023. The American Sheaf

The American Sheaf

A Thanksgiving Sermon.

Gen_37:7 : ’93We were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.’94

A Josephic dream! At seventeen years of age, and when life is most roseate, Joseph, in vision, saw a great harvest field, himself and his brethren at work in it, and after a while the sheaf that he was binding rose up with an imperial air, and the sheaves of the other harvesters fell flat on their faces as the overawed subjects of an empire might fall down on their faces before a king. The dream was fulfilled when there was famine in Egypt and Joseph had the care of all the corn-cribs, and his brethren came and implored food from him. Sure enough, all their sheaves bowed to his sheaf. A Thanksgiving Day vision! I am away out in the center of a field where the harvests of all nations are reaping. Here is the great American sheaf. Sheaf of wheat, sheaf of rice, sheaf of corn, sheaf floral; agricultural, homological, mineralogical, literary and moral prosperities’97all bound together in one great sheaf. It is kingly, and on its brow is the golden coronal of all the year’92s sunshine, and in its presence all the sheaves of European and Asiatic harvests bend and fall down, feeling their littleness. Oh, the sheaf, the golden sheaf, the overtopping sheaf of American prosperity! Other nations far surpass ours in antiquities, in cathedrals, in titled pomp, in art galleries; but in most things their sheaves must bow to our sheaf. I have an idea that the most favored constellation of immensity is the one of which the earth is a star, and of the hemispheres the western is the most favored, and that of the zones the temperate is the more desirable, and the United States are the best part of the American continent. The best place on earth to live is here. Had it not been so, there would have been three hundred thousand Americans last year moving into Europe, instead of three hundred thousand Europeans moving into America.

Human nature has a strong tendency to fault-finding. The pessimists outnumber the optimists. Where there is one man who sings and whistles and laughs, there are ten men who sigh and groan and complain. We are more apt to compare our condition with those who are better off than with those who are worse off.

I propose this Thanksgiving morning, for the purpose of stirring your gratitude, to show you how much preferable is the condition of this nation to all other nations, and how the Italian sheaf and the British sheaf and the Spanish sheaf and the French sheaf and all the other sheaves, must bow down to our American sheaf.

Have you realized your superior blessings atmospheric? Have you thought of the fact that most of the millions of the human race are in climates frigid or torrid or horrid? Take up the map, and thank God that you are are so far off from Arctic icebergs on the one side and seven-feet-long cobras on the other. For what multitudes of the human race, life is an Arctic expedition! Underground huts. Immeasurable barrenness. Life a prolonged shiver. Our front doorsteps on a January night are genial compared with their climate. Ask some of the Arctic explorers about the luxuries of life around the North Pole. Instead of killing so many brave men in Polar expeditions, we had better send messengers to persuade those pale inhabitants of polar climates to say good-by to the eternal snows and abandon those realms of earth to the walrus and white bear, and shut up those gates of crystal and come down into a realm where the thermometer seldom drops below zero. Oh, the beauties of Baffin’92s Bay, only six weeks in the year open! What a delightful thing when, in those Arctic regions, they milk their cows and milk only ice-cream! Let all those who, like yourselves, live between thirty and fifty degrees of north latitude, thank God and have sympathy for the vast population of both hemispheres who freeze between sixty and eighty degrees of latitude. Then compare our atmosphere with the heated air, infested with reptilian and insectile life, in which most of the human race suffer. Think of India and China and Ethiopia. Travelers tell you of the delicious orange groves, but ask them about the centipedes. They tell of the odor of the forests, but ask them about the black flies. They tell you about the rich plumage of the birds, but ask them about the malarias. They tell you about the fine riders, but ask them about the Bedouins and bandits. They tell you about the broad piazzas, but ask them about the midnights with the thermometer at an insufferable no. Vast cities of the torrid clime without sewerage, without cleansing, packed and piled-up wretchedness, and all discomfort. What beautiful hyenas! What fascinating scorpions! What sociable tarantulas! What captivating lizards! What wealth of bugs! What an opportunity to study comparative anatomy and herpetology! What a chance to look into the open countenance of the pleasing crocodile. Hundreds of millions of people in such surroundings! I would rather live in one of these American cities in a house with two rooms than to live in the torrid lands and own all Brazil, all Hindustan, all Arabia, all China.

