you will go away pleased with what you will hear from the platform to-night, notwithstanding the disappointment that the committee has met with. It will not be your disappointment.

Now I take pleasure in introducing as the first speaker this evening one of the veterans of the labor movement in Americathe Hon. Terence V. Powderly. (Applause.)

Labor and Peace

TERENCE V. POWDERLY

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: When Brother Buchanan intimated to me a few moments ago that some of those who were to come to-night and speak to you had not arrived, and asked me to help out, I inquired what he wanted me to talk on, and he said: "Well, on the platform, and about fifteen minutes." (Laughter). So you will not be troubled for any length of time by me.

These are peaceful times. We are in the days of Peace. It is in the air. It is in the home, and it's everywhere. It is the talk of even the fellows who are fighting. They are all hoping for a day of Peace, and so it is a hopeful sign. It is eminently fit and proper that upon this platform, in this institution, labor's voice should be raised in behalf of Peace, for if any body of men in the nation, or any element in the nation longs for Peace, works for it, strives for it and honestly wishes to have it, that element is the labor element of the nation. It may be that because we have been in war, time and again, that the idea has grown that we did not want Peace, but it was simply because conditions forced war upon us that we were obliged to enter upon it and not because we desired it. (Applause.) To have Peace at a sacrifice of honor is not what man wants, particularly organized working men. A working man desires honor first (applause), and if that can be had with Peace he wants it, but if it must be got through war, it will be because he cannot get it through Peace.

Patrick Henry said over a hundred years ago, and when I go back a hundred years don't imagine that I am going to stretch my fifteen minutes a bit. (Laughter.) He said: "Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible to any force that

may be sent against us." He spoke then in the interest of Peace and of a war not yet begun, which he hoped would not begin, but which he did not shrink from when the issues at stake commanded him to go forward. So to-night in that same land, with 80,000,000 of people declaring for Peace through their representatives, working for Peace through their agents, demanding Peace on every platform, why Peace will have to come; it must come; it's in the air, and no nation is so well calculated or so well fitted to command Peace as ours. (Applause.)

How shall it be brought about? I think that labor and capital, the employer and the employe, have shown the way whereby it may be done or how it may be done. There was a time when your Honored Chairman and I were in the thick of the fight for labor's emancipation. If any man had said to us that the employers of labor and the employed would meet together, sit down together as the lion and the lamb, without the lamb being on the inside, he would have been laughed at! It was not dreamed of as among the possibilities then, but to-day the employer and the employed meet, and they take each other by the hand, instead of by the neck, as they used to do years ago. We clasp hands to-day, and the voice of reason is heard.

Under the admirable leadership of a Gompers (applause) it is possible for labor to command the respect, the close attention and the friendly attitude of those who employ labor. It could not be done years ago, for we were tilling new ground. We were not acquainted with each other then. You know they might think that we were all right, but they did not know it, and what was worse, they did not know that we knew it.

A man was going up to a farm house one day when a dog started after him. The dog walked faster than the man did, then the man started to run; the dog had the best of it again; so when the man got up to the door, he did not wait to knock; he dispensed with the formality of ringing the bell, even; he turned the knob, and to his great relief the door opened and he walked in and shut the door, with the dog on the outside. Then the man of the house came to the door and said: "What is the matter with you? What is your hurry?" "Why," he answered, "the dog out there; that big dog." The man of the house looked out and said: "Why, that is only Bruno, our dog; he won't bite; don't you know?" "Yes," he said, "I know he won't bite; you know he

won't bite, but the dog don't know it." (Laughter.) We didn't know each other in those days. We do now, and we know that there is no more potent voice in favor of Peace than the voice of labor. We know also that there is no more manly voice demanding Peace than the voice of labor. We know, furthermore, that there is no more consistent voice demanding Peace than the voice of labor. And when after a while you hear those who are duly accredited to speak for labor from this platform, you will realize that the few words I have said to you on that subject are true.

