St. Landry democrat., 1885-01-24
The Greatest of Social Prob
EeRms.
THE EMPLOYER AND THE EMPLOYED.
Lst. Louis GIobe-Democrat,l

[St. Louis GIobe-Democrat,l
The Boston Judge who cried out the
other day against the composition OF a
society that makes it possible for able
bodied men to declare themselves
criminals in order to obtain food and
shelter, has hit upon one of the
Weightiest problems of humanity.
Every body knows that men, are Occa-
siOnally brought to such straits that
they are forced to choose between in
fanny and starvation but that such in
cidents should be of almost daily Oc-
currence in the life of any single public
functiOnary must arouse something
very like amazement. 1t is the fashion
to call it a fundamental principle of the
social fabric that every mans life is
sacred that esery man is entitled to an
opportunity to sustain his existence.
Why is it that so many are crowded to
the wall or pushed into the river Y
Why is it that ambition and good pur-
poses are crushed out; that starvation
and luxury .jOggle each other in the
street; that withall the hustle of trade
and world reaching vigor of commerce
men who are willing to work stand
with folded hands homeless and hung
Ty, or return to their novels to see their
little ones die7 Has the employer,
then, no duty to the employed beyond
paying the lowest possible price for
labor? Is the human workman to be
treated like the metallic-tO be pushed
to the utmost and to be discarded with
out a thoughts Is the doctrine of hu-
man brotherhood, OF mutual helpful
ness, of mutual dependence, not applI-
cable to the workshop and the traders
counterq Is the hired the tool of the
hirer, and are they not fellowlabOrers 7
These are questions that are occupy
ing much of the thought of the poor
the world over. They are at the basis
of much of the socialism, the comma
niSln, the social anarchy of the time,
and of the various organizations by
which laborers seek to protect them
selves against their employers. Men
see themselves, or think they see them
selves, despised j; there is an impossible
gulf between the poor and the rich;
they see the men who have waved fat
with their assistance, either clinging
tenaciOusly to their goods, or doing
them out in charity. Whether right or
wrong. the labOrer has come TO believe
that a part of the luxury of his en-
ployer is his by right and, failing to
obtain it, he is blindly longing to over
throw a system which appears to him to
be monstrously wrong. 1t is useless,
we fear, to tell him that the strong
must always Outstrip the weak; that
what he really seeks is chaos, not re-
juvenation. As long as his rags hutter
against his employers broadcloth the
poor will envy and hate the rich.
The remedy is certainly not in the
anarchy which men are preaching from
out of their Wretclledness. But where
it does lie, who can tell !? Is human ma
ture SO hopelessly selfish that not even
the gracious influences of Christianity
can soften the hostility between rich
and pOOr9 Human suffering must ex-
ist as long as human weakness and
wickedness last but must there always
remain poverty and Wretchedness for
those who deserve better things ?
Must riches always be cOndesending
and poverty suspiciOUsY The ditteren-
ces seem almost ineI adicabie, yet some
relief there surely should be possible.
The wild race for wealth in which most
men are engaged has happily not BAN
ished the instinct of charity from the
mind; but. while the Church inculcates
the doctrine of human brotherhood, it
has too largely failed to show that the
truest charity is not of condescensiOn.
Menrgwill treat their employees with
kindly consideration, yet utterly fail of
confidence in return. The
workman wants more than simple kind
ness, unused as he is to even that; he
wants confidence; he believes that the
work he does is o part and
of the brain work which
the employer contributes, and he wants
to know that this fact is recognized he
wants, in short, TO be treated, not as
but as a man and fellow-la-
bOrer for common purpose. So much,
at least, ought to be possible, if honor
and gentIeness and brotherly kindness
and Christian meekness are stronger
than the hunger for wealth, and if the
church is more than q sentiment. But
The church needs sorely to inculcate in
The pews the doctrine that the. milk of
human kindness is not to exhaust itself
by being poured into the contribution
box, and there alone.