There is not a land where wages and salaries are so large for the great masses of the people as here. In Ireland, in some parts, eight cents a day for wages; in England, a dollar a day good wages, vast populations not getting as much as that; in other lands, fifty cents a day and twenty-five cents a day, clear on down to starvation and squalor. An editor in England told me that his salary was seven hundred and fifty dollars a year, and he seemed satisfied! Look at the great populations coming out of the factories of other lands, and accompany them to their homes, and see what privation the hardworking classes on the other side the sea suffer.

The laboring classes here are ten per cent. better off than in any other country under the sun’97twenty per cent., forty per cent., fifty per cent., seventy-five per cent. The toilers with hand and foot have better homes and better furnished. I do not talk an abstraction. I know what I have seen. The stonemasons, and carpenters, and plumbers, and mechanics, and artisans of all styles in America have finer residences than the majority of the professional men in Great Britain. You enter the laborer’92s house on this side the sea and you will find upholstery and pictures and instruments of music. His children are educated at the best schools; his life is insured so that in case of his sudden demise the family shall not be homeless. Let all American workmen know that while their wages may not be as high as they would like to have them, America is the paradise of industry.

Again, there is no land on the earth where the political condition is so satisfactory as here. Every two years in the State and every four years in the nation we clean house. After a vehement expression of the people at the ballot-box in the autumnal election, they all seem satisfied; and if they are not satisfied, at any rate they smile.

An Englishman asked me in an English rail train this question: ’93How do you people stand it in America with a revolution every four years? Wouldn’92t it be better for you, like us, to have a Queen for a lifetime and everything settled?’94 England changes government just as frequently as we do. At some adverse vote in Parliament out goes the Conservative and in comes the Liberal; and after a while there will be another admonitory vote in Parliament, and out will go the Liberal, and in will come the Conservative. Administrations change there, but not as advantageously as here, for there they may change almost any day, while here a party in power continues in power four years.

It is said that in this country we have more political dishonesty than in any other land. The difference is that in this country almost every official has a chance to steal, while in other lands a few people absorb so much that the others have no chance at appropriation! The reason they do not steal is they cannot get their hands on it! The governments of Europe are so expensive that after the salaries of the royal families are paid there is not much left to misappropriate.

The Emperor of Russia has a nice little salary of eight million two hundred and ten thousand dollars; the Emperor of Austria has a yearly salary of four million dollars; Victoria, the Queen, has a salary of two million two hundred thousand dollars; the royal plate at St. James’92 palace is worth ten million dollars; the Queen’92s hairdresser gets ten thousand dollars a year for combing the royal locks, while the most of us have to comb our hair at less than half that expense, if we have any to comb!

Over there, there is a host of attendants, all on salaries, some of them five thousand and six thousand dollars a year; Master of Buck Hounds, seven thousand five hundred dollars a year. (I translate pounds into dollars.) Gentlemen of the Wine and Beer Cellars, Controller of the Household, Groom of the Robes, Mistress of the Robes, Captain of Gold Stick, Lieutenant of Gold Stick, Lieutenant of Silver Stick, Clerk of the Powder Closet, Pages of the Back Stairs, Maids of Honor, Master of Horse, Chief Equerry, Equerries in Ordinary, Crown Equerry, Hereditary Grand Falconer, Vice Chamberlain, Clerk of Kitchen, Master of Forks, Grooms in Waiting, Lords in Waiting, Grooms of the Great Chamber, Sergeant-at-Arms, Barge Master and Waterman, Eight Bedchamber Women, Eight Ladies of the Bedchamber, Ten Grooms of the Great Chain, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

All this is only a type of the fabulous expense of foreign governments. All this paid out of the sweat and the blood of the people. Are the people satisfied? However much the Germans like William, and the Spaniards like their young King, and England likes her glorious Queen, these stupendous governmental expenses are built on a groan of dissatisfaction as wide as Europe. If it were left to the people of England, of Germany, of Austria, of Spain, of Russia, whether these expensive establishments should be kept up, do you doubt what the vote would be?

