VOL. VI.

When a fellow goes down 'neath his load on the heather, Pierced to the heart! words are keener than steel,

And mightier far for woe or for weal.

Were it not well in this brief little journey
On over the isthmus down into the tide,
We give him a fish instead of a serpent,
Ere folding the hands to be and abide
For ever and aye in dust at his side?

Look at the roses saluting each other,

Look at the herds all at peace on the plain; Man and man only makes war on his brother, And laughs in his heart at his peril and pain, Shamed by the beasts that go down on the plain. JOAQUIN MILLER.

The Awakening of the South,

From the Labor Day Oration of JEROME JONES at Atlanta, Ga.

It has come to pass in these later years that the Nation and nearly all of the States, coming into a better and clearer knowledge of the true worth and dignity of labor, have enacted laws setting apart the first Monday in September to be fittingly celebrated by all the people in honor of those upon whose backs rest the burdens of the world. It speaks well for the toilers, this splendid governmental tribute and recognition of them.

And right truly labor is justly entitled to a nation's honors. All wealth and national prosperity depends at last upon those who toil. It is well that a day should be set apart in commemoration of the great services rendered to civilization by the vast army of toilers in the workshops, mines, fields and factories and railroads and other departments of industry. And the day should be fittingly observed everywhere, as it is here in this splendid city under the auspices of organized labor.

In the first place, to organized labor alone is

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Labor Day to be credited. For sure it is that to the devotion, courage, and wisdom of the hosts of organized labor do we all owe this grand anniversary. On this day should we take counsel of each other and consecrate anew our efforts to the advancement of the cause of organized labor and the betterment of the moral and material welfare of all workingmen in this broad land. Organized labor stands for simple justice for the wage-earner, nothing more, nothing less; and thus it stands for law and order and home and true patriotism.

ORGANIZER AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR.

It stands for law and order because by concerted action, wise precaution, and by conciliation and arbitration it can so often avoid strife and conquest between employer and employee, where for lack of these unorganized labor, lacking unity of purpose, preparation or means of defense, is either helplessly ground under the iron heel of oppression or vainly and pitifully resists to no purpose.

In the past, and the very recent past, for that matter, many brilliant intellects in this and other countries of the world have come to realize the importance of organized labor, where hitherto they