Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Speech: "Labor" 1868

Lecture on "Labor" written 1868

1
A knowledge of the history of the past
teaches us that the law governing all
human affairs is change progress
development in the world of thought as
well as action.  The ideas that agitate
a given period mark the eras of intellectual
growth as plainly as the petrifactions of
plants & animals the ages of an rock ribbed
earth.  Hence it is as futile to oppose the new
thoughts demands reforms that mark the
different stages of human development as
it would be to protest against the varied products
wrought on the surface of the earth by the ever
revolving seasons, days, & nights.
     Thus in the progress of events we have come in

.2.
our day to the discussion of the true relations
of Capital & Labor & the most intelligent
representatives of the interests of the masses now
demand radical reforms.  It has not required
much research for them to discover that all
governments to this time have been administered
in the interests of the few rather than the many;
that theologians & political economists have
laid more stress on divine decrees, & the
natural law of selfishness, than on the
purer higher principles of morals & equity
     A healthy discontent says Emerson is
the first step in progress. The laboring classes
have evidently taken the first step.
4

3.
To day the discontented represent hundreds
of thousands, in the United States & in
every country in Europe.
     In organizing their forces, combining, &
comparing their opinions as to the best methods
of advancement they have taken the second
step.  In testing the strength of their
numbers, & purposes in strikes, mobs, & riots,
they have taken the third step, which last
though filled with dangers to themselves, & society
is yet a link in the chain of their final triumph,
& warns the upper classes that their safety is jeopardized
in the poverty & ignorance of the masses.  Hence I
summon them first to the serious consideration

4.
of the poverty, the misery the wretchedness
that everywhere appeals to the eye, the ear, the tenderest
sentiments of the human soul.  I ask those
in the full enjoyment of all the blessings that
wealth can give to look around you in the
filthy lanes & by streets of all our cities, the
envying multitudes ragged, starving, packed in
dingy cellars & garrets where no ray of sunshine
or hope ever penetrate, no touch of light or love
to cheer their lives.  Look in the factories &
workshops where young & old work side by side
with tireless machines from morn till night
through all the days the weeks the months,
the years that make up the long sum of
life, impelled by that inexorable necessity

5.
that knows no law, toil or starvation
Look in our furnaces & mines where
mist the perils of lurid fires & blasting
rocks, deep down in the bowels of the
earth begrimmed despairing men toil
ceaselessly for bread.  Look what these
unfortunates suffer in our jails, prisons,
asylums, look at the injustice in our
courts, for when men must steal or
starve, theft may be a virtue, that
might give the poor man bail as dollars 
do the rich, for in the scale of justice
motive might sometime outweigh the crime
Let us look deep down into the present
relations of the human family & see if

6.
the conditions of different classes cannot be
more fairly established.  Under all
forms of government about seven tenths
of the human family are doomed to
incessant toil, living in different degrees
of poverty, from the man who hopes for
nothing but daily bread for himself 
& family, to the one who aims at education
& accumulation.  The filth, the squalor the
vice in the conditions & surroundings of the
poor, are apparent to most careless observers
but the ceaseless anxiety & apprehension of
worse evils yet to come that pervade
all alike in the ascending scale

7.
from the lowest to the fortunate few
who live on the labor of others add
to the sum of human misery an unseen
element of torture that can never be
measured or understood.
     The question I would put to you
is.  Is it right that a large majority
of the race should suffer all their days
the cruel hardships of poverty that a
small minority may enjoy all life's
blessings & benefits.  Is it right that
millions should suffer with hunger
while the few feast too satiety; that
the multitudes should be left in ignorance

8.
while the few by superior intelligence
outwit & oppress them: -- that the
many should be clothed in rags, while
the few shine in garments the poor
have woven, in the jewels they
have dug from mines of wealth.
As an abstract question has not every
individual on this green earth equal
natural rights to life liberty & the
pursuit of happiness.  In the long battle
we have fought in this country for the
emancipation & enfranchisement of the African
race the principles of slavery & freedom have
been so fully discussed, that it does not

9.
require much discrimination to see that
the condition of the laboring masses of the
North differs but little from that of the
colored race under the old system on the plantations of the South
All the distinction it is possible to make
between poverty & chattel slavery is the difference
between a natural right & a natural
necessity.  For instance the natural right
to go across the continent, is of little value
to a man so long as he is compelled by
his necessities to remain forever in one place.
True the ideal freedom may bring a passing
pleasure, but practically the right is of no
feasible consequence.  Before governments
existed each man exercised the right of

10.
locomotion, to took possession of what land
he needed, & all the products of the earth
necessary to maintain life; & each one used
all his natural powers to maintain this right
Self preservation was considered the first law
of nature prior to all the duties to neighbors,
society, government.  This principle is
however theoretically & practically reversed
in civilization. The individual it is now
said must be sacrificed to society, the 
one to the good of the whole. The higher
idea it seems to me is, that the interests
of the individual, & society be in the
same direction, that the highest good
of the individual, is the highest good

11.
of society.  That based in sound principles
there can be no antagonism between them