Now, is it not better that we be overtaxed and the surplus be distributed all over the land among the lobby men, and that it go into the hands of hundreds and thousands of people’97is there not a better chance of its finally getting down into the hands of honest people, than if it were all built up, piled up inside gardens and palaces?

Again, the monopolistic oppression is less here than anywhere else. The air here is full of protest because great houses, great companies, great individuals, are building such overtowering fortunes. Stephen Girard and John Jacob Astor stared at in their time for their august fortunes, would not now be pointed at in the streets of Philadelphia or New York as anything remarkable. These vast fortunes for some imply pinchedness of want for others. A great protuberance on a man’92s head implies the illness of the whole body. These estates of disproportioned size weaken all the body politic. But the evil is nothing here compared with the monopolistic oppression abroad. Just look at their ecclesiastical establishments. Look at those great cathedrals built at fabulous expense and supported by ecclesiastical machinery at vast expense, and sometimes in an audience room that would hold a thousand people, twenty or thirty people gather for worship. The pope’92s income is eight million dollars. Cathedrals of statuary and braided arch and walls covered with masterpieces of Rubens and Raphael and Michael Angelo, against all the walls dashing seas of poverty, and crime, and filth, and abomination.

Ireland today one vast monopolistic devastation. About thirty-five millions of people in Great Britain, and yet all the soil owned by about thirty-two thousand. Statistics enough to shake the earth, Duke of Devonshire owning ninety-six thousand acres in Derbyshire, Duke of Richmond owning three hundred thousand acres at Gordon Castle, Marquis of Breadalbane going on a journey of one hundred miles in a straight line, all on his own property; Duke of Sutherland has an estate as wide as Scotland, which dips into the sea on both sides. Bad as we have it here, it is a thousand times worse there.

Beside that, if here a few fortunes overshadow all others, we must remember there is a vast throng of other people being enriched, and this fact shows the thriftiness of the country. It is estimated that there are over five thousand millionaires in the United States. In addition to this, you must remember that there are successes on less extended scale. Tens of thousands of people worth five hundred thousand dollars; scores of thousands of people worth one hundred thousand dollars each. Yea, the majority of the people of the United States are on their way to fortunes. They will either be rich themselves or their children will be rich. If I should leave to some men the question: ’93Will you have a fortune and your children struggle on through their lives in the struggle you have had to make’97will you have the fortune, or would you rather that they should have the fortune?’94 Scores of men would say: ’93I am willing to fight this battle all the way through and give my children a chance; I don’92t care so much about myself; it’92s only for ten or twenty years, anyhow; give my children a chance.’94 If anything stirs my admiration it is to see a man without any education himself sending his sons to college, and without any opportunity for luxury himself, resolved that though he may have it hard all the days of his life, his children shall have a good start. And I tell you, although some of you may have sore commercial struggle, there Is going to be a great opening for your sons and your daughters as they come on to take their places in society.

Besides that, the domains of Europe and Asia are already full. Every place occupied unless it be desert or volcano or condemned barrens, while here we have plenty of room, and the resources are only just opening. In other lands, if fortunes fatten they must fatten on others; but here they can fatten out of illimitable prairies and out of inexhaustible mines.

We have only just begun to set the Thanksgiving table in this country. We have just put on one silver fork, and one salt cellar, and one loaf of bread, and one smoking platter. Wait until the fruits come in from all the orchards, and the meats from all the markets, and the vegetables from all the gardens, and the silver from all the mines, and the dinner bell rings, saying: ’93Thanksgiving table spread. Come all the people from between the two oceans. Come from between the Thousand Isles and the Gulf of Mexico. Come and dine!’94 The prospects are so magnificent that for centuries to come all the other sheaves will have to bow to our sheaf.

