annually produced. What have each one of you done, what 
 are you doing now, to entitle you to more than what half a 
 dollar a day will pay for in food and fuel, shelter and cloth- 
 ing? Are you rendering service equivalent to your greater 
 gain? Are you engaged in useful work by which the abun- 
 dance of things is increased, and the general struggle for life 
 made easier? 
 
 That is the purpose of those who have founded this Associa- 
 tion! The glowing visions of quick and beneficent results, 
 which moved our friend Mr. Mudge, — whose presence we miss 
 and whose absence we mourn so much to-day, — may perhaps 
 only be an incentive to us to try to realize them; but what 
 can be done by the zeal and practical energy of your present 
 president and his associates, we may be sure will be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 This measure of subsistence is indeed very limited ; but only 
 those can be permanently helped to enlarge it who can help 
 themselves : and few have done more to establish the practical 
 arts upon a scientific basis by which abundance may be increased, 
 than the men who remain in charge of this work, and who con- 
 trol and direct the work of this Association. 
 
 The small minority of the people who can become the pos- 
 sessors of capital in any large measure, even in this great and 
 prosperous nation, must justify the leisure which they or their 
 fathers have earned, by the use which they make of the time 
 and means at their disposal. 
 
The great benefit which ensues in the application of modern 
 inventions to useful productions consists not in the accumula- 
 tion of wealth, but in the general relief brought about by these 
 inventions in the daily work of life. A larger product, and 
 therefore more ample consumption, are assured from less labor, 
 measured either by hours or by effort; dangerous and noxious 
 conditions of work are abated or alleviated; and it can be 
 clearly foreseen that the time is not far distant — if it is not 
 now present — - when even a moderate degree of intelligence and 
 of effort will assure a reasonably good subsistence to every man 
 and woman in the community, who is not disqualified from work 
 by laziness, vice, or inherent disease. These new inventions and 
 appliances also increase wealth ; but, so far from its being proved 
 that such an increase is of necessity complemented by increase 
 of poverty, in this country at least the very reverse is tru'e. If 
 my observations possess any value, they prove to me that mate- 
 rial prosperity, measured in terms of wealth or income, is like 
 a pyramid constantly rising as if lifted from above, as well as 
 sustained from beneath ; and as the apex of the great fortunes 
 steadily rises, while such fortunes are relatively few in number, 
 they do not burden those who are below ; but they lift the base 
 higher and higher, and make room for increasing numbers who, 
 except for this lifting power of capital, could have found no 
 place, and might have starved ; while, on the other hand, those 
 who come in at the base, which grows broader and broader with 
 each year, sustain the fortunes of those who are above, without 
 being oppressed by them. The prosperity of each and all rests 
 upon the basis of certain definite rules for the possession of 
 individual property both in land and things, — property in pos- 
 session, and property in use. 
 
 Yet these very rules which have taken the form of statute- 
 laws, and which have been gradually evolved in the experience 
 of men, may themselves be abused, and may become instruments 
 which for a time retard progress rather than promote it. This 
 may be especially true in respect to the possession of land. 
 
 At the foundation of all property, and underlying all consid- 
 erations affecting the title to things made by human labor, lies 
 the qtiestion of the title to land. Every thing which can be 
 
applied to hutnan subsistence must come either from the field, 
 the forest, the sea, or the mine. To the multitudinous seas, no 
 individual claims title ; but to the land, many claim it. From 
 whom is their title derived ? There are no direct grants from 
 the Almighty; but it has been proved in the course of human 
 experience that land itself is but a tool, the most productive 
 use of which depends upon individual possession. Where mere 
 possession is abused rather than used, and any large portion of 
 the product is diverted from the subsistence of those who do 
 the work, — in the form of rent to absentee owners, as in Ire- 
 land ; or in the form of taxes for the support of great standing 
 armies, as in Germany and France, — revolutionary changes, 
 either under the forms of law or in spite of law, may become 
 necessary. 
 
 Wirtness the acts of legislation lately passed by the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain, which are in part acts of bankruptcy for 
 the discharge of debts incurred for rent, and in part a recovery 
 by the nation of the control of titles to land, which have been 
 abused. 
 
 How soon may similar acts become necessary in England and 
 Scotland, no man can tell. Perhaps our present great harvest 
 in the United States, meeting a fair harvest in Europe, may so 
 reduce the price of food as to make even the present reduced 
 payments of rent on English land impossible ; and then must 
 inevitably come a profound change, in the whole system of Eng- 
 lish land-tenure, and a yet greater change in the forms of Eng- 
 lish societ)', under which seven thousand people now claim title 
 to four-fifths of her whole soil. Appalling as these questions 
 are, thej"^ are simple compared to those which must be solved 
 upon the Continent. The standing armies of Europe are as 
 impossible to be sustained many years longer, as they are to be 
 disbanded, without bringing society almost to a state of anarchy ; 
 yet they must be disbanded in the face of our competition for 
 the commerce of the world, when we become conscious of our 
 own strength, and claim our full share in the peaceful conquest 
 of nations. 
 
 Witness the great migration, partly forced and partly volun- 
 tary, from these overburthened lands. To this country, in 
 
9 
 
 which the proportion of adults in the total population is already- 
 greater than in many other nations, — have come nearly a million 
 and a half of immigrants, mostly in the prime of life, in the last 
 two fiscal years ; and in the present year a million more may 
 come. We are engaged in a work by which the antagonisms of 
 race and language of the Old World will be overcome. Democ- 
 racy is the solvent, and the common school is the crystallizing 
 medium. Presently the people of this land will have ingrafted 
 upon the narrow but versatile intellect of the Yankee, the cour- 
 age and endurance of the Englishman, without his pig-headed- 
 ness ; the cleanliness of the Dutchman, without his stolidity ; 
 the thrift of the French peasant, without his superstition ; the 
 artistic sense of the Italian, without his treachery ; the wit of 
 the Irishman, without his incapacity to trust his neighbor ; the 
 philosophy of the German, without his scepticism ; the acquisi- 
 tiveness of the Jew, without his selfishness; the manual dex- 
 terity of the Chinaman, without his idolatry ; and the fun and 
 music of the Negro, without his shiftlessness. 
 
