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a “The Jrue Relation of Agriculture to Politics.”

ADDRESS i

Hon, THOMAS FRANCIS BAYARD,

OF DELAWARE,

At Pimlico Fair Grounds, near Baltimore,

ee Maryland Agricultural Associa’n,

1 RY}

Thursday, Sept. 26th, 1878.

WILMINGTON, DEL:
THE EVERY EVENING PUBLISHING COMPANY,
Publishers of “Every Evening” and “The Delaware Tribune,”

1878.

The True Relation of Agriculture to Polities,

At the Pimlico Fair Grounds, near Baltimore, on Thursday September 26th,
1878, Senator Bayard, of Delaware, by invitation, delivered the following address

before the Maryland Agricultural Association.

Ladies and Gentlemen: There is an old
French saying that ‘‘He who excuses
himself accuses himself,” and the same
idea finds expression in ocr English
adage, ‘‘A man who is good at excuses is
good at nothing else’—and yet i cannot
forbear to lay before you, in the way of
apology for the shortcomings of this ad-
dress, the wearying heats of our American
summer and the professional and other
engagements which have turned what
should have been a vacation and period of
rest into a really busy season of occupa-
tion. But my desire to meet and mingle
with the people of Maryland has caused
me to put aside other engagements which
have, nevertheless, stood in the way of
that preparation to which the themes
proper for discussion before such an asso-
ciation as yours, composed of thoughtful
and iuteiligent citizens, are entitled and
deserve. :

Not having been bred a farmer,
what I do not know about this important
pursuit would be far more interesting and
valuable than what i do; but the pursuit
and results of agriculture are so important
to society at large, and so essential to
civilized government itself, that, although
reared in a different profession, my
thoughts have been frequently occupied
in the consideration of the great and
growing importance to us all of this chief
source of production and wealth, and the
duty which consequently attaches to those
who devote their time and energies to
farming to obtain and apply all the aid
that scientific knowledge can supply.

MORR’S UTOPIA.

Sir Thomas More, the wise, witty and
upright chancellor who braved the fury of
a tyrant and obeyed his conscience even
unto death, met at Antwerp, in 1514, a
companion of Americus Vespucius, who
feigned to have discovered an island in the
Western Atlantic, and the idea was thus
suggested by the recent discoveries of
Columbus, of the imaginary commonwealth
called by More, Utopia, under cover of
which title he launched the arrows of his
satire at the rulers of his day, and in
playful earnest gave many wise hints upon
government.

Mr. Bayard spoke as follows :—

Of agriculture he said something that
may be useful for us to consider :

In Utopia farm houses are built over the whole
country, to which inhabitants are sent in rotation
from the cities. Every family had forty men and
women and two slaves. A master and a mistress

presided over each family, and over thirty families

a magistrate.

Every year twenty of the family return to town,
being two years in the country, so that all acquire
some knowledge of agriculture, and the land is
never left in the hands of persons quite un-
acquainted with country labors.

He adds:

The chief business of the magistrates is to take
care that noman may live idle, and that everyone
should labor in his trade for six hours out of the 24.

His prophetic eye woula seem to have
had in view the ‘‘tramps” of our period,
and to have prescribeda very simple but
excellent formula for their regulation.

A ROYAL ROAD TO USEFULNESS.

The royal family of Germany, following
very wise rule, is instructed in some
branch of mechanical skill. I have been
told the present Emperor wes a good
chair-maker, and the Crown Prince a
button-maker, and it would be a good
thing for us to imitate this very sensible
system, and improve it by having, in
every large family, at least one educated
farmer.

Tknow of no branch of study which
does not with greater or less directness
lead the mind back to the marvels, the
mysteries and bounties of our common
mother earth, from whose bosom we draw
all that sustains our bodies; from the
close and humble observance of whose
laws we derive our best lessons in science
and philosophy, and it is looking through
nature, as displayed in the earth, up to
nature’s God, that we feel most forcibly
the ties of religion itself.

THE PROMINENCE OF LAWYERS IN PUBLIO
STATIONS.