I made a lot of notes since Buchanan told me I had to talk, but I won't have to use them, for my fifteen minutes are nearly ended, and fortunately there are others here whom we did not suppose would come. I will take no more of your time. I simply come to you, as the Chairman said, as one of the veterans of the labor movement. There was a time when I knew all about the labor movement-twenty-five years ago; oh, yes, more than that; there was not anything in the labor movement that I did not know. And now that I am fifty-eight years young, I know that all the things that I thought I knew when I was twenty-eight years old did not count for much. You know I have forgotten a lot and so will every man. I have forgotten that there should be enmity between those who are dealing with a great public question. I believe they should understand each other and their cause first and foremost, so that when a difference arises they can canvass the situation from top to bottom. If all men did that always, there would be no more trouble.

I thank you for the attention you have given me (applause) and I will ask you to bear with me one minute. I have asked the Chairman to use this gavel to-night. He used it before; it was used on many occasions where he was an officer. It has been used all over the world; it has been used always in the interest of Peace, always in a good and honorable cause. It will never be used in a bad cause; and I shall esteem it more highly after to-night, having been once again handled by my old co-worker, Joe Buchanan. (Applause.)

MR. BUCHANAN:

The next speaker is at the head of one of the best-known local labor organizations, an organization that is known wherever trade unionism is known, an organization that has found success

in times of trouble through arbitration and yet has never been found wanting when a fight was necessary. I take pleasure in introducing James J. Murphy, President of Typographical Union No. 6, New York City. (Applause.)

Organized Labor, the Advocate of Peace
JAMES J. MURPHY

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The voice of labor is on the side of Peace. Especially is this true of Union Labor; for in the proportion that labor is organized and has progressed along the natural lines of organization, it is intelligent.

As education advances man toward a higher and better civilization, he leaves farther and farther behind him the crudities and cruelties of barbarism and comes to a more perfect understanding of the rights of others.

The intelligent workingman of this country is a conservator of that grand principle written in the Declaration of Independence: the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. He sees in wars between nations a violation of that principle the destruction of Life, invasion of Liberty and obstruction of the pursuit of Happiness.

And he sees, looking at the case from a personal standpoint, that it is his life which is taken, his liberty which is invaded, and his happiness which is obstructed.

Statesmen, financiers and captains of industry may and do make wars, but the workers fight the battles. (Applause.) Those who were the wives of workingmen before the war are their widows after it. The children who are left fatherless at the battle's end are the sons and daughters of workingmen. (Applause.)

It is also true that the burdens which wars place upon nations that engage in them bear more heavily upon the workers than upon any other class of citizens. It is a pretty well recognized axiom of political economy that the consumer pays the tax. All that the workingman earns he consumes-this I state as a general proposition-he is, therefore, unable to transfer any part of his burden to the account of another through the channels of trade, or by any other method.

The workingman's pound of tea, his plug of tobacco, his coat, his hat, his shoes, and the coats, hats, shoes and everything else that his family uses, may be taxed, and he has to pay or go without.

When any part of this tax is levied upon him for the purpose of discharging the costs of war he receives nothing in return. The thousands of millions wrung by wars from the brawn and brain of Labor would construct a counterpart of this building out of the purest gold and garland yon columns with precious gems.

There have been wars that were fought to escape the yoke of tyranny, and, when successful, were of immeasurable benefit to the liberated, although the cost in life and treasure was sometimes enormous; but these were revolutions-peoples warring against the injustice or cruelty of their own governments or rulers.

We are here considering wars between nations. Such wars are often due to the jingoism of rulers, the casus belli often being nothing more than a personal slight or affront, which is trivial when compared with the terrible cost of retaliation.

There are other wars which are for the purpose of extending markets to secure advantages in what is called "doing business" with the people of a foreign country. And generally there is included among the objects of wars of the latter class the desire to exploit the natural resources of the contested country and to lay its people under tribute to improved methods of industrial and financial exploitation. (Applause.)

Whether the object of a proposed war is revenge or business, those who, as I have said, do the fighting and pay the costs, are not consulted.

Those who imagine that their dignity or the dignity of some satellite has been slighted, and those who expect to personally benefit by the results of the war, decide the issue and then call upon those whose counsel has not been sought and whose desires have not been considered to do the fighting and bear the burdens.

The intelligent workers of all lands are beginning to understand these truths, and, as they have come to see that their class has been used to satisfy the jingoism of political leaders and