 Will not such a polyglot race make something of this land 
 more than we can yet conceive ? What will its moral and ma- 
 terial influence be a century hence'/ 
 
 But what — some one may ask — is the application of this 
 statement to our present purpose ? What have we to do with 
 the Irish question? Where is the connection with this Fair? 
 It is partly this, — that the Iiish peasants who are being forced 
 to migrate will, many of them, come here ; with them are com- 
 ing Italians and Germans, also forced to migrate by similar 
 causes : and unless we provide in the right way for the instruc- 
 tion of the children of these adults, who are now, and have long 
 been, almost paupers, we shall have the Irish question forced 
 upon us, only in a new form ; and that form will be, how to deal 
 with a mass of people, who, without fault of their own, have 
 become incapable of availing themselves of the advantages of 
 the modern applications of science, and for whose merely man- 
 ual labor or brute force there may be less and less demand as 
 time goes on. Long years, ay, centuries of submission to the 
 privilege of class and caste, to bad systems of land-tenure, to 
 the intolerance of a priesthood jealous of intelligence, and to 
 
10 
 
 prejudice against wealth, have prepared many of these new- 
 comers to become the dangerous element in our body politic, — 
 the tools of the demagogue and the instruments of the knave ; 
 and, unless we can reform and regenerate their children, our 
 children may be called upon to face economic questions which 
 nothing but force can settle. 
 
 It takes two to make a bargain — that is, to make an ex- 
 change ; and it often happens that the very things which every 
 one needs can be produced in greatest abundance, but there is 
 no possibility for many to share the abundance, because they 
 have not been so trained as to be able to render a service in 
 exchange ; they are only common laborers ; and at that time, 
 and in that place, common labor is not wanted. 
 
 The material welfare of a people depends, as I have said, not 
 upon one, but upon two factors, which are each the necessary 
 complement of the other: — 
 1st, An abundant production. 
 2d, A quick and equitable distribution. 
 
 Bad institutions ; the unwarranted interference of statutes 
 with individual rights ; the abuse of the power of taxation ; the 
 waste of public money; the creation of a class of public spend- 
 thrifts who batten upon the labor of a people under the forms 
 of law ; ignorance among great masses, and incapacity to adopt 
 the new industrial methods which every day assume new forms, 
 — may, even in this country, as in all others, interfere with 
 equitable distribution, and promote scarcity. 
 
 Witness the burden of the standing armies and of the privi- 
 leges of the few in other countries, to which I shall presently 
 call your attention more directly. True, we are free from these 
 special evils ; but let us ask ourselves, how long can we bear 
 without moral, mental, and material degradation, the corruption 
 of the civil service, the spoils system in politics, and the abuses 
 of the power of taxation in cities, states, and nation, which are 
 not only a consequence, but a most potent cause of civil-service 
 corruption ? 
 
 But let me return from this digression. The subsistence of 
 each year consists mainly in the distribution of the products of 
 the soil, the forest, and the mine, of that special year : perhaps 
 
11 
 
 a small part of the product of one, or, at most, of the two pre- 
 vious seasons, are consumed this year ; while a small pg,rt of this 
 year's product is saved for the next. 
 
 In respect to food, the world as a whole is always within one 
 year of partial starvation. If work ceased, the most prosperous 
 country would be reduced to general starvation in two, or at 
 the utmost three years. 
 
 In respect to clothing, and the materials for clothing, the 
 world is always within two or three years of becoming naked. 
 
 In respect to shelter, if work should cease, and repairs were 
 not done, the world would be houseless and homeless almost in 
 a single decade. 
 
 In respect to the common ways, our roads would soon become 
 impassable, if not maintained year by year ; our railways would 
 be dangerous and presently useless, if , the trackmen did not 
 keep up their daily inspection and repair. 
 
 In respect even to the great works and factories, it has come 
 to be the conclusion after long observation, even of the most 
 sagacious, that it is almost useless to plan any thing except 
 foundations for a life of more than twenty-five years ; and 
 within that term, in almost every department of manufacturing 
 and mechanical work, all the machinery will have been once or 
 twice wholly changed. Hence it follows that each year's life is 
 substantially sustained by each year's work ; and this work can 
 never cease, because it is almost wholly spent in sustaining 
 existence : but little can be saved. 
 
 It is impossible to prove what portion of each year's product 
 constitutes its cost. I think, from my own observation, fully 
 ninety per cent. 
 
 Within the limits of this address, I cannot give the data on which 
 this conclusion is based; but I think it will be apparent that at least 
 nine-tenths of the value or substance of our annual product, whatever 
 its amount may be, must be shared among those who constitute the 
 working force, if the following unquestioned facts are considered. 
 
 The capital invested in all the departments of manufacture of 
 Massachusetts does not exceed in amount one-half the value of the 
 gross product of manufactured goods: five per cent profit on the goods 
 will therefore yield ten per cent per annum on the capital. At this 
 rate all the capital will be supplied and invested which the demand 
 for the goods will warrant. 
 
12 
 
 It therefore follows, that, -wherever an opportunity can be found to 
 pay ninety-five parts in a hundred to workmen and for materials, that 
 opportunity will be taken. 
 
 The same analysis may be applied to the raw materials used in the 
 factories; and the same rule will serve, except that, as a rule, the pro- 
 portion of capital necessary for the production of raw material is less 
 than is needed in the factory: therefore a larger share of the annual 
 product of raw material must be assigned to labor. 
 
 In respect to distribution, it may be considered that the range of 
 commissions and of profits in large establishments is from one to five 
 per cent; and from this small commission all the subsistence of those 
 who do the work is paid. 
 
 No great merchant of modern times can save for himself one per 
 cent, or one dollar in a hundred, of the value of the goods in which he 
 deals. I therefore think it can be proved that nine parts in every ten 
 of each year's product are divided among those who do the daily work 
 for their daily bread, and that ten parts in a hundred are the utmost 
 that can ever be set aside for the maintenance or increase of capital 
 or of wealth. 
 
 Nine-tenths at least of our annual product are therefore spent in 
 its production or in its distribution, and therefore constitute the cost 
 of each year's subsistence. 
 
 This estimate is very surely a safe one. If the annual product is 
 greater than I have computed it, then even a larger proportion is 
 consumed, and a lesser percentage is saved. 
 
 It would be interesting and instructive if census data could 
 be compiled which would give accurately the measure of our 
 annual product in terms of money, and also determine the por- 
 tion spent for mere subsistence ; but it is practically impossible. 
 The difficulties are, first, the home or family consumption of 
 the agricultural population, which never finds a place in our 
 market-reports. Even the ascertained market value of our 
 dairy product is as great or greater than that of the com- 
 mercial cotton-crop; but who can measure the value of the 
 milk consumed on the farm? Again, cotton, wool, leather, 
 iron, and the like, are listed in the census under their own 
 titles, but are duplicated as a part of the value of the manu- 
 factured goods. 
 
 There is, however, one way of making an approximation to 
 the value of our annual product and its expenditure, and an 
 estimate of our annual savings. We now number about fifty- 
 
13 
 
 four million, over one-fourth of whom are adult males of yot- 
 ing age ; and it may therefore be assumed that another fourth 
 are adult women. If we assume that the actual subsistence, 
 repairs of dwellings, public expenses, and other annual items of 
 cost, including all the home productions consumed on the farms, 
 would have a value, if all were priced at the market standard, 
 of one hundred and fifty dollars a year per capita, or forty-one 
 cents a day, then our annual product which is consumed must 
 be priced at eighty-one hundred million dollars. This would be 
 six hundred dollars a year for each family group of four, aside 
 from savings. 
 