Here in America, the theory and system
of our government being popular, and
framed upon the distribution of limited
powers to numerous and independent
agents, every representative body—the
houses of Congress,the State Legislatures,
the county commissioners, the city coun-
cils—becomes a parliament,the very mean-

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‘ing of which word, ‘‘a speaking body,”

will throw some light upon an important
question often asked, Why are our legis-
latures, State and Federal, composed so
largely of members of the legal profes-
sion? Why does that profession con-
tribute so largely in filling the chief offices
of the Government?

Independent of the fact that ours was
intended to be a government of laws, and
not of the mere will of rulers, and that
the class of citizens who make laws their
especial study will naturally be called
upon to frame and execute them, and that
men ‘‘learned in the law’’ must of neces-
sity, alone, compose the judicial
branch of the Government, to whom is
confided the interpretation of laws,
there can be no doubt that lawyers are
often chosen as legislators, chiefly because
they can discuss questions, and thus par-
liament is held, and the rewards of dis-
tinction and power are most easily access-
ible to members of the talking profes-
sion.

ONE BAD RESULT.

A bad result of this is the overcrowding
of the legal profession and official places by
the sons of ambitious parents, or by the
ambitious sons of modest parents, to the
exclusion of other classes and professions,
and frequently, as it seems to me, to the
detriment of the community.

It has frequently been observed that the
minds of lawyers are too much disposed to
technicality and lack that breadth of view
which is one of the best qualities in legis-
lation, which is intended to be the stable
rule of society, equal in all its applications
to all men, of every occupation or pursuit,
of every grade in fortune, and of every
grade of intellectual faculty.

In England, from which country our
institutions of government are chicfly
copied, it has been often noted that men
distinguished at the bar had failed to main-
tain their reputation in the halls of legis-
lation, and those whose impress as leaders
has been most indelibly and favorably
made upon their country’s government
have been men whose minds were freed
from the mere technical education in a
single professional pursuit.

FARMERS AND MECHANICS NEEDED IN THE
PUBLIC COUNCILS.

Therefore it is that I would rejoice to
see a stronger infusion of the intellect of
leading men in the agricultural and
mechanical pursuitsin those representative
bodies by whom our laws are moulded,
and who should therefore be prepared
and equipped for such duties by a greater
amount of general culture and acquirement
than is usual, and, let me add, should
enlarge their studies of government and
laws, and bestow a larger proportion of »
their time and thoughts to the details and
.practical conduct of political affairs.

Your association is one of the agencies
to which we must look for reformation in
the particulars I have mentioned. There
are especial opportunities for high useful-
ness given by the comparative seclusion
of your lives, which you cannot too highly
appreciate or value. Undoubtedly the
driving, hurry and bustle of a city life
sharpens men’s faculties, and burnishes
them by constant atirition into a bright-
ness beside which the wits of ‘*Country
Cousins” may seem dull—but at the same
time it deprives them*of those seasons for
calm self-communion, of introspection
and judgment, which are so essential for
public as well as private safety and
welfare.

True wisdom is born of serenity and
repose; judgments formed in times of
commotion are not trustworthy. The
calm bosom of the secluded lake reflects
most truly the face of the heaven it
mirrors, and which can never be pictured
in the vexed surface of the stormy sea or
turbulent river.

In the quiet mind of the secluded
thinker is usually found that wisdom
which descends ‘‘to guide us in this dark
estate.”

Country life gives not merely the leisure
for study, but especially 1s fitted for medi-
tation and reflection, needed to coun-
teract the heated sensationalism and
feverish thirst for novelty so painfully
characteristic of the time and country in
which we live.

From homes in the country, oftentimes
obscure and sometimes impoverished, have
emerged those men who most potently and
beneficently have influenced the history
of our country.

HAMPDEN AND HAMPTON.

Few figures stand forth upon the can-
vass of history so eminent and admirable
as that of John Hampden, the English
country gentleman, whose monument
records that, ‘‘with great courage and con-
summate abilities,he began a noble opposi-
sition to an arbitrary court in defense of
the liberties of his country; supported
them in Parliament, and died for them in
the field.”

