St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1885-06-20
FIST VERSUS BRAIN.
The Great Contest Between Labor
and Capital.
DIR. Talmage on the Only Cure for the Evil
--'Whatsoever We Would That Men
Should Do to You, Do Ye
Even So to Them"

Brooklyn laDeFnacl6 on bn9 SuDJecbs flSb
Versus Brain" The text was from
Matthew vii, -: eWhatsoever We would
that men should do to you, do we even so
to Them" DR.. Talmage said:
LABOR VS.. CAPITAL.
The greatest war the world has ever
seen is that going on between labor and
capital. Not strife like the thirty years.
war of which history tells us, for this is a
war of centuries. It is war of five
continents, a war hemisphere. In this
country the middle classes, who have held
the balance Of power and upon whom the
Nation has depended as mediators be-
tween the two extremes, are diminishing,
and at The same ratio we will soon have
no middle class, for all the people will be
very rich or very poor, and the country
be divided between Princes and paupers,
between palaces and novels. The two
great antagonistic forces are closing in
upon each other. Telegraph operators
Strikes" railroad employees strikes, !"
Pennsylvania miners Strikes" the move
ments on the part of boycotters and dyn-
amiters, are only skirmishes before the
general engagement, or, if you prefer,
OhSy d4O OA4o oAASoJ fS1AKO
of an imprisoned force that promises the
explosion of society.
You may pooh-pooh it,and prophesy that
this trouble, like an angry child, will cry
itself to sleep, and think you have belittled
itinto insignifcance by calling it Socialism,
Fourierism, St. Simonism, Nihilism or
Communism, but that can not hinder the
fact that it is the mightiest, darkest, most
terrific threat of this century. Moreover,
all the attempts at pacffication have been
a dead failure. Monopofists are more ar
rogant, Trades Unions more bitter. "Give
us more wages, J" cry the employees; eve
will give you less" respond the capitalists.
"Give us less hours of work." say these;
''You shall have more," say those. "We
won't work under such conditions," cry
these; "Then you shall starve," respond
those. Soon the laboring classes will have
exhausted what little property they had
accumulated under better state of things,
and, unless there be something done, there
win be in this country three million hum
CRY men and women. Well, 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,
can not keep them quiet. What then? Will
capital and labor ever settle their quarrel
by their own wisdom? No. The brow of
the one will be more rigid and the fist of
the other tighter clenched. But what sec
ular wisdom can not do Christianity can
accomplish if it be given full swing. You
have heard of medicines so powerful that
one drop would stop disease and restore
the patient, and one drop of my text will
kill all this trouble and give convalescence
and health to all classes: whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do ye
even so to them"
HONEST RICHES.
The pulpit must be heard on this subject.
When Benjamin Franklin made his dis
coveries in electricity John Wesley put
electrical machines in several neighbor-
hoods that people might by them be healed
of their nervous disorders. Our Gospel is
a Gospel for the body as well as the soul.
First, will show you how this capitalistic
war won't be stopped, and then how it
will be stopped.
First, it will not be stopped by an out
cry against rich men because they are
rich. There is not member of Trades
Union in the United States who would not
be rich if he could. Sometimes, through
fortunate inventions or some accident of
property, a man with nothing rises to
afiuence, and he Immediately becomes
supercilious and overbearing, and takes
people by the throat with as tight grip as
he himself was taken by the throat. HUI
man nature is a mean thing when it comes
to the supremacy. 1t is no more sin to
be rich than to be poor. While there are
men who have got their property by fraud,
there are millionaires who by foresight of
changes to take place in markets or bust
ness brilltancy won their property as hon
estly as the plumber ever earned his money
for mending pipe, or mason for build
ing wall. With vast multitudes of peo-
pie the poverty is their own fault.
They might have abeen well off, but
they smoked or drank up their earnings,
or they lived beyond their means. Men on
the same wages or salaries as they had
went on to competency. know men who
complain of their poverty who keep two
doris and smoke and chew, and 20 loaded
to the chin with whisky and beer. Micaw-
Der, in prison for debt, is reported as say
ing to David Copperfeld: my boy: in
come, FL; expenses, 20s. 3d.; result, mis-
cry. Income, FL; expenses, 19s. 3d.; re-
suit, happiness A vast multitude of the
poor are The victims Of their own improve
dence. protest against the assault Of
men, who, through economy and self-de-
NAL and assiduity, have amassed great
fortunes. Thank God for honest rich men.
They build art galleries and endow col
leges and adorn cities and erect churches,
and if foreign despotisms should threaten
us would subscribe, if need be, $50, 600, 900
to sink them before theys get through the
Narrows. By indiscriminate attack upon