 I do not think it possible to assume less than forty-one cents 
 a day as the cost of subsistence, cost of repairs of dwellings, and 
 proportion of national, state, and municipal taxes, for each mem- 
 ber of the nation, men, women, and children included, and 
 also including domestic farm consumption. 
 
 If this sum measures in money the actual cost, that is to say, 
 the consumption necessary for each year's work, and if this is 
 ninety per cent of each year's product, then we have a product 
 of the value of nine thousand million dollars, and an annual 
 surplus, used either to maintain or added in part to the wealth 
 and in part to the capital of the country, of nine hundred 
 million dollars. 
 
 If the average daily measure of the annual product consumed 
 by each person be a little more, or forty-five cents a day, con- 
 stituting nine-tenths of that day's product, then the total meas- 
 ure of production is fifty cents for each man, woman, and child. 
 This would give ninety cents a day for the value to themselves 
 of the work of the adult men and women who compose one- 
 half the population, and ten cents over for the maintenance and 
 increase of capital, counting three hundred and sixty-five days 
 to the year. At this rate the annual product of each adult 
 man and woman is measured at one dollar a day, or at three 
 hundred and sixty-five dollars a year ; of which 1328.50 is ex- 
 pended for the subsistence, shelter, and taxes of one adult and 
 one child ; and $36.50 is set aside for the maintenance and in- 
 crease of capital. At these rates, our total annual product, if 
 measured in money, would be $9,855,000,000, or in round fig- 
 
14 
 
 uras 110,000,000,000 worth a year ; and the portion set aside 
 for the maintenance and increase of capital, ten per cent, or 
 in round figures $1,000,000,000. A large part of this latter 
 measure, more than one-half, must be applied to the mainte- 
 nance of existing capital ; the rest is added to the wealth or 
 to the capital of the country. 
 
 In point of fact, the census data, as far as we have them, tend 
 to prove these figures to be substantially correct, especially of 
 the measure of the annual product to be assigned to each one 
 of the working force ; the real working force being less than 
 one-half of the population, and the average product somewhat 
 over the measure of one dollar a day for the year through, 
 including Sundays, so far as the data are yet published. 
 
 It may seem almost appalling to those who are not accus- 
 tomed to submit to such a narrow measure of comfort, to be 
 assured that the total annual subsistence, shelter, and taxes of 
 each man, woman, and child, together with the entire margin 
 for the profit or saving, must come within the measure of what 
 half a dollar a day will buy ; yet this must be so, because that 
 is probably the measure in money, at market prices, of all that 
 is produced. We cannot have more than there is, and this is 
 very surely all there is. Even if it be seventy cents a day, 
 would it not then be true that one-tenth part of the people of 
 the world little know how the other nine-tenths live ? 
 
 The family unit of this country consists practically of four persons, 
 there being one adult male of voting age in each four. At fifty cents 
 per capita, as the measure of the total production (including domestic 
 farm consumption), the gross value of each day's average product 
 ■would be two dollars ; equal to seven hundred and thirty dollars per 
 year for each family. Ten p.er cent off, for the maintenance and "in- 
 crease of wealth and capital, leaves six hundred and fifty-seven dollars 
 per year net; which would be, under these conditions, the average 
 measure of consumption of each group of four persons, including all 
 taxes, at the retail prices of commodities — that is to say, at the 
 prices which measure the final distribution of all products. 
 
 National, state, and municipal taxes divert about seven per cent 
 
 of the computed annual product from the pockets of the producers 
 
 to those who perforia the necessary functions of government : this 
 
 deduction for taxes leaves a little over six hundred dollars a year net 
 
 - to each family of four persons. 
 
15 
 
 This is a large estimate for an average family of four, rather than 
 a small one; and I have erred, if at all, on the liberal side of the esti- 
 mate; my point being to prove that the average subsistence of each 
 man, woman, and child in this prosperous country, must be limited to 
 the measure of what forty to fifty cents a day will buy. 
 
 We must add one thousand million dollars' worth to the product of 
 each year, in order to be able to add only five cents' worth per day to 
 the consumption of each person ; so close do the footsteps of want press 
 upon the limits of welfare. 
 
 Who dares scout the science which, under the name of ^'■political 
 economy," treats these vast questions of human ^welfare, in which a 
 single error or misapplication of the functions of government may 
 cost the very lives of armies of men a century hence ? 
 
 The abuses of centuries are culminating in Ireland to-day; and the 
 compromise with slavery, to which our ancestors consented, cost the 
 lives of more than half a million men, and imposed upon us the bur- 
 then of our present debt, and oar complicated and onerous system of 
 taxation. Slavery was only a form of the organization of labor, a 
 false method of inducing production. 
 
 What, then, can we do to make the struggle for life easier ? 
 The only answer is: Give such instruction as will develop brain 
 and hand together, so that the purchasing power of each dollar 
 may be increased. Save the waste of labor and the waste of 
 product. We are the most wasteful nation in the world ; and 
 one reason is, that, even at our present measure of product, 
 there is vastly greater abundance here than there is anywhere 
 else. 
 
 What margin is there for increase, or for saving, do you ask ? 
 The answer is plain. Our general methods of agriculture are 
 poor and shiftless ; our crops are not one-half what a reasonably 
 good system would bring forth. The potentiality of a single 
 acre of land is still almost an unknown quantity. If I were 
 to say to you, that, next to the abolition of slavery, and the 
 use of the railway and the steamship, the re-discovery of the 
 method of saving green crops — called ensilage — was the most 
 important event in its effects on material welfare of the present 
 century, you might suggest that a commission of lunacy should 
 be appointed to examine the condition of my brain. Consider 
 the waste of fencing, because one man cannot trust his neigh- 
 bor to "keep his cattle where they belong. Witness the waste 
 
16 
 
 of sheep, because the cur dog is tolerated while the farmer 
 suffers. 
 
 Marvellous as the machinery in this great building may be, 
 science has work to do vastly greater than any thing yet 
 accomplished. Almost the only tools yet perfected are the 
 water-wheel and the dynamo-electric machine. Look at that 
 seemingly perfect steam-engine and boiler: it wastes nine- 
 tenths of the fuel with which it is supplied. Examine that 
 costly and clumsy locomotive and heavy train of cars : only 
 one pound in a hundred of the fuel used is actually applied to« 
 the movement of the load. Observe that almost self-operating 
 carding-engine, spinning-frame, and loom: are they perfect? 
 Four-fifths of the power is wasted in operating them ; and, 
 when you have put your cotton fibre into cloth, you have lost 
 three-fourths of its original strength by your rough treatment. 
 