And his compeer in virtue and ability,
separated in date by more than two cen-
turies, but who willever rank with him in
history, whose constancy and sound judg-
ment, whose intrepidity and self-control
have proved such a shield and buckler to
his people, when beset by difficulties and
dangers greater than even Hampden con-
fronted, is to-day supplied in our own
land in Wade Hampton, the planter of
South Carolina !

Hampden and Hampton! The names
blend in sound, and in future time,

“Far on in summers that we shall not see,”

they will be coupled in the lessons taught

to inspire the youth of all lands with
patriotic endeavour.

GREAT WORK WROUGHT IN SECLUSION.

In a pleasant nook in an English garden
the mind of the great Newton first
detected and comprehended the laws of
the gravitation of matter.

Away from cities, in an obscure village,
James Watt, the inaugurator of our present
wonderful condition of mechanical pro-
gress, sat watching the lid of the tea kettle
as it rose and fell, antil he comprehended
the imprisoned power which proclaimed
its birth in struggles and demanded and
irresistibly compelled its release from
confinement.

Far away from the busy haunts of men,
distant from cities and their tumults, within
the quiet walls of the monasteries, during
all the violence and wars of the middle
ages the lamp of learning and science was
faithfully trimmed and kept burning.
And art and science and history in that
long and dark period of unrest lay hid and
safely preserved and cherished by the
patient, modest and conscientious labor
and chronicle of the poor recluse and
humble monk.

Unconsciously, perhaps, a striking and
most practical illustration of the truth I
have suggested is given by the means
adopted in many states of the Union—
some by constitutional amendment, as in
Illinois and Pennsylvania, in others by
statutory amendment of municipal
charters, to arrest the appalling increase
of the debts of cities and large towns,
which have grown with such rapidity as to
threaten absolute confiscation of the
property within their jurisdiction. And
many city governments, so far from being
a protection to the accumulations of
industry and an encouragement to enter-
prise have come to be regarded as
their greatest danger.

DEPENDENCE ON RURAL LEGISLATORS TO RE-
STRAIN THE ILL GOVERNMENT OF OITIES.

Under our system of suffrage as con-
ducted in the cities public expenditures
have become s0 excessive, so wild and
profligate, and so large a class of the pop-
ulation have cometo look upon the public
treasury as their rightful means of support,
and the corrupt improvement of private
property at public cost has become so com-
mon that the power to incur further
indebtedness has been withdrawn from the
local control of city officials and com-
mitted to the restraining influences of
state legislatures, which are composed
chiefly of representatives from the country
districts.

Does not this fact constitute a public
admission that a more reliable sentiment, a
more ‘‘saving common-sense” in the care
and administration of property exists
among the citizens of the rural districts

4

than would seem to control their sharper-
witted brethern massed at the centres of
population ?

I barely glance at this serious problem
of the government of men in large and
dense masses, not proposing on this occa-
sion to treat of the obvious evils of our
municipal systems, or their proper reme-
dies, but merely to draw your attention to
the confession, contained in the fact
referred to, of the manifest reliance exhib-
ited upon the calmer and slower and, as _ it
would appear, more wise and conservative
judgment of the inhabitants of the rural
districts.

THE BROAD PRAIRIE LAND OF PUBLIO
SENTIMENT.

Never was there a time in the history
of our country when calm, independent
and resolute resistance to wild and dan-
gerous popular fallacies was so needed as
now.

Every thinking man must have felt
that the absence of legal ranks and classes
in the United States has created what may
be likened to a broad prairie land of pub-
lic sentiment, over which every gale that
becomes popular sweeps with wunob-
structed force and levels all individual
opposition.

This is one of the defects and dangers
of our democratic form of government,
against which its friends must guard it,
and which especially needs the opposition
of outspoken individuality of opinion,
and is yet so indisposed to tolerate it.

A falsehood is not less false because a
thousand voices shout it; it is only the
more dangerous and should encounter
more active and strenuous resistance.

INDEPENDENT OPINION NEEDED.

We do need, and need badly, vigorous
utterances of independent opinions. It is
from the conflict of honest, out-spoken
minds that truth is obtained, just as the
steel and the flint are both required to
strike the light.

