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ADDRESSES AND LETTERS

ON

INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL QUESTIONS.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

AN INTRODUCTION, TOGETHER WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND AN INDEX.

BY

WILLIAM D. KELLEY, M. C.

PHILADELPHIA:
HENRY CAREY BAIRD,

INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER,

406 WALNUT STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

WM. D. KELLEY,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

S. A. GEORGE & Co., STEREOTYPERS.

COLLINS, PRINTEB.

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INTRODUCTION.

IN offering this volume to the public it is proper to state that I make no pretension to a critical knowledge of literature or rhetoric, and that, when preparing the papers it contains, I did not suppose they would ever be collected for republication. They are expressions of opinion called forth by occasions; and, as the reader will observe, not unfrequently in the excitement of current debate in the National House of Representatives, or in response to invitations to address popular assemblies under circumstances that precluded the possibility of reducing them to writing in advance of their delivery. It is proper also to say that I am not wholly responsible for their publication in book form, inasmuch as they have been collected and annotated in deference to the judgment and wishes of citizens of different sections of the country, who, though strangers to each other and engaged in pursuits involving apparently conflicting interests, agreed in persuading me that by this labor I might render a service to those of my countrymen who are engaged in farming or who depend on their labor for the means of supporting their children while giving them that measure of education without which no American citizen should be permitted to attain maturity.

While I regret some expressions in the colloquial portions. of the Congressional speeches, and would have omitted them could it have been done without impairing the argument, I find no reason to question the soundness of my positions. The theory that labor-the productive exercise of the skill and muscular power of men who are responsible for the faithful and intelligent performance of civic and other duties-is merely a raw material, and that that nation which pays least for it is wisest and best governed, is inadmissible in a democracy; and when we shall determine to starve the bodies and minds of our operatives in order that we may successfully compete in common markets with the productions of the under-paid and poorly-fed peasants of Europe and the paupers of England, we shall assail the foundations of a govern

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