people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves,' "' would neither believe in the night-watchman theory of government which allows it to do nothing but police duty, nor in the socialistic theory of government which leaves nothing for individual effort to do for itself.

Two solutions of the labor problem present themselves in our time for our acceptance. One is capitalism, or the wages system: that a few shall always own the tools and implements with which industry is carried on-these are capitalists—and that the many shall always carry on the industry with these tools and implements for wages paid by their owners. This makes the mass of men always wage-laborers, dependent upon a few. The other is State socialism: that the government shall own all the tools and implements of industry, and allot to the various members of the community their respective industries and compensations. This makes all individuals wage-earners employed by an organization, the City, State, or Nation, in the control of which it is assumed all will share. Neither of these solutions would Lincoln have accepted. Neither of these solutions did he accept. No solution would he have accepted which made the workingman, whether he works with brain or with hand, a perpetual wage-earner, fixed in that condition for life, and forever dependent for his livelihood upon any employer, whether private or political. He did not believe in a perpetual employment of the many by a few capitalists; he would not have believed in a perpetual employment of all by one capitalist-the State or the Nation. He believed in a fair field and an open door through which every workingman may become a capitalist, every wageearner may become his own employer.

In his first Annual Message, Lincoln stated with great clearness his solution of the labor problem. To that statement he attached such importance that he repeated it two years and a half later in his letter to the Working Men's Association of New York. The importance he attached to this statement of his faith justifies my reading it at some length:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of the community exists within that relation. There

is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to allgives, hope to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improvement of condition to all."

Many years ago I delivered an address to a deaf and dumb audience. The congregation fixed their attention upon the interpreter at my side. They looked at him. Through him they heard me. My ambition this afternoon has been to efface myself and bid you listen to the invisible orator who stands by my side with his sad face, his resolute conscience, his human sympathies, and his simple, sincere English. What he would say, if you could hear him, would be, I think, what he said in 1860 to the capitalists and workingmen of New Haven:

"I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat-just what might happen to any poor man's son. I want every man to have the chanceand I believe a black man is entitled to it-in which he can better his condition-when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him. That is the true system. . . . Then you can better your condition, and so it may go on and on in one ceaseless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth."

This is Abraham Lincoln's solution of the labor problem.

ONE OF THE PLAIN PEOPLE

HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW

T is eminently fitting that the birthday of Abraham Lincoln should be celebrated by the Grand Army of the Republic. It was at his call, as President, that the first seventy-five thousand men enlisted to save the Union. Afterward, on other appeals, the cry, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more," rang through every city, village, and hamlet in the land; and forth from the fields, the workshop, the factory, the store, and the office went these followers of Abraham Lincoln to fight for the preservation of the Union. In every way in which a great ruler can alleviate the horrors of war and care for his soldiers, Abraham Lincoln rendered to them, as a body and individually, all the service in his power. They were ever in that great heart of his, and an appeal on their behalf would cause him to lay aside every duty, no matter how great, to encourage, rescue

or save.

We read much in these days of the lack of opportunity for young men. It is claimed that the difficulty of earning a living or of getting ahead increases year by year, but to all who despair, all who are discouraged, all who have a spark of ambition, the life of Abraham Lincoln is an example and inspiration. There is no youth in this audience to-night, and very few, if any, in all this land, who are surrounded with such discouraging conditions as those which were the lot and part of Abraham Lincoln from the time of his birth until he had passed his twenty-fifth year. He was born in a log cabin of one room with a dirt floor, on a farm so sterile that it was impossible for his father to make a living. When he was seven years old the family moved upon government land in the forests of Indiana, and at that tender age he assisted

his parents in constructing another rude habitation, which had neither doors nor windows, and through which swept the rains of summer and the snows of winter. He worked either with his father in an effort to make a clearing in the woods, upon which might be raised food for the family, or else tramped miles to work as a farm-hand for distant neighbors, giving his wages, which were ever so limited, into the family fund. Sickness carried off his mother, a good woman, but uneducated, who did the best she could and probably died from the privations of frontier life. Then, abandoning their farm, the family moved again to Illinois. Here he once more did his best to build a rude home for the family, and the rails which he split for a fence were thirty years afterward carried into the Illinois Convention which presented him as a candidate for President, and in the campaign after his nomination took rank with the things which captured the popular mind in the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of General Harrison, and the "Mill boy of the Slashes," which kept the name of Henry Clay a household word. At twenty-one, putting all his earthly belongings into a handkerchief tied. to a stick, he tramped to the village of Salem to make his own way in the world. He became a clerk in a country store, at ten dollars a month. He, with other young men, built a flatboat and stocked it with some things on credit and floated down to New Orleans. That visit was one of the milestones in his career. He wandered one day into the market-place, where slaves were being publicly sold. There was a beautiful octoroon girl on the block. The auctioneer was calling off her physical perfections. A rough crowd of brutal men were exchanging, with their bids, lecherous jokes about her. Lincoln, a tall, ungainly, ill-clad flatboat man, shook his fist at the exhibition and said, "If I ever get a chance, I will hit that thing hard." The remark matured subsequently in the Proclamation of Emancipation.

He and a friend bought a grocery store upon credit. It was slimly stocked, and they were cheated in the bargain, in giving eight hundred dollars for the goods. His partner took to drink and became a confirmed drunkard, while Lincoln

neglected customers to read and study such few books as he could borrow. The goods disappeared and the firm became bankrupt without any assets. Then Lincoln studied surveying. He managed to secure the necessary instruments and a horse and buggy, and travelled the country, fixing boundary lines between farmers' lands and staking out streets of budding villages and towns. When he had paid for his outfit, misfortune again befell him. The notes which he and his partner gave for the store had been sold immediately at a tremendous discount, and then bought up subsequently by a Shylock money lender for a few dollars. This money lender now secured judgment, levied upon and sold Lincoln's horse, wagon, surveying instruments, and everything which he possessed. The neighbors were so shocked that they refused to bid, and a friend bought in the outfit, at a small price, and loaned it to Lincoln to pursue his profession. So that, at twenty-five, after all these sad experiences on the farm, the flatboat, and the grocery, he found himself in debt. It would have been easy to have escaped that obligation. He was so advised by his friends, but the answer, which was characteristic of his life and characteristic of one of the most honest of minds, was, "I promised to pay." It was many years before he was able to clear off that obligation.

About this time a young lady of beauty, family, and culture, to whom he was engaged, contracted a fatal illness, and died in his presence. His friends feared he would lose his mind with grief. It was a sorrow which pursued him for years, and from which he never entirely recovered. He now, burdened with debt and almost crushed with this pathetic tragedy, practically started anew at twenty-six to study law. In these days a young man, before he can be admitted to the bar, must have an education of the common school and high school or academy, which means years of study and opportunity for study. Before he can be admitted to the great law schools he must have received a degree in a college of liberal learning, and then before he can be graduated from the law school he must spend four years in hard work. Lincoln became a great lawyer, but think of his equipment when he