And to the tyranny of unchecked
popular opinion is added the terrorism of
political partisanship, by which American
intellect and personal conscience are so
rudely assailed, overcome and dragged in
the dust of wild and clamorous error.

Upon the thoughtful minds of men who
love their country, and whose lives are
passed remote from busy crowds, I
earnestly press the consideration of their
duty and responsibility, to remedy these
defects.

FINANCIAL BEWILDERMENT.

If, inthe midst of such financial dis-
tress and bewilderment as now surround
us, remedies, illusory and yet plausible,
should be urged; schemes which promise
immediate relief, unbounded, easy and
seductive, and which have caught the

“

popular mind sufficiently to promise the
possession of temporary political power to
their most conspicuous advocates, how
plain is the duty and_ responsibility
of every man who’sees the lurking error
and the concealed danger of such measures
to bear his testimony in loud warning
against them ?

What answer should the farming
classes, the land owners and the hardy
yeomen of the United States, give to these
strange, wild cries we hear going up from
the political conventions of parties with
bnew names, that no more rent should be
paid for land, no more interest for the
use of money, that the precious metals
should be _ discarded, and ‘absolute
money” ordained by law should replace
und measure all values and be received
for all dues ?

THE DUTY AND INTEREST OF FARMERS,

Who should so strenuously resist all
schemes which tend to lessen public rever-
ence for pledged faith, to weaken confi-
dence and to cripple and destroy public
(and of course private) credit by agreeing
to plans for the indefinite post-
ponement of the payment of pub-
lic engagements according to their
terms? What portion of the American
people need credit so much and soa regu-
larly as the farmer, who has to wait six
months between seed-time and harvest for
his means of payment? If aman would
enjoy credit let him denounce all schemes
to weaken credit and insist upon all that
will give it strength. ‘To the poor and
honest man who needs credit and is com-
pelled to borrow money, I earnestly com-
mend these words.

ALL VALUES ARISE OUT OF LABOR,

What portion of the American people
know so wellas the agricultural classes the
great fact that all values arise out of labor,
and that nothing of value can be had with-
out its share of labor ?

To whom,therefore, can the fallacy that
wealth can be created by empty promises
to create it, be more apparent, and by
whom should it more scornfully and
promptly be rejected ?

Who knows the reality and necessity of
steady, continuous manual industry better
than the American farmer? and who can
beter attest the falsehood of a system of
currency which instructs men that pieces
of paper, upon which is printed a promise
of payment never to be redeemed, and
which can be multiplied indefinitely at the
will of any accidental majority of Con-
gress, can ever be a stable and reliable
measure of the value of those crops
upon the production of which so much
human toil, anxiety and care have been
bestowed ?

The pretended mysteries of the alche-
mists have long since become the subject

of human pity and derision, and surely
the attempt now to revive the greater
delusion that a printed Government certifi- »
cate of value, not convertible into any
thing of value, can take absolutely and
permanently the place of, and perform all
the functions of actual value, will speedily
be discarded by the ‘‘sober, second-
thought’ of the American people.

THE LABOR PROBLEM,

But little more than twelve months ago
we witnessed, here in Maryland and in
otber states, occurrences’ growing out of
conflicting claims of labor and capital,
in which lawlessness raised its horrid
front and shocking scenes of insane and
savage destruction of property and life
were enacted well calculated to fill every
citizen with apprehension and deep
anxiety.

So long as public peace and safety are
in jeopardy there can be for all good citi-
zens but one immediate, ever-present and
paramount duty: the maintenance of the
law; and when law is obeyed, and sits
firmly and unquestioned in its rightful seat
of power; then, and only then,
and not until then, shall the
bearing and relief of alleged injuries and
justice be patiently, calmly, and kindiy
heard, investigated and remedied so far as
legal justice can suflice.

But I do not propose to touch upon this,
the gravest and most important problem
of modern civilization, which is shaping
itself and constantly demanding recogni-
tion in every quarter of the civilized world,
not less in empires than republics, and in
the soluiion of which the remedies and
course of action which are most deeply
touched with a sense of common human
brotherhood and are the most influenced
by the essential and indelible, but unwrit-
ten laws of justice and good will between
man and man, willalone prove productive
of permanent prosperity to all classes.