 Your builders cut tip your timber so as to lose or waste one- 
 half its strength; most of your architects plan your build- 
 ings so as to assure the most perfect combustion. You make 
 a clumsy effort to distribute your fire-loss of nearly a hundred 
 millions a year through insurance companies, and you waste 
 forty per cent of your premiums in the mere expense of making 
 the attempt. You cannot even start a horse-car without wast- 
 ing the knees of your horses by the excessive strain. 
 
 I might go on in this line indefinitely, but the greatest waste 
 of all is the waste of food and fuel. 
 
 The grain, root, and hay crops of this country weigh over one 
 hundred and fifty million tons, — three hundred thousand mil- 
 lion food pounds to be harvested, sorted, distributed, converted 
 into meat, butter, cheese, bread, and the like, in order that each 
 one of us may have our daily ration of about three pounds, — a 
 pound each for our breakfast, dinner, and suppfer. 
 
 Seventy million tons of coal are mined and converted. Are 
 we not all aware that half our food is wasted, and perhaps more 
 than half our fuel, especially in cooking? 
 
 How shall we save this waste ? Must we not save it if each 
 man, woman, and child can earn, on the average, only what 
 fifty cents a day will buy ? Try for yourselves what you can 
 get in the little shops on the South Cove, or at the North End, 
 
17 
 
 where the poor must buy their food ; and then you will know 
 why so many suffer want, even in the midst of plenty, for the 
 lack of instruction in the commonest arts of life. Must not 
 our common schools be somewhat common in quality, when 
 they qualify their pupils so little in the practical arts of life ? 
 
 And here let me call your attention to the importance of the 
 smallest fraction saved. In order to do this, I must repeat my- 
 self. The average charge upon the New York Central and 
 Hudson River Railroad, in 1866-69 inclusive, was 1.9567 cents 
 in gold, — say, two cents per ton per mile. From 1870-79 
 inclusive, it was 1.1123 cents. The difference was only .8444, 
 say eighty-five onerhundredths of a cent per ton per mile. 
 Yet, in the ten years last named, this difference saved the con- 
 sumers of the goods carried over this one line one hundred 
 and twenty-one million gold dollars. 
 
 The average charge over this line has been again reduced, 
 and was last year only seventy-eight one-hundredths of a cent 
 per ton per mile. 
 
 This line performs one twenty-sixth part, only, of the rail- 
 way service in moving merchandise of the United States. If 
 all the other railways have reduced their rates since 1869, only 
 one-half as much as this corporation has reduced theirs, — 
 which is far within the fact, — the saving on the moving of 
 merchandise in the year 1881, as compared to the rates prevail- 
 ing from 1866 to 1869, — only twelve to fifteen years since,: — 
 was over 1400,000,000. Let us be conservative, and call it 
 only $300,000,000 ; and then we have a sum more than suflS- 
 cient to pay the first cost of the 9,400 miles of new railroad 
 which we added to our service in that year. 
 
 Eighty-five hundredths of a cent a ton a mile is equal to $8.50 
 per ton from Chicago to Boston, or less than a dollar on a barrel 
 of flour carried a thousand miles ; yet this little fraction, applied 
 only in part to the total traffic of all the railroads of the United 
 States, worked a saving of over §200,000,000 a year, for ten years 
 to 1879, inclusive ; and at the yet lower rates of 1880 and 1881, 
 as compared to 1866-69 inclusive, this saving has been, at the 
 very least, 1300,000,000 a year, or 33J per cent of the estimated 
 amount of our possible annual addition to our wealth or capital. 
 
18 
 
 It has not been added to capital, however : by far the larger 
 part has gone to the benefit of consumers, and has been saved 
 by them in the work of gaining their subsistence. This is the 
 function of capital in the form of a railroad. 
 
 This is a complete example of the thesis which I have pre- 
 sented. These great applications of science save a part of the 
 necessary work, and render the struggle for life far easier. 
 
 The figures which prove this proposition are so startling that it 
 is necessary to sustain them by citing the actual facts. In the year 
 1881 the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad moved 
 11,591,379 actual tons of merchandise, or 2,646,814,098 tons carried 
 one mile; for which service it received 120,736,750, or seventy-eight 
 hundredths of a cent a ton a mile. The average charge from 1866 to 
 1869 for the same service (rates reduced to gold) was 1.95 cents per 
 ton per mile (1866 to 1869, inclusive, 10,102,659 tons moved; 1,868,- 
 448,179 tons moved one mile; receipts in currency, $50,556,876): 
 difference, 1.17 cents per ton per mile saved on 2,646,814,098 tons, 
 equal to 130,970,000, in the single year 1881. 
 
 In the year 1881 the total receipts of the New York Central and 
 Hudson River Railroad for freight constituted 3/^^^ per cent of the 
 total freight receipts of all the railroads of the country, or a fraction 
 under one twenty-sixth part of the whole. 
 
 If the reduction in the freight charge on other roads, or the saving 
 which has been compassed by the construction of new lines, has been 
 equal to that on this line, — 1.17 cents per ton per mile, — the saving 
 would amount to over 1823,000,000 in the single year 1881, upon the 
 traffic of that year. 
 
 Mr. H. V. Poor computes the whole traffic of all the railways of 
 the United States, including coal, at not less than' three hiindred and 
 fifty million tons, or more than thirty times the quantity carried by 
 the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. 
 
 Let me repeat this proposition: if the construction of new lines, 
 and the reduction of chai-ge on old lines, has saved consumers one cent 
 and seven teen-hundred ths per ton per mile upon the actual traffic of 
 the year 1881, as compared to the charge made for railway service 
 from 1866-69 inclusive, the difference in the year 1881 amounted to 
 over eight hundred million dollars. 
 
 The fortunes which the railway magnates have secured to them- 
 selves, and which they are now applying in part to an extension of 
 the railway service by at least ten thousand miles in the year 1882, 
 constitute but a small part of this saving : the greater part has been 
 secured by consumers, and has to that extent reduced the cost of 
 subsistence. 
 
19 
 
 Upon this basis the computation of an actual saving to consumers 
 of $300,000,000, as given in the body of the address, may be consid- 
 ered a very safe and cautious one. 
 
 In fact, the effect of the construction and extension of our railway 
 service, and the progress made since the panic of 1873 in the reduc- 
 tion of its cost, almost transcends comprehension; and all computa- 
 tions and forecastings based upon these changes have a visionary 
 aspect even to the most careful student. The gain in this respect 
 more than compensates for the waste of public money and the abuses 
 of the powers of taxation, and thus even retards the progress of 
 economic reform by obscuring the evil effects of excessive taxation. 
 
