EXPO2000 ::The Paris 1900 World Exposition::

Work, you are our liberator!

Opening speech by Alexandre Millerand, Socialist Minster of Trade, on 14th April, 1900:

"The machine has taken over control of the entire world. It is replacing workers, employing them in its service and expanding the relations between the people's of the earth. Even death itself has retreated before the victorious advance of the human mind. Medical science continues to progress thanks to the genius of Pasteur, but science also serves mankind in an even more significant manner. It provides the key to the material and moral greatness of states, which is encapsulated in one word - "solidarity". The institutions to provide care for the old and sick, the welfare institutions, indeed everything which is intended to fuse the individual groups into a unified, consolidated entity, so as to counter the weaknesses inherent in the individual - all this attests to the solidarity of mankind. The object of this solidarity is, in the bosom of each nation, to reduce the harmful inequalities which arise from the general nature of things and the social system. It strives to attain unity in the bonds of genuine brotherhood. Its effects do not stop at the borders. Ideas, feelings fuse and cross all over the world, just like the thin filaments on which human thoughts are transported at lightning speed. The more the international relations resulting from the diversity of human needs and the ease of exchange become intertwined, the more reason we have to hope and trust that the day will come when the world realises that peace and the honourable struggles of human labour reap greater benefits than rivalry. Work, you are our liberator! It is you that ennobles us, consoles us. Ignorance and evil flee before you. You will liberate mankind from the bondage of darkness!"

Source: Das XIX. Jahrhundert in Wort und Bild. Berlin 1900, p. 18 f.

Year: 1900	City: Paris	Country: France
Duration: 15th April - 12th November 1900