laboring man free and every American equal to every other American, let the laboring man ask what he is worth and get it—­not let any capitalist say to him:  “You shall work for me for half of what you are worth;” nor let any labor organization say:  “You shall work for the capitalist for half your worth.”  Be a man, be independent, and then shall the laboring man find the road ever open from poverty to wealth.  The other difficulty that the labor union has to consider, and this problem they have to solve themselves, is the kind of orators who come and talk to them about the oppressive rich.  I can in my dreams recite the oration I have heard again and again under such circumstances.  My life has been with the laboring man.  I am a laboring man myself.  I have often, in their assemblies, heard the speech of the man who has been invited to address the labor union.  The man gets up before the assembled company of honest laboring men and he begins by saying:  “Oh, ye honest, industrious laboring men, who have furnished all the capital of the world, who have built all the palaces and constructed all the railroads and covered the ocean with her steamships.  Oh, you laboring men!  You are nothing but slaves; you are ground down in the dust by the capitalist who is gloating over you as he enjoys his beautiful estates and as he has his banks filled with gold, and every dollar he owns is coined out of the hearts’ blood of the honest laboring man.”  Now, that is a lie, and you know it is a lie; and yet that is the kind of speech that they are all the time hearing, representing the capitalists as wicked and the laboring men so enslaved.  Why, how wrong it is!  Let the man who loves his flag and believes in American principles endeavor with all his soul to bring the capitalist and the laboring man together until they stand side by side, and arm in arm, and work for the common good of humanity.

He is an enemy to his country who sets capital against labor or labor against capital.

Suppose I were to go down through this audience and ask you to introduce me to the great inventors who live here in Philadelphia.  “The inventors of Philadelphia,” you would say “Why we don’t have any in Philadelphia.  It is too slow to invent anything.”  But you do have just as great inventors, and they are here in this audience, as ever invented a machine.  But the probability is that the greatest inventor to benefit the world with his discovery is some person, perhaps some lady, who thinks she could not invent anything.  Did you ever study the history of invention and see how strange it was that the man who made the greatest discovery did it without any previous idea that he was an inventor?  Who are the great inventors?  They are persons with plain, straightforward common sense, who saw a need in the world and immediately applied themselves to supply that need.  If you want to invent anything, don’t try to find it in the wheels in your head nor the wheels in your