12.
As we look at the condition of the masses
two questions naturally suggest themselves.
1st Can the evils of the situation be
remedied.  or 2nd Must things remain
essentially as they now are.
According as these questions are as much
by different orders of mind, will their comeback
be influenced.  Those who believe that
poverty is a part of the divine plan, 
that always has, & always must exist, will
consider their duty done, in the manifestation
of sympathy, & charity.  But for those who
believe it is the result of human ignorance
& selfishness & can be remedied a widely

13.
different course of action must be pursued
     To this class I belong, & in
searching into the causes of human misery
& the motives of human action, I find
that the same principle degrades labor, as
upheld slavery.  The great motive for making
a man a slave was to get his labor, or 
its results for nothing: -- The motive for
employing wage labor is to get some of
its results for nothing.  When we consider that
the slave was provided with food & clothes,
& that the ordinary wages of the laborer
provide his bare necessities, we see that in
a money point of view they hold the same

14.
position.  And the owner of one form of labor
occupies no higher moral status than the 
other, because the same motive governs
in both cases.  But the laborer that owns
his own body, & has the responsibility of
providing his own needs, in his calculating
anxieties & responsibilities is a step beyond
him who depends wholly on another.
Yet the great battle for the freedom of the laborer
must be fought for him by educated
classes, just as it was for the slave.
There is no hope of any general self-assertion
among the masses.  The first steps for
their improvement must be taken

15.
by those who have tasted the blessings
of liberty & education.  How then shall we begin.
1st  By cultivating the religious conscience
of the people as to the essential sinfullness
of these broad inequalities among mankind
Let the missionary spirit of the Christian
world begin with the heathen of their
own country towns neighborhood, with
the high duties of this life, which they
know & understand, instead of that
which is to come of which they know
nothing.  Let them give more thought
to their internal emotions, their bodies,

10.
instead of cultivating such undue anxiety
about their souls.  Let [them] understand
that the facts & duties of this life are of [primal]
importance to all speculations about the hereafter.
The poor should no longer be taught lessons
of satisfaction, of patience with the humiliating
conditions in which they find themselves here
with the hope that their blessings are all to
come in a Paradise of peace & plenty hereafter.
They should be [reared] to make the most of
themselves here, to secure their rightful share
of the good things on this green earth, & thus
in a higher development ensure a
higher sphere in the promised hereafter.

17.
Inasmuch as vice and poverty go hand in hand hunger
nakedness, temptation, are the [finest]
possible school for the salvation of human
souls.  It is poverty in the vast majority of cases
that fills our asylums & prisons.  Hence the first
step in the [conversion] of the masses is to improve
their outward conditions, poverty is the great cause
of intemperance, & that reform can never reach
the masses until their environments are essentially
improved. Here is the first work of the church
for humanity.  Let the all [pervading] [line] &
charity of the command  "Love they neighbor
as thyself" be the text for all the sermons
until the practical duties instruct in that

18.
universal sentiment be thoroughly understood
& enforced.  When justice takes the place
of charity, no alms giving will be needed
The essential element of the mission of Jesus
was equality, that was the theme of all his
discourses.  The essential oneness of humanity
the corner stone of the Christian religion, & yet
how little its apostles [dwell] on this
central truth.  Faith in abstractions [counts]
for more that morality in all lives relations.
What we think of the essence of the Godhead
& what lies beyond the gateway of the unknown
land is considered of more vital consequence. that a
 life devoted to the improvement of the material

19.
condition of the race.  When the Christianity
of our Metropolis for example shall insist
on the building of a higher order of tenement
homes, on the cleaning of the streets where the
poor dwell, on a greatly increased number
of public baths, on the enforcement of all those
sanitary conditions prescribed by law to day
if cleanliness is next to godliness, they will
have accomplished a great work in the
salvation of souls, & prepared the masses for
the next step in the improvement of their condition
namely education.  It is folly to talk of education
for the [lowest] strata of our people to day

20.
hunger rags & [filth.] are an impassable
barrier between their children & our [b??s??t]
public school system.
     The foundation for a great educational work
might be laid in our asylums & jails & prisons
where a multitude of  the young are perhaps in
better conditions to receive instruction than ever
before.  Let the enlightened Christianity of the
land insist that all these shall be places for
reformation rather than punishment, that
there shall be hours for learning as well as
labor.  When something is done in these institutions
to elevate the moral & intellectual nature of 
the culprit, as well as by his manual labor
to compel him to pay the state for his support

21.
the graduates of our prisons might come
back to society with a new power to control
themselves, & influence others for good.
With decent outward conditions & the rudiments
of education, we have secured to the masses
the vantage ground, from which with the ballot
in hand they can make their own position
in a republic.
   With the dense fog of poverty ignorance
& superstition lifted from their horizon, they
are in a position to survey the situation for
themselves, to trace the causes of poverty
& it will require but little penetration for
them to discover that legislation has been

22.
uniformly in the interests of the few rather
than the many, & that the selfish policy of
state has been baptized by the church in the
name of religion, & thus custom has blinded
the eyes of the best of us to the hopeless bondage of
the laboring masses.
     If the fortunate classes cannot be moved
by the highest motives of justice let them consider
the lower ones of [policy].

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