 In this address it is therefore made apparent^ on the one hand, that 
 the average measure of comfort wiiich each man, woman, and child 
 can enjoy must come within the substance of what half a dollar a day 
 will buy; while, on the other hand, this analysis of the result of sci- 
 ence applied to the construction of railways proves, that, after making 
 due allowance for the fluctuations of the seasons and the variation of 
 the crops, the purchasing power of each half-dollar has been increased 
 at least five per cent, perhaps more, since 1870. 
 
 I have computed the present value of the products of the United 
 States, at the place of consumption, at 110,000,000,000, which gives 
 each inhabitant fifty cents' worth a day. 
 
 The freight earnings of the railroads of the United States in the 
 year 1881 were $551,968,477. 
 
 The cost of distribution by rail was, therefore, five and a half per 
 cent upon the computed value of the product. 
 
 At the higher rates of 1866-69, this charge for railway service might 
 have been 11,350,000,000, which would have been 13|- per cent upon 
 the computed value of our whole product. If consumers have gained 
 the sum used in the body of this address, — 1300,000,000, — then the 
 purchasing power of each half-dollar has been increased three per 
 cent since 1870. If $500,000,000, then five per cent. If $825,000,- 
 000, then over eight per cent. Add to this amount saved by railroads 
 the results of the improvement in machinery applied to agriculture, to 
 manufactures, and to the mechanic arts ; and I think it is safe to repeat 
 what I have elsewhere affirmed, that the aggregate labor of the people 
 of the United States has been made at least one- third more effective 
 by the application of science to the useful arts since the end of our 
 civil war in 1865. 
 
 In other words, the purchasing power of each person's daily income 
 of half a dollar has been increased one-third in less than twenty years. 
 How soon will it be doubled ? It now costs more to live, because 
 people demand more, spend more, and, on the whole, enjoy more, than 
 they used to; and they also waste more. The wages of factory oper- 
 atives are double what they were in 1842, and the hours of labor are 
 
20 
 
 ten to eleven per day now, as compared to thirteen then. The daugh- 
 ters of New England farmers have found less arduous employment at 
 much higher wages; while the immigrants, who now constitute the 
 great body of the factory operatives, would then have found only the 
 most arduous menial or common labor, could they have then found 
 any place in our body politic. 
 
 One of the best definitions of man, as compared to beasts, ever 
 given, is this : " Man is the Qnly animal endowed with progressive 
 desires.' 
 
 The more there is, the more we spend; the more we have, the 
 more we want. The measure of a sufficient fortune or income is a 
 little more, and thus the world wags on. 
 
 And as it is in this matter of the railroad, so is it in all 
 things : the difference between welfare and poverty consi.sts 
 only in knowing how to save a dollar in moving a barrel of 
 flour a thousand miles. It costs to-day only half a dollar to 
 bring a barrel of flour from Chicago to Boston, and a barrel a 
 year is all that each person needs. No\v, let me ask you, how 
 much do we lose in not knowing how to make bread, — how to 
 use the barrel of flour? How large a factor in the national 
 welfare is in the mere question of household economy? 
 
 How much will this Fair teach us on that subject? Follow 
 the wheat from the field to the poor man's table, and you will 
 soon prove to yourselves that ignorance of the simplest house- 
 hold arts is a heavier tax than the entire cost of railway service. 
 Is this to the credit of our schools ? I will not undervalue in 
 the least the mental instruction of the schools ; I would not 
 deny the opportunity for the highest instruction : but if a large 
 portion of the time of the pupils is not spread over a great mass 
 of merely mental rubbish, a great injustice is being done by 
 their critics. 
 
 In order that these propositions may be made plain, and the 
 purpose of this address may become more clear, let me ask you 
 to discharge from your minds all idea of money and of price. 
 Money is merely an instrument by which the exchange of ser- 
 vices among men is rendered easy. Price, whether applied to 
 things or to services, is but a measure expressed in terms of 
 money. What really happens is this : A small, very small, 
 part of the work of each year can be saved in the concrete 
 
21 
 
 form called capital ; that is to say, in the form of a railway, of 
 a factory, of improvements upon land, or developments of a 
 mine ; and when thus saved it is so applied as to increase the 
 production or lessen the work of the next and of ensuing 
 years. 
 
 As I have said, I am of opinion, that, even in this prosperous 
 country, not less than nine parts in ten of the total product, on 
 the average, constitute the cost of production, and are consumed 
 in different proportions by those who do the work. 
 
 To the workman or workwoman it matters not what the 
 measure in money is by which their wages or earnings are 
 defined. The real question is : How good a house, how large 
 a room, how adequate a supply of food and fuel and clothing, 
 can I purchase with that money ? 
 
 It therefore follows that every application of science to manu- 
 facturing industry, to mining, or to agriculture, by which the 
 aggregate of things is increased, while the labor is diminished, 
 tends to increase the quantity of the commodities to be divided 
 among the laborers ; and, as this increase is progressive year 
 by year, the proportion which capital can secure to itself under 
 free contract' becomes less, while the proportion which is as- 
 signed to labor becomes greater. 
 
 The object of this Fair is to bring into prominent notice 
 every new application of science by which abundance may be 
 increased ; and also to bring to the knowledge of those who 
 seek a new place in which science may be applied, the sections 
 of country and the natural resources which are yet undeveloped. 
 It is a great object-lesson in human welfare. 
 
 But of what use will this great lesson be if boys and girls 
 and men and women are not qualified to take advantage of the 
 opportunities thus spread before them ? 
 
 It may happen, that, by the application of intelligence and of 
 science on the part of the few, the quantity of things produced 
 has been greatly increased ; and yet, in the midst of plenty, 
 sometimes thousands, ay, even hundreds of thousands of men 
 and women have suffered want. Witness 1873. Why is this? 
 Must it always be so? It may be said, it ought not to be ; it 
 need not be : and yet it probably will be so for many years to 
 come. 
 
22 
 
 It may be that those who have lived in foreigu lands until 
 they have come to adult years under obstructive laws or sys- 
 tems, and who have not learned how to do any service by which 
 they may gain a part of this abundance, except in the common- 
 est of common labor, will be very poor, even here in the midst 
 of plenty. 
 
 Hence will follow the continued need, not only of charity 
 which takes the form of giving alms and sustaining life, but of 
 that mental charity also, which, even while repressing the out- 
 breaks and disorders which may arise from the presence of those 
 who are not only very poor but very ignorant, will yet palliate 
 and excuse even the evils which it may be necessary to suppress 
 by force. 
 
 But if the grand purpose of those who have founded this 
 association can be carried into action, if methods of industrial 
 instruction can be added to the mental training of the schools, 
 if the hand and the head can be developed together, — as the 
 children of these immigrants grow up, they can be qualified to 
 render such service to their fellow-men that the measure of 
 their earnings or wages shall be ample for their welfare. 
 