PLACES FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

But there are facts which all must recog-
nize and which are full of present
instruction.

Owing to a variety of causes, which I
will not attempt to recapitulate, there is
to-day a large body of our fellow country-
men unemployed and in want, who are
entitled to the most intelligent considera-
tion and most active friendship and assist-
ance. Go into the streets of Baltimore,
and indeed of every lesser town, and you
will find them idle but most anxious to be
honestly employed.

I read a few months since the statement
of a leading coal land owner and miner in
one of the Pennsylvania valleys, in which
he assured the unemployed people of his
district that all the coal mining now needed
could be done with one-half the hands
gathered in that region, and that for the

other half there was no prospect of
employment. These men were to be
counted by thousands and with their
families are to be counted by ten thousands.

When I think of the fair and fertile
peninsula on which I live and of which
our dear old ‘‘Eastern Shore” forms part,
I wish from my heart that allof these
strong and willing hands of labor could be
transported and permanently established
on Maryland and Delaware farms.

When we cast our eyes across
the ocean, either to the east or
the west, and see the fearful

ravages of death in the starvation of mil-
lions in British India and the Chinese
Empire, or witness an imbruted condition
of living humanity with more than the
pangs and none of the deliverance of
death itself, we can better form an idea of
the difficulties of human government
under conditions of dense population and
insuficient production and realize the
blessings of communities, such as our own
Maryland and Delaware where, under just
and equal laws, the results of industry are
protected and personal liberty guaranteed,
and where a roof to shelter from the
elements, warm clothing and abundant
and substantial food are obtainable by any
man who, with moderate health and
strength, is content to walk with industry,
sobriety and simple honesty as his com-
panions.

THE RUSH FROM COUNTRY TO CITY.

Has there not been for more than twelve
years past a steady exodus of our young
yeomanry from the country districts to the
towns and cities ? Is it not a fact that the
steady labors of the farm and the duller
occupations and amusements of the home-
stead have proven irksome and distasteful
to many of the present generation who
have sought in the hot bed growth of
trade and speculation, fostered by paper
money in our centres of population, a
more profitable an easier or more exciting
kind of life? What has been the result ?
The cities are filled with the idle victims
of over trade and exploded speculations.
Agricultural labor has been abandoned by
those most fit for it, and our farmers have
been compelled to get along with less com-
petent hands and pay them higher wages.

As a result, production has been lessened
and at the same time the cost of pro-
duction has been increased.

One obvious cure for much of the dis-
tress we now witness in cities and manu-
facturing centres will be found in the
return of the population to the cultivation
of American farms which to-day are at
prices far beiow their intrinsic vaiue
because the compensationsand advantages
of country life and agricultural occupa-
tions have not been duly weighed and
appreciated,

NO_FEAR OF OVER-PRODUCTION,

There need be no fears of over-produe-
tion of the fruits of the earth by American
farmers so long, at least, as the mad ambi-
tions of European rulers turn that conti-
nent into a vast camp or battle field, and
pervert the energies of their peoples to
their mutnal destruction, and by vast
military establishments suck the very life-
blood out of the industries they profess to
protect.

“Knowledge comes,
But wisdom lJingers.”

The progress of invention and the appli-
cation of matural forces to mechanical uses
within the last quarter of a century is
indeed marvellous. Undoubtedly every
invention whereby labor is released from
any task leaves it free to seek new fields
of employment and thereby production is
proportionately increased, and production
is wealth, and personal comfort and luxury
are the followers of wealth.

Whether the laborer is made more intel-
ligent, and his condition on the whole
advanced, is a deeply interesting und
important question which I will not pause
now to discuss.

In considering the benefits of the inven-
tion of labor-saving machinery to the
laborer the increased time for cultivation
of his faculties is obvious, and this shows
the importance of providing healthful
mental occupation.

