If my
purpose required it, I could detail many good things in the life of that
people. One bright point in their character, to which I just now referred,
I will illustrate. My boy, who is also my student in drawing, will never
be able to make a straight line until he can see that the line he has
already made is not straight. His improvement depends upon more than a
steady hand. So with this people. Deep down in their being, planted by a
divine hand, were the instinct of truth and the principle of growth, and
when, in the natural course of their development, they came to realize how
unworthy they were of their better nature, they set about the work of
improvement.
"But they came to that knowledge through many sad experiences. I have not
begun to tell you the number and extent of the evils they endured.
"The desire for money affected all classes. The general prosperity had
bettered the condition of the wage-earners, creating many artificial wants
which could not be satisfied without good pay. Hence arose a natural and
constant effort to obtain higher wages, while competition among the
employers operated just as constantly to keep them down, and the result
was a sharp and increasing antagonism between capital and labor.
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