 It is by such instruction, by such preparation for the need of 
 future generations, that the very causes of want may be almost 
 wholly removed. 
 
 Let me illustrate this. Every master-manufacturer, every 
 master-mechanic, every capitalist who desires to employ others, 
 seeks to hire the man or woman who can make the largest 
 product at the lowest cost. And now I beg to present to you a 
 proposition which is very far-reaching, very subtle, and of very 
 wide application, but which is seldom considered unless atten- 
 tion is almost forced to it. It is this : So long as freedom of 
 contract is not restricted or obstructed by statute-law, so long 
 as laws are enacted only for the enforcement of justice and 
 order, the prevention of crime and punishment of fraud, and 
 the accomplishment of purposes which cannot be worked by 
 individuals, it will be found that high wages or earnings are 
 almost the necessary correlative of low cost of production ; and 
 not, as is so commonly assumed, that low cost can only be com- 
 passed by way of low wages. 
 
23 
 
 This seems a paradox : yet it is elementary, and it is within 
 the observation of every one of you here present ; from your 
 own experience you can prove or disprove this proposition. It 
 simply needs to be borne in mind that the annual profits of 
 capital and the annual wages of labor are both derived alike 
 from the annual product. The more effective the capital in the 
 form of machinery, the less the number of persons required, the 
 higher the wages. The more skill on the part of the persons 
 who operate the machinery, still again the less the number 
 required, and the higher the wages. The more effective the 
 capital, the lesser the proportion which the capitalist will secure 
 in order to make good interest upon his investment. The more 
 adequate the skill, the larger proportion will the laborer attain. 
 The more effective the application both of capital and of labor, 
 the larger both the profit and the share of the laborer. And 
 when this product is converted into terms of money, or what 
 money will buy, the higher the price of wages, and the lower 
 the cost of the production. 
 
 It therefore follows that the rate of wages or earnings of the 
 masses of the people who are of necessity engaged in their daily 
 work for their daily bread will be high or low (always assum- 
 ing an honest specie standard for the money in which the sum 
 of wages is to be expressed) : — 
 
 1st, According to the conditions and resources of the country 
 in which the labor is exerted ; 
 
 2d, According to the freedom of that country from statutes 
 under which the liberty of the individual is restricted. 
 
 3d, According to the freedom of that country from the impo- 
 sition of taxes by which a large portion of the products of labor 
 are diverted from the remuneration either of labor or capital, 
 and are applied to what may be named (for the purposes of this 
 consideration) destructive taxation. 
 
 Of the first two conditions I need not speak at length ; but I 
 may call your attention to our paramount advantage in respect 
 to the third. 
 
 There are two kinds of work to which the proceeds of taxes 
 are, or may be, applied : — 
 
 1st, Constructive work which the municipality, the state, or 
 
24 
 
 the nation can perform better than the individual : such as, 
 the making of common highways, the maintenance of common 
 schools, the postal service, and some other simple functions 
 distinct from the administration of justice or other administra- 
 tive functions of government. 
 
 In this country even the support of the army may be included 
 in the constructive work of government, because it is our good 
 fortune to need an army only to serve as a border police, and 
 for the protection of settlers engaged in increasing the general 
 product. 
 
 But if we compare our condition with that of those states of 
 Europe which are called civilized, we find a marked difference. 
 In such states, for various reasons, a very large proportion 
 of the annual product of labor is taken from the people in the 
 form of taxes, and is applied either to sustain special privi- 
 leges, or merely to the destructive purposes of war. 
 
 I may cite to you the comparison between this country and 
 France and Germany considered together. The long-continued 
 error in regard to the true function of commerce, which has 
 dominated the mental conceptions of those who assume to 
 govern those great states, — to wit, "that, in all commerce, what 
 one nation gains another must lose," — has kept those two 
 states apart more than any prejudice of race or difference of 
 religion; but from all these causes combined, — namely, indus- 
 trial prejudice, hatred of race, and the perversion of the reli- 
 gious idea, — each of these nations finds it necessary to protect 
 itself against the other and against all the rest, by maintaining 
 standing armies in camp and barracks, which to-day (without 
 consideration of the reserves, but including those who are 
 engaged in merely preparing material for war) number over 
 one million men out of a population of eighty millions. 
 
 Our proportion to-day, if we were obliged or chose to main- 
 tain a standing army, in ratio to our present population of about 
 fifty-four millions, would be seven hundred thousand men : 
 more than one in twenty of all the adult males of voting age 
 within the limits of the country would be withdrawn from their 
 productive work, whereby the quantity of things to be divided 
 between labor and capital, from each year's annual product, 
 would be so much diminished. 
 
25 
 
 Yet more : one more man in every nineteen of those remain- 
 ing would be forced to labor in order to pay the taxes necessary 
 to sustain the seven hundred thousand idle men gathered 
 together in camp and barracks waiting for the work of destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Let me prove this. This army would be, in its organization 
 and in the persons who compose it, like unto the great indus- 
 trial army engaged in our greatest works. The ofiScers of the 
 armies of Germany and of France must be men of ability, equal 
 but not superior to those who lead the industrial armies of this 
 country, — equal in capacity but how inferior in purpose, — to 
 the men who build and control the railroads and the iron- 
 works, manage the factories, bring order and system into 
 action, and direct the productive energy of the people. 
 
 The soldiers composing the destructive armies of France and 
 Germany are in the prime of life, capable of exerting the maxi:. 
 mum force ever developed by them. They would be like unto 
 those who constitute the working force upon our new railroads 
 and in our mines and factories ; and seven hundred thousand, 
 which would be our proportion did we emulate those nations in 
 the work of destruction, would outnumber the whole force of 
 adult males who are to-day engaged in building railroads and 
 in all the iron-mines, iron-works, and all the textile factories of 
 the United States combined. 
 
 This minus quantity, this reduction of product, this scarcity 
 which is enforced upon these nations of Europe by their armies, 
 may be measured by the construction of all our new railroads, 
 and by the addition to our annual product of all the product of 
 our iron-mines and iron and steel works and all our textile 
 factories combined, to. which the labor of adult men is applied 
 (omitting the product of women and children) in these United 
 States. 
 
 And yet more : the cost of these great European armies of 
 djestruction, levied in the taxes and paid by those who are per- 
 mitifced to remain in the work of production, is more than equal 
 to the sum of all the wages earned in this country by all the 
 iron-miners, all the iron-workers, and all the men, women, and 
 phildj-eji pi our textije f,^ptoj-ies, put togethej-. 
 