In proportion as mechanical improve-
ment makes personal thought and skill in
the operative less necessary, and so tends
to deaden his intelligence, the need of food
for his mind is increased and should be
supplied. The love and habit of reading
should be encouraged so that when men
and women have leisure it will not be for
mischief, but improvement. It seems to
me that every agricultural society ought
to own a library of sensible and entertaining
books to refresh the weary and attract
inquiring minds among the Jaboring class.

Of the application of steam and elec-
tricity to agriculture and mechanical
pursuits each day yives some new illustra-
tion and amid the wonders developed we
feel, as La Rochefoucauld said, ‘‘only sur-
prised that we can be surprised.” But,
knowing what we do, these inventions
open to us a vista of material progress
into which we may well gaze until imagi-

nation fails to trammel up the results.
AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES

COUNTRY.

OF OUR

By good authority we are told that in
1859-60 the largest cotton crop ix the
United States, upwards of 5,000,000 bales, .
was produced, and that but 2 per cent. of
the territory especially adapted to its culti-
vation was occupied. Knowing the
peculiar requirements of this plant, in soil

and climate, and the comparatively
restricted area, imagination fails to picture
the capacities of this country under the
wonderful improvements in mechanics as
applied to agriculture, of chemistry as
. applied to agriculture, and of the means
of transporting the products of agriculture,
not cotton only, but all the other number-
less crops so much the less circumscribed
as to fitting soil and climate. Surely this
land could be the granary and store-house
of the whole world.

The skillful cultivation practiced
for two centuries in Holland,
if applied to the marshes and neglected
lands surrounding some of our chief cities,
would result in marvellcus production.
Such, for instance, as at Beemster, where
18,000 acres of the most fertile and valua-
ble land lies 16 feet below the level of the
adjacent sea, and yet was drained in 1612,
and so ever since maintained; and some of
the finest meadows are more than 30 feet
below the water level.

And yet Holland, like all the rest of
Europe, is glad to use the labor-saving
agricultural machinery of the United States.

Here is the beneficence of free trade in
thought—each gathering good from the
other—all benefited by the discovery of
each.

THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE.

In the utilization of what is vow re-
garded as wastes, the American farmers,
especially of our own and the more South-
ern states, have much to learn.

The ‘‘dung hill” of which so many
speak with such contempt, and of which
80 few appreciate the value, has proven
the foundation of solid wealth, well worthy
of intelligent care. From the Chinese we
may learn much as to this, and every day
the ignorant wastes and sanitary dangers
of the sewerage of our towns and cities are
forcing themselves upon the consideration
of thoughtful minds.

Iam not competent—even if this hasty
address would permit me—to speak of the
science of agriculture.

It is only of comparatively late years
that it has been so treated. In 1802 Sir
Humphrey Davy first lectured upon agri-
culture fs a science,and since that date the
applications of chemistry,as applied analy-
tically to soils, has thrown new light upon
the pursuit.

No farmer but should constantly experi-
ment upon the capacity of his land. It is
only by such means that its possible value
can be known.

OUR COUNTRY’S GREAT OROPS.

To-day the ‘‘ balance of trade,” as it is
called, is effected in favor of the United
States chiefly by the cotton crop, yet a
wheelbarrow could have carried that crop
less than one hundred years ago. In 1782
eight bags (not bales) of cotton were seized

in England on a ship from the United
States because it was supposed to be im-
possible that so much of the fibre could
be produced in this country. The very
names of calico from Calcutta, and muslin
from Moussoul, tell us the Oriental origin
of our household fabrics.

Rice, of which the production in Caro-
lina and the other Southern states is so
extensive and important, is not indigenous
to our soil, but is alleged to have started
from a single peck of paddy or rice in the
husk, given by the captain of a Dutch brig
to Governor Smith, at Charleston, in 1694,
into which port the vessel had put in die-
tress. Its culture was afterwards, in 1718,
introduced into Louisiana by John Law’s
famous ‘‘Company of the West.” To-day
ours is the finest rice culture in the world.

There are now known three hundred
species of grasses, and may I not ask why
are not many of these found suitable for
this region, for profitable cultivation, for
grazing and live stock improvement ?

