More men must cultivate the soil. In the older States lands are too high. It requires too much capital to commence. There are so many failures in business; so many merchants, traders, and manufacturers have been wrecked and stranded upon the barren shores of bankruptcy, that the people are beginning to prefer the small but certain profits of agriculture to the false and splendid promises of speculation. We must open new territories; we must give the mechanics now out of employment an opportunity to cultivate the soil—not as day-laborers but as owners; not as tenants, but as farmers. Something must be done to develop the resources of this country. With the best lands of the world; with a population intellectual, energetic, and ingenious far beyond the average of mankind; with the richest mines of the globe; with plenty of capital; with a surplus of labor; with thousands of arms folded in enforced idleness; with billions of gold asking to be dug; with millions of acres waiting for the plow, thousands upon thousands are in absolute want.
New avenues must be opened. All our territory must be given to immigration. Greater facilities must be offered. Obstacles that cannot be overcome by individual enterprise must be conquered by the Government for the good of all. Every man out of employment is impoverishing the country. Labor transmutes muscle into wealth. Idleness is a rust that devours even gold. For five years we have been wasting the labor of millions—wasting it for lack of something to do. Prosperity has been changed to want and discontent. On every hand the poor are asking for work. That is a wretched government where the honest and industrious beg, unsuccessfully, for the right to toil; where those who are willing, anxious, and able to work, cannot get bread. If everything is to be left to the blind and heartless working of the laws of supply and demand, why have governments? If the nation leaves the poor to starve, and the weak and unfortunate to perish, it is hard to see for what purpose the nation should be preserved. If our statesmen are not wise enough to foster great enterprises, and to adopt a policy that will give us prosperity, it may be that the laboring classes, driven to frenzy by hunger, the bitterness of which will be increased by seeing others in the midst of plenty, will seek a remedy in destruction.
The transcontinental commerce of this country should not be in the clutch and grasp of one corporation. All sections of the Union should, as far as possible, be benefited. Cheap rates will come, and can be maintained only by competition. We should cultivate commercial relations with China and Japan. Six hundred millions of people are slowly awaking from a lethargy of six thousand years. In a little while they will have the wants of civilized men, and America will furnish a large proportion of the articles demanded by these people. In a few years there will be as many ships upon the Pacific as upon the Atlantic. In a few years our trade with China will be far greater than with Europe. In a few years we will sustain the same relation to the far East that Europe once sustained to us. America for centuries to come will supply six hundred millions of people with the luxuries of life. A country that expects to control the trade of other countries must develop its own resources to the utmost. We have pursued a small, a mean, and a penurious course. Demagogues have ridden into office and power upon the cry of economy, by opposing every measure looking to the improvement of the country, by endeavoring to see how cheaply nothing could be done. A government, like an individual, should live up to its privileges; it should husband its resources, simply that it may use them. A nation that expects to control the commerce of half a world must have its money equal with gold and silver. It must have the money of the world.
Whenever the laboring men are out of employment they begin to hate the rich. They feel that the dwellers in palaces, the riders in carriages, the wearers of broadcloth, silk, and velvet have in some way been robbing them. As a matter of fact, the palace builders are the friends of labor. The best form of charity is extravagance. When you give a man money, when you toss him a dollar, although you get nothing, the man loses his manhood. To help others help themselves is the only real charity. There is no use in boosting a man who is not climbing. Whenever I see a splendid home, a palace, a magnificent block, I think of the thousands who were fed—of the women and children clothed, of the firesides made happy.
A rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best furniture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful flowers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the books that he can afford, is a perpetual blessing.
The prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor.
The extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save.
The rich man who lives according to his means, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser, who lives in a hovel, wears rags, and hoards his gold, is a perpetual curse. He is like one who dams a river at its source.
The moment hard times come the cry of economy is raised. The press, the platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the rich. In consequence of this cry, the man of wealth discharges servants, sells horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and after taking employment and food from as many as he can, congratulates himself that he has done his part toward restoring prosperity to the country.
In that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical will be found pauperism and crime; but where the poor are economical and the rich are extravagant, that country is filled with prosperity.