Again, the nation is more fully at peace than any other. At least fifteen million men belonging to the standing armies of Europe today. Since we had our conflict, on the other side the sea they have had Zulu war, Afghan war, Egyptian war, Russo-Turkish war, German-French war. No certainty about the future. All the governments of Europe watching each other lest one of them get too much advantage. Diplomacy all the time nervously at work. Four nations watching the Suez Canal as carefully as four cats could watch one rat.

In order to keep peace, intermarriage of royal families; some bright princess compelled to marry some disagreeable foreign dignitary in order to keep the balance of political power in Europe, the ill-matched pair fighting out on a small scale that which would have been international contests, sometimes the husband holding the balance of power, sometimes the wife holding the balance of power. One unwise stroke of Gladstone’92s pen after Garnet Wolseley had captured Tel-el-Kebir and all Europe would have been one battlefield. Crowded cities, crowded governments, crowded learned institutions, crowded great cities, close by each other. You get in the cars here and you ride one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles; then you come to a great city, as from here to Philadelphia, as from here to Albany, as from here to Boston.

I got on the cars at Manchester and closed my eyes for a long sleep before I got to Liverpool. In forty minutes I was aroused out of sleep by some one saying: ’93We are here; this is Liverpool.’94 The cities crowded; the populations crowded, packed in between the Pyrenees and the Alps, packed in between the English Channel and the Adriatic so closely they cannot move without treading either on each other’92s heels or toes. Sceptres clashing, chariot wheels colliding. The nations of Asia and Europe this moment wondering what next.

But on this continent we have plenty of room and nobody to fight. Eight million square miles in North America, and all but one-seventh capable of rich cultivation, implying what fertility and what commerce! Four great basins pouring their waters into the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Gulf of Mexico. Shore line of twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine miles. The one State of Texas with more square miles than all France, than all Germany.

That our continent might have plenty of elbow room, and not be jostled by the effete governments of Europe, God sank to the depths of the sea a whole continent that once ran from off the coast of Europe to the coast of America’97the continent of Atlantis’97which allowed the human race to pass from Europe to America on foot, with little or no shipping; that continent dimly described in history, but the existence of which has been proved by archaeological evidences innumerable; that whole continent sunken so that a fleet of German, British, and American vessels had to take deep sea soundings to touch the top of it; that highway from Europe to America entirely removed so that for the most part only the earnest, and the persevering, and the brave, could reach America, and that through long sea voyage.

Did I say the whole continent of ours, this North American continent? Governments on the southern end of this continent are gradually coming to the time when they will beg annexation. On the other hand, beautiful and hospitable Canada. The vast majority of the people there are more republican than monarchical in their feelings, and the chief difference between them and us is that they live on one side the St. Lawrence and we on the other. The United States Government will offer hand and heart in marriage to beautiful and hospitable Canada, and Canada will blush and look down, and thinking of her allegiance across the sea, will say: ’93Ask mother.’94 Peace all over the continent, and nothing to fight about. What a pity that slavery is gone! While that lasted we had something over which the orators could develop their muscles of vituperation and calumny.

We are so hardly put to it for military demonstration that guns and swords and cannon were called out when we celebrated the bicentennial of William Penn, the peaceful Quaker for whom a gun would never have been of any use except to hang his broad brim hat on. Oh, what shall we do for a fight? Will not somebody strike us? We cannot draw swords on the subject of civil service reform, or free trade, or ’93corners’94 in wheat. Our ships of war are cruising around the ocean, hoping for something interesting to turn up. Sumter and Moultrie and Pulaski and Fort Lafayette and Fortress Monroe and all the other shaggy lions of war sound asleep on their iron paws. Gunpowder out of fashion, and not even allowed the juvenile population on Fourth of July. Fire-crackers a sin.