It is so easy to make these experiments,
so interesting to watch their disclosures,
and the possibilities of profit are so hope-
ful, that I cannot but be surprised at the
neglect I witness almost everywhere.

By the census of 1870 there were
11,155,240 persons, over 20 years of age,
employed in the United States. Of these
in agriculture were employed 5,151,767,
and in manufactures 2,500,189, giving to
these combined employments 7,651,956.
Trade and transportation bad 1,117,928;
leaving for the professions, and others not
classed, 2,385,356. The agricultural and
mechanical employments thus embracing
nearly two-thirds of our working men—
and being so essential and controlling a
portion of our body politic—how manifest
the importance of education and training
among them.

THE SAVING VIRTUES FOR A PEOPLE MORALLY
SICK,

But I wili not weary your patience
longer with the speculations of a mind
whose practical experience in your call-
ing is so slight.

What may be the results of the wonder-
ful discoveries in physical science we
may not fully comprehend, but ‘I doubt
not through the ages an increasing pur-
pose runs.” Under all conditions of
life; under every change and vicissitude of
human affairs, human nature remains the
same, and within ourselves rests the
responsibility of human will left free.

A saying of Pericles has been preserved:
“that possessions (houses and lands) can
never produce men, but men can gain of
such things as many as they will.”

New inventions may render the old
useless, and the machinery of to-day may
be cast into the rubbish pit to-morrow ;
our institutions of government may fail
and be replaced by others—history is filled

with such illustrations. But there are other
things that will never fail, and can never
safely be discarded; are needed now,
always were, and ever will be needed:

Self-reliance and self-restraint.

Industry and frugality.

Courage and patience.

Truthfulness and honor.

Morality and religion.

These are the essential bases which keep
the world sweet and correct those fermen-
tations which human passions generate.

Upon these qualities we must depend
for all the hope of permanent and _ pro-
pressive prosperity and happiness. And
how shali they be secured? All are home-
spun virtues—virtues spun at home; and
to the guardians of homes we must look
to see that they are implanted and nour-
ished there.

THE DUTY OF WOMEN IN PRESERVING THE
FIRESIDE VIRTUES.

Mothers of America, how great a
power is in your hands!—to mould the
characters of those who are soon to be
charged with the government of their
country!

How shallow and petty seem all other
rights compared with these: the true
woman’s rights, that spring not from

8

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

NIT

human ‘statutes, but have their warrant
from a Higher Hand.

In reflecting upon the evils which to-
day afflict our country; which have pros-
trated its prosperity and paralyzed its
industries and commerce, I trace the want
of influence of the fireside virtues I have
named. Ours is a government of laws, but
laws moulded by public opinion. In a
reformed, regenerated public opinion
must we look for the cure of the evils

which unclean dishonesty, disregard of |

truth and honor, unscrupulous private
greed and unpatriotic animosities have
brought upon us. The family and home
circle are the natural birth place and nur-
sery of the principles which, being educa-
ted and established there, expand into
the community and pervade the whole
body of laws and government with their
sober and sweet influences.

The care of his family is the just, hap-
piest and proudest duty of the American
citizen, and to the American moiher is
assigned the power and duty of moulding
the character of the American man. No
written law, no established constitution
has created or assigned these duties but in
their just performance rest our chief hopes
for individual and national welfare and
happiness.

THE LEADING DELAWARE NEWSPAPER.

The only Wilmington Newspaper receiving Associated Press Dispatches and other Telegraphic News.

Subscripiion price, $5 per year, $3 for six months, 50 cents a month in advance.

i]

THE DELAWARE TRIBUNE,

THE WEEKLY EDITION OF EVERY EVENING,

The best and cheapest weekly, published on the Peninsula.

Price, $1 per annum, in advance.

These papers represent no party, but are independent organs of conservative opinion, advocating the

maintenance of our

Government as the Fathers made it, without paternal powers or banking privileges. As

the one supreme issue of the present time they advocate a constitutional and honest currency of coin, bearing
an unchanging relation to the standard of yalue among civilized nations.

—

Hollinger Corp.
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