But to return to our meeting. Our man is not from the colleges, but is a rare man (don't misunderstand me. Nothing is so much needed to-day as well-educated men; and I am not one of those who think that it spoils a razor to sharpen it); and he has not spoken long before the tears fall fast, and many a poor fellow who once sang the songs of Zion comes home to his Father's house. Still, they tell our man it is not safe for him to come; but he does; and under great difficulties he builds a church and parsonage. And then he tries to have a reading-room. Naturally he thinks that the man who is making so much money out of the earth will help him. He offers twenty-five dollars, which our minute-man spurns. He is going to give double that out of his meagre salary, and tells the man so; but the man's excuse is that he pays four hundred dollars a year towards the church music. Think of that. And he pays to hear that "The Earth is the Lord's," and still does not hear. The little room is built and furnished without his help, and saves many a poor fellow from drink.
Our man has several other places to preach in, each worse than the other. In one town it is on Sunday afternoon, but he has to wait for the room until the dance is over. In another town he builds a church; and to this day may be seen the bullet-holes near the pulpit, where men have shot at him, hoping to kill their best friend. As he is passing along the street one day with a companion, a man runs across the road from a saloon, plunges a knife into the heart of the man who is walking with our minute-man, and he drops dead in his tracks. Amid such scenes as this our hero still works. He has been the means of stopping more than one strike; and one would think that the rich companies would at least give more than they do to help these men at the front, who would make Pinkerton's men and State troops unnecessary.
In the meantime the men are here. Can we expect that these men, coming from their huts on the Danube,—seeing our fine houses, the American workingmen's children well clothed and attending school,—are going to be content? Do we want them to be? The worst thing that could happen to them and ourselves would be for them to be content with their present condition. No greater danger could menace the Republic than thousands of Europeans coming here to live, and remaining in their present condition. We condemn them for coming and underworking our men; and we condemn them when they want more, and are bound to get it.
Many say, "Keep them out." But there are several things in the way. Rich corporations, mine-owners, and railways are bound to get them. And would you keep the men from which we sprung in overcrowded Europe, while we have a continent with but seventy millions? Is there any real love in that which sends a missionary to Europe to save souls on the Don, that will not let their bodies live on the Hudson? Do we believe that "The Earth is the Lord's"? Let me close this chapter with a quotation from Roger Williams's letter to the Town of Providence:—
"I have only one motion and petition which I earnestly pray the town to lay to heart, as ever they look for a blessing from God on the town, in your families, your corn and cattle, and your children after you. It is this, that after you have got over the black brook of some soul bondage yourselves, you tear not down the bridge after you, by leaving no small pittance for distressed souls that come after you."
XXIV.
THE DANGEROUS NATIVE CLASSES.
We hear much about the dangerous foreigners that come to us, but little about the dangerous native. There is not a type, whether of poverty or ignorance, but what we can match it. Leaving out the negro, we have over ninety per cent Anglo-Saxon in the South. Here we find a strange lot of paradoxes,—the most American, the most ignorant, the most religious, the most superstitious, and the most lawless. Take the lowest class of Crackers, and we have the whole of the above combined, with millions of mountain whites to match. Yet in this same South land are the most gentlemanly, and the most lady-like, and the most hospitable people in the country. The Cracker classes are descendants of the English, but what kind of English? The offscourings of prison and dockyards, sent over to work on the plantations before slave labor was introduced.