The land is struck through and through with peace. There is hardly a Northern city where there are not Confederate generals in its law offices, or commercial establishments, or insurance companies. There you sit or stand today, side by side’97you who wore the blue and you who wore the gray; you who kindled fires on the opposite side of the Potomac in the winter of 1862; you who followed Stonewall Jackson toward the North; and you who followed General Sherman toward the South. Why are you not breaking each other’92s heads?

Ah! you have irreparably mixed up your politics. The Northern man married a Southern wife, and the Southern man married a Northern wife, and your children are half Mississippian and half New Englander; and to make another division between the North and the South possible you would have to do with your child as Solomon proposed with the child brought before him in judgment’97divide it with the sword, giving half to the North and half to the South. No, sir; there is nothing so hard to split as a cradle. Intermarriage will go on and consanguinal ties will be multiplied, and the question for generations to come will be, how we people in this generation got into such an awful wrangle and went to digging such an awful grave trench.

But there is now’97look! no blood on the cotton, no mark of cavalry hoof on the wheat. Twenty years ago could the wheat sheaf and the palmetto have stood on the same platform? No. Every grain of this wheat would have been a bullet, and every leaf of the palmetto a sword. ’93Peace on earth, good will to men.’94 Apple and orange; how the colors blend. In the great harvest field of the world’92s tranquility all sheaves bowing to our sheaf.

Again, we are better off than other nations in matters of national debt, our debt less than one-half of that of England, and not more than a third that of France. We have for many years, every day, paid one hundred and forty-two thousand dollars toward the liquidation of the national debt. It is going all to melt away like a snowbank under an April sun.

Again, we have a better climate than in any other nation. We do not suffer from anything like the Scotch mist, or the English fogs, or from anything like the Russian ice blast, or from the awful typhus of Southern Europe, or the Asiatic cholera. Epidemics here are exceptional, very exceptional. Plenty of wood and coal to make a roaring fire in winter time; easy access to sea beach or mountain top when the ardors of summer come down; Michigan wheat for the bread; Long Island corn for the meal; New Jersey pumpkins for the pies; Carolina rice for the queen of puddings; prairie fowl from Illinois; fish from the Hudson and the James; hickory, and hazel, and walnuts from all our woods; Louisiana sugar to sweeten our beverages; Georgia cotton to keep us warm; oats for the horses; carrots for the cattle; and oleomargarine butter for the hogs! In our land all products and all climates that you may desire. Are your nerves weak and in need of bracing up? Go North. Is your throat delicate and in need of balmy airs? Go South. Do you feel crowded and want more room? Go West. Are you tempted to become office-seekers? Go to jail! Almost anything you want you can have. Plenty to eat, plenty to wear, plenty to read.

’93It has been well the past year,’94 says the loom. ’93It has been well,’94 says the type. ’93It has been well,’94 say pen and chisel and hammer and plough and fishing-net. ’93It has been well,’94 answer the groves and orchards and studios and factories and workshops and harvest fields of America.

Our national sheaf is larger this year, and more regal, and riper, and more richly grained, than at any time since the Pilgrim Fathers settled New England, or the Hollanders founded New York, or the Huguenots took possession of the Carolinas. Sheaf of sheaves. While all others bow before it, let it bow in turn before the good Lord of the unparalleled American harvest. Before him come down all the corn shocks; before him come down the sheaf of governmental sceptres, the sheaf of battle-spears, the sheaf of barbaric arrows, the sheaf of commercial yardsticks, the sheaf of joy, the sheaf of family reunion, the sheaf of thanksgiving. All the sheaves of the harvest field bowing down low at the feet of the great Husbandman.

You have in hackneyed phrase heard over and over again that America is the asylum of the oppressed. This glorious Thanksgiving morning I declare it to be the wardrobe of the earth, the wheat-bin of the hemispheres, the corn-crib of all nations.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage