The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-10
RICH AND POOR.
Might Does Not Make Right-IIOw Many Men
Can Honestly Earn Million Dollars?

with clergymen, the most of them say that a
better understanding will be brought about be-
tween labor and capital through the church and
the pulpit, the pulpit awakening the ethical con-
science of the employer, and leading him to deal
more literally with his employees. What do you
think of thisr
Il think nothing whatever can be done in that
way. What lies at the bottom of all these social
evils is injustice, and injustice cannot be cured
by kindness or liberality. So long as the church
breaches mere charity it can accomplish nothing
but whenever it insists that men must be just
before they can be generous, and cannot be gen
erous until they are just then it can solve social
questions. All social questions are. as Mazzni
says, religious questions at bottom. But in their
treatment of them clergymen of all denomina-
tons seem to fear to go to the bottom
The Rev. Lyman Abbott has argued in the
Christian Union that the law of supply and de-
mand ought not to always prevail in the adjust
ment OF wages but that Christian spirit OF
llberallty should come III, and a man be paid for
his work what it is worth. irrespective of the
law of supply and demand What is your opin-
ion of that suggestion"
There is an important social fed for the
spirit of Christian ibeIality, but it cannot set
aside the laws of supply and demand, which are
the laws of God, as much as any physical or
moral law. The fundamental difficulty is not
that employers are too grasping. Employers are
driven by the same fierce competition that drives
Worklngmen and except, perhaps, in q few ex
ceptonal cases, the effect of their paying higher
wages than their competitors paid would be to
them simply financial ruin. The source of the
difficulty must be sought in the OF
that competition which forces wages down to
the point of bare living, and, at the same time,
compels employers to avail themselves Of this
competition. And for this cause whoever is
willing to see has not far to look 1t is clear
as a question of morals as it is as a question of
economies No one has a moral right to demand
that another shall furnish him with employment,
or give him any higher wages than he could hire
the like services for. But each one has right
TO demand free access to the bounty of his
Creator, and to insist that no one shall be PEI"
mitted to step in between him and the natural
opportunities for the employment of his labor
which the Creator has given to men without
money and without price. The root of all these
social diffculties-the fundamental cause Of the
monstrous injustces in the distribution of wealth
which we see around us, and which, all over the
civilized world are growing greater-is that the
masses of men are disinherited. The majority
Of the people of Brooklyn and New York, of this
country generally, and in still greater
proportion of European countries. have
legal rights whatever in this world,
or in any part of it, and
are compelled from day to day. from month to
month or from year to year, to buy from men
like themselves the privilege of using the phys
zeal universe to maintain their existence and to
supply their wants. Man is a land animal.
Without land he can produce nothing. and can
not even exist Deprived of ell legal right to
land, the masses of men necessarily lose their
natural independence. No longer able to make
a living for themselves, they compelled to
sue some fellow creature for opportunity to make
living. and hence arises that state of things in
which labor, the active factor in the production
of all wealth. becomes drug in the market, and
men willing to apply their labor to the satisfac
ton Of their wants. as the Creator has ordained,
are turned into tramps, paupers and pariahs |
have high respect for DR.. Abbott and regard
him as far in advance of the majority of his
brethren upon social questions, but be is
doing little more than wasting time
and energy in endeavoring to arouse
the conscience of employers to do what
the laws of trade forbid them to do while there
lies at the base of our society monstrous viola
ton of natural justice The only hope is in
rousng the conscience of the whole people to
this That the Creator Is respecter of per
sons; that He has intended the physical means
and opportunities of life for all His children is
one of the fundamental truths of the Bible, as it
is of natural religion"
ut might be said. Mr.. George that in state
Of civilization all men do not want to work the
land. Some may want to work land. while
others may want to work with their brains and
so on"
Differences of occupation are merely results
of the division of labor There does not exist,
nor is it possible for us to imagine that there
can exist any state of civilization in which pro
duction is not essentially what it was in the case
of the first man, the union of labor with land,
the modification of pre- existing matter by human
eXertion in such way as to fit it for the salts
faction of human wants. The people of the
United States or the people of the
world are today engaged in doing
just what Adam did - getting their
man may take in the complex state of society
which has succeeded that in which each family
directly procures its living from nature he must
still use land. Whether he be an operative,
newspaper writer, a clergyman thief, land
is as necessary to him as to the farmer. He can
not build a house without having some part of
the superfcies of the globe on which to rest it,
Nor yet without land and the products drawn
from land, can he build ship or send ner to sea
You are newspaper writer, but you must not
only eat, drink and be clothed from the products
Of land, as truly as the farmer but you must
have place to sleep. You cannot do that in the
air. And so. from the result of your labor. not
being "A land owner, must pay constant toll to
land owners Again, 10 matter how minute be
the division of labor, the whole industrial struct
ure must rest upon those primitive occupations
which extract riches from land There are and
always must be the widest occupations and
hence the rate Of wages in those occupations
determines the rate of wages in all the rest
When men are free to employ their labor direct
ly on land, there can be neither oversupply of
labor over production of goods. And in no
occupation can wages permanently fall below
the natural rate-the fair earnings of labor
But, close up natural opportunities in these
occupations so that before men go to work
for themselves they are forced to buy or rent
permission to do so, and the difficulty of finding
employment and the low wages which
must inevitably result will extend
through all branches of production. The
reason that, from colonial days, wages
have been higher here than in Europe is simply
that land cheaper; and as our lands have
been inclosed their value has gone up, so do we
find larger and larger proportion of unemployed
meneand a smaller and smaller proportion of
the wealth labor produces going to the laborer
Ii is frequently said that cannot all be farm
ers That is mistake We could not all be
manufacturers, or cergymen, or newspaper
writers. but could all be farmers 1t is not
however, necessary that we should all be farm
ers; but, If land were open to those who wanted
L.