It is quite true that we already produce more cotton cloth and more boots and shoes than we can possibly sell; but we know--for have we not political economy to teach us?--that when we get them cheap enough, say to one-half their present starvation prices--every man, and every woman, and every child will wear two shirts, and two hats, and two pairs of shoes; and thus we shall have in a superior way that blessedness of which poets write--the making "two blades of grass grow where one grew before." Now, I ask any liberal-minded man if "two pairs of shoes in place of one" is not higher and nobler than two blades of grass? That goes without talking. If work be indeed the curse of curses, why, let the sons of Ham (Africa) and the sons of Shem (Asia) do it; for it is well known they are accursed, and have been since the days of "good old Noah"; besides which, having colored skins, we know just how to mark the helots; can import them as fast as needed; can put all labor upon them, and can thus keep our own Japhetic skins and hands clean and white. Deferring to a not wholly extinct public opinion, which is now and then announced by some orator to some small schoolboys, in words like these, _Labore est honore_, and in the vernacular, "_Labor is honorable_," I am compelled to deny it clearly and distinctly. Almost all know it, but it may be best to say to those who do not: If labor is honorable, why does every man refuse to hoe in his garden, to make his fire, to raise his food? Why does every woman refuse to cook her food, to make her clothes, to take care of her children? Why do every father and every mother take special pains to so bring up and educate their children that they can do no sort of hand work? Why is it that high schools, and academies, and colleges are held as the most majestic of blessings, except that they are intended to wholly unfit boys and girls for the _necessary work of life_? Why is it that those who do no work are always called "upper classes," and those who do much work are called "the masses," unless it is so? Being so, let us agree to import "the masses" as rapidly as we can. Permit me to here lay down another corner-stone: As cheapness is a boon, of course cheap labor is a boon; if labor, even at a dollar a day, is a blessing, it follows that labor at half a dollar a day is a greater blessing; and if we can only get it to a quarter of a dollar a day, will not mankind be four times as happy as when it is at a dollar a day? And then, oh blessed time! When we get it down to one cent a day shall we not be standing just in the portals of Paradise?