Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE GRAND FUTURE OF AMERICA.

Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand as the first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane; I believe there is more human kindness, and a greater desire to help one another, than in all the world besides.

We must progress.

of invention.

We are just at the commencement

The steam engine the telegraph-these are but the toys with which science has been amused. There will be grander things; there will be wider and higher culture-a grander standard of character, of literature and art.

We have now half as many millions of people as we have years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books; we are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things, trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction-investigating; in short, we are thinking and working.

The world has changed. I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man-once a slave-sitting in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. I have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled with tears, I felt that we had carried out the Declaration of Independence, that we have given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children-standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million.

All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is

the only flag that has in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity. Eqality-the three grandest words in all the languages of men. Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor-the labor of his hand and of his brain. Fraternity, Every man in the right is ny brother. Equality: The rights of all are equal. No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit. The second century will be grander than the first. To-day the black man looks upon his child and says: The avenues of distinction are open to you-upon your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy homes. We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty-thirteen states to thirtyeight. We have better homes. and more of the conveniences of life than any other people upon the face of the globe. The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago—and they have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor have given us all. Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part -who loves his friends the best--is most willing to help ' others—truest to the obligation-who has the best heart -the most feeling the deepest sympathies—and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air, and have given the country to mankind.

C

[graphic][merged small]

Ingersoll's Early Experience as a Farmer. From the Illinois State Register.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN; I am not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground.

I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of wealth, prosperity and luxury. I know that in the country where the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperons.

It was all work and They used to fence a hun

The old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything was done the wrong way. waste, weariness and want. dred and sixty acres of land Everything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake.

with a couple of dogs.

When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in a wagon and sell it for thirty-five cents

a bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.

In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. We had poor houses. fect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food was fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation.

The rain held the roof in per

In those days farmers thought the best place for the pig pen was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability.

Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log, upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clapboards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable. Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and

weariness and vextation of spirit, The crops were destroyed by wandering herds. or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs.

And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.

Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he would never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's-reading, writing and arithmetic-imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.

A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. They built railways, established banks and insurance companies,

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »