Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1890 — LABOR AND CAPITAL [ARTICLE]

LABOR AND CAPITAL

Talmage Talks on the' Great Labor Question of the Day. He Congratulates the Laboring Han on His Prospects, and Advises the Capitalist to Hake Investments for Eternity—Bat Mark the Golden Bole. n - • The subject of Dr. Talmage’s sermon of last Sunday was “The Old Fight to be Settled.” from the text, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do t© you, do ye even so to them. '’ {Matt 7:13.) Two hundred and fifty thousand laborers in Hyde Park, London, and the streets of American and European cities filled with processions of workmen carrying banners, brings the subject of Labor and Capital to the front. That all this was done in peace, and that as a result in many places, arbitration has taken place, a hopeful sign. The greatest war the world has ever seen is between capital and labor. The strife is not like that which in h istory is called the Thirty Years’ W ar, for it is c. war of cen-

turies. It is a war of the five continents,it is a war hemispheric. The middle classes in this country, upon whom the nation has depended for holding the balance of power and for acting as mediators between the two extremes, are dimishing, and if things go on at the same ratio as they have for the last twenty years been going on, it will not be long before there will be no middle class in this country, but all will beivery rich or very poor, princes or paupers, and the country will be given up to palaces and hove. s. The antagonistic forces have again and again closed in upon each other. You may pooh-pooh it; you may say thatthis trouble, I ke an angry child, will cry itself to sleep; you may belittle it by calling it Fourier ism, or Socialism, or St Simonism, or Nihilism, or Communism, but that will not hinder the fact that it is . the mightiest, the darkest the most terrific threat of this century. Most of the attempts at pacification have been dead failures, and monopoly is more arrogant and the trades unions more bitter. “Give us more wages.” cry the employes. “You shall have less,” say the capitalists, “Compel us to do fewer hours of toil in a day.” “You shall toil more hours,” say the others. “Then, under certain conditions, we will not work at all,” say those. “Then you shall starve,” say those, and the workmen gradually using up that which they accumulated in better times, unless there be some radical change, we shall have soon in this country three million hungry men and women. Now, three million hungry people can not be kept quiet. All the enactments of legislatures and all the constabularies of the cities, and all the army and navy of the United States cannot keep three millibjj. hungry people quiet. What then) Will this war between capital and labor be settled by human wisdom) Never. The brow of the one becomes more rigid, the fist of the other more clinched. But that whi.h human wisdom cannot achieve will be accomplished by Christianity if it be given full sway. You have heard of medicines so powerful that one drop would stop a disease and restore a patient; and I have to tell you that one drop of my text properly admin stared will stop all these woes of society and give convalescence and complete health to all classes. “Whatsoever ye would that men should do ye even so to them.”

I shall first show you this morning how this controversy between monopoly and hard work cannot be stopped, and then I will show you how this controversy will be settled. Futile remedies. In the first place there will come no pacification to this trouble through an outcry against rich men merely because they are rich. There is no laboring man on earth that would not bo rich if he i ouid be. Sometimes through a fortunate invention, or through some accident of prosperity, a man who had nothing comes to large estate, and we see him arrogant and supercilious, and taking people by the throat just us otuer peop.e took him by the throat. Tnere is something very mean about human nature when it comes to the top. But it is no more sin to be rich than it is a sin to be poir. There are those who have gathered a great estate through fraud, and then tnere are millionaires who have gathered their fortune through foresight in regard to changes in the

murkets, and through brilliant business faculty, anl every dollar of their estate is as ‘ honest as the dollar wlii -h the plumber gets for mending a pipe, or the mison gets for building a walL There are tnose who koep in poverty because of their own fuult. They might have been well off, but they smoked or chewed ud their earnings, or they lived beyond their means, while others on the same wages and on the same salaries went on to competency. I know a man who is all tho time c.mplainingof hU poverty and crying out against rich men, while he himself keeps two dogs, and chews and smokes, and is filled to the chin with whisky and baerl Mica who: - said to David Copperfleld: “Coppei fleld, my boy, one pound income, twenty sh.U.ngs and sixpence expenses: result, misery. But, Copperflild, my boy, one pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and sixpence; result, happiness.” And there are vast multitulos of people . who are kopt poor be ause thoy are the ' victims of their' own improvidence. It is no sin to be ri h, arid it is no sin to be poor. I protest against this outer/ which I hear against those who, through economy and self-denial and assiduity, have come to large fortune. This bombardment of .commercial success will never stop this controversy between capital and labor. Neither will the contest be settled by cynical and unsympathetic treatment of the laboring classes. There are those who speak of them as though they were only cattle or draught-horsos. Their nerves are nothing; thnir domestic com fort is nothing; their happiness is nothing. They have no more sympathy for them than a hound has for a bare, or a hawk for a hen, or a tiger for a calf. When Joan Valjean. the greatest hero of Victor Hugo’s writings, after a life of suffering and great endurance, goes into incarceration and death, they dap the book shut an 1 say, “Good * for him!" They st imp thoir feet with indignation and say just the oposile of “Save the work ng classes." They have all their sympathies with Shylock, and not with Antonio and Portia They are plutocrats, and their feelings are infernal. They are filled with irritation and, irascibility on this subject. To stop this awful imbroglio between capital and labor they will lift not so much as the tip end of the little flnsrei;. ?n this country tho torch put to tha factories that have discharged hands for good or bad ro men; obstructions on the ratl-traok in front of midnight exp e«s trains because 'the offenders do not like the president of the company; strikes on shipboard the hour they were going to sail, or In prlnting-oM es pthe hour the paper was to go to press, or in mines the day the coal was to bo delivered, or on house scaffoldings so the builder falls ,'n keeping his contract—all these are only v hard blow on the bead of American labor, and cripple its arms, and lame its feet, and pierce its heart As a result of one of our great American strikes you find that the operatives lost four hundred thousand ,-r M

dollar*’ worth of wage*, and have had power wages ever since. Traps sprung suddenly upon employers, and violence, never took one knot out of the knuckle of toil, or put one farthing of wages into a callous palm. Barbarism will never care the wrongs of civilization Mark that! Well, if this controversy between Capital and Labor cannot be settled by human w.sdom, it is time for us to look somewhere else for relief, and it points from my text roseate and jubilant, and puts one band on the broadcloth shoulder of Capital, and puts the other hand on the homespun-cov-ered shoulder of Toil, and says, with a voice that will grandly and gloriously settle this, and settle everything, “WhaV soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” That is, the lady of the household will say: “I must treat the maid in the kitchen just as I would like to be treated if I were down stairs, and it were my work to wash, and cook, and sweeps and it were the duty of the maid in the kitchen to preside in this parlor.” The maid in the kitchen must say: “If my employer seems to ba more prosperous than L that is no fault of hers; I shall not treat her as an enemy. I will have the same industry and fidelity downstairs as I would expect from my subordinates, if 1 happened to be the wife of a silk importer.” The owner of an iron mill, having taken a dose of my text before leaving home in the morning, will go into his foundry, and passing into what is called the puddlingroom, he will see a man there stripped to the waist, and besweated and exhausted with the labor and the toil, and he will say to him: •“Why, it seems to be very hot in here. You look very much exhausted. I hear your child is sick with scar.et fever. If you want your wages a little earlier this week, so as to pay the nurse and get the medicines, just come into my office any time.”

After awhile, crash goes the money market and there is no more demand for the articles manufactured in that iron mill, and the owner does not know what to do. He says, “Shall I stop the mill, or shall I run it on half-time, or shall I cut down the mens’ wages)” He walks the floor of his counting-room all day, hardly knowing what to do. Toward evening he calls all the laborers together. They stand all around, some with arms akimbo, some with folded arms, wondering what the boss is going to do now. The manufacturer says: “Men, business is bad; Idon’t make twenty dollars where I used to make one hundred. Somehow, there is no demand now for what we manufacture, or but little demand, You see, I am at vast expense, and I have called you together this afternoon to see what you would advise. I don’t want 10 shut up the mill, because that would force you out of work, and you have always been very faithful, and I like you, and you seem to like me, and the bairns must be looked after, and your wife, will after awhile want a inayr dress. I don’t know what t > do.”

There is a dead halt for a minute or two, and then one of the workmen steps out from the ranks of his fellows, and says: “Boss, you have been very good to us, and when you prospered we prospered, and now you are in a tight place, and I am sorry, aud we have got to sympathize with you. I don’t know how the others feel, but I propose that we take off twenty per cent, from our wages, and that when the times get good you will rememeber us and raise them again.” The workman looks around to his comrades, and says: “Boys, what do you say to this) All in favor of my proposition will say ay.” “Ay I ayl ayl” shout two hundred voices.

But the mill-owner, getting in some new machinery, exposes himself very much, and takes cold, and it settles into pneumonia, and he dies. In the procession to the tomb are; all the workmen, tears rolling down their cheeks, and off upon the ground; but an hour before the procession gets to the cemetery the wives and,the children of those workmen are at the grave waiting for the arrival of the funeral pageant. The minister of religion may have delivered an eloquent eulogium before they started from the house, but the most impressive things are said that day by the working-classes standing around the tomb. That night in aU the cabins of the work-ing-peoplo where they have family prayers, the widowhood and the orphanage in th 3 mansion are remembered. No glaring populations look over the iron fence of the cemetery; but, hovering over tha scene, the benediction of God and man is coming tor tho fulfillment of the Christiike injunction, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." “Oh," say* some man here, “that is all Utopian, that is apocryphal, that is impossible." No, I cut out of a paper this: “One of the pleasantest incidents recorded in a long time is reported from Sheffield, England. The wages of the men in the iron-works at Sheffield are regulated by a board of arbitration, by wiose decision both masters and men are bound. For some time past the iron and steel trade has baon extremely unprofitable, and the employers cannot, without much loss pay the wages fixed by the board, which neither employers nor employed have the power to change. To avoid this difficulty, the workmen in one of the largest steel-works in Sheffield hit upon a device as rare as it was generous. They offered to work for their employers one week without any pay whatever. How much better that pan is than a strike would be.”

Hut you go with me and I will show you —not so far off as Sheffield, England—factories, banking-houses, store-houses, and costly enterprises where this Christ-like injunction is kept, and you could no more get the employer to practice an injustica upon his men, or the men to conspire against the employer, than you could get your right hand and your left hand, your right eye and your left eye, your right ear and your left ear, into physiological antagonism. Now, where is this to begin! In our homes, in our stores, on our farms—not waiting for other people to do their duty. Is there a divergence now between the parlor and the kitchen! Then there is something wrong, either in the parlor or the kitoh'n, perhaps in both. Are the clerks in your store irate against the firml Then there is something wrong, either behind the counter, or in the private office, or perhaps in both. Supply and Demand own tho largest mill on earth, and all the rivers roll over their wheel, and into their hopper thsy pat all the men, women, and children they can shovel out of the centuries and the blood and the bones redden the valley while tho mill grinds. That diabolic law of supply and demand will yet have to stand as de, and instead thereof will come tha law of love, the law of co-operation, the law of kindness, the law of sympathy, the law or Christ, Have you no idea of the coming or anoh a timo! Then you do not believe the Bible. Alt the Bible la full of promises on this subject, and as the ages roll on the time will come when men of fortune will be giving larger sums to humanitarian and evangelistic purposes, and there will be more James Lenoxes and Pater Coopers and William ifi. Dodges and George Peabodys. As that time conies there will be more parks, more pldtnre-gallerles, more gardens thrown open for the holiday people and the working-classes. And now I have two words, one U capitalists and the other to laboring men. To capitalists: Be your own executors

Mnke investments for eternity. Do not like some capitalists I know who walk around among their employes with a supercilious air, or drive up to the factory in a manner which seems to indicate they- are the antocrat of the universe with the sun and the moon in their vest pockets, chiefly anxious, when they go among laboring men not to be touched by the greasy or smirched hand and have their broadcloth injured. Be a Christian employer. Remember,those who are under your charge are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, that Jesus died for them and that they are immorta'. Divide up year estates, or portions o 1 them, for the relief of the world, before you leave it. Do not go out of ths world like that man who died eight or ten years ago, leaving in his will twenty million dollars, yet giving how much for the Church of God) How much for the alleviation of human suffering) He gave some money a little while before he died. That Was well; but in all this will of twenty million dollars, how much! One million) No. Five hundred thousand) No. One hundred dollars) No. Two cents! No. One cent) No. These great cities groaning in anguish, nations crying out for the bread of everlasting life. A man in a will giving,twenty millions of dollars and not one cent to Godl It is a disgrace to our civilization.

To laboring men: I congratulata you on your prospects. I congratulate you on the fact that you are getting your representatives at Albany, at Harrisburgh, and at Washington. This will go on until yor will have representatives at all the headquarters, and you will have full justice. Mark that. I congratulate you also on the opportunities for your children. Your children are going to have vast opportunities. I congratulate you that you have to work and that when you are dead your children will have to work. I congratulate you also on your opportunities of inform ttion. Plato paid one thousand three hundred dollars for two books. Jerome ruined himself, financially, by buying one volume of Origen. What vast opportunities for intelligence for you and your children 1 A workingman goes along by the show window of some great publishing house and he sees a book that costs five dollars. He says, “I wish I could have that information ;I wish I could raise five dollars for that costly and beautiful book.” A few months pass on and he gets the value of that book for fifty cents in a pamphlet. There never was such a day for the working men of America as the day that is coming. But the greatest Friend of capitalist and toiler, and the One who will yet bring them together in complete accord, was born one Christmas night while the curtains of heaven swung, stirred by the wings angelic. Owner of all things—all the continents, all worlds, and all the islands of light. Capitalist of immensity, crossing over to our condition. Coming into our world, not by gate of palace, hut by door or barn. Spending His first night amid the shop herds. Gathering afterward around Him the fishermen to be His chief attendants. With adze,and saw, and chisel, and are, and in a carpenter shop showing himself brother with the tradesmen. Owner of all things, and yet on a hillock back of Jerusalem one day resigning everything for others, keeping not so much as a shekel tc pay for His obsequies. By charity buried in the suburbs of a city that had cast Him out. Before the cross or such a capitalist, and such a carpenter, all men can afford to shake bands and worship. Here is the every man’s Christ. None sc high, but He was higher. None so poor, but He was poorer. At His feet the hostile extremes will yet renounce their animosities, and countenances which have glowered with the prejudices and revenge of centuries shall brighten with the smile of heaven as He commands: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”