their own interests simply to get even with such employers.

Some laboring men have been so robbed, so tyrannized over, that
they would be perfectly willing to feel for the pillars and take
a certain delight in a destruction that brought ruin even to
themselves. Such manufacturers, however, I believe to be in a
minority, and the laboring men, under the policy of free trade,
would be far more in their power. When wages fall below a certain
point, then comes degradation, loss of manhood, serfdom and slavery.
If any man has the right to vote for his own interests, certainly
the man who labors is that man, and every working man having in
his will a part of the sovereignty of this nation, having within
him a part of the lawmaking power, should have the intelligence
and courage to vote for his own interests; he should vote for good
wages; he should vote for a policy that would enable him to lay
something by for the winter of his life, that would enable him to
earn enough to educate his children, enough to give him a home and
a fireside.

He need not do this in anger or for revenge, but because it is
just, because it is right, and because the working people are in
a majority. They ought to control the world, because they have
made the world what it is. They have given everything there is of
value. Labor plows every field, builds every house, fashions
everything of use, and when that labor is guided by intelligence
the world is prosperous.

He who thinks good thoughts is a laborer--one of the greatest.
The man who invented the reaper will be harvesting the fields for
thousands of years to come. If labor is abused in this country
the laborers have it within their power to defend themselves.

All my sympathies are with the men who toil. I shed very few tears
over bankers and millionaires and corporations--they can take care
of themselves. My sympathies are with the man who has nothing to
sell but his strength; nothing to sell but his muscle and his
intelligence; who has no capital except that which his mother gave
him--a capital he must sell every day; my sympathies are with him;
and I want him to have a good market; and I want it so that he can
sell the work for more than enough to take care of him to-morrow.

I believe that no corporation should be allowed to exist except
for the benefit of the whole people. The Government should always
act for the benefit of all, and when the Government gives a part
of its pow