26 
 
 Must not wages or earnings in this land be higher than in 
 any other land thus burthened? Must not the quantity of 
 things to be divided — which constitute the true earnings — 
 be so much greater, and the cost of making so much less? 
 
 If you apply these rules to your own experience, each one 
 of you, you will find how true they are. The last man or 
 woman whom you desire to discharge from the works which 
 you control, when the times are hard, is the one earning the 
 most for himself or for herself; the first to be discharged is 
 the unfortunate one whose hand and brain have not been 
 developed together, and who can, in hard times, no longer 
 render you a service, even if paid a sum barely sufficient to 
 support life. Even if the conditions become such, as they did 
 from 1873 to 1879, that skilled mechanics and artisans find no 
 demand for all their work, then they, by their very training, 
 have been made competent to change the method of their work, 
 and in new places, under new conditions, they assure welfare 
 for themselves. 
 
 And as it is with persons, so it is with classes, with states, 
 with countries. Where the conditions are best, where the 
 natural resources are the greatest, if no obstruction is inter- 
 posed by statute-law, — there will be found the most skilful 
 persons, the best machinery, and the largest product. If, under 
 free conditions, you would seek to find the place in which the 
 very lowest labor cost of any given thing is compassed, you 
 may take as your guide the measure of the highest wages 
 earned by those who do the work. 
 
 Where earnings are the greatest, — earnings being but a 
 share of a large product ensuing from favorable conditions, 
 ample capital, and superior skill, — you will most surely find 
 the lowest cost, always provided that in that place justice and 
 equal rights are assured, that the government is honest and 
 stable, and that the taxes are not diverted from public uses to 
 private ends. 
 
 This rule will not apply to hand-work or handicraft. The 
 fine silks of Lyons woven only on a hand-loom, the laces of 
 Brussels, the fine carving of Switzerland, the Tuscan jewelry, 
 the production of tea in China, the spade-labor of Belgium, and 
 
27 
 
 the like, can only be conducted on the lowest rates of earnings, 
 barely sufficient to support life ; and yet the fabric may be of 
 extremely high cost, because of the amount of labor, or the 
 arduous conditions under which it is conducted. 
 
 There are yet many occupations which we cannot afford to 
 carry on in this country so long as we can procure the product 
 in some other way, because the amount of labor is so great, or 
 the necessary conditions are still so bad. 
 
 We have a continent yet to subdue, in which we can choose 
 our work. 
 
 Glance your eye over this vast collection of the potentiality 
 of our Southern land. Witness the profusion of every thing 
 needed to sustain life in comfort. Observe the coal and iron 
 lying close together upon the very surface of the earth, — not 
 separated, as they are farther north, by great intervening moun- 
 tains of sandstone, but the coal, iron, and limestone lying one 
 against the other at the head-waters of great navigable rivers, 
 where they can be converted to the use of man with the least 
 expenditure of human labor. 
 
 Glance over this great exhibition of timber which has been 
 so wasted, even in our Northern States. Witness the variety 
 of the products of agriculture which can be brought to the 
 service of man amid scenes of utmost beauty ; and, so far as a 
 very large section of the Southern country is concerned, under 
 conditions unequalled on this continent for health and salu- 
 brity. Why have they not been developed? Because labor 
 was not honored, and he who exerted it could not enjoy the 
 earnings. 
 
 Why are they being developed now so rapidly? Because 
 the South to-day is even in advance of the North in the effort 
 which she is making to promote the instruction of the hand 
 and the head together, in order that she may avail herself of 
 her great advantage, and overcome the malignant effects of a 
 century of slavery, and of misgovernment and lack of educa- 
 tion of almost every kind. 
 
 We welcome her competition. We will emulate her in her 
 progress. Each needs what the other can produce ; and in the 
 exchange of service between the States, free and unrestricted 
 
28 ' 
 
 as it is and as it must remain uilder the beneficent provisions 
 of our Constitution, each section will gain under the working 
 of that law which I presented at the beginning of this address, 
 — that all true commerce among men, whether between states 
 or nations, is but the exchange of service by which both are 
 made more prosperous, and both are rendered more capable of 
 sustaining their own population in comfort and well-being. 
 
 It will be apparent, if this principle be admitted, — namely, 
 that where mental capacity and manual dexterity are combined, 
 and are applied under the best conditions to the direction of 
 machinery, there will be found the largest production, the 
 highest wages, and the safest and most adequate remuneration 
 of capital ; and also, if it be admitted that the production of 
 the joint work of labor and capital would be most completely 
 enjoyed where there is the greatest freedom from what I have 
 called destructive taxation, it follows that this country has the 
 advantage over all others, — 
 
 1st, In the variety and extent of its natural resources, capa- 
 ble of being worked with the least exertion or effort. 
 
 2d, In the fact that in some sections of the country, and 
 presently in all, the systems of common education, even if still 
 imperfect, yet on the whole do qualify pupils to apply the 
 greatest versatility and to combine mental and manual capacity 
 at least somewhat more completely than in most other countries. 
 
 8d, In our absolute and paramount advantage in being free 
 from destructive taxation. 
 
 From all these advantages, it follows that both the wages of 
 labor and the remuneration of capital must be greater in pro^ 
 portion to the effort used than in any other section of the 
 world's surface ; and these facts themselves prove that the cost 
 of production — in other words, the labor expended in produc- 
 tive service — is less in ratio to product than it can be anywhere 
 else. Therefore our high wages are but the sign and proof of 
 low cost, and we may command the commerce of the world, if 
 we so elect. 
 
 We may exchange the product of a single day's work of 
 luachinery, directed by one man, for fifty or one hundred days' 
 product of those who are still obliged to follow pursuits to 
 
29 
 
 which either their ignorance, their backwardness in the use of 
 machinery, or want of opportunity, prevents the application 
 of their labor under favorable conditions. 
 
 We may obtain the product of perhaps fifty days' labor in 
 the coffee-plantations of South America or of Java; or one 
 hundred days' labor in the tea-fields or mulberry-groves of 
 China ; or twenty days' labor in the sugar-plantations of Cuba, 
 or the hemp-fields of Manila ; or ten days' labor in the wool- 
 growing sections of South America and Australia, — for the 
 work of a single man or woman directing machinery operated 
 by steam or water power. By means of such exchange, we can 
 increase the quantity of things to be divided among our own 
 people, while conferring a benefit even upon those with whom 
 we exchange, who without our demand could perhaps make 
 no disposition even of the surplus of their hand-work: thus 
 both parties are vastly benefited, and commerce becomes the 
 measure of intelligence, of civilization, and of wealth. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to compute the actual wealth of si 
 state or nation statistically ; but such figures can give only approximate 
 estimates at a given time, since progress is much greater ty way of 
 the destruct'on of what has been wealth, than by its accumulation. 
 
 The substitution of simple for complex machinery, by means of 
 which greater production is assured, coupled with the application 
 of capital of less money value, is an instance. 
 
 In this address I have assumed a thousand million dollars' worth 
 of products set aside for the maintenance and increase of capital, or 
 ten per cent upon an approximately accurate estimate of an annual 
 product of ten thousand million dollars' worth of substance. 
 
 If five per cent had been set aside for the maintenance of capital 
 previously accumulated, and five per cent of our annnal product had 
 been added each year to the wealth or capital of the country, the 
 effect would have been the same as that of money put at compound 
 interest at five per cent per annum. There is nothing to show fot any 
 such accumulation. 
 
 Massachusetts possessed in 1875, according to Carroll D. Wright's 
 most admirable and accurate census, confirmed by the tax commission- 
 er's reports, property aside from the value of land amounting to only 
 six hundred dollars per head of the population, which sum measures a 
 saving equal to only two or three years' production of the same State 
 in the same year ; and there is probably no state in the world in 
 which the annual product per head is larger, being not less than two 
 hundred, probably about three hundred, dollars per year per capita. 
 
30 
 
 Even if ten per cent, or one thousand million dollars' worth, can be 
 set aside, above the mere consumption or cost of production of the 
 people of the United States, it is manifest that much more than one- 
 half of this substance must be used merely for maintenance of capi- 
 tal, much less than one-half for additions to Wealth or capital. 
 
 These considerations may be deemed somewhat theoretic, but they 
 become of the greatest importance when considered with reference to 
 national and municipal taxation. The burthen of a tax is to be con- 
 sidered not so much with reference to its ratio to the gross income of 
 each state or person, as it is with reference to the possible savings of 
 each person or to the margin of profit upon any given business. 
 
 The writer has not himself compiled the figures of national, state, 
 and municipal taxes, but is assured upon the latest data compiled in 
 the census department that the total amount of all such taxes at the 
 present time is $700,000,000 a year. 
 
 This sum is important, even if it is only considered in ratio to a 
 probable product of $10,000,000,000, on which it is seven per cent ; 
 yet more important in its ratio to probable saving of $1,000,000,000, 
 on which it is seventy per cent ; yet more important in its ratio to 
 the probable actual addition to our wealth, even if that amounts to 
 $500,000,000, on which it is one hundred and forty per cent; most 
 important of all in its ratio to the annual average production 
 of each adult man and woman, which I have computed at probably, 
 hardly possibly, over one dollar a day, on which the proportion of all 
 taxation is seven per cent, or seven cents of every dollar earned. 
 
 Well for us that our taxes are not destructively expended ; well for 
 us indeed that the avails of taxation are on the whole productively 
 expended, and that not over twenty-five per cent is, in the long-run, 
 wasted in national or municipal jobs. 
 
 In view of the fact that all taxes upon commodities are added to 
 the cost, and are paid by consumers in the ratio of their consumption, 
 the abatement of the excess of national revenue becomes a question 
 of paramount interest. 
 
 Such taxes take from the many what they may actually need for 
 a bare subsistence ; they must fall with greatest hardship on those 
 whose earnings for their families ai-e less than the average dollar a 
 day to each adult man and woman ; and where our present excess of 
 national taxation may be equal to only fifteen per cent of the possible 
 savings of the whole people, it may take a hundred per cent, even 
 the little all of what the poor might save. 
 
 The most profound students of the social order of Europe have 
 come to the conclusion that national debts and chronic war taxes' are 
 the prime cause of the pauperism of great masses of the people. 
 
 It is true that this surplus revenue is not lost to the country when 
 it is applied to the payment of its debts i but it may be misspent in 
 
31 
 
 extravagant expenditures and then it becomes a loss ; and even ia the 
 payment of debts it takes a part of this year's product from one, and 
 transfers it to another in payment for service in the long-distant past. 
 It is useless to palter with such problems as this : our public men 
 must either master them, or be mastered by them. They are the great 
 political issues of the future, before which all the dead issues of the 
 past will fade away. The question to be solved at present is not 
 whether one hundred million dollars of excessive taxa;tion — one 
 seventh part of the whole burthen — shall be Removed, or not: it 
 is only in what way shall the relief be given. The evil of exces- 
 sive taxation is not simply in the imposition of the taxes but also 
 in the method of removal. They may so alter the direction of 
 industry as to make even their removal work temporary injury to 
 a portion of the people. 
 
 Industrial reconstruction (especially in the South), technical edu- 
 cation, tax reform, honest administration, a strict limitation of the 
 functions of government and personal liberty, — such are the subjects 
 which the object-lessons in this great fair bring into view. 
 
 I have called your attention to this need of combining the 
 instruction of the brain and of the hand together. 
 
 At the other end of this broad avenue stand the buildings of 
 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the higher 
 branches of technical education, with manual instruction in 
 the mechanic arts, have been combined and developed to the 
 extent of the means placed at our disposal. 
 
 That institution has been founded and sustained in part by 
 the very men who belong to this Manufacturers' and Mechan- 
 ics'" Institute. That institution is yet to be sustained by many 
 of you who are here present, when you have found out its 
 merits, by contributions from your ample capital, which you will 
 make when you have learned that it is the best possible invest- 
 ment. 
 
 Each of these institutions is the complement of the other. 
 Here you have the visible results of science applied to useful 
 arts, the tangible evidences of the opportunity for yet grander 
 enterprise. There you have the opening in which you can aid 
 in the development of this great work of instructing the brain 
 and hand together. Each of these institutions is but the begin- 
 ning : they may serve as examples which must be followed in 
 New England even if nowhere else. 
 
32 
 
 If we are to maintain our relative position in competition 
 Trith, our sister States, we can only do so by compensating for 
 our lack of natural resources by the perfection of our methods 
 of instruction in the application of science to the useful arts. 
 In sustaining these institutions, you can justify yourselves for 
 the possession of more than fifty cents a day for each member 
 of your families, by the investment which you may make of 
 your surplus wealth. 
 
 May we not share in teaching the teachers of the new gospel 
 of peace and plenty, which it is the mission of this country, 
 first among all nations, to preach to the down-trodden of the 
 world ? To do unto others as you would be done by, is to help 
 others to help themselves. To give alms may be dangerous, 
 and at best can only palliate the evils and wrongs of society. 
 To relieve want by State charity, may only promote pauperism. 
 Yet give alms we must, and sustain charitable institutions we 
 are compelled to, because we are subjected to the incoming of 
 the poor and incapable of other lands. But from our children 
 and our children's children even unto the third and fourth 
 generation, we may remove the doom of the ancient law, and 
 we may assure them the reward of the faithful steward, by 
 developing hand and head together in their application to use- 
 ful service. 
 
^ R OF 1882. 
 
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 P